Numbers, food & conditionals

Ciao tutti,
Back again. My eerie feeling about being back in Milan has left completely, fortunately, and I'm up to speed again. Work's going well, I've got a lot of courses and my new part-time admin job consists of a lot of numbers and contracts. It also takes a lot of questions - and I fear I'm driving my boss a bit crazy walking in and out of her office every 5 minutes - but I suppose that's just because I'm an over-achieving perfectionist. I like it a lot though. It's been a long time since I could do my job just sitting at a desk in front of a computer. It's very relaxing and I hadn't realised how much I'd missed playing with numbers and working with excel. It's oddly nostalgic, even though it's all in Italian and English now and not as complicated as my old job was by a long shot. And then there's the personnel side, I've never had much to do with contracts and personnel administration, but it's always nice to try new things and improve your skills, isn't it?

And last week I started teaching a Dutch course, how cool is that? A friend of a friend of a friend of Olaf's was looking for a Dutch teacher and he emailed me before summer and we finally started last week. It does feel a bit strange talking Dutch with an Italian - because, come on, Italians hardly speak English, let alone Dutch! But it's fun. I'm enjoying the new diversity this course and my new admin job have given my work and am really excited about the future!

I also had a less enjoyable experience last week, although it wasn't that bad. Last Wednesday, someone from the palazzo di giustizia, the courthouse, called the school asking if we could immediately send an interpreter because their regular one hadn't shown up. I was the only one available at that time and naturally jumped at the occasion to earn some extra money. Veronica said I would have to interpret for an English witness of an accident and supposed that I would have to translate phrases like 'I saw the car hit him' or whatever, something I could easily have done. Nothing could be further from the truth, however, as it turned out to be about a murder case! After running to the courthouse (which is just a 5-minute walk away) I got lost inside and I spent some time looking for the right department, so I obviously arrived a bit sweaty which is never good for my confidence...

So, when I had entered the room everyone was in it turned out the case was about a British journalist who had been killed a couple of years ago while working for the BBC in Italy. The witness wasn't just anyone but turned out to be the BBC's director of external broadcasting, who had been flown in for a day to testify and who was very anxious because the judge had suggested to postpone because the interpreter hadn't shown up. The deceased had apparently been working in Italy in a managerial capacity without actually having been promoted to that position and his boss had to explain how he had been given a verbal promotion which hadn't been finalised in a contract, how much he would have earned by now had he still been alive, how much he would have earned five years from now etc. to take away a lot of doubts about this case. I swear to you, I didn't know people were capable of using that many conditionals in such a short time. My Italian is good but not that good, and I obviously messed up a bit at first but luckily the witness' lawyer spoke English quite well it turned out all right in the end. I was really scared of making mistakes though, because, you never know, what if I had translated something incorrectly which might have resulted in the acquittal of the perpetrator!!! It was a very interesting experience but made me realise that I'm extremely happy that I'm not a full-time interpreter but just a teacher...

Anyway, after an efficient week of hard work, I treated myself to a nice 12-hour sleep Saturday morning and we spent a lovely night at Veronica's eating lasagna and watching an Eddie Murphy sketch. We didn't do much on Sunday, but I decided it was time for me to cook as I hadn't cooked for ages. I'm not very good at it but was in the mood for paella and we invited Stefano and Elke to come and taste it. Olaf has also made limoncello again and 'mapocello' as well, a similar drink made of a kind of tangerine, and as they enjoyed his last limoncello so much they just had to taste the new stuff as well....!!!

So, now it's back to work until Friday, but on Saturday we're leaving for Paris, the city of love and art!!

XXX, Fe