Happy birthday to me!

Ciao tutti,

Guess what?! It's my birthday! Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy biiiiiiirthday dear Fedor! Happy birthday to me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Anyone who'd like to wish me the same thing, please leave a comment. ;-) Well, as I'm not really celebrating today, there is really no reason to tell you how I'm spending it. Because I'm not doing anything, except for trying to get rid of my hangover. Wanna find out how I got it? Keep on reading or just skip to the end the text!

Life's going well. Not much to say really and I can imagine it gets boring to read the same things over and over again in every single post I publish. So, in order not to lose my precious audience - that is growing smaller and smaller as it is anyway - I won't bore you with phrases like 'I'm enjoying my work' and 'I've got interesting students'. The only interesting thing I have to tell about my job is that I'm in need of more work. Several of my courses are ending over the next few weeks and I suddenly realised I don't have any new ones to compensate for that. Need to work on that!

Moving on to happier topics, I finally managed to go swimming. I went at a time when they were actually open and I didn't have to wait at all, how amazing is that???? I'm not really happy about the time because it's at 9.30pm but at least I now know that there is at least one hour a week I can go swimming. It was really busy though, which I initially didn't really like because swimming with 12 people a lane in a 25 meter pool just isn't perfect. But on the other hand it forces you to get into a certain rhythm and makes sure you can't pause too long. So, in the end it didn't take me as long as I had calculated it would take and it was really good exercise. So, I guess we'll continue doing this.

Last weekend, my uni friend Fomsjk (Femke) and her boyfriend Ruud came over for a visit. They were the first visitors we had had in a long time, as the last ones were Bart and Tineke who visited us in August. We were definitely ready to open the hotel doors again, although I don't think we'll be as busy as last year. We had a lovely time, did the usual tour of Milan, ate a lot, drank well (but not too much) and played loads of games. I didn't win any of them, but I did enjoy original Cluedo, the Cluedo card game, Trivial Pursuit and Café International. Here are some pics:


On Thursday, Olaf left to go to a conference in Utrecht and my parents, my little brother and his girlfriend arrived to celebrate my birthday with me this weekend. My mother arrived early because she had been on holiday in Pisa before taking the train to Milan and this gave us a nice chance to catch up before meeting the others. Their plane arrived very late and we didn't have time to spend more time together than an hour of two because I had to go home relatively early in order to get enough sleep to be able to work the next day. They spent Friday sightseeing in the rain while I taught my last lessons and we went to La Padellaccia afterwards for some ginormous pizzas. I have to admit that - to my surprise and shame - I just wasn't able to finish my pizza. We finished that evening at the vineria and drank some really good wine.

Yesterday, we went to the city centre and my parents and I visited Cimitero Monumentale after that, while Ward and Machteld went shopping. Olaf came back that afternoon and we had dinner in a lovely restaurant where I had never been before. It was relatively cheap and the great thing about it was that drinks were included in the price and you could drink as much wine as you wanted!!! As we are proper Dutch people, I doubt they made a very big profit... We continued at our place for a lot more wine and I don't remember anymore at what time we went to bed, but it was a great night!! This is the reason I'm hung over today but at least I didn't have to do anything. My poor family had to catch their flight back home. I can only imagine how they must have felt...

And of course there were prezzies. Beautiful candle holders, Dutch St. Nicholas candy, a book and money to spend on a trip to a destination of our choice to visit another one of Hillman's wonders were much appreciated, but the most amazing gift of all was given to me by my beloved hubby. Olaf actually got me a vacuum cleaner, a proper Hoover! Hoove! Hoove! Hoove! (Yes, I know that I have to turn it on and not just make the sound, thanks Eddie...). I am such a housewife!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

XXX, Fe

Home is where the heart is

Ciao ciao,

Here I am again. I didn't have time to post anything during the heavy week I was telling you about - because it was crazy! - and after that I went to Nijmegen for the weekend. This was actually not as easy as it sounded, because the asshole Italians had of course planned an air traffic controllers strike on Monday and I couldn't afford to come back later as I get paid by the hour (the first available flight after that would have been on Thursday). I was quite close to crying that Friday afternoon, because I was really looking forward to seeing my friends and family again - and I was really tired from the week, which didn't make me feel strong, confident or decisive at all! I looked for some other weekends I could postpone my visit to, but, alas!, every Monday had the same problem. Seriously, why don't those evil Italians just realise that - even though I support the workers right to strike - enough is enough! You don't have to go on strike every two weeks to be taken seriously. And if you do, and you're not taken seriously, just give it up! Anyway, after a lot of deliberation and some tears, Olaf found a train I could take on Monday morning, which would cost me quite a lot of money (although of course not as much as missing all those lessons) but at least it would ensure my return to Italy on Monday. So, I went anyway.

And it was great. I am so glad that I went! I had been experiencing something a good friend of mine described as the expat's wives' syndrome. Apparently, it's quite common for partners of expats to get a backlash between 6 and 9 months after leaving their country to be with their partners. And although I am not the average expat wife - they are generally blond bimbo's who have absolutely nothing to do besides shopping and going to the gym and who don't have any friends except for other expat wives because they don't speak Italian (trust me, I've seen them!), whereas as I have a job, don't go to the gym, hardly ever go shopping, speak Italian and don't know any expat wives - I did come to Italy to be with Olaf. For those of you thinking I forgot one important difference between me and the average expat wives, yes, I realise that I am not a woman... it just seemed to 'duh' to mention. Well, to cut a long story short, I had been experiencing some doubts and had been wondering about whether or not I had made the right choice, whether or not I was happy here and whether or not I felt at home. The conclusion to the last question was that I do feel at home here in Milan and in our apartment and could definitely not go back to Nijmegen now, but that I do feel lonely here sometimes. The main reasons for this are that I usually don't feel very sociable after a full day of listening to students talk about whatever subjects they like and pretending to be interested in order to stimulate them to continue and that we usually have visitors every weekend. This means that I don't have a lot of time to make friends here and build on relationships. And when the only real friend I had made, Belinda, told me she was leaving to Belgium with her new husband, something snapped inside me and I started feeling really bad and alone. This situation has been resolved now but was the cause of some heavy weeks and some tensions between me and Olaf. But fortunately, we can talk about anything and when I finally mustered the courage to talk to him about it, we spent a night talking and crying. But that night helped a lot. The most important reason I felt so bad was that I kept it inside and didn't speak to him about it. Just talking about it was a load off my mind.

So, my trip to Holland was very important to me. When I went I expected to find a place I didn't belong anymore, which I hoped would make me realise Milan is definitely my home now. But the reality couldn't have been further from the truth. Nothing has changed, nothing at all. Of course, people have grown older a little, some of them have changed jobs, others have graduated in the mean time or are in the process of graduating, but in general the people there were still pretty much as they had been when I left. I felt very welcome and part of the different 'groups' again (my family, for instance, or my study mates). This disturbed me a bit the last time I went to Holland, but this visit it was different. The familiarity, openness and easy acceptance gave me confidence and fortified me. It felt like everybody was unconsciously saying that, if I ever decide I want to come back, I won't have to start all over again but that we can just pick up where we left off. This felt good, because I did feel bad about leaving a lot of people like that. I've always liked being the shoulder to cry on and being easy to talk to - oh yes, I reckoned myself to be the perfect little psychologist! - and found it difficult to leave especially those people who were going through some rough times. I mean, I don't delude myself that I'm more than I am, but I've always wanted to be there for people and to try to help them as best as I could, even if all I could do was listen. And the familiarity was extended even this far, people still weren't afraid to tell me what was bothering them or just to cry. Thank you for still wanting to share your life with me, even though I left you quite suddenly in pursuit of my own goals! But during this year, I've come to accept that people will always have problems and that it's not my responsibility to solve everything even though I might want to - and trust me, that's an important realisation for someone as self-centered as me! So this time, it was easier to leave. And even though this trip didn't have the expected result at all, it was good in a completely different way. My doubts are over and the knowledge that Nijmegen could easily be home again has given me my choice back. And after careful consideration, it turns out that I'm happy with the choice I have made and don't feel like changing it.

So, I came back and went back to work, which was just the same boring stuff - boring to speak about, obviously, not to do. Belinda left for Kortrijk on Tuesday, only to return by car with Enrico on Thursday to move their stuff. So we went out for bye-bye drinks with them on Thursday night. This was fun and didn't last long - as we both had an early start on Friday - but unfortunately it ended badly. Belinda's purse was stolen from underneath her chair and this freaked her out because she thought her passport was in there. She's South African and has only just gotten her permesso di soggiorno based on her marriage to Enrico, but without a passport she wouldn't have been able to leave the country and go to her new home in Belgium. Fortunately, the passport turned out to be in their apartment and she's just missing some replaceable stuff.

My sister Mignon and her boyfriend Sander had already arrived on Wednesday for a long weekend. They wanted and needed some time to themselves at first so they spent two nights together in a hotel. This was the only way we could have done it because Italians don't celebrate Ascension Day (seriously, they celebrate these really weird Christian holidays nobody in the Netherlands has ever even heard of but they just ignore Ascension Day?!) and we had to work on Thursday and Friday. And we've agreed not to have visitors outside of the weekend because it takes up to much time and energy and our (mainly my) work suffers from it. So they got their time together and we got the time to work. I finished really early on Friday and went to get them at their hotel. And it was lovely. Because they had already walked around town on Thursday and had seen a lot of the sights, we could spend a significant part of Friday just lying in the park catching up, chatting and gossiping. Our nights were filled with food at Mas and La Padellaccia, booze and games, games, games, as we obviously had to introduce them to Cafe International...

On Saturday, we went to Como and had a look around this gorgeous place, which wasn't packed with tourists yet as it is still low season. We walked along the lake shore, admired the local Duomo and traversed the lake by pedalo (or "pedalò" in Italian and "waterfiets" in Dutch) where we indulged in some childish fun. We had a lovely time and unfortunately they had to leave again today because tomorrow's just another working day. So they left and we cleaned the house... And now we've got the evening to ourselves. So I'm going to leave you now with a cordial goodbye and some pictures.

Just look at that cute couple!

Me tough helmsman!

Captain Olaf

First mate Sander

Mignonneke is a quite a dish, isn't she?

For more pictures and some interesting home movies, see Olaf's web album: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/ojdegroot/Como190507.

Ciao, Fe

Tempus fugit

Ciao tutti,

How time flies! I've just realised that I haven't posted anything for two weeks, even though it feels like yesterday I wrote my last post. Time does fly when you're having fun - or at least when you've got a lot to do! Last weekend, we got up extremely early on Saturday (7:30 am) to go to Mantova with Belinda and Enrico. We went by car and arrived around 11 am because we had somehow managed to dodge all major freeways- well, that's what you get when you ask a woman to navigate...

Anyway, Mantova is a lovely city. It's really small and has only about 50,000 inhabitants, which means it's not much bigger than it was in the Middle Ages. The cool thing about this city is that it used to be surrounded by three artificial lakes for defense purposes. Two of these lakes still exist, so the medieval town centre is perched on this man-made island directly adjoining them and this has preserved much of its historical appearance. Here are some pictures.

The castle courtyard

Palazzo del Té

The three of us in front of the cathedral

Me and Belinda on a bridge over the pond in the Palazzo del Té's courtyard

Belinda is from South Africa and Enrico is Italian. They're getting married in about two months and, unfortunately, they're going to move away shortly after that. Enrico has found a job in Belgium, so they're moving to Kortrijk. I am really happy for him that he has got this opportunity and for the both of them that they will be earning significantly more than they do in Italy so they will actually be able to find a house bigger than a shoebox - as housing and food are much cheaper in Belgium. This is also really good for Belinda, because she's been having some trouble learning Italian and it will be easier for her to find an English-speaking job in Belgium - and people speak English in Belgium, whereas communicating with Italians can still be very difficult since they absolutely refuse to speak any language but Italian. However, I'm a bit sad that she's leaving. She is the best friend I have made since moving to this country and I'll miss her when she leaves. Talking about Belinda, here's a nice picture of her.

After returning from Mantova, we quickly went home for a change of clothes and were off again to Caroline's (my boss at Corporate English) birthday party. We didn't think we were going to be there for very long because we were really tired from getting up early that morning and the preceding week, but you know how good parties can change your mind. We had a lovely time. I didn't really know what to get her so I gave her a book which was meant as a joke. It was The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, I hope you catch the irony. A lot of my colleagues were there and Mike showed up as well. We had some lovely drinks, some interesting talks, met some nice new people - and unfortunately some boring ones as well - and enjoyed Caroline's doorman's lovely Indian curry. Although it is never a good idea to get really drunk at your boss' birthday party, I got quite close - mainly because I was very tired - and I suppose it's a good thing I didn't find out there were people doing tequila shots until the bottle had already been finished (but I was quite upset about it at the time, "those filthy thieves, they stoles it from us").

We just stayed in bed for the rest of that weekend and from Monday on it was business as usual. This weekend, Lars and Rachel (Olaf's brother and his wife) graced us with a visit, which was lovely. We walked around town, did some shopping, played loads of trivial pursuit and café international, had the usual gorgeously enormous pizzas at La Padellaccia and enjoyed some Más specials (gigantic cocktails filled with alcohol - they don't really know what to do with their alcohol at Más so they always just seem to put in some extra), enjoyed lunch at Corso Como and visited the Cimitero Monumentale and looked at all the fabulous new things at High-Tech. Lars and Rachel left us early this morning and after going back to bed and sleeping some more we got up and cleaned our apartment. So now, we've got our Sunday evening all to ourselves!

I haven't mentioned my work much the last few posts, but that's just because it is going really well. I've got loads of hours and teaching keeps me busy for the largest part of the week. I've become confident enough to know which lessons I really need to prepare and which are quite standard or easy and therefore don't need much preparation. There are some lessons I don't prepare at all anymore, because I know we're just going to have a conversation about how the students' week has been, to read the newspaper or to check a letter or email they've written. I'm working long days though, which can be annoying from time to time. When I was starting out as a teacher, I needed as many hours as I could get as fast as I could get them and this meant I accepted whatever they offered me. Now that I've got enough hours, I've got the luxury of being able to be more selective in the new courses they're offering me. Fortunately, some of my early morning courses are ending which will give me the opportunity to reorganise my schedule and maximise my efficiency and work enjoyment. And it will give some more time to do my own things at night. And then there's always Alleva to make me happy. Studio Alleva is a law firm I work for on Fridays and they cancel 3 out of 4 of their lessons. They have now reached the point where they're not allowed to cancel anymore and as of this week I just get paid whether or not they have their lessons. Now THAT is a good way to start each weekend!

Ciao, Fe