Life, Lavoro and Luca

Back in action

2012-01-24T22:56:00.004+01:00

...so, I stumbled on my own poor, neglected blog whilst looking for something else and since by some miracle I even remembered my password... Well, here I am!

What to say? Where to start?

Maybe with the fact that Sophie will be a year old on the 18th of February and life is no longer even vaguely similar to what it was the last time I contributed to this blog! Nothing and nobody can really prepare you for the joy, fear, happiness and horror that is being a parent and you can't imagine the way in which your entire outlook on life changes overmight when a new little person comes into your life.
She is stupendous. Beautiful and intelligent and funny and curious and naughty and extremely hard work and all the other cliches. I am also typically exhausted (back at work almost full time - eek!) but I have to say it's Luca who has made the biggest change. He's completely obsessed. They say there's nothing like the relationship between a daddy and daughter and mamma mia are they spot on!

So here we are - back in the city and enjoying the challenges that life throws at us. I can't remember the last time I was even anywhere near my bed after 6:30am, the house is a complete mess and we both fall asleep on the sofa by 10 o'clock every night but I honestly wouldn't have it any other way. If I can manage it, I might even add "updating blog" to my looong list of post-work activities and not disappear into the milano smog like the last time!

Update!

2010-10-29T18:51:00.003+02:00

The other blog is newly updated, but just in case you are feeling extra lazy and can't be bothered to go over, the big news is that we're expecting a girl! Very excited, very busy and very fat is the best description I can give of myself at the moment!
A presto!!

Shameless advertising

2010-09-21T11:27:00.011+02:00

Having spent the best part of 5 years holidaying in Sardinia in their own little apartment, my mum and dad have decided to invest in something closer to me (now that they have a grandchild on the way!) and so are selling the place. If anyone is interested or knows anyone who might be, message me and I'll put you in touch! It's a private sale so there would be no agency fees - just the cost of the notary and the legal part of the process...

I'm having link trouble, so copy and paste the address below into your browser to have a look!!

http://www.rightmove.co.uk/overseas-property/property-27803008.html?premiumA=true

Time for an update….. and some big news…

2010-09-02T17:01:00.004+02:00

Well, here we are again folks – fading tan, 3 extra kilos and even less desire to return to work than money in the bank! Yep, it’s the “grande rientro”, otherwise known as “back to work after the holidays”….. and, mamma mia, it’s tough!
The holiday went without a hitch – we spent 20 days on the following schedule almost without exception: Beach – lunch – nap – beach – dinner – bed. Bliss!!! Sardinia was as beautiful as I remembered from when I lived there many moons ago (well, almost four years ago now!) and the sheer unadulterated laziness of doing absolutely nothing day after day was…. well, I think much deserved! And to be honest I’m exaggerating the horror of the rientro – for sure it was great to do nothing but eat, sleep, read and relax, but I have to say my brain did start to feel a bit mushy towards the end of the holiday. Maybe it’s better to be back in the overly-cerebral world of purchasing, if only not to forget how to work one’s PC and what a pivot chart is….
The best part of coming home though is the rather ginormous lifestyle change that awaits when we welcome our first child into the world, sometime around March 1st if all goes to plan! Yep, I’m joining the ever-expanding “mummy club”, not to mention the ever-expanding waistline club and ever-expanding bra size club!! It really is amazing how, with a foetus the size of a pack of cigarettes (not the best comparison I realize but the only dimension that comes to mind…), it is so easy to suddenly find 4 kilos of weight that weren’t there before! And by before I mean just last week….. uffa …
Obviously we’re super happy. Luca is like an 8 year old the night before Christmas, knowing that his parents got him a train set! And, since it was all hush hush until recently (I’m in my 15th week), if anyone’s interested in following, I already started a super secret pregnancy blog over at http://emmina-diary.blogspot.com/
Apologies if I repeat myself or make no sense over the next few months, but “pregnancy brain” seems to have well and truly got me – the gynecologist in Sardinia asked for my home address and I couldn’t remember it! Did I mention I have a new blog? http://emmina-diary.blogspot.com/
;-)

Man's best amico?

2010-08-04T12:21:00.003+02:00

Well, finally it’s here – that blessed month when the motorway is free from tailbacks, the boss is on the beach with his phone switched off, and you can find a parking space almost anywhere without getting into a fight in the middle of the street with a stranger…. Lovely, lovely August!!! It’s a shame I’m still stuck in the office with reporting and a presentation to finish before the big finale tomorrow, but then it’s no more work until SEPTEMBER! Woooooooo!! Ok, pulling myself together now….
On a much heavier note, there are still problems in our neighbourhood, and not just between us and the ignoramus couple downstairs, but it would appear, between just about everyone. Sunday morning at 8:30 we were woken up by constant, incessant barking from the neighbours’ dogs, who spend their days side by side in adjacent gardens, with just a wire fence to separate them and so, every now and then they decide to drive each other – and the entire neighbourhood – insane by barking, growling and generally throwing themselves at the fence. On Sunday morning, the larger, more aggressive of the two managed to jump the fence and as we raced onto the back balcony to see what was going on (the sound of animals fighting and injuring each other is unmistakable), we were greeted with the sight of the attacking dog’s owner attempting – and initially failing – to split them up. After what seemed like minutes, but was probably only seconds, the neighbor managed to drag his dog away, leaving the poor little other one bleeding, limping and terrified. We were immediately all on the scene (although the injured dog’s owner was not home) and, following a frantic call to the emergency vet, the dog was bundled into the neighbour’s car (still bleeding and shaking, poverino….) and taken to the veterinary pronto soccorso in Pavia. We later heard that he had a broken leg and some scratches, but other than that he was OK, and is now recuperating in his owner’s garage. This is the thing. Here in Italy the general opinion (and I heard this more than once that same morning) is that you can have a dog as long as you have a garden, regardless of how much time or energy you dedicate to it. They just don’t get it! Aside from the attack (which could have happened anyway), it breaks my heart that this little dog spends all day everyday by himself in the garden, is fed in the evening and put straight into the garage until the next morning. His owner is a lorry driver and so spends long periods of time away, during which time another neighbor carries out the daily garden-garage-garden ritual, but it’s not enough for an animal which has 1. The need for human / canine company, followed by 2. The need for space and exercise. Even when his owner is home, he never takes the dog anywhere and won’t keep him in the house. I just don’t understand this collective ignorance with regards to pet ownership. Where I come from everyone knows that leaving a dog for hours on end by itself is a form of cruelty; here even the most “enlightened” members of the community seem to stick to the old adage “as long as you have a garden to leave it in…..”. This issue really distresses me. Italians think that the English are “too soft” on their animals and treat them too much like human beings. So what?? Isn’t it better to do more than is necessary to improve the quality of life of a living creature than to do less than is necessary just to ensure that that creature has a basic quality of life? And don’t get me started on the abandonment issues here. Yes, I’m very excited to be leaving for my summer holiday in Sardinia next week, but I am also very aware that this area of Italy has a huge problem with abandoned pets, as – believe it or not – people actually take their animals with them from the mainland and purposefully leave them behind, knowing that they will be unable to find their way home! One hundred thousand dogs are abandoned in Italy every year, the majority during the hot summer months, when their owners have the chance to dump them far from home (or even on the motorway), in order not to have to take care of them for the rest of the year. I love August, I do, but I wish it could be a happy, carefree month for everyone – also for pets. If only the rest of the country – my neighbours included – saw it this way….

Chillin in the green vale

2010-07-19T17:33:00.004+02:00

I’m working on another blog, which I am sure will prove to be more interesting than this one, but it’s not ready yet, and I’m not even giving any clues, so you’ll just have to wait!! Curious??? HA!
On Saturday we decided to take a break from our quasi-cryogenic air conditioned states, actually enjoy the hot weather, and – who knows – maybe even engage in social activities with friends and loved ones? It seemed like a good idea at the time, and well, that’s precisely what it turned out to be….
Luca’s brother’s mother in law (got that??!) owns a plot in a holiday village on Lake Garda called Villaggio Valverde, which is run by a cooperative and takes the form of a campsite, but where instead of tents there are little wooden houses, each with a little garden, and instead of foreign tourists there are local families who have purchased their plots and then pay a monthly rental fee all year round in order to use the pool, tennis courts, bar and other facilities. It was a first for me, as I’m more a “I’ll wait for you here on the sun lounger while you ask the cocktail waiter to bring me a drink” kind of girl, but it was fun to do something different and very cool indeed to spend the afternoon in the (albeit PACKED) pool, teaching the girls to swim without armbands.
The villaggio itself was well-kept, with clean toilets and showers (communal darrrrling eeewwwww!!) and a cute woodland area at the back with pathways and picnic tables – ideal for escaping from the hot midday sun! The evening was spent lazing in the garden with the whole family; the men doing their “Me – man – me – make – fire” barbecue thing, and the girls putting together the potato salad, gossiping and generally chilling out. It wouldn’t be my thing for any more than a day or two (tons of kids, acquagym en masse, communal showers, ballroom dancing in the evening…) but it was definitely nice to chill out with the fam and spend an entire day in a bikini and sarong, even at dinner… At one point, while we were in the super-crowded pool, with noisy children dive-bombing on all sides, disco music blaring out, and the “pensioners’ exercise corner” just a few feet away, I caught Luca’s eye and we both burst out laughing. Not our thing, but definitely a good experience and the perfect way to thaw out our air conditioned bodies and minds!

Hot

2010-07-12T11:16:00.002+02:00

It’s Monday morning, back to school (or that’s how it feels) and I spent the entire weekend at home, lying on the sofa under the air conditioning whilst the outside world enjoyed 35 degree heat. Not sure that “enjoyed” is necessarily the best word for it – it was so humid that the 2 minutes I spent outside to move my car made it absolutely unbearable – although I’m sure that those thousands of people who hit the beach this weekend had a much nicer time of it than I did, all things considered. It’s not that I’m lazy or incapable of “making the most of things” (as my mum would say), but this weekend brought with it a rather unpleasant situation whereby constant nausea prevented me from behaving like a normal person, and if it wasn’t for Luca sticking by me and sacrificing his weekend for the sake of the common good…..well, I don’t know what I would have done. So, unfortunately I am unable to regale you with tales of exciting trips, new discoveries, run-ins with the local peasant community, or any of the half-readable stuff I normally like to write about. Instead we watched two films – ‘Wolfman’, which was scary but entertaining enough and another with Denzel Washington (don’t remember the title), which was set in a post-apocalyptic future and involved him trying to get the last surviving bible to a safe location. Very forgettable but we always appreciate Denzel, no? And that was my weekend. Two mediocre movies and a 200 euro electricity bill (that’s my estimate based on the 24/7 air con – and we didn’t even care!)… If anything more interesting happens in the near future, I’ll be sure to document it….

Dearest blog....

2010-06-24T21:51:00.005+02:00

I have neglected you like never before.... But don't worry because from now on I will be updating you on a regular basis - and that's a promise!
So, what's new? We had a bust up. A big one. With Luca's family. So much so that we are not talking to his mum and dad at the moment..... It's a long story but let's just say that they did something very un-parent-like with regards to Luca's / our financial future and I don't think that I personally can ever forgive them. I hope that Luca can and that they sort it out - in his own words "it's not nice to feel abbandoned by your family at 30 years old!"... We'll see how it goes but it doesn't look good. Ah the joys of family politics!!
At the other end of the scale, my mum and dad came to visit 2 weekends ago and we had a fantastic time. I took them to Milan for a very milanese aperitivo with my girlfriends; they were shocked at the 8 euros per drink and didn't trust any of the buffet food! Bless...
Saturday we had a very nice lunch up in the hills in a little no-frills restaurant that we sometimes go to. You know, the kind of place where the people are rude but they make their own salami so you look past it.. All in all it was a fab weekend and we packed them off to Sardinia on Monday morning with lots of great memories. They'll be passing through again on their way home at the end of July, having driven down from England (yikes!) so we'll get to spend a bit more time together before the summer. That's the problem with being far from home and having little free time - the last time I went back to England was last Christmas and the last time before that was the Christmas before! Wow...
We're also off to Sardinia in August and I CAN'T FREAKING WAIT! 3 weeks of doing absolutely nothing sounds pretty nice, thanks very much. Having lived there for 3 years I have to say I'm not a big fan of the island in August, when it turns into a hotter, sandier, saltier version of Milan with traffic on the coast road to rival the tangenziale est on a bad day... But, working for an Italian company means taking holiday at the same time as everyone else, so that's what we'll do! We're also very lucky that Luca (despite working in a restaurant) gets August off too, so we're making the most of it!!
That's all folks! More soon.....

Bella della zia!

2010-04-02T17:06:00.006+02:00

It’s holiday time, work is slow and I’m on a roll! You could say I’m on a blog roll….Hahaha…

Last Saturday was our little niece, Carolina’s 5th birthday, and so, being the generous zii that we are, we went and bought the biggest gift we could find (it would appear that the physical size of the package is of vital importance when buying presents for small children – we’ve slowly caught onto this over the past few years). Given the family bar/caffè/restaurant business, it seemed entirely appropriate to give her the latest in hospitality technology for the under 6s: the Bialetti mini-kitchen, complete with old-style espresso caffettiere and mini-vileda magic mop! It was a huge success, with Carolina and her younger sister, Maddalena taking it in turns to serve fake coffee to the whole family, taking care to fake-stir the fake sugar and fake-mop up the fake spills. Oh to have the imagination of a five year-old!
The other big success gift-wise was the princess dress you can see in the picture above (I couldn’t resist sharing)– personally delivered by Zia (Auntie) Concetta, who had made the trip from the wilds of inland Sicily, specifically for the occasion. I had never met this aunt before (Luca’s mum’s sister), and despite attempts to warn me, I wasn’t quite prepared… Imagine if you can the typical Zia Concetta – fat and jolly, who arrives in Milan unannounced on a one-way ticket, bringing with her two suitcases filled with home cooking, Sicilian cakes, oil, wine, ham, cheese and all those other items that people from the south are convinced don’t exist north of Rome. Booming voice, the tendency to hug the breath out of you and sloppy kisses on pinched cheeks… she had it all! When we asked her how long she was planning on staying, the response was a long, over-exaggerated shrug and that very Italian expression that literally means “no idea” – “boh!”. This, accompanied by copious eye-rolling by Luca’s dad and a combination of amusement and exasperation by his mum. Luca’s managing the restaurant on Easter Sunday so I will be taking myself off to the family lunch without him. No doubt I will come away with plenty of stories, a couple of extra kilos on the hips and enough leftovers to get us to ferragosto….

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!!!!!

Like drawing blood....

2010-03-30T16:42:00.006+02:00

Since the expat blogosphere could obviously do with a few more long, drawn out tales of bureaucracy, frustration and system failure (note the teeny-tiny hint of irony..), I thought I would add my 10 pence worth. Don’t worry – this blog isn’t going to turn into one of those moan-moan-winge-winge Italy-bashing forums… Hell, who am I kidding? It totally is….Anzi, it ALREADY is!! Just kidding – it won’t. Promise.
Anyway, following on from my little visit to the lovely non-judgmental doctor (irony’s my thing today), I took myself off to the San Matteo hospital in Pavia this morning to get my blood work done, arriving at 8:40. I’d already warned my boss that I may be a few minutes late for work (snigger snigger), but even though I was mentally prepared for long lines, lots of paper shuffling and some potential high blood pressure moments, I didn’t realize that the lines would be quite so long, the paper shuffled quite so much, the blood pressure…..well, through the (public health system and therefore probably asbestos-filled) roof.
Here is what followed - in notebook format in order that you don’t fall asleep whilst reading:
8:40 – arrive and go to “Ticket Desk”, wait in line for 10 minutes before being told that this is the old ticket desk and they are no longer paid for here (despite the sign above the window) –“no, Signora you have to go to the other end of the hall and take a number”. In case you don’t know, the “ticket” is the “standard” payment you have to make prior to any kind of specialist visit, blood work etc. Prices seem to vary according to what you are there for, whether or not there’s an “R” in the month, and the usual exceptions to the rule.
8:45 – locate correct ticket desk and take a number. I’m number 74, and they are currently serving number 45. Ho hum…
9:15 – make it to the (I have to say, friendly and efficient) lady behind the window, only to be told “Sorry signora, you have to do a prelievo (blood test), and for those you pay the ticket afterwards. Go straight up to the 3rd floor and take a number”. Booooooooo
9:17 – arrive at 3rd floor to find another sportello (window), staffed by 2 very slow people, another numbering system. Take a number. 90. Currently serving…… 63. Sit, wait, snooze.
9:55 – make it to window to register for my prelievo. They take my details, make me sign a few forms, huff and puff a bit, and have me take a seat in the “waiting area”. So I waited to wait to wait, effectively.
10:05 - They call me in and do the scary needle bit with no fuss ( I will emphasize again that the staff were friendly and efficient despite my very low expectations!) and then they remind me to go back downstairs and pay the freakin’ ticket.
10:10 – Get back to the ticket line and it has HUNDREDS of people in it. OK, maybe not hundreds, but enough to make my already spinning head go that little bit faster. Ah, but there’s an automated machine over in the corner with just a small line (Italians hate technology) – I’ll go over there! It even has a credit / debit card sign on it, YAY! I – somewhat victoriously – join the end of the queue and just 15 minutes later it’s my turn. This is good news as I’m now feeling seriously queasy, having left my emergency banana in the car (who was to know that they would make me wait AFTER the appointment???). As I go to get my bankcard from my wallet, the old guy behind me – obviously an expert – points out that “Signora, non funziona il bancomat”. What? How do you mean you can’t use cards?? It’s written on the machine that you can! “Eh sì, but it just doesn’t work. There were 5 of us trying earlier and we all ended up going to the cash-point down the street”. Ever the optimist (haha) I try anyway and the machine almost eats my card, so I give up and head to the little number machine. I hate that bloody number machine! I take number 202; they’re serving 151. I’m already two hours late for work. I no longer care…. Sit, wait, snooze again (feeling green this time and dreaming about the cappuccino and brioches in the bar across the road).
10:45 - I get to the window, pay my 75 euros - which hurt more than the needle – and get out of there. I am obviously exhausted and vulnerable as a charity person with a stall outside the front door of the hospital stops me and I give him 10 euros just to stop talking. I’m lying actually – it was a charity close to my heart, they seemed legitimate, and there was no line so I got to go straight to the desk. That was worth 10 euros if nothing else….
I arrive at work (35 kilometers away) at lunchtime, and glance at the papers they gave me in the hospital for the ‘ritiro’ (collection of results). Tuesdays and Thursdays from 12:00 to 16:00. Marvellous….

Judgement Day...

2010-03-29T15:30:00.005+02:00

I am insulted. And indignant. And slightly annoyed. I am not, however, surprised. When you live in a place like Italy – or rather when you live in the greater Milan area – you get used to being judged for your appearance, pushed out of the queue at the fish counter, harassed from a distance of precisely half a meter by the car behind you and forced to dodge the “doggy doo doo” that decorates every urban pavement. After a while you (almost) get used to it, put it down to experience, and get over it because, at the end of the day it’s not personal. People are what they are, they behave like that with everyone and you just can’t take it to heart.
Being humiliated by your own GP when you go to them for advice is another matter, and this is what happened to me last week. I needed to see the doctor anyway, and since I had to request a referral to get some blood tests done (which had been suggested by my Gynecologist), I thought I’d kill two birds with one stone. You see, here in Italy the system is as badly organized as they say it is. Going a little off-topic now, but I went to my Gyno to have a random annual check-up and we discussed the fact that I’m starting to maybe-possibly-sort of-think-about-starting-a-family-at-some-point-in-the-not-too-distant-future (before anyone starts getting excited!), so she ‘prescribed’ some standard blood tests, reminding me that I would, however, need the referral from my GP in order to actually get them done. A 120 euro an hour specialist is evidently not enough to physically refer you to the lab, so I paid my bill, left and, a few days later took myself off to see my new (and therefore never previously visited) GP. It was all going so well – the 12 people waiting to see her when I got there had dwindled to just a couple within an hour (the last time I visited a no-appointment doctor in Italy it took 3 and a half hours to be seen – this is how many of them operate). I took my turn, discussed the current problem and then pulled out the note from the Gyno listing the blood tests she wanted me to do. “And why do you wish to have these tests?” she asked, taking no prisoners, bearing down on me over her glasses like some kind of scary school teacher. “Because I just turned thirty and we were thinking we might look into having a family at some point soon, and I thought it best to make sure…..” “How long have you been married?” she positively snapped, cutting me off in no uncertain terms. “Ummm…..errrrrr…..I’m not married…. I….. ummmmmm…. live with my partner”. The woman gave me such a look it still haunts me a week later. She literally looked me up and down for 30 seconds, before pulling herself together enough to tell me that my Gynecologist has no idea what she’s doing, these tests are not the right ones, why do I even go to her, etc. etc. No querying my family history, my medical background – nothing. Great first meeting between medical professional and new patient. NOT. Ask me personal questions so that you’re capable of managing my health, Dottoressa; keep your personal marital status issues to yourself! I repeat, I am insulted, indignant, but not particularly surprised. Just another day in paradise!

Nonna

2010-03-22T11:45:00.003+01:00

Last night at around 8:30 I was busy organizing the house and clearing up following somebody’s great idea to paint the spare bedroom when my phone rang and, glancing at the display I realized to my horror that it was that time on a Sunday and there was no escape – the weekly call from Luca’s grandma in Sicily, except that I was home alone and she speaks only Sicilian dialect, making no concession for the fact that I don’t. It’s sweet that she called, knowing that Luca was at work and thinking that I have nothing to do while I await his return(!) but she speaks no Italian whatsoever and so what followed would for sure make a great anecdote in one of those cutesy “Under the Tuscan Sun / Driving over Lemons / Another freakin’ novel about the expat bella vita”-type books. In reality I immediately broke out in a cold sweat, knowing in advance just how much effort the next few minutes would require. She talked about the weather, the fact that her family have all “abandoned her” to live in the north, her work as the village seamstress, how she’s convinced she’ll be dead before Luca and I bother to pay her a visit, how I never call her and do I have both her landline and her mobile…..? How did I get all of this in pure Sicilian? Good question! Let’s just say that the 1 in 4 words I managed to pick up were enough to understand the subject, and for the rest I just kept up the “uh huh… sì…. mmmm… ho capito”, hoping that I was understanding enough not to respond “wow, che bello” when she told me someone died. Luca found it all very amusing when I recounted the story to him later on that evening, admitting that she had called him first and asked after me, and he had suggested she give me a call. That smirk was soon wiped clean when I told him that I had promised we would make a trip down to see her before the end of the summer, and to make sure that the aunts, uncles, cousins etc. would all be ready to welcome us… I don’t think he'll be giving out my phone number any more!

Happy new year, happy birthday, happy valentines…

2010-02-16T14:58:00.002+01:00

Well, I am no longer a 29 year-old blogger. I am now a 30 year-old blogger. To be honest I don’t really consider myself a blogger at all, considering that I now update roughly every 10 years and take no notice whatsoever of the interesting cultural issues/ news worthy items / current affairs that real bloggers dedicate time to. We were talking the other day in the office about how you can understand a lot about a person from the way the use Facebook. I’m a big psycho-analyst of myself and others, and Facebook is my daily bread. If you think about it, you can group your friends into very distinct categories, and notice how their FB personality betrays who they really are – even though they may not know it.
Firstly, there are the people whose status updates are always something thought-provoking like “love is like gas – light, indestructible and always right in front of you, even if you can’t see it…”. YUCK! I tend to skim over these ones - it’s Facebook, guys - not the latest Coelho bestseller… Plus you can always SMELL gas and you can’t smell love so HA!!
Then there are those who constantly make comments about the latest big news items, politics, culture – all trying to out-do the next person for just how much intellect they can cram between a post and a poke….
Next come the needy updaters. “Sarah needs a hug” 13:01; “Sarah really needs a hug” 13:15; “Sarah really needs a hug right now or she might just cry” 13:21 etc. etc. Will someone please call up Sarah and ask her if she wants to get a coffee???? I haven’t spoken to her in 15 years and I live in Milan, so that’s me off the hook…
Then there are the self-promotion Facebookers. There are subtle ones and not so subtle ones – and I’m not sure which bother me the most. The subtle ones go something like this “Elizabeth is very tired from a long week of business meetings in New York, Paris and Rome”. Ah, poor poor Elizabeth – that must be terrible for you, dear. You have our deepest sympathies. Now go have a quick nap – you deserve it! This type of Facebook update – no matter how subtle - can really hit a nerve if you’re a bored housewife / new mum covered in baby sick / unemployed / have no life. The not-so-subtle ones (of which there are very many) are more like: “Katy is trying to decide whether to wear Gucci or Prada to the Business Woman of the Year Awards tonight. Gucci is more comfortable but Prada will look better when I go up to collect my award from the Duchess of Kent”. Now this is really annoying. More than anything because we all know that Katy is NOT trying to decide what to wear, but just couldn’t think of any other way to get the message across and so added that bit in at the beginning for good measure – desperate to overcome her insecurity by convincing other people that she’s worthy, even though she probably doesn’t really believe it about herself. We all know at least one person like this. I know about ten. Am I just unlucky or do I hang out with the wrong people?!
As for my FB personality… “Emma is wondering what to have for lunch today – a sandwich or a salad?”… “Emma is wondering whether it might rain later”….. “Emma is tired”…… Very boring, very predictable and the best way to avoid being psycho-analyzed by fellow facebookers!

Like – Dislike – Comment - Block

Justice??

2009-12-29T15:43:00.003+01:00

Yesterday we got back from a lovely four-day visit to the UK where we spent Christmas (minus 1 suitcase, thanks very much British Airways) in the old-fashioned way: too much food, too much alcohol and far too much monopoly… It was great to be ‘home’ (although home is very much here) but after four days Luca was starting to tear his hair out just a little so we were pleased to head back. There’s nothing quite like sleeping in your own bed, cooking in your own kitchen and staying in the shower for as long as you like without somebody complaining about the water bill!! Ah, you’ve gotta love ‘em…
Anyway, this post is not about the fun and festivities of the past few days. It is about a far less pleasant experience which started the night before we left and will be ongoing for a while….
It was 18:30 in the evening and the snow had just turned to rain. The roads were icy and so, since I have winter tyres on my car and Luca doesn’t, we decided that I would take him to work and pick him up. As we were leaving the apartment, it started to rain quite heavily so Luca ran towards my car to get the umbrella and bring it back to me. His car was parked on the road just 10 metres or so away. All of a sudden we heard a screech of tyres, followed by a loud crash and as I picked up the pace to reach the road I heard the roar of an engine followed by Luca’s voice yelling “Ferma! Ferma! Stop! Stop!”. The next thing I saw was BMW X3 sliding from one side of the road to the other in an attempt to regain control, before speeding off and out of sight as Luca chased after him, running up the street screaming the registration number to me. Shaking like a leaf I managed (somehow) to get it in my phone, sending it in a panic to a confused K, before realizing the extent of the damage to Luca’s car. Basically the crazed lunatic in the BMW had taken the corner at high speed on the icy road and smashed straight into the side of Luca’s parked car, pushing it against the wall and into a lamppost. We immediately called the police and were told that they couldn’t do anything unless someone was injured (fortunately no one was, but had Luca been going towards his car rather than mine I dread to think…) and that we would just have to contact the insurers. The next morning as we left for England, Luca’s brother got in touch and they told us to come in and file a report as soon as we returned. We did, and they managed to trace the details of the car’s owner, which we then took to the police and they called the guy into the station. I was left waiting while the scarier than scary maresciallo took him and Luca into a room. I didn’t want us to have any immediate contact with the guy – after all who knows what someone who’s capable of leaving the scene of an accident like he did is also capable of doing… It turns out that the guy denied having caused the damage, having already filed a report with his insurers saying that the same night he had FOUND his own car parked with damage to it, so now we have to go to court. We have witnesses so the guy is in BIG TROUBLE and there’s no doubt that we’ll win but, being in Italy, it’s likely to take a long time and be a great expense. Tonight we have to go back to the police station with the other witness to make the official statements. And so the bella vita in the bel paese continues….

Plug!

2009-12-10T10:12:00.004+01:00

If you haven't done your christmas shopping yet, or you still can't decide on gifts for your nearest and dearest, then look no further than:

www.accessorize-italia.com

The site and the ebay store are both still in the early stages, but you can still find some bargain products - without having to sharpen your elbows for the annual Christmas crush on the High Street! We sell genuine Made in Italy products, delivered direct to your door...

If you want to go straight to the store, visit:

http://stores.shop.ebay.it/Accessorize-Italia

Happy shopping!!!

Foggy and smoggy and dull... Oh my!

2009-11-25T12:08:00.004+01:00

Milan is not the place to be in November - it's official. Cold, damp, foggy, grey and generally depressing, the city appears to have gone into hibernation. Its inhabitants are permanently wrapped up in black coats, black scarves, black boots (they like black here), and everyone has some sort of sore throat / swollen glands / croaky voice issue... And think that when I tell people in the UK that I live in Italy, their first reaction is almost always "how wonderful to live in such a sunny climate!" Noooooooo invece...
On a more positive note, the next few weeks will be packed with days off (many thanks to Saint Ambrose for the long weekend!), family dinners, christmas parties, and on the 23rd December, the annual repatriation to the motherland! The black cloud covering the silver lining, however, comes in the shape of threatened strikes by British Airways staff, starting on December 21st. They should be aware that I will personally hunt down and seriously injured anybody who gets in the way of my christmas trip home... BA, you have been warned!!!
I've started a new project a work which involves contacting hotels across the world to negotiate tariffs on behalf of a client, and I have to say it has (once again) opened my eyes a little bit. I now have a little chart in my head as to the relative friendliness and efficiency of each nation / city. Top of the leader board is Amsterdam, followed close behind by Dublin, and then Helsinki. Nice, friendly, relaxed people to deal with. Where does Italy come? Where do you think?!! HA! Back to the old favourite of Italians having NO IDEA of client care (one place even refused to put me through to the corporate booking office because they pope was due to arrive the following week, and they were all busy praying - or something like that...) and answering calls with a "What the hell do you want from me??" tone of voice...
So, I've complained about the weather, I've complained about Italians... What else?
Ah, I'm planning an Open House christmas party, which is a new concept to most Italians I know (provoking the fear that they'll all turn up at 14:00 and stay til 20:00), but I have no idea whatsoever as to what to cook / prepare. Anyone have any ideas of good party/finger food, preferably with a UK / US theme to it?

Aggiornamento

2009-10-14T21:33:00.006+02:00

Mamma mia, what a lazy non-blogger I've been of late! Is there anybody still out there? It's been a crazy month... Luca got promoted at the restaurant and now works approximately 23.5 hours per day, and I have rediscovered the joys of going for aperitivo with colleagues, watching my favourite TV programmes on SKY in English, and - shock horror - playing sport!! A colleague and I have taken to booking a Friday night squash court at a sports centre close to the office, and with the exception of the first week where I managed to paralyse myself from the waist down - it's going pretty well.
Feeling brave and sporty (although actually rather stupid), I signed myself up for a volleyball match last night, which I (mistakenly) thought would be some post-office fun with my nearest and dearest colleagues. It turned out to be the longest and most embarrassing 2 hours of my life. All of the 'fun' colleagues seemed to be unavailable, so the remaining not-so-fun ones rallied the troops, and we ended up with 10 people, 4 of which play in the volleyball league, 4 of which play in other sports leagues, 1 who was just very good..... and me. Have you seen that episode of friends where they play football and Rachel is so freaking awful that they keep sending her really long, and in the end she's filing her nails at the back of the field?? That was me. At one point I actually caught my boss and one our other team-mates in a head-to-head, discussing tactics for when the ball came my way:"If it arrives on her left, you go for it; if it arrives on her right, you block her and I'll take it". OH! WE'RE ON THE SAME TEAM!! Seriously, that was how much I suck at volleyball. To be fair, I never played before, but more fool me for signing myself up with all those semi-professional types...
The colleague with whom I play squash is trying to convince me to go to salsa lessons instead.... Hmmmm. I danced a lot when I was younger, and I've done a bit of salsa, but I'm not convinced. I like the stress-relieving aggression of Friday night squash, and short of kicking my dance partner in the shins every so often, I don't think I could replicate it at salsa...

What else??
Oh mamma mia I was forgetting a very important piece of information (changing the subject completely). If you live in or near Milan, please be aware that the absolute best Sunday brunch place in the city, possibly the country, and maybe the entire world... is Cioccolati Italiani, in Via De Amicis 25. Seriously, excellent food, fantastic service and the best chocolate cake I've ever tasted. They do great 'serious' dishes involving pasta, eggs, salad - the usual brunch mail courses, but the best thing about the place is its chocolate-based buffet! Cakes, brioches, pastries, fruit (tons of the stuff) with a choice of white, milk or dark melted chocolate to pour over it.... It takes a day and a half to recover but is well worth the visit, believe me! Just don't tell too many people - I'd like to find a free table the next time I go, thanks ;-)

And that's all for now. I think I've rambled on for long enough. Will get back to drooling over Morgan on X-Factor and preparing some food for my poor worker boyfriend for when he gets home (I'm so brava)...

A presto folks!!

Vacanze Romane (e Toscane)

2009-08-28T16:55:00.003+02:00

Two kilos heavier, three shades darker and several hundred euros lighter.... I'm back from holiday and struggling to mentally adjust to the early mornings and use of brain power. Siena was - not unexpectedly - fantastic. The atmosphere surrounding the Palio has to be felt to be believed, and no matter how many times you see it, it never fails to take your breath away. The one disappointment from the Siena part of our trip was that we found it hard to get a table in restaurants (obviously, due to the number of Palio visitors), and although we planned an epic meal at what is reputed to be the city’s best restaurant on our last night, our timing was poor as it turned out that it and, in fact, all of the best restaurants were closed, regardless of whether or not it was their officially closing day – simply because they had all worked so much over the Palio weekend. Even so, we still ate well (it’s difficult not to in Toscana) and spent many a lazy day by the pool (just to ensure that all of that pasta, rich meat sauce and ice cream would be immediately deposited on the thigh area, as is the holiday tradition….).
Rome was great too, although I could have done with a degree or two less; traipsing around the tourist spots at midday in 39°c heat with a crowd-sensitive Sicilian is enough to test anyone’s resistance! We stayed at the Albergo Cesàri in Via di Pietra(http://www.albergocesari.it/italiano/hotel.htm) – a small but very well-run hotel right in the centre of the centre, a five minute walk from the Pantheon in one direction and the Trevi Fountain in the other. The picture at the top of this post is of the hotel’s roof terrace, from where historic Rome barman, Camillo serves his even more historic cocktails – many of which are his own creations, resulting from years of world travel and experience. The only ‘problem’ with the Cesàri was that, given its super-central location, it is impossible to arrive by car. The ZTL (zona traffic limitato – restricted traffic zone) covers around 4 square kilometers and so all visions of us breezing into the nearest ‘free’ zone, leaving the car and strolling 100 metres to the hotel were all but shattered on arrival. Having circulated the centre so many times that even the Tom Tom was started to sound frustrated (“freaking turn around when able for the love of God….”), we pulled over to call the hotel and were informed that they are almost precisely 2 kilometres from the closest ZTL entry. Yikes. We had driven from Tuscany with 10 days’ worth of luggage, in skin-splitting heat and weren’t about to drag ourselves through the streets of Rome like sherpers, so we dumped the car in a frighteningly expensive multi-story car park and got a taxi to the hotel. Great planning, Emma. Having got that little drama out of the way, we enjoyed our time in Rome. We had a couple of excellent meals (do I talk too much about food???) – definitely worth a plug is Ristorante Federico Primo in Via della Colonna Antonnina (http://www.federicoprimo.it/).
The Federico Primo is a delightful little restaurant right around the corner from our hotel in a side-street adjacent to Piazza Montecittorio (where the Italian government is based). It was booked for us by Camillo, as is run by a friend of his, and provided us with one of the few genuinely honest, good quality experiences that we had in Rome. Unfortunately, with what seems like 90% of the Roman population on the beach for the entire month of August, the city becomes ripe for ripping off the poor unsuspecting tourists left behind. We were overcharged and disregarded at every turn, despite Luca’s menacing Sicilian demeanor and street-wise character. They just don’t give a damn… Anyway, this didn’t happen at the Federico I, we ate exceptionally well and had fantastic service. When the rather heavy bill arrived we didn’t even mind as it was definitely worth it. Highly recommended if you’re ‘in zona’.
It was great to go back to Siena after all these years, even though my memory has faded so much I didn’t even remember some of the streets close to where I used to live (Luca says it’s because I was drunk most of the time – no comment) and the flying visit to Rome made for a nice end to the trip. I also have to say a big thank you to Alex from Blog from Italy (http://www.blogfromitaly.com/) for recommending the Cesàri. Sorry Alex, I think the cat is well and truly out of the bag!!

The countdown continues.....

2009-08-06T14:35:00.004+02:00

Today is my penultimate day in the office, and since the Big Boss left for Sicily this morning, we (the entire team) have already enjoyed a very long coffee break down at the bar, an extra long lunch break,songs downloaded from Limewire, photos uploaded on Facebook, and general office merriment. Tomorrow is Prosecco and Pasticcini day, and from Saturday I will be officially switching off the alarm clock until August 25th. Yay! (Don't think that we're all total slackers PS; it's been a long, tough year!!)
Luca got his bike back from the mechanics last week (after two months....) and I decided that it was time to overcome my fear and have him take me for a 'giro' on Sunday afternoon. He was pleased that I was showing interest in his number one passion but almost refused to go ahead with it seeing me pull on my helmet, shaking like a leaf, and with big fat tears of anguish rolling down my face.
Determined not to be a wimp, I went through with it, and while Luca spent the whole time asking if I was OK, was I sure, did I want to stop, etc., my response was always "Woooooooo!! Faster!! Faster!!". So much for petrified! The next plan is to take the bike to the coast for a day at the end of August. Not sure if a half hour tour of the countryside around our house is enough experience to pass straight to the 150 kilometer drive to the beach, but I guess in at the deep end is the best way. We'll see....
So this time next week we'll be in Tuscany. Following a little (friendly) persuasion on my part, we decided to tag 3 days in Rome on the end of the week. Luca's never been (I know I know, it's unforgiveable for an Italian....) and although I have, it was a long time ago. It will be deserted, I know, but it's almost better that way - less opportunity to prang the 500 in the rush hour traffic!!

BUONE VACANZE A TUTTI !!!

It's that time of year again.....

2009-07-17T14:39:00.001+02:00

….when you get into the lift at work and you can be fairly sure that somebody will pull out the question: “So, what are you doing for holidays this year?”. Up until very recently my response was – unfortunately for me – “no idea, no plans yet, maybe Luca has to work”. This response was almost always met with complete horror and a look of pity, followed by “oh I’m sorry – we’re off to the Caribbean / Thailand / Spain for three weeks / a month / for-frickin-ever….”
Now, having backed Luca into a corner by forcing him to back his employer into an even smaller one, we’ve managed to book a week in Tuscany and I am officially “off” for two weeks. Now my response is generally met with “Only two weeks off??!! And only one week away???!!! Poor thing… COME MAI??!!” That’s the thing about Italians – they feel it’s their divine right to enjoy three, if not four weeks of uninterrupted holidays every August, and whilst historically the annual company ‘shut down’ has generally facilitated this, each year more and more workers are required to stay behind for at least part of August. How else do you operate in an globalized world?
So we’re off to Tuscany. Not just Tuscany, but Siena – and I have very good reason to be very excited…
When I was 20, I spent my Erasmus study year at Siena university. I didn’t want to go – in fact I did everything in my power to get out of it, as at the time I was engaged to my high school sweetheart and the idea of spending a whole year living separate lives with 1000 miles between us was too much to bear. As is happened, the year was obligatory if I wanted to finish my degree, so with a heavy heart and the promise of monthly visits, I set off for what proved to be the most important year of my life. I found a (really grotty!) apartment in the centre, in one of the medieval streets that leads down from the main square towards the Santa Caterina convent, paying a ridiculous amount of money each month for a single room (that was only just big enough for a bed and a tv), sharing a kitchen and two small bathrooms with five other students. The first few weeks were tough – I would go through the motions, attending classes during the day, meeting fellow students for coffee and getting blind drunk in the (not very many) town centre bars (B52s were my speciality), as I partied the nights away. Behind it all, though, I missed my fiancé, felt homesick for my family and generally struggled to get by in a language and culture that were not my own. I was so unhappy that my mum came to visit after a couple of weeks, loaded with goodies from England that only made me feel worse… As time went by, though, I started to get used to the distance between myself and my fiancé, and as my new friendships grew and I got to know the town better, I started enjoying myself. Really enjoying myself. By the end of the first term I didn’t want to go home even for a week and was so happy to be back in the new year that I remember my fiancé joking about how he was worried that “Siena might steal me”. Ah, the benefits of hinesight!
In a nutshell, the remaining 10 months of my stay brought with them the biggest changes of my life. I fell madly in love with Siena, with Italy and (although I hesitate to admit it) with one of my Spanish housemates who, whilst we became close friends, remained painfully out of my reach (for obvious reasons). He now lives in Mexico City and although nine years have passed, I still feel a pang on the few occasions that he writes me an email or sends me a message on Facebook…. Three weeks after the end of my Erasmus year, I was supposed to marry my fiancé. The church was booked, flowers ordered, catering in place and the dress – well, the dress is still in a box on top of my mum’s wardrobe. Needless to say, the wedding never took place. Siena – or rather Italy - had stolen me, as my fiancé feared. Now in my sixth year as an official Italian resident, I wouldn’t change a thing. I have never been back to Siena – initially it held too many memories which I wanted to preserve as they were without adding new ones, but I can’t wait any more. We (that’s Luca and I) will be there for the Palio on August 16th – so whilst one week of holiday might not be very much as far as my colleagues are concerned, it will mean far more to me than three weeks on the beach, and no doubt about it!

Two posts in two days...

2009-06-17T16:53:00.004+02:00

...it's a miracle!
I just had to recount the very Italian conversation I just had with my colleague, G. Obviously, this conversation took place in Italian, but I've translated it for the sake of the blog. If you know anything about the Italian character, it's sure to make you smile:

G: "I don't feel all that good. Maybe I'm going down with something"
Me: "Really? What's wrong?"
G: "Oh just a bit of nausea, headache, maybe a touch of fever"
Me: "Wow, sounds bad - I wonder why you feel like that?"
G: "It's probably because this morning was quite cold and now it's hot outside"
Me: "But you're inside"
G: "Yes but I can see through the windows that it's hot"

No voglia

2009-06-16T14:15:00.004+02:00

"I have no voglia" is a phrase that comes up a lot in the anglo-italian conversations between myself and my two best friends, who are American and Canadian. If you have 'voglia' it means you want to do something - literally 'the desire to'. Lately I've had no voglia to go back to the office after lunch (especially if there was wine); no voglia to sit through never-ending meetings about budgets, savings and targets; no voglia to wake up early on a Saturday and get things done around the house, and absolutely no voglia to write about my lack of voglia on my blog!! Despite my complete apathy, I have been achieving much of the above and am proud to say that the new apartment is coming on nicely. We spent the weekend furnishing the terrace, which included the purchase of 2 sun loungers, one of which has officially become my new best friend. We are, infact, inseperable. My new best enemies, on the other hand, are the many many flying / hopping / crawling /wriggling creatures which seem to thrive out in the depths of the Val Padana. I have never seen so much wildlife before - it's insane! I have a bit of a phobia about anything that moves, particularly spiders, so I'm having to be really brave but so far I've come across spiders' nests on the balcony, weird huge wasp things that aren't hornets or calabroni and nobody seems to know what they are, a family of 6 frogs that camp out right outside our garage door every night (just us, not the neighbours!), and a line of ants from the front terrace to the rubbish bin that had to be irradicated subito. It's a wilderness adventure safari I tell you!! Not to mention the chicken, hens, cockerels etc that live on the small-holding at the end of the garden. And all just 25 minutes from Milan!!

Wild animals aside, the apartment is great and we love the location. My parents are coming to visit in 2 weeks, by which time we hope to have just about everything in its place. Time to put the lack of voglia aside and start shopping for a sofabed...

Sintesi

2009-05-18T15:19:00.007+02:00

I thought it might be time for a quick round-up of current events - also as an excuse for my poor blogging of late....

1. I had a car accident on the tangenziale di Milano 2 weeks ago and pretty much wrote my car off. It's still being repaired.

2. The very same morning, Luca came off his bike 100 metres from our apartment, because of a typical stordito local driver who wouldn't know an indicator if it hit him in the face. The bike is destroyed and Luca has 10 stitches in each leg.

3. We picked up the keys to our new apartment and started painting the master bedroom (me on the ladder, Luca on a stool with his leg up)

4. We bought a car (to replace the bike) and discovered just how much paperwork and expense is involved in what should be a simple process....

5. My best friend split up from her boyfriend after 6 years together

How's that for action?? Not to mention the heavy workload in the office til 7pm every night, packing of all our worldly goods into cardboard boxes and all of the other random everyday tasks that seem to get longer and more complicated with each day that goes by.....

Mamma mia!!! And it's only Monday!! Ce la faremo???

Calling all expat parents!!

2009-04-29T15:24:00.004+02:00

Are you an expat currently living in Italy? Do you have children? Would you be willing to complete a short market research questionnaire?
If you answered a resounding "YES!" to all three of these questions, then I am very grateful to you! Please send a quick email to britishbaby@libero.it and I will send you the information to complete. Thanks!!!

You found me how??

2009-04-16T18:29:00.003+02:00

It’s time for another quick dip into the fascinating world of Search Engine keywords! Here’s a selection of some of my favourite ways in which you crazies out there came across Life, Lavoro & Luca in the past few weeks. If you recognize any of the below as belonging to you, then you are either sick, mad, desperate, or somehow entertaining in your own special way….

1. “Figo della madonna! meaning” - If you’re searching for this because someone called you that, please leave your phone number in my comments box.

2. “Cultural oddities which I realize I just have to accept as something that is different to the way in which I was brought up – like the way many I…” - If this is you, please let me know how this little story ended – I’m curious

3. “Dehydration emmina” - I’m assuming my little rambling-about-my-life blog didn’t assist with this one

4. “I guess I’ll keep my mouth shut” - ok

5. “Life Luca lavoro carpet” - Did I ever talk about a carpet? I don’t think so, but this person does appear to be looking specifically for a carpet-related post on the blog. So as not to disappoint, I can recommend a rather nice beige rug from Ikea, by the name of Hellum, for the bargain price of €69,90.

6. “Public urination england pregnant” - again, it’s a little off the subject for me, but since you ask I think you’ll find that public urination is illegal in England, whether you’re pregnant or not. Please do correct me if I’m wrong.

7. “were are most poeple from rome called luca” - if you mean “why are most people from Rome called Luca”, then the simple answer is…. They’re not. Why are most people from New York called John?

8. “caramello koalas, nyc” - are we talking candy koalas?? Or is this a breed I’ve never heard of that is native to NYC? Note to self: be more informed about flora and fauna in order to provide useful factual information when needed.

And joint first prize goes to……

9. “next time i want it in my mouth”….. and

10. “naked female ass” - you are both sick. Get your sticky hands off my blog right now!

M'am, why are you still talking to me?

2009-04-10T17:23:00.004+02:00

It’s Thursday evening and my friend / colleague K is returning from a 3-day work trip to Athens. As she waits in the baggage claim area at Malpensa airport, she notices that the girl standing next to her, speaking Italian to a group of guys, has a strong American accent. She is about to strike up conversation when her bag arrives, and so, being in a bit of a rush to jump in a taxi and get home, she picks up her bag and heads for the exit. Following a quick trip to the bathroom, she is out in the daylight and heading for the taxi rank. K has lived in Milan for 5 years now, and regularly passes through Malpensa so she automatically knows which way to head and where to wait in order to beat the rush. Dodging through the smokers and rowdy groups of families, she notices the American girl from her flight looking around as if lost and confused, and so K (being the friendly soul that she is) approaches the girl. The exchange goes like this:

K: “Hi, do you need a taxi? Can I help you?”

Silence.

K: “Hey, sorry, were you looking for a cab, because if so you need to go to the front of the cab line”

Silence.

K (confused):”Ummm… can you hear me?”

Girl (in an aggressive tone) : “Why are you talking to me?”

K: “Sorry, I thought you might need some help getting a taxi”

Girl (even more aggressive): “I don’t need your help. I LIVE HERE! And you probably don’t even speak the language!”

K: “Jeez, I was only trying to be friendly and actually I do speak the language - I’ve lived here for five years”

Girl: “I don’t need your help – I have a voucher for 80 euros which will get me anywhere in Milan”

K: “Errr, I think you’ll find that 80 euros is the flat rate whether you have a voucher or not”

Girl (in a really rude tone): “M’am, why are you still talking to me?”

K (now very angry and offended at the ‘m’am’ comment): “Why are you so mean?!”

Girl: “I still don’t know why you’re talking to me”

K: “Wow. I was only trying to help you! Just one more thing before I go… I feel really sorry for you! Have a nice day.”

And with that, K marches to the front of the taxi line, gets in the first waiting cab and leaves the mean girl, still looking dazed and confused on the pavement.
Since the UK / US expat community in Milan is relatively small, I would like to launch an appeal. If anyone knows the super bitch who travelled from Athens to Malpensa on the evening of Thursday 9th April, or if you ARE the super bitch, let it be known that this is NOT the way to treat people – especially strangers who are just trying to be friendly and helpful to a fellow citizen. Grrrrrrrrrr.

Ever the narcissist...

2009-03-31T17:40:00.004+02:00

OK, so I'm about 2 million years behind the rest of the world in discovering this little piece of web technology magic, but better late than never.... This is me. Cool eh?

Thanks to:

Emma Turns 2, 2. Chocolate Tower - 19th February 2009, 3. Last day at school, 4. Deep Purple, 5. David Gandy, 6. new mothers drink prosecco, 7. Sardegna (Sardinia), 8. buon appetito!!!, 9. mother gives baby the finger(s), 10. adora labs chocolate labrador dog breeder picture 42, 11. credetemi,non sono permalosa, 12. c'est quoi ça? cm dirrebbe emmina :)

It's my blog and I'll RANT if I want to!

2009-03-27T17:13:00.004+01:00

As I pulled onto the A7 motorway this morning on my way to work, the car infront of me decided he'd had enough of his lane and preferred to be in mine, even though mine was already occupied - by me. So, with no checking of mirrors or indication of any sort, he was suddenly on top of me, causing me to take evasive action and almost swerve into another vehicle in the process. Hand on horn, I flash my lights to make him aware of my presence (and, let's be honest, my wrath), to which he replies by doing what? Well, firstly the finger - not pleasant but not exactly a rarity on Milan's roads - but then a rather nasty "hand to mouth" gesture which had me retalliating with the (not very well understood) wave of the little finger, at which point he began thumping his own window (just to prove the intelligence level, or lack thereof), using just about every gesture that exists in the Italian (body) language. I mean, seriously? At 8:30 in the morning? Just how many illegal substances does a person have to consume in order to behave like that towards a complete stranger whose life THEY have just endangered. Ma che vadano a fare in culo tutti quanti!!!!!
Normal service will resume shortly.

Sur le pont...

2009-03-23T18:17:00.003+01:00

Despite the many everyday situations I encounter here in Italy that I claim I will ‘never get used to’, it occurred to me during this weekend in France that I no longer consider myself to be a foreigner here in Italy, and haven’t done for a while. Maybe you need to take a step back from the place you call home to realize just what it is that makes it so. Given that I now travel very rarely (work commitments being a big issue for both Luca and myself), it’s not often that I get the opportunity to take in the sights and sounds of other cultures. I don’t count going home to mum and dad’s in the UK for Christmas as it’s a bit like going to EuroDisney and claiming to have visited Paris, if you know what I mean…..
I guess I’m a homey person – I like my creature comforts, am not a fan of change, and like to be in familiar surroundings, so within half an hour of crossing the border I had already driven Luca crazy with my desperate attempts to squeeze the last of the crackly signal out of Radio Deejay, and was desperate for a cappuccino (even though I hadn’t had one for about a week in any case). Every time we chanced upon a familiar brand, I found myself saying “Ah look, there’s a Castorama / Cèlio / Zara / Trony… Just like at home!!” Most of these are probably French imports, but it made me strangely enthusiastic to chance upon places I would normally associate with Italy. Sad but true. I also made the following observations about France / the French (or at least those that reside in the Avignon area):

1. French food is elaborate, rich and complicated. All the things that don’t appeal to an Italian palate, as Luca reminded me every time we picked up a menu. Roast guinea-fowl in a cumin and cream sauce, accompanied by over-cooked spaghetti (on the same plate shock horror!!), and capsicum pepper stuffed with blue cheese, vine leaves, olives, cucumber and Moroccan spices. A nightmare for your average Italian, a stomach ache even for me…

2. The French (contrary to what I had heard) are very civilized drivers. OK, let’s not exaggerate. Maybe the French from Provence are extremely civilized drivers when compare to the Milanesi. In any case, in around 400 kilometres of French motorway, not one single car came roaring up behind me to a distance of 1.5 metres, flashing their headlights to get me to move out of the way. It took all of 2 kms over the border at Ventimiglia for the first Italian ‘testa di cazzo’ to pull this exact trick, which is something I have to tolerate on a daily basis. And I don’t even stick to the speed limit myself. Thinking about it, everyone in France seemed to drive at or under the speed limit, even on the motorway. We didn’t see a single crazy person going at 180, and I see at least 2 or 3 per day on the A7 to Milan.

3. There is nothing like the bar / cafè culture that I expected. I know we’re spoilt here with a cafè on every corner, including on a Sunday, but I was quite shocked that we ended up walking around for over an hour on Sunday morning looking for a place to get a coffee and a croissant. Maybe it’s just Avignon that falls short…boh….

4. The dress code is distinctly “I don’t think we’re in Milano anymore, Toto”. Kaftans, ponchos, ankle-length skirts coupled with flat open-toed sandals, bright-coloured jumpers, different materials thrown together, enormous fabric bags and lots of bandanas. I’m sure Parisians don’t dress like this, but I wonder if it’s just an Avignon thing, or if lots of provincial French towns are like this. Maybe I have a warped view of elegant / scruffy from years of feeling like an outcast for forgetting to put in my diamond earrings to go for milk on a Sunday morning….

5. Local councils and governing bodies in general seem to have their shit together waaaaaaaaay more than their Italian counterparts. I was shocked by the amount of cared-for communal areas, well-kept grass verges and vegetation along the roads, working fountains with no graffiti, flat pavements with no enormous holes waiting to swallow you up, and – best of all – constant, reliable signposting!

All in all I thought Avignon was absolutely beautiful. I didn’t expect the North African influences that seem to abound, and the vast array of architectural styles that all seem to merge into one. Nor did I expect such a huge selection of restaurants of every nationality and style – it reminded me of Barcelona. Most of these things came as a surprise because Avignon is twinned with my home town of Colchester, whose architectural delights and abundance of good quality restaurants are sadly lacking. I expect twinning is based on population….
My quasi-homesickness for Italy was, strangely enough, echoed by Luca on the way back. Being an absolute typical Sicilian (stubborn, hard-headed, suspicious of all that is not familiar especially with regard to food and drink), 2 days of creamy sauces, bad coffee (he’s also in the bar / restaurant business), and my mother chatting in his ear nineteen to the dozen in a language that he struggles to comprehend, all had him chomping at the bit to get back to safe ground. As we crossed the border back into the bel paese, he breathed a sigh of relief and virtually demanded that we stop at the first Autogrill for ‘a decent cup of coffee’. My protests that decent coffee doesn’t exist in the Autogrill even if we are in Italy were met with a grunt. I was just pleased to be able to communicate with the barista without being met with a confused expression and a look which said “ ah the poor foreign girl - can’t even order a cafè au lait without getting into difficulty”. Upon reaching the bar, the girl serving took one look at me (blond, fair skin, blue eyes…) and did the usual: “Yes?” “Due caffè di cui uno ristretto grazie” I replied. “Ah, sorry, I thought you were foreign” was her response. Nope, I’m home.

Le week-end

2009-03-20T16:46:00.004+01:00

We're dashing off to France this weekend for a whirlwind 2-day break in Avignon, where my mum and dad are currently enjoying a well-deserved holiday. That means that (hopefully) I'll have some interesting stories to tell when we get back (and maybe some pics to go with them!). As usual I have a romantic picture in my head of us whizzing around the sunny French Riviera in my cool Fiat 500 (with the Italian flag on the side obviously), hair blowing in the breeze and Audrey Hepburn-style sunglasses perched on my head. Fast forward to Emma and Luca stuck in traffic on the A7, fighting over which CD to put on, arriving red raw from the sun / wind burn of a 5 hour drive with the roof open....
This (very) short break is most definitely needed. Aside from the day to day monotony of car - office - car - home - bed, the past few months have been a real emotional rollercoaster ride, and I for one need to get away! On the plus side, we found a new apartment (yep, again!) and will be moving on the 1st of June. This time it's for real! Completely fed up with the 130 km daily round trip, noisy locals and resident gypsies, we searched for, and finally found a newer, more comfortable place more or less half way between Milan and Pavia. It has all of the things we've suffered without over the last year (dishwasher, double glazing, air con), and - it would appear - none of the things we've had to live with involuntarily (old lady upstairs waking us up every morning with her over-zealous cleaning rituals, noisy road, adjacent field that doubles as a gypsy camp every summer weekend...). The contract should be done and dusted by the end of next week, so fingers crossed! I've tested the drive home and it's a luxurious 25 minutes average - fab!
So, all that remains to say is "Bon week-end a tout le monde, e vive la France!!"

Smart parking

2009-02-09T18:02:00.001+01:00

Here’s a little story. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I’ll begin.
My friend T went to do a little shopping in the centre of Milan on Saturday afternoon. She drives a Smart car, which in theory should be easy to park, but Milan being Milan, you can take nothing for granted, so after just a few ‘giri’ she was pleasantly surprised to find a space. Being careful to check that there were no “No parking” signs, she parked up and went on her way. Two hours later she came back to find her car blocked in by a police car. Upon closer inspection she noticed, in fact that the whole street was lined with police cars, parked side-by-side for as far as the eye could see. Close by was a man standing outside a shop, pacing up and down, smoking a cigarette, evidently waiting for his wife or girlfriend to make her purchases so that they could leave. Seeing my friend’s confusion, he pointed out that the whole area is designated police parking, and the they were in fact standing right outside the police station. His advice to my friend was to go inside and ask if someone would move the car, although obviously they would give her a ticket – not only for parking illegally but for depriving them of their own precious space. Normal, no? So, off goes my friend, more than a little embarrassed, into the police station to confess to her crime. The officer on the front desk confirms that, yes, this area is police parking, yes there’s a sign at the start of the street, and you should know from the fact that the lines around the spaces are yellow and not blue or white. Clear? OK, Now what? A ticket? A fine? License points? What do you think, dear reader?

Firstly the policeman was very interested to know where my friend was from. Canada? Ah what a beautiful country… I’d love to visit…. What are you doing here in Italy..? Do you have a boyfriend….? Blah blah blah. As my friend started to realize that the police officer didn’t seem too interested in doling out the relevant punishment, she decided to tackle the issue of freeing her car. Sadly it turned out that the colleague to whom the car belonged was extremely busy, and may not be free for hours, and with no one else available and the front desk officer unable to leave his post, he simply threw the keys over the desk and suggested my friend move the police car herself. Eh? Cosa? Yeah, just go round the block a couple of times – you’re bound to find a spot. …
So, off goes T, police car keys in hand, much to the shock and amusement of the smoking man outside the shop. A giro around the block and she’s back. Throws the keys over the desk back to the police officer, whose last words are “Don’t forget you can’t park here, bella!” Wink wink.
Only in Italy.

Fa un c***o di freddo!!

2009-01-12T15:59:00.002+01:00

.... and this wasn't even the coldest it got on Saturday - 50 kms south of Milan, at sea-level by the way....

Dude, where's my car?

2009-01-07T12:47:00.005+01:00

This is what greeted me when I left the house at 7:20 yesterday morning- dressed, hair washed and styled, make-up on, computer bag packed, Starbucks flask full of coffee....... and back to bed twenty minutes later!!

Back to school

2009-01-05T14:11:00.005+01:00

It's the first day of school - well, work actually, but I have that first-day-of-school-feeling - and I made it in for 9.36. Not bad, eh? Am sitting in a very quiet office (there's 5 of us in total on the sixth floor), listening to Radio 2 from the UK over the internet. You know you're approaching 30 when you choose Radio 2 over Radio 1. English people everywhere will know exactly what I mean...

Happy New Year everyone!! So far, so good - a few kilos heavier, many hundreds of euros lighter (the pound is at 1 to 1 with the euro - it had to be done), and.... back with Luca. I guess that means I won't be changing the name of my blog to Life & Lavoro. Meno male!!

So, bombshell duly dropped, I must get back to my very busy day of updating my Facebook profile and reading the Daily Mail online.... Work starts "properly" on January 7th....

Ciaooooooo

PS - the pic is of one of my all-time favourite christmas movies.... anyone know it?

Back in the habit...

2008-12-16T15:10:00.000+01:00

Long time, no blog!! What can I say? When your life does a 180° turn, it’s hard to keep up!

Last Thursday we had our office Christmas party at the Jazz Cafè. This is one of my favourite restaurant / bars in Milan, and even more so when the boss is paying as it’s more than a little priiiiiiicey. It’s also a staple hang-out for models and associated hangers-on / beautiful people, but I find that if you drink enough you don’t even notice their presence, so the wine flowed a bit too much and the following day in the office I thought I might just drop down dead on the spot. Once a year……

A few days previously, T and I went to see “Solo un padre” at the cinema. I’d seen the trailers and thought it looked cute – or rather Luca Argentero, the main character looked cute – so we decided to give it a try. In reality, Luca Argentero isn’t just cute, he’s a figo della madonna, but that’s kind of beside the point. The film was fantastic – probably one of the best Italian movies I’ve seen. Well scripted, nicely thought out and not at all predictable as the story line led me to believe it would be. And it had the cuuuuutest little baby in it…. Sexy man + cute baby = success!

Work has been insane. I was in the office until nine thirty pm Friday before last, and not because I had no social life, but actually because I was busy! I thought that was a record, until last SATURDAY NIGHT, when T & I ended up being dragged down by certain colleagues, who shall remain nameless, and ended up working until 2:30am!!!!! This is for a particularly big contract with a rather important chocolate manufacturer, so in reality I did it in the hope that freebies will be forthcoming, especially given the season and all that! We’ll see….

Driving up Via Farini on the way to K’s on Sunday, I was minding my own business, listening to the radio, going in a straight line, when a cretino decided to pull out right in front of me and attempt a u-turn. It was dark and rainy but that’s no excuse – rear-view mirrors were invented for a reason, people!! The result was a huge dent all the way down the passenger side, and an hour spent in the rain filling out the extremely long, extremely complicated Costatazione amichevole. Names, addresses, tax codes, licence numbers, insurance company addresses, phone numbers, insurance codes, renewal dates, damage details and a little drawing of the incident - not easy to accomplish with trembling hands and palpitations…. The only good thing about it is that they’ve given me my favourite car in the world as a courtesy vehicle, so as far as I’m concerned, they can take their time with the repairs!

I fly to England for Christmas with the ‘rents on December 21^st. In spite of everything, I’m actually quite excited – it’ll be my first trip home since last Christmas, and I couldn’t imagine spending it anywhere else. I suspect I will feel pretty out of it at first – for example I have no clue who the people from X Factor and Strictly Come Dancing are – but after a few sherries and half a box of Quality Street, I’m sure it’ll all come flooding back to me. New Year will be spent with friends in a villa on Lake Garda. This will for sure be the tough part, as old acquaintances are hard to forget – especially at New Year – but I’m determined to make the best of it. So far my only resolution for 2009 is to try and arrive at the office before 9:30 each day. Now that really will be tough....

Moving on

2008-12-02T18:29:00.000+01:00

I have always insisted that I will never become one of those people who stays in the office until seven thirty every night. For me it’s a sign that a person has nothing better to do, and no life outside of work. For the past three weeks, however, the office has become my best buddy, the one place where I can at least pretend that everything is fine, and where life goes on as normal, or as normal as possible, from 9am to 7pm.
It’s when I get in my car at the end of the day, and rather than heading south on the A7, I negotiate the city traffic to reach my friend’s spare bedroom, that the reality of my situation hits home and I almost wish I could turn around and head back to the relative safety of my desk… I guess desperate times call for desperate measures, and these are really desperate times.
The thought of starting again, moving on, organizing a new place in which to live a completely new lifestyle is nothing less than terrifying. I’ve been there, done that, and was quite happy to settle into a stable routine, where Saturdays were for home improvements, and Sundays for ‘us time’. Unlike many girls my age, I didn’t come to Italy for him. I came for work five years ago, lived the single girl life for a while, and would almost certainly still be here had I not met Luca. But I did meet him, so life became about ‘us’, what ‘we’ liked to do, where ‘we’ liked to go and how ‘we’ wanted to live.
Fortunately for me, I have the best friends in the world. Since the day I left, I have been constantly held up by an invisible wire , without which I would probably never have got out of bed, made it to work, got through the day, eaten, slept or generally managed to go on without either falling or throwing myself under a tram. The positive thing to come out of all of this misery is that I will now have way more quality time to spend with my girls, who have stuck by me like glue day and night, for which I am eternally grateful…
No one else was involved on either side, Luca and I are still in touch, and although he’s desperate for me to come home, I know that it’s better this way. At least for now. Some problems are bigger than the person they affect and way bigger than those who suffer the knock-on effect. I’m tired of picking up the pieces.

So, as my mum would say “Onwards and upwards”,,,,,which leads me to my next problem: Cercasi bilocale arredato, nord Milano / Monza, con posto auto coperto….

Life

2008-11-14T15:37:00.000+01:00

I hope to be back in action shortly.
In the meantime I guess life will continue to take its course.
And I also hope that the old saying is true, and that time really does heal everything....

Too good to miss....

2008-11-07T15:06:00.000+01:00

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1083664/Obama-Berlusconi-faces-race-row-calls-Americas-black-president-suntanned.html

Seeing Red

2008-10-31T11:55:00.002+01:00

This blog is not usually a place for highbrow political or cultural musings, as any regular reader will know, but having spent the best part of a week imprisoned under a blanket with just the TV and internet for company while Luca earned our daily bread, I have stumbled across some interesting reading. And by interesting I mean completely and utterly terrifying.
So, we are in crisi. Economic slowdown, recession, call it what you will – in short, the world is changing, and when the world starts to change, so do its inhabitants.
I’m not going to go into the whole Obama / McCain saga – mostly because I’m not American and so am following it with only one ear – although I appreciate that, like it or not, what happens in the US does tend to have an impact on what happens to the rest of us. I don’t like to be known as ‘the rest of us’ either, but there we go.
The issue is this: Italy is a pretty messed-up country when it comes to politics. 61 governments in 63 years, Fascist brigades terrorising the population until as recently as the 1990s, and Benito Mussiolini’s granddaughter, Alessandra - former glamour model / singer / actress – a prominent member of Berlusconi’s current right-wing governing coalition. Even more worrying than this, however, is the current level of tension between the authorities and the man in the street, or rather the student in the street, with demonstrations and marches in protest at recent education reforms having paralysed the country for the past few days. Whilst it is easy to write off such events as young people taking the opportunity to cause trouble and skip class with the excuse of taking an interest in political reform, I was reminded by Alex of http://www.blogfromitaly.com/, that this is exactly the way that real revolutions start, and judging by its social and political history, Italy is a prime candidate. As Alex points out, former Prime Minister Francesco Cossiga appears to be adamant that Italy is returning to the era of the Brigate Rosse (Red Brigades) – in other words, left-wing extremist terrorism, born out of the reaction to hardline right-wing policy in an already unstable political climate. Just last year a number of supposed ‘militants’ were arrested in Padova and a quantity of explosives uncovered and linked to bomb plots against national newspapers and one of Berlusconi’s luxury villas. The employment situation in Italy today is, quite frankly, dire. Aside from a 6% unemployment rate (roughly the same as the UK and US as far as I know), there is the even more discouraging reality of a working world which doesn’t support its employees, offering short-term contracts, low wages and poorly-paid ‘work experience’ which have all but replaced the ‘steady job’. High taxes, low wages, poor services, no job security, rising inflation and economic slowdown are not just interesting subjects for expat blog readers. The fact is that we are facing a winter of discontent, which some believe could bring with it a new era of extremism. Let’s hope for all our sakes that it doesn’t come to that.

Hoops

2008-10-30T09:10:00.000+01:00

This post comes to you from a fuzzy-headed sick person, curled up on the sofa with a duvet and SATC re-runs on Comedy Central. It’s that time of year again, except that it feels like about 5 minutes since the last time it was that time of year….
Having moved house recently, I have had to go through the pain-staking task (even more painful than my tonsils) of registering with a new doctor and managing a rather bitchy email conversation with the HR department at work. One of the very many bureaucratic hoops that needs to be jumped through in order for daily life to go on in many Italian companies involves an obligatory sick-note for even a single day of illness. This is a pain in the ass if you have, say, a headache, or you ate a bad shrimp, as even if you don’t need medical attention you are required to drag yourself to the doctor’s office and wait in line just to get a note. As I’ve probably mentioned on this blog before, doctors in Italy don’t have receptionists or secretaries and don’t work in surgeries, so the doctor’s office is literally just that. If you call you often don’t get an answer as it is the – always busy - doctor himself who mans the phone and in many cases (as with mine) there is no appointment system. Your only choice is to turn up and hope - even if all you need is a note because that bad shrimp kept you away from the office for a day….
Then there’s the three day rule. If you’re absent for 3 days or more, you need a special note, a copy of which you are obliged to post to the National Insurance office ON THE SECOND DAY of your illness. No exceptions. So, imagine that bad shrimp has you running to the bathroom for 2 days straight. On the first day you have to drag yourself to the doctor’s and hold your stomach while you wait in line with a room full of old ladies, and on day two you have to do the same at the nearest Post Office. If you live in a small village like me, you’ll probably have the same group of old ladies for company on both days. Arriving in the waiting room yesterday evening 15 minutes before the doctor herself was due to arrive, I opened the door to be greeted by 8 pairs of elderly eyes, including my next door neighbour. Seeing me enter, she looked delighted that she would be the bringer of good gossip, enquiring sweetly “Anche Lei sta male?” “Are you ill too?”. I exchanged the usual Italian pleasantries with her and the others, before taking my seat and leaving them to natter away in dialect about the weather, feeling quite relieved that I couldn’t take part even if I wanted to as Pavian dialect is a total mystery to me. Half an hour later the doctor still hadn’t arrived and the smell of unwashed old person was starting to make me feel nauseous, so I gave up and went back to my sofa. I discovered today that I am a day late in sending the medical certificate to INPS, which apparently means the end of the world is nigh. My fault entirely of course, for not jumping through those hoops….

The Big One

2008-10-24T15:51:00.001+02:00

Somebody won 100.000.000 euros on the Italian lottery last night. Yes, you read it right. One hundred million euros. The ticket was purchased in a bar on the outskirts of Catania, Sicily, and my first thought was “I hope the lucky winner wasn’t Mafioso…”. That gives you an idea of just how many Mafiosi there are in Catania.
The second prize ticket – with winnings coming in at just under four million – was sold by a newsagent in the centre of Milan. God dammit I knew I should never have moved out of the city…..
The question on everyone’s lips is: Was it rigged? This is the largest amount of money ever given away in the Italian lottery and the hype surrounding it has reached epic proportions over the past few weeks. They apparently announced that they wouldn’t allow for the jackpot to go any further, and should the numbers not have come up last night (it’s been 6 months since anyone picked up the jackpot), they would have divided it into smaller prizes. And what d’ya know?? Somebody won! I have also been informed (by not so much of a reliable source, but who cares?) that they didn’t televise last night’s extraction as they usually do, so nobody physically witnessed the winning numbers as they came up. Hmmmm.
I’m not usually the gambling sort, nor am I one of those sheep-like people who jump on the nearest bandwagon just because everyone else does, but given that sooooo much money was involved, I felt a strange need to participate. I have to admit that I have bought three lottery tickets in the past couple of weeks and have not even so much as won back my investment (there are 90 numbers to choose from– an impossibility if you think about it)…
What does a person do with 100.000.000 euros? I can barely even imagine it, but I expect I would feel out of control, simply for the fact that I would need to put my life in someone else’s hands and I’m never comfortable doing that. Who would I trust to give me good advice? How would I invest it and in what? How much would I give to charity / family / friends and what / who would they be? And the Big One: Would I give half to Luca? Ha! That question has already come up in our house, as has the one about when you get married and have to chose whether or not to merge or separate your assets. The answer?
Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it…..

What's going on?

2008-10-22T12:49:00.000+02:00

Did my pornographic picture bring out the blog police? Is anyone else not seeing it anymore? Do they realise I got it from a national newspaper?
Curiouser and curiouser.....

Indecent

2008-10-17T14:34:00.000+02:00

I thought I would cross the blog picket line just long enough to post this picture, which I found on the front page of the online Corriere - the electronic version of one of Italy's most 'serious' daily newspapers. Yet another example of the naked female ass culture in this delightful country, the picture accompanied the headline on a story about the relaxation of public indecency laws in the UK. It's also a perfect example of how they wouldn't know the meaning of the phrase 'public indecency' here in Italy. I ask myself how many hours of work the journalist responsible for this piece was forced to dedicate to trawling porn sites for an ‘appropriate’ photographic demonstration of his story. Time well spent, I’m sure….
As for the ‘please have sex wherever and whenever you choose’ attitude of my compatriot law enforcers, I can’t help but think that this is just another example of the moral slippery slope. I’m sure the police force would claim that they have better things to do than stroll through parks telling people to pull up their pants, but the fact of the matter is that rules are rules and the police being told by their superiors to ‘turn a blind eye’ sends out mixed messages to a nation already in moral turmoil. Call me a prude if you like, but I have always been a member of the “get a room” brigade, and probably always will be. My least favourite thing in the entire universe is a lack of respect for others. People behaving in ways that negate the existence of others is a perfect example of this, and having sex in public comes into this category for me. Just like wreckless driving, queue-jumping and people at the council who don't pick up the phone – all well-worn subjects if you read this blog with any sort of regularity….
So, my rant for the week over, I am now going to drag my (well-covered) ass through the last couple of hours of the working week before negotiating the Friday night, queue-jumping, wreckless drivers on the ring-road. Hopefully I won’t come across any public acts of indecency on the way…

Strike it not so lucky (part two)

2008-10-16T18:00:00.000+02:00

Tomorrow there's yet another General Strike:

Trains
Buses
Trams
Planes
Boats
Fire-fighters (!)
Healthcare workers
State workers

So, this post leaves you with a book recommendation to be getting on with (literally a bit behind The Times but worth it if you've not got around to reading it yet) whilst I sit on the blog picket line in protest over the lack of transport and public services.

Happy Friday everyone!!!

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/03/books/review/03HOWER.html?ex=1224302400&en=9825995e4521b7b8&ei=5070

Watch and learn

2008-10-10T14:24:00.000+02:00

http://quicksilverscreen.com/watch?video=34616

I stole this video from Jessica at Too Tall for Italy, http://tootallforitaly.com/ simply because it involves two of my favourite love / hate things…. Italy and Jeremy Clarkson.
Watch and learn from the 8 minute point onwards….

Next time I'll keep my mouth shut

2008-09-30T14:46:00.000+02:00

Sometimes I think that the great puppeteer in the sky is looking down on my life and laughing til he cries. Having bitched about Milan fashion week, and how mere mortals are effectively excluded from breathing in the same air as the ‘in crowd’ for its duration, I promptly found myself invited to a very exclusive, invitation-only private sale event this weekend at Christian Dior. As it turns out, my best friend’s other half (who works at Ralph Lauren) had two tickets and since he was too busy to go, offered them to us and put our names on the list. Panic stations. What does one wear to an exclusive invitation-only private sale of Christian Dior in Via Montenapoleone? One’s best H&M shirt? A nice pair of boots purchased at Bata in a moment of desperation two years ago? The faded Armani jeans bought in the summer sales in 2004 - an unforgettable moment in which the shop assistant delighted in telling me that my size was the “biggest Armani does”, and “even so they’re a little tight on the hips, no?”.
Knowing it would be a “if your name’s not down, you’re not coming in” situation taken to the extreme, we equipped ourselves with photo ID and tottered down Via della Spiga, into Via Montenapoleone, and straight into the back of a queue of around 50 people. Ah, but we have invitations! We are ON THE LIST…. It turns out that everyone else is too, only they all seem to know how it works and have come prepared in some sort of leggings / ballerina shoes combo, which means that an hour and a half later when the queue hasn’t budged and our eyes are watering with the pain that only high heels can inflict, those around us remain dry-eyed and blister-free.
Two hours in and we’re hungry. By this time there are only 12 people ahead, but it’s a one-in one-out system and no one seems to be in a hurry to get out. I have the brilliant idea to go to the bar on the corner and grab a sandwich and a drink to take away. Sadly, the ‘bar on the corner’ in Via Montenapoleone is Caffè Cova - the only bar on the street, and with prices to rival those at Gucci across the road. My friend thinks it’s hilarious when I return to the queue with two miniature crust-free sandwiches and two miniature 200 ml glass bottles of coke, having spent a grand total of 18 euros…
After two and a half hours of hardcore queuing, we make it to the front of the line, where we are asked for the name of the person who had invited us. Errrrrr….. Well…… It was someone at Ralph Lauren who knows someone who knows someone else who works at Dior. Can we go in now please? One quick panicked called to K’s other half and we’re past the pitbull and on our way up the stairs to ‘the showroom’. No bigger than my living room, it’s stuffed full of clothes, shoes, bags and belts, and looks like a teenager’s bedroom; you couldn’t see the floor for stuff lying around. It’s a complete smash and grab – elbows everywhere, screams of “I found it!!!” and girls fighting like cats over shoes that are too small for them anyway. To be fair, the discounts were enormous – the biggest bargain I saw was a bag which was reduced from 5000 euros to 450. How can a bag possibly be worth 5000 euros in the first place?? I guess it’s all relative.
Much as I would like to say I’m now head to toe in Dior, the truth is I’m back to the day job in my ever-so-slightly-tight-around-the-hips jeans and an old jumper from last year’s Zara sale (or was it the year before…?). I think I’ll leave the high fashion to those in the know.

à la mode

2008-09-24T17:53:00.000+02:00

It’s fashion week again and I would just like to dispel a myth:
Living in Milan does not mean that you get to go to fashion shows. It seems like every time I tell someone that I live in Milan, their immediate reaction is “How glamorous – you must meet models all the time!”. Sorry to disappoint folks, but the reality of the matter is that models are usually only seen out in public during fashion week (i.e. twice a year), and then they are on the catwalks by day and holed up in the some dingy “VIP” corner of the latest ‘place to be’ by night, where they spend the entire time going in and out of the toilets in pairs, sniffing and adjusting their nostrils each time they emerge.
To get to see an actual show you have to be, without exception:

The Designer
The Designer’s friends / family / sponsor / hangers-on
A celebrity
A fashion journalist

Just to prove my point I will tell you that my best friend’s boyfriend works for Ralph Lauren in a fairly responsible creative role. He has worked here in Milan for the past 5 years, and has met Ralph himself on more than one occasion during business trips to the New York office. He has even set up and assisted at this season’s New York shows. However, in spite of all of this, he has not yet seen a show here in Milan, has never been able to get tickets or even swing a backstage pass…
Many (mostly American) tourists come to Milan during fashion week assuming that they can buy tickets to the shows when they get here and leave disappointed that the closest they got was standing in the queue for the toilets, watching one model after the other stumble out, dazed and confused. Probably not a million miles from the real thing, but then I wouldn’t know because I’ve never been…

What next??

2008-09-23T11:49:00.001+02:00

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1056909/Italian-Big-Brother-contestant-puts-virginity-sale-1million-Euros.html

I’m very sad to report that this story doesn’t surprise me in the slightest.
Those of you who are aware of the ‘cultural’ ‘phenomenon’ (careful choice of words there..) of the Veline, might know what I’m talking about.
I’m sure I’ve moaned about the Veline before, but realistically when something’s bad enough you can never moan too much, right?
Just in case you don’t know, the Veline are two ‘dancing’ girls, whose job is to turn up and ‘dance’ during the opening and closing titles of a nightly comedy / satire show, and who are replaced every couple of years with younger, sluttier versions. Auditions to become a Velina take the form of an exhaustive national competition, played out on TV every night for what feels like 6 months, during which contestants are required to demonstrate a talent (actual examples include crowing like a hen, skipping with a rope, and bursting balloons with a pin – SERIOUSLY), and gyrate in the direction of the cameras in the skimpiest possible outfits until the cameraman’s eyes pop out. At the end of this very long, very mind-numbing contest, the salivating, mostly male jury decides which pair they prefer (of girls, that is), and the chosen two are launched head-long into a life of wiggling their assets at the nation, appearing in gossip magazines for no apparent reason, and ultimately marrying a footballer, before being bumped off a couple of years later when a man called Antonio Ricci decides it’s time for the new sluts on the block.
The real tragedy in all of this nonsense is that, when questioned, an alarmingly high number of young girls aspired to precisely that – to grow up to be Veline. The below article is a year or so old, but sums up perfectly well the knock-on effect of the situation as it is today.
Last night the latest Veline made their debut on Striscia la Notizia. They were dressed, made up and styled to look exactly like the last ones. They did the same dance. They made the same coquettish smiles at the camera, sat in the same legs-open pose while the (male) presenters congratulated them on their “achievement”, wiping away tears of joy as the (mostly male) studio audience whistled and applauded their efforts.
Now, not only are women putting themselves on public display, but they are doing it with a price tag and added extras. Where is this all going to end?
Is it any wonder that women struggle to be taken seriously here in the Bel Paese??

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7d479772-2f56-11dc-b9b7-0000779fd2ac.html

Hum drum

2008-09-05T09:20:00.000+02:00

I've not been updating much lately for one simple reason: I genuinely have nothing to say. Isn't that sad and slightly worrying?
I'm waking up at 6:40, catching the 7:57 train to Milan, working till 6 and taking the 6:20 home again. Chat to Luca about our days, drink some prosecco, watch the news, cook, eat, film, bed. Are you bored yet??
Luca’s working on the grape harvest – 8 hours a day of hard labour and all for a genere of wine that neither of us drinks! Slightly fizzy, beetroot-coloured 11% Pinot anyone?? I don’t think so…
The gypsies have moved on but the new challenge is the young couple upstairs who seem to have people over for dinner and / or drinks every night. I have discovered that the walls in our building are made from papier machè. Am also starting to sound like my mother (“Young people these days have no respect… If I want to go to bed at 10:30, then it’s my right to do so….etc. etc….”).
Next weekend I’m taking my two best buds on their first trip to Sardinia. Can’t wait to show them round my old stomping ground, although they have been warned that ex-boyfriends are hiding behind every nuraghe. I suspect I will be very popular for introducing some unexpected end-of-season excitement to the place (I have to be careful what I say otherwise will be forced on pain of death to edit this post..). Suffice to say that Charlize Theron’s twin sister is likely to cause a stir…
Tomorrow morning I have a very important appointment, which is part of a big plan that I can’t talk about yet. Don’t you hate it when people do that?
Let’s just say if all goes well, I’ll (or rather, we’ll) probably be sloshed on Berlucchi by midday. Just for the record, I’m not pregnant. Will post about it as soon as the coast is clear….. It may just be my ticket out of hum-drum. Maybe then I’ll have something vaguely interesting to blog about, who knows?

A Quiet Life

2008-08-25T09:14:00.000+02:00

There are gypsies on the piazza behind our apartment. It’s not the first time we’ve had to put up with unwelcome visitors – local kids who litter the square and vandalise the streetlamps, the occasional camper which stops to offload its rubbish, even other gypsies have turned up in the past – but these take the cliché to another level. As soon as they arrived, the camper doors flew open, and out scampered 5 or 6 grubby-looking kids, the oldest of which at just 11 or 12 years of age, provided us with a perfect demonstration of why he will almost certainly grow up to be a professional lawbreaker, pretty much like his fathers before him.
Stones were launched at the windows of the derelict farmhouse on the other side of the piazza, the waste bins emptied and their contents scattered across a wide area, glass bottles hurled onto the neighbouring football field, its goalposts torn down. Swinging like a monkey from the net and taking obvious delight in his own ability to destroy everything in his path, the little monster displayed more pent-up aggression than you would imagine possible in an orang-utan, let alone a child. The ‘parents’, unsurprisingly took no notice whatsoever as they hurled bags of rubbish from the caravan windows and fought among themselves in an unknown – probably Eastern European - language.
Not one to stand by and witness such events without taking some sort of action, I picked up the phone and promptly called the Carabinieri – Italy’s answer to the Bad Cop. Sounding like I’d maybe interrupted his pasta lunch, the police officer half-heartedly assured me that he would send a car round to ‘have a word with them’. An hour passed, and we continued with the task of painting the second bedroom – keeping half an eye on the piazza, expecting a little blue car to turn up at any minute. Two hours. We ate our Penne al Ragù with one eye on our forks, the other on the window like we were on a stake-out. Three hours. “OK, that’s it”, say I, picking up the phone and planning a speech in my head along the lines of “Listen, officer. I pay 600 euros per month in taxes” (seriously, I do), “and when I call the police and ask them to come out because I have a problem, I expect them to do just that! Capisci??!!!”
I would never have gone through with it, but fortunately in any case a car arrived at that moment. Having done a little tour of the square, it promptly drove off again - no stopping, no confrontation, not even time to ‘have a word’. Is that it? Is that all that decent, tax-paying citizens can expect from the forces of law? Do we have any choice but to put up with lawless behaviour, literally in our own backyards? It would appear so. As I write this, the gypsies are still in residence, the dog who lives across the road is whining loudly as he does whenever his owners leave the house, the local teenagers are racing each other with their scooters up to the end of the road and back again, whilst the church bells which have been plaguing us ever since we arrived provide an appropriate soundtrack (chimes on the hour, chimes 5 minutes past the hour, chimes on the half hour plus an extra little ding, fanfare at 07:00, fanfare at 12:00, fanfare at 19:00. 24 hours a day).
Quiet life in the country, anyone??

Disgusted!!

2008-08-07T10:13:00.001+02:00

The car infront of me on my way to work this morning threw two pieces of screwed-up paper out of the passenger window.
I wanted to get the registration number but couldn't as we were on the motorway and I was too busy being shocked and disgusted. Why....?

Because it was a POLICE CAR.

2008-08-06T10:30:00.000+02:00

Rush hour in Milan in August..... Bliss!!

Statistically speaking

2008-08-01T11:48:00.001+02:00

Browsing through my site stats yesterday, I was very amused at the weird and wonderful ways in which you folks out there end up on Life, Lavoro & Luca. It would appear that most of the visitors to this site are innocent victims, in search of serious factual information regarding life in Italy. Not that what I write isn’t ever factual or serious - anzi, most of the time I am genuinely NOT KIDDING – but I am well aware that this blog isn’t a fountain of culinary / cultural / historical information, and realistically I’m not bothered.
Amusingly enough, it would appear that there are a huge number of cute waiters / barmen by the name of Luca, who appear to be breaking hearts up and down the land. Not a day goes by when I don’t see a search along the lines of “Luca cute waiter Rome”, or “Bar Sorrento Luca gorgeous”. For those of you who haven’t realised it for yourselves, believe me when I say they’re not worth it!! He probably has a handful of cute foreigners on the go, not to mention a wife, 3 children and a girlfriend on the side. Italian men really are the world champions of ‘screwus overus’.

What I would be really interested to know however, is whether the people who reached Life, Lavoro & Luca via the following searches ever found what they were looking for. Answers on a postcard please....

- what does auguri cazzone mean
(The real question is who said this to you? Maybe you should try searching “pugnalata in faccia”.)

- lavoro per baby sister in Italia
(I’m assuming this person is looking for work as a baby-sitter, no? If not we need to get the child labour police out.)

- lose his arm in moto crash
(Not a nice thing to happen. Bit of a weird search tag though…)

- union jack teapot
(OK, so the British stereotypes are coming out. Unfortunately I have no UK memorabilia to purchase on my blog.)

- pincode in woodland circle
(I need an explanation for this one. No idea whatsoever.)

- Italian newsreaders cleavage
(Try the lunchtime news - Studio Aperto, 12:30,Italia 1. It never fails to satisfy)

………and my personal favourite:

- people in milano are depressing
(no comment)

The grass is (not) always greener

2008-07-31T14:50:00.000+02:00

Let’s get something clear. I know I moan. I know I constantly berate Milan and all that it has (n’t) to offer. I know I constantly go on about how I would rather be on a beach in Sardinia than stuck in traffic on the Tangenziale Est. Who wouldn’t?
As I sit in my office looking out over Lambrate station, surrounded by high-rise apartment buildings, with the constant hum of the ring road and the occasional roar of a plane taking off from Linate airport, it is easy to allow the smog on the horizon to cloud my vision of why I came to this area, and why I stay.
Firstly, I am well aware that I could never do the job I do if I wasn’t here in Milan. Whilst it has its drawbacks, I do really like the fact that I work for a multi-national organisation which is pretty much a pioneer in its sector. I have a reasonable level of responsibility, get on really well with my colleagues (some have become my closest friends), and take home a salary / bonus / car which I could never achieve elsewhere in Italy. I know that the first thing that I would miss should I go back to the quiet life would be intellectual conversation, or even just the banter in which you can engage as you drink your morning coffee, with like-minded individuals of similar ages and backgrounds. I also LOVE that we have a little group of mother-tongue English speakers so when the Italians get too…well, Italian…. we can reminisce about people and places far away!
The new apartment is (as I’ve said before) right at the foot of the hills which begin with the Oltrepò Pavese (miles and miles of sprawling vineyards and hilltops farms), and continue down towards the Apennines of Emilia Romagna. The Ligurian coast is one hour away (it’s not Porto Cervo but it’s not Birmingham either), as are the lakes to the north of Milan. Another important factor is infrastructure, healthcare, and all of those little things which seem to become more important as time goes by (even at the age of 28!). Here you can be (reasonably) sure of high standards of medical care, and what the hell – Switzerland is only an short car ride away if necessary! My USB internet connection works absolutely everywhere, and there is a proliferation of cultural and artistic events on offer, not to mention a year-round choice of places to eat, drink and be generally merry.
These are all little things which I remember longing for when I lived full-time in Sardinia (particularly in the depths of winter when not even the occasional warm sunny day could make up for the complete lack of ANYTHING to do other than appreciate the weather….)

So, all things considered, I’m almost tempted to say that it’s not so bad. I have a place across the water which I can hop across to as and when, and which I appreciate so much more for the fact that going there is now a novelty and not the norm. In the meantime I’ll be making the most of my current location, enjoying the friendships and opportunities I have here, and later in the year- with a little bit of luck and some careful preparation – will be unveiling a plan which might just turn things around for good….

I said in my last post that something needed to change. It was probably my attitude.

A heavy heart

2008-07-23T11:33:00.000+02:00

My recent absence from the blogging scene can be explained by the picture. I can barely describe the heart-in-the-boots feeling which came over me as the plane hit the tarmac at Malpensa airport, and which I haven't yet been able to shake off in the two days that I have been back in the office... Having lived in Sardinia for 3 years, whenever I go back I feel like I am going home. The return to Milan makes me feel like a prisoner being sent back to the slammer after a week of parole.

Something needs to change.

Commute

2008-06-20T14:27:00.000+02:00

Having spent the past year and a half living a five minute drive from my office, I am now back to living the commuter life, and - mamma mia - it’s a shock to the system. When I first arrived in Northern Italy, I lived for nine months in Bergamo, which is only 40 kilometres from Milan, but on the slowest train line in the western world, so I had a two-hour round trip each day and permanent dark circles under my eyes. I had arrived from a three-year experience in Sardinia, where I drove everywhere and made time everyday for a dip in the sea. Not surprisingly, it took me a very long time to get accustomed to the city commute, and having had a two year break, the past few days have served as a reminder as to why I moved to the centre of Milan in the first place…
I’m not a morning person for a start. My ideal sleep routine is from 2 am to 10am – and I know this to be true because whenever I have a period of time where I don’t have to go to bed or get up at any particular time, this is the routine which my body automatically adopts. Hearing the alarm at 6:40 is not fun at all. I have to say, however that I find the train journey itself rather relaxing. Much as my classic English personality generally steers me away from situations involving close body contact with sweaty Italians with particularly sharp elbows, once the initial dash to the station and fight for a seat is over, it’s nice to be able to lean against the headrest and have a nap or get into a good book. The downside is that when there are strikes or delays, there’s nothing you can do except be inconvenienced, and you have to fall in with Trenitalia’s timetable – bad news for the colleagues who seem to get a kick out of staying in the office until eight o’clock, attempting to drag you down with them. I tried the car alternative on Monday and Tuesday, but spent an average of three hours completing the round trip on both days, such is the chaos to be found on any road that leads into, out of, or around Milan at pretty much any time of day. One thing I do like about train travel is that you get to observe the world around you, listen to people’s conversations and people-watch without fear of recrimination. The closely-packed seats and over-crowding can even turn into a learning experience, even if my most profound example so far was spotting the exact shoes that I want this morning, and asking their owner where she bought them. OK, so it’s not learning in the most academic sense, but at least it passes the time…..

The big move

2008-06-18T11:24:00.000+02:00

Saturday morning the clouds finally broke, the sun came out, and we made the best of it, with the help of a hired Amico Blu van and about 10 litres of Powerade.

Three and a half hours to load up the truck (try carrying a sofa down from the third floor!), two hours to unload at the other end, and a whole lot of boxes later and we were in.

Oh, and it appears that a (rather large) family of gypsies has taken up residence on the market square, directly behind the house. I'm assured by local people that they are 'just visiting for a few days' and that they are 'not trouble-makers'. Hmmm.

P.S. If I could work out how to upload more than one picture per post, I would. Any advice??

Emergency!

2008-06-13T17:16:00.000+02:00

There’s obviously not enough drama going on at the moment, what with the new house, the bank, work etc. I think we need some more. Last night, hanging out at Luca’s bar, just as they were preparing to close for the day, I hear an ear-splitting, blood-curdling scream like something from a horror film from the courtyard out the back. And then another – literally as if someone had been murdered, followed by shrieks of “AIUTO!! AIUTO!!”. Adrenaline shooting through my body, I run through the kitchen, followed closely by Luca and his colleague Paolo, to find Luca’s sister-in-law, Patrizia, clutching baby Maddalena to her, with a blood-soaked sponge pressed to Maddi’s forehead. Still screaming, she removes it to reveal a deep cut, pouring with blood and mixing with Maddi’s tears to produce a bloody puddle on the courtyard floor. I freeze, Luca grabs some paper towels, and Patrizia stands there, screeching like a murder victim. Hearing the chaos, Luca’s mum races through the kitchen (in my mind in slow motion), shrieking “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO”, grabs the baby and hurtles out of the gate and up the road, in the direction of the nearby hospital, with Patrizia chasing alongside, wailing like a banshee and dragging three year-old Carolina behind her – also wailing. At that moment, there is a huge clap of thunder, and the skies open as if someone had turned on a tap.
The whole scene lasted no more than 5 seconds.
It took half an hour and two-and-a-half proseccos just for my heart-rate to return to normal. 45 minutes later, Luca’s mum, brother and little Carolina stroll back into the bar as if nothing had happened, Carolina stating quite matter-of-factly that “Maddi had a bobo because she wanted her Koala and slipped all on her own”. Everyone goes back to work, and I am left pale and light-headed, wondering just how they do it.
And that was Thursday.

O-Key D'Oh-Key

2008-06-12T12:40:00.000+02:00

Following on from all of my banking woes, I finally took action and filed a claim for 260 euros which I have been overcharged over the course of the past year. Having made an official complaint to the bank manager, and written a letter to the claims department, I then relaxed, under the impression that I would have NO MORE PROBLEMS.
Oops. I forgot that the cardinal rule in Italy is never to relax.
Having lost my wallet, and therefore all of my credit cards in a rather embarrassing incident, which you can read about further down the page, I was assured by Banca Intesa that my brand new bancomat (debit card) and accompanying PIN code would both be with me in 10 working days. This seemed like a lot at the time, but hey – we all know that Italy is an inefficient country, so you just have to take a deep breath and move on. However, bring Banca Intesa-Sanpaolo into the situation and all bets are off.
On the eleventh working day, I went to check my online account and was informed by a pop-up message that the “O-Key” code generator is now mandatory, and that without it I would not be able to log on. In order to get hold of the O-Key, I would need to go to my branch (bear in mind every trip means a missed lunch break and 10 points on my blood pressure), so I thought I would kill two birds with one stone and get my O-Key and brand spanking new bancomat at the same time.
35 minutes after arriving, I get to the counter and the woman informs me that for the O-Key I have to go upstairs and stand in a different line. OK, fine – deep breath. So I ask for my bancomat. Miraculously it has arrived. The woman takes at least 15 minutes to issue it to me, as they have apparently just had a new system installed and are having a few problems – deep breath. I ask about my PIN. She asks her colleague. The colleague asks another colleague, and a fourth completes the circle, informing me that I should use my old PIN as the card is a replacement, not a new issue. It seems strange to me so I question it and the woman’s response is “You are a bit too precise. You’re starting to confuse me. Use your old pin,” DEEP BREATH.
I go upstairs and wait in line to see my old buddy Massimo (the guy who effectively owes me 260 euros). At my turn, I tell him I need my O-Key, and he looks startled. He calls the manager over. She looks at me with a pitying look, and they put their heads together. No, not that way… Ummmm….. Er….. Non ho capito….. Try this….. OK, try that….. Try putting the tax code in again…… What about….. “Sorry, we can’t issue you with the key because we don’t understand how the new system works” is Massimo’s conclusion. I complain that this is not acceptable, he starts to yell and I have to tell him to stop shouting at me. The manager scuttles away with her tail between her legs. I leave the bank, minus O-Key, plus 25 blood pressure points, and go drink a prosecco with my colleagues, who have ordered, waited, eaten, drank coffee and smoked a cigarette each in the time that I have spent at the bank.
I’m not finished.
I get to the cash point after work, following my gut instinct that I would be a fool to go straight to the supermarket with no cash, on the promise that my pin would work, and guess what….. it doesn’t.
Twelfth working day of cash-flow crisis, and I head back to the bank (I swear that sooner or later they’re gonna lock me between the 2 security doors and leave me there….) and very calmly explain that my old pin didn’t work, so could I have a new one please. Much head shaking and conferring later, and their conclusion is “the new pin must be in the post, and there’s nothing we can do if it gets lost by the Post Office”.
It’s now working day 14 ( almost 3 calendar weeks), and I am still without a pin to go with my card. In the meantime, my English credit cards made their way from London to my parents’ house in Felixstowe, sat there for 3 days, and then travelled the 1000 miles to Milan, arriving at my office 3 days later. I’m off to the bank in about 10 minutes. I may be a while….

Crik Crak

2008-05-27T21:03:00.000+02:00

Today I had an out-of-body experience at the Osteopath’s (Chiropractor if you’re from North America, apparently!). I’m not really one for alternative medicine; to be honest I’m not really one for medicine at all if I can possibly help it, but following a recent spate of head / neck / back aches, Luca convinced me to take his appointment, and so I did. This particular practitioner is supposed to be one of the best, and has a waiting list of three months, so on the insistence of Luca’s mum (we had a double appointment), we set off two and a half hours before the appointment time, and arrived thirty minutes later. With two whole hours to spare, his mum proceeded to tell me the slightly nauseating tale of her pregnancy and labour with Luca, complete with graphic explanations of her terrible experience, doctor / butcher, 40 stitches etc. etc. In the end, she put it down to the lack of technology / mountain mentality of 1970’s Sicily, but I have to say it was a pretty scary story. When the doctor’s assistant arrived to show us in, she said “I won’t offer you coffee before your appointment as the doctor says you should be nice and relaxed”. Ha! I wasn’t. However, I also wasn’t prepared for the experience I was about to undergo. I’ve never been to an osteopath before and so wasn’t really sure what to expect, but when he took one look at me and came out with statements regarding my health and lifestyle which are 100% true, I started to feel a certain interest. This guy was an absolute magician. Apart from the crik-crak neck / back / hip treatment, he also ‘profiled’ my body type, and was right on every assumption he made. He picked up on illnesses / injuries from years ago, and even seemed to know certain aspects of my personality. The most worrying part was when, at the end of the session, he told me I have the bodily structure for twins or triplets. My first thought was ‘so you obviously think I look fat’, followed closely by ‘What?? After all of the horror stories I was put through in the waiting room???’
Needless to say, my scepticism has been somewhat abated for the time-being. Anyone else have experience of alternative therapies or osteopathy? I’d be interested to know!

Lost

2008-05-26T11:34:00.001+02:00

Looking good, is it not?
Following a long, tiring day of painting, we set off home on Saturday night with practically no fuel in the car. Feeling relieved at finding a petrol station which had a self-service machine, despite being practically in the middle of nowhere, we stopped to fill up. The pump didn't seem to be working properly, so with a trickle of diesel running down my arm, I put my wallet on top of the car and went to get some paper towels.
As we pulled out of the petrol station, I glanced in my rear-view mirror to see something lying in the middle of the road. My only thought at that point, animal-lover that I am, was that I hoped it wasn't a bird or a small woodland creature. Nope, it was my wallet - only I didn't realise until an hour later, once we had travelled 50 kilometers and were sitting at home with a glass of wine. Once the panic had subsided, I logged onto the web and started cancelling my credit cards. As I have come to expect, it took me a total of 5 minutes to cancel two UK cards, with the help of polite, helpful telephone operators, each of whom confirmed to me that my replacement cards would arrive at my UK address within 2 working days. “Can I help you with anything else at all? No? In that case, have a good evening and thanks for calling.”
Banca Intesa’s turn. I called the free-phone number advertised on the website, and was told by a recorded message that it was open from Monday to Friday. Very unfortunate if you happen to have your card lost or stolen on a Saturday night…. Refusing to believe that this was the best they could do, I searched some more and managed to stumble across the emergency number from overseas when I turned in desperation to the English version of the site. The operator at the other end confirmed my personal details, put me on hold for about 2 years, and came back with a ‘secret code’ which I have to take into my branch, after which I need to wait 10 WORKING DAYS for my new card to be issued. Surprised? Not really. So at lunchtime today I shall be skipping along to my branch (still awaiting word on my compensation claim for the Zerotondo fiasco) and withdrawing just about everything I have so that I can go furniture shopping. This really was a very bad time to have to cancel my credit cards!!!
There is a happy ending, however. When we went back to the house the next day, we stopped by the petrol station and found my rather sad, run-over wallet lying by the side of the road with its contents strewn, covered in dirt across a 50 metre area. I managed to recover all of the important documents, including my driving licence, and having had a nice wash with warm soapy water, they are now nestled snugly in my new purse. I have learnt my lesson.

Paint

2008-05-21T15:16:00.001+02:00

It's been raining and miserable for about the last million years here in Milan, and is set to continue for at least the next few days. What does one do when faced with such a situation? Obviously, one decorates one's new apartment! Or, as the picture shows, one gets one's boyfriend to do it, whilst taking random pictures and enjoying back-to-back tea breaks on the balcony....

Moving on....

2008-05-13T17:55:00.000+02:00

If I've been a bit slack at the old blog updating recently, it's for a good reason. We found a house in a cute little village south of Pavia and we move in at the end of the month. I say house, but it's actually an apartment, although being on the ground floor, with just one person above makes it feel like a million miles from the traditional Milanese definition of an apartment (8 storeys, crumbling façade, car park view...). Also, when I say we move in at the end of the month, I actually mean we start paying rent at the end of the month, but can't move in until the kitchen arrives. I've heard 5 different versions from 5 different Italiarredo employees, so am currently accepting bets on the actual delivery date. Let's just say that it would quicker and easier for me to fly to the Amazon, chop down a tree and make it into kitchen cupboards myself, but then that's the way things are done around here.....

If anyone out there reads this blog on a reasonably regular basis (why oh why??!!), you may remember a bank-related rant in which I let off some steam about the charges and (lack of) service at my local Intesa-San Paolo. Well, there's news. Having received my latest statement, I did some calculations. The account I have is not supposed to cost me anything - no commission, no fees, no charges. By my calculations, I worked out that I have been paying an AVERAGE of 38 euros per month (£30) just to keep my account open! Everytime I go into the bank to kick up a fuss, they always fob me off with excuses, so on this occasion I decided to take affermative action and INSISTED on meeting with the manager, having written to the italian consumers association and - amusingly - having created a Powerpoint presentation to send to Le Iene (they're gonna let me know if they decided to feature me on the show!).

So I met with the bank manager, and her first reaction was "Mamma mia, this is all wrong! You shouldn't be paying this / that / the other.... This charge is not right..... Here is a mistake...... Hang on a minute! This account is not Zerotondo - it's NON-RESIDENT. What? So I have a contract in my hand stating that I have a zero expenses account, opened 9 months ago, and all along I have been paying the most that you can ever pay to bank in Italy??!! I have never even been a non-resident since I first arrived 5 years ago!!!

The bank manager swore that this has "never happened before" and assured me that I will be fully re-imbursed all charges unecessarily levied (I'll believe it when I see it!). In the meantime I really hope the miserable staff who work in the branch get to hear about it and realise why I always turn into psycho-bitch every time I walk in the door!!

Anyway, if all goes well, a life of peace and tranquillity in the beautiful Oltrepò Pavese awaits as of next month.... Here's hoping!

The very last straw

2008-04-21T15:09:00.001+02:00

A mere three weeks after the (rather strange) theft of a wheel from my car, I have been victim to yet another crime here in the city of smog. Having (stupidly, I admit) left my computer in the boot of the car while I dashed into the supermarket, I returned to find the back window smashed and the computer gone. The really annoying thing is, I always take my computer with me, but on this occasion I found a spot right next to the entrance, with the security guard's van parked alongside. Since I only needed to get one thing (a bottle of champagne for Luca's birthday - his fault!) I thought I'd risk it. Of course, just when you think you can get away with something, you can be fairly sure that that will be the one time you can't. It's my own fault - the precise same thing has happened to two of my colleagues over the past six months, both in Esselunga car parks. As I (half-jokingly) pointed out to the police officer who took my statement, maybe the supermarket security guards should be checked out. His response was to shrug his shoulders and give me a blank look which said 'I can't admit to agreeing with you but....'.
I found myself ridiculously upset by the whole thing, and having already decided that the wheel theft was the last straw, I have been referring to this little glitch as the chocolate sauce on the cream on the cherry on the cake. When I called Luca to tell him what had happened, it took several minutes for me to make any sense and for him to understand what I was saying through the comedy wailing...
My recent spate of bad luck does, however have its positive side. Both the computer and the car belonged to my employer, and so the day after the theft I was given a far superior laptop, a faster internet connection, and a new car. Not a Fiat this time, thank god. So all in all, it appears that karma has prevailed. It also looks like we have found an apartment to rent near Pavia, which is twice as big as where we live at the moment and half the price. I guess I'm just not meant for city living - or at least I'm not meant to live in this particular city.

Can't get enough

2008-04-17T09:44:00.000+02:00

I have an addiction. There, it's out. I said it.
I worry that my work is suffering, as I can't seem to concentrate on what I'm doing, and my social life (whatever was left of it) has taken a nose-dive as I rush home each night to get my fix. I'm going to bed way later than I should, and there is a permanent pile of washing up in the sink.
If you wish to share in my addiction, please visit

www.petiteanglaise.com

Having discovered her only recently (I know, I'm slow off the mark) , I decided to start reading from the very first post, and after two weeks, have made it to December 2005. Petite Anglaise - the book - should currently be winging its way across the Channel, courtesy of Amazon, so don't expect me to be sociable for the next few weeks - I'm far too busy!
This stuff should carry a health warning...

A taste of England

2008-04-11T19:51:00.000+02:00

The parents are in for the weekend, and as always happens when they come to visit, it's raining. Hard. This meant that the usual pre-parent dash this morning involving shopping, cleaning, car valeting and general panic, made for a rather damp experience. Not that the weather makes any difference to their sheer delight in spending precious time with their (only) little girl; along with her 'mum-zilla' attitude when it comes to me, my mum also has a very Under the Tuscan Sun view of Italy, so no amount of rain, traffic, rudeness, public urination, or anything else will spoil the trip. I'm hoping some of this positive energy rubs off on me - at least enough to last me until the next visit!
However, whilst dashing through the puddles in the centre this morning, late for a doctors appointment, I happened to come across what might just be my salvation - a shop called A Taste of England. At least I think that was the name - I was too busy standing gawping at the place with my mouth open to properly take anything in. This is not your bog-standard Union Jack Teapot / Princess Diana Mug shop. This place has everything. I can't believe I've lived in Milan for over two years and never knew about it - slow or what??
So if I'm feeling particularly nostalgic and have some cash to splash (it's not cheap by anybody's standards!), that is where I shall be: PG Tips, Cadburys Dairy Milk, Branston Pickle, Salad Cream, BAKED BEANS, Dr Pepper (for our American buddies).... My mouth is watering just thinking about it! Time to take the folks out for pizza I think....

Cultural observations from the other side of the bar

2008-04-03T16:43:00.001+02:00

I go to Luca’s bar around twice a week – to see him, hang out with his family, and generally make the most of the free prosecco and pizza. When it’s not too busy I tend to stand behind the till, which allows me to chat with Luca’s mum and gives me a bird’s eye view of the customers as they pay for their drinks, purchase cigarettes, or just call in to chat. The first thing that you notice when you start to frequent bars in Italy is that ‘the bar’ is so much more than a place which serves food and drink. It is a point of reference. Most Italians have more than one bar which plays an integral part in their everyday routine, and then a series of other places to serve as substitutes when they are out of range. There’s the bar where they get their morning cappuccino, the place they go for lunch, the post-work aperitivo place, and the emergency bar which sells cigarettes until late. People tend to be quite territorial about their ‘regular’ bar, and like to feel like they are more important than the next guy waiting in line for his cappuccino – they are proud of the fact that the barista knows their name, what type of coffee they drink, and their preferred cigarette brand, and are oblivious to the fact that this is the case for 90% of the people around them. Walking into Luca’s bar, I often feel like it’s Groundhog Day - there’s the couple who live upstairs and are always standing at the bar drinking crodini; the group of guys who drink large beers and destroy the buffet within 5 minutes of it being put out; the overweight lady who works in the pet shop next door and comes in for her daily brioches; the pharmacist from over the road who always has travel stories to tell….. The list is endless. And these are just the regulars that I know and who come to mind. Particularly in the smaller towns and villages, you often find that you can walk into your local bar at any time of day and always find someone you know in there. Whether or not it’s someone you like or wish to see is another matter! This was the case with me when I lived in a village in Sardinia – I always knew everyone at the bar. In fact when a ‘foreigner’ or even someone from outside of town came in, they would find themselves under observation like a patient in intensive care. Italians tend to be nosy by nature, so even here in Milan you can practically hear the cogs whirring away as they try to work out who the ‘straniera’ is, what she’s doing here and why.
The way in which people interact when making their purchases at the till makes for another interesting observation. Unlike the UK system (where you either pay the barman or you pay the waiter at the table), here in Italy you pay at the till. The idea is that first you pay, then you go to the bar and get what you’ve paid for. Those who consider themselves ‘regulars’, who know the barman, or who think they deserve special treatment do it the other way around – proudly marching to the till, empty glass in hand as if it’s some kind of trophy for being allowed to drink without having paid first. In England and North America, if you are not greeted with a smile, it’s rude. If you don’t say ‘please’ or ‘thank you’, it’s rude. If you slam your money down on the counter, it’s rude. Likewise, if the cashier slams down your change, it’s rude. None of these rules seem to apply here in Milan – or rather they do, but people are so beaten down that they no longer notice. When Luca doesn’t greet the client with a smile, jokes around with his colleagues over the client’s head, and slams down the change, it bothers me – but it doesn’t seem to bother the client. They’re too busy hurrying on their way without saying thank you or goodbye. Interaction in its purest Milanese form….

A refreshing change

2008-03-30T14:32:00.001+02:00

Despite having lived in Milan for over two years now, I had never made it into the mountains and so, being in need of a little (or a lot) of TLC, we booked Easter weekend at the Terme delle Dolomiti, which is a health spa built on a natural spring – the highest in Italy. We set off late afternoon on Saturday (Luca had to work until 5 – grrrrr) and by 10:30pm we were there (including 3 stops, one of which involved a failed attempt to fit the tangled mass of snow chains to the car…)
The village we had chosen to stay in is called Pàdola, situated at 1300m in the Val Comelico – one of the highest points of the Veneto region, and not that far from the Austrian border. A real picture-postcard place, blighted only by the low cloud which covered what would otherwise have been spectacular views of the mountains. Mountain people are very different from the Milanesi, as far as I could gather. In the mountains, people will stop and offer assistance if they see you in difficulty – for example the elderly man who insisted on helping us with our snow chains even though it was 10 o’clock on a Saturday night on an icy mountain road in -8 degrees, and who then insisted on leading us down to the nearest village even though he was going in the other direction. Also, they eat a lot of pork – ham, salami, sausages, chops, smoked, un-smoked, cured, boiled – you name it, they eat it. They also tend to combine these many pork variations with onions, cabbage and pickles, the likes of which I have never seen in Italy before (good though!). The spa itself was great with just one drawback – the number of children, and their combined effort at turning the place into something that resembled Naples’ piscina comunale. At one point, I was lying in the outdoor hydro-massage tub, with snow coming down on my head, drifting into some sort of trance, when a fat 10 year-old boy decided to belly-flop into the pool right next to me, screaming like a banshee as he did so. That was the last straw – I pulled on my towelling robe, and made my way passed all of the “Silence”, “Please respect the relaxed atmosphere”, “Please ensure that children behave appropriately at all times” signs displayed on every wall. I mentioned to the receptionist that it was getting chaotic and she sent one of the massage therapists to ‘have a word’ with the parents. “Unfortunately we can’t prevent children from coming here” she said, “No?” was my reply, “I would!”. She looked a bit taken aback. I have nothing against children, but I would say that a health spa is exactly the sort of place where “No children” is a good idea – in the UK, under 16s are often excluded from these places. Italy is very child-orientated, and the little darlings are generally allowed run wild in bars, restaurants and shopping centres – so is it too much to ask that we have one place just for us? In any case, 10 year-olds don’t need health spas – it’s us 50-hour-a-week workers that really need the place!
Having left Pàdola on the Monday morning, we drove down the mountain towards Belluno, passing through a village called Domeggè, where we stumbled upon a medieval-style enoteca, a sort of wine cellar place with all kinds of local products – cheese, meat, patès etc – each prepared in the form of a bruschetta (on toasted bread), with a variety of sauces, salsas and pickles. Our intention was to drink a glass of wine and try a couple of bruschettas before going on our way. We ended up drinking three glasses, and eating 10 different types of bruschetta, followed by an enormous sausage and onion sandwich. Needless to say, our next stop was the river just below the village, where we slept it off before continuing on our journey!
A few hours later, we were stuck in traffic, travelling at the speed of (to quote the legendary Blackadder) “an asthmatic ant with some heavy shopping”. Having got as far as Peschiera on Lake Garda, we decided to cut our losses and hang out there for at least a couple of hours, while the traffic calmed down. Good decision. I’ve been to most places on Lake Garda before, but this was my first time in Peschiera. Despite the ubiquitous presence of the day-tripping builders from Brescia which is seems to be a feature of all of the resorts on Lake Garda, I really liked it. As the crowds moved off, we settled into a fantastic restaurant on the waterfront – the Bella Vista. OK, so the name is a bit cliché but we ended up eating the best Spaghetti allo Scoglio (seafood spaghetti) of our lives. Luca, being Sicilian, is both a food expert and very hard to please, so it must have been good!
We returned to Milan later that evening, feeling relaxed and content at our brief but very much needed weekend away. The following morning I got to my car to find that someone had stolen a wheel. We are now looking for a place outside the city…

Just another day

2008-03-27T14:26:00.001+01:00

Picture the scene: my colleagues and I are strolling to the bar near the office at lunchtime, minding our own business, when we notice two cars – one taxi, one normal - stopped at the traffic lights and the respective owners screaming at each other, having obviously had a (minor) accident. Words like “Deficiente!” “Stronza!” “Cretina!” (idiot, bitch, moron) from him to her and “Scemo!” (stupid) from her to him. At a certain point, they end up nose to nose, at which point he throws a punch and they end up wrangling in the middle of the road as myself, colleagues and others try to intervene. The taxi driver, behaving like a complete animal, starts to threaten those of us who suggest he might like to calm down, telling us to mind our own f*****g business and inviting me to come over and feel his fist! We ended up calling the police before going on our way, pretty worked up and reflecting on the bella vita and bella gente to be found in this lovely city. An hour later the police car rolled up, by which time the whole thing was over and there was nothing to see.
I’ll be blogging about my (much less stressful!) weekend in the mountains later…. In the meantime this just had to be documented. People never fail to amaze and horrify me.

Is anyone still out there?

2008-03-20T17:51:00.000+01:00

I've been rubbish at blogging lately. Absolutely rubbish. The truth is (apart from all of the usual excuses - busy, stressed, being slowly dragged towards a nervous breakdown by Milan life....), I am having some serious wireless issues at home. It would appear that "3" is most definitely not a magic number. "Se hai 3 si vede" ("You can tell when you have 3").... Yup, you most certainly can.
Milan is really wearing me down at the moment (so what's new huh?!). Spring appears to have changed its mind about putting in an appearance, and it's alternating between cloudy and cold, sunny but cold. This weekend they have predicted BAD weather, with snow in the mountains - which is where we'll be for a very well-deserved 2-day spa break. I'm hoping the snow isn't a problem as when I stopped by the hire car company to pick up some chains (which I believe are obbligatory in mountainous areas at this time of year), their response was "Boh / don't know / don't think we have any / you have to just hope you don't need them". The usual, insomma.
The good news, however is that our company has final taken a half-step into the 21st century and had purchased Blackberrys for one and all! Hurrah! I should get mine tomorrow, and I hope it works, otherwise it will be relegated to the same bench as the "3" card.
Luca's niece is three years old tomorrow. I can't believe how time flies - I remember how, before she was able to talk, she would use a kind of personal sign language, which used to make people laugh everywhere she went. What do three year-olds like? I guess it's time for a trip to the Disney store....
Happy (almost) Friday to everyone!

Che scandalo!

2008-02-29T23:46:00.000+01:00

A British TV presenter has recently come under fire for wearing 'racy and revealing' outfits on a family show which is aired on Sunday evenings in the UK. Holly Willoughby has apparently been horrifying the public by demonstrating proof that she is female by showing cleavage and wearing a backless dress. Mamma mia! I love this story - it is very English and a great antidote to the topless images we see here everyday on the lunchtime news. In what could easily be a homage to the classic Letters to the Editor section of The Times "Disgruntled from Doncaster" etc, one viewer commented in the Daily Mail:

"My husband and I have great fun trying to bet how low her top will be each week. She does struggle to keep them in, doesn't she?"

The article goes on to say:
"Others suggested Miss Willoughby's revealing wardrobe was far from suitable for Sunday night family viewing."

When I think of the lunchtime “news” programme “Studio Aperto”, and its daily reports on who’s stripping off for a raunchy calendar shoot, complete with images of the shoot itself (strictly for journalistic purposes of course!), I can’t help but smile at the “scandal” which poor Holly has brought about. I wanted to include some pictures of Italian TV presenters showing their assets, but 1) I can’t get the photo thing to work properly, and 2) the pictures that I found on the web are mostly too pornographic for my innocent little blog (seriously!). Do a google image search for Simona Ventura, Elisabetta Canalis, Ilary Blasi, or – scraping the bottom of the barrel – Le Veline, and you’ll see what I mean!

Calling chocoholics everywhere...!!!

2008-02-25T12:52:00.002+01:00

On Saturday, my friend and I took ourselves off for a little day trip to Torino - to escape Milan, have lunch, and most importantly visit the FESTA DEL CIOCCOLATO - the city's chocolate festival. Being a very big fan of the stuff, I got a bit too excited and didn't really pace myself when it came to the freebies and tasting sessions - but despite the mal di stomaco, it was good....
As a loyal Cadbury's fan, I try to pick some up every now and then when visiting England - and I usually bring it into the office to offer to my (I must say, undeserving) colleagues. Most make sick faces and complain about it being "too sweet" or "not cocoa-y enough" for their refined Mediterranean palates, at which point I tend to snatch it back and demand that they spit it out and give it back to me... Then they go on and on about how English chocolate doesn't deserve to be called chocolate as it doesn't contain enough cocoa butter, has too much animal fat blah blah blah.... So here was my opportunity to taste the supposed best that Italian chocolate has to offer, and report back. Let's just say I had fun carrying out this important piece of cultural research...
We started at the chocolate liqueur stand – an excellent first port of call after a hefty pasta lunch and 2km walk! Then came the Peyrano stand. There are those who claim that Peyrano is the number 1 Italian chocolate – and I have to say it was good, if a little ‘serious’ for my liking – not much sugar, very dense & excrutiatingly alcoholic. I bought 6 chocolates for 6 euros (ouch!) nonetheless…
We moved on to Bicerin – famous for an even better chocolate liqueur than the first one, but which spontaneously piles 3 kilos onto your hips before you’ve even swallowed the stuff – so I took my freebie ‘taster’ and left it at that. The next stand was all about the hot stuff – lots of different flavours to choose from, including a delicious hot chocolate with cinnamon, which gives you a strange satisfaction / nausea sensation. My altogether favourite stand however was by a producer called “Otium” who sold artisan-style chocolate fiorentines (discs of chocolate with nuts, candied peel and raisins on the top) and truffles in various shapes, sizes, colours and flavours. I bought some rum truffles for Luca and some grappa-flavoured coffee, before moving on to the cherry-on-the-cake in terms of tummy ache: chocolate crepes and chocolate-covered bananas with chopped nuts. Wow. The 2km walk back to the car park was very much appreciated after such bare-faced glutton, but I have to say, I disappointed myself by not going to the gym yesterday. Tomorrow the new sofa arrives, so I fear the next few days will involve much lying around, watching Sky and stuffing my face with rum truffles. See you when I weigh 100 kilos….

Festa del cioccolato di Torino: 22 Feb – 2 March
http://www.comune.torino.it/torinoplus/italiano/news/documents/ESC.Programma_2008_low.pdf

A happy medium?

2008-02-17T11:48:00.002+01:00

On Thursday morning at 8:30, my friend called me from the bar where she was having her morning cappuccino. She was so shocked at the racist joke that she had just heard, and the fact that she had heard it on national radio, that she felt the need to share. The joke went like this: "There are 2 black guys and 2 moroccans in a car. Who's driving? The police officer". ON NATIONAL RADIO!!! The scariest part was when I repeated it in the office in an attempt to shock and horrify my colleagues. One of them found it so funny, he called a friend to pass it on, and the friend found it so funny, he told it to all of his colleagues - who apparently found it funny too.
When I think about the hyper-sensitive, politically-correct atmosphere which prevails where I come from, I can hardly believe that we are a mere 1000 miles away on the same continent. Last Christmas, a town in the north of England banned the local shops from putting up decorations, in order to not offend the large immigrant community. This to me is complete madness, and provokes pretty much the same reaction as the joke, but in a different way. Living here in Italy, I am often struck by some surprisingly racist attitudes - like the friend of a friend yesterday who said he doesn't frequent a certain bar because the staff all have "brown faces". This is the sort of thing people just don't say in England. Not any more, anyway. Here, a popular prime-time comedy show on one of the main terrestrial channels recently featured a sketch in which two guys painted their faces black, and pretended to be Indian. Luca genuinely couldn't understand why I made a fuss. I often find myself equally annoyed at stories I hear from both ends of the scale. A DJ telling a racist joke on national radio in the UK would probably lose his job, or at least be reprimanded in the press. However, I can't imagine an Italian town cancelling Christmas in order not to offend those who don't celebrate it. So where's the happy medium? Where's the place which doesn't go too far in either direction? Does it exist?

Don't bank on it

2008-02-07T09:20:00.001+01:00

I hate going to the bank. I hate it because I know that I will enter a calm, contented (well, almost!), human being, and exit a rabid animal. I am not the only person I know who feels a certain amount of animosity towards the Italian banking system and the people who 'manage' it - yet this is little comfort for the raised blood pressure I feel for about 2 hours after every visit! Italian banking is expensive. The system is overloaded with charges, taxes, and fees – most of which are linked to the disproportionate amount of paperwork which accompanies even the most basic of operations (a bit like in Italy as a whole – but that’s a whole other story…). Bank workers are overpaid (around twice the national average), customer care is non-existent, and branches open for just 5 or 6 hours per day, and never on a Saturday.
Coming from a country where banking is (for the time being at least) free of charge, I was shocked when I opened my first bank account in Italy and was immediately slapped with a 30 euro per-month fee by the stealth-charge guru of my local branch, Massimo. This was as a result of the 'non-residents' route which I was apparently forced to take whilst sorting out my paperwork, and included expensive 'extras' which not even Massimo & co. were able to explain in a coherent fashion. A whole six months later, I was back with Massimo trying to sort out my impossibly-complex online access codes (involving many phone calls, trips to the branch, and yet more raised blood pressure). As I mentioned that I was unhappy with the disproportionate fees which I was being forced to pay, Massimo’s colleague (who I believe just sits behind her desk staring at a blank computer screen as I’ve never seen her use the keyboard) pointed out that, with a full-time, permanent job and a fixed address, I was actually eligible for a regular resident’s account and therefore didn’t need to be paying the exorbitant monthly charge! Well, that’s all very well, but what about the 180 euros that I had paid out instead of 60 for the past six months? This was my first question. The answer, not surprisingly, was along the lines of “We don’t give refunds”. Hmmm. Needless to say, the 10 euro per month fee with which I was presented for my new account, turned out to be 15 a month. Apparently, they don’t include taxes when they explain charges, which is funny because my company also forgets to mention them when discussing pay rises…
The last time I went into the bank, I had a Barclays cheque in euros which I needed to pay into my account. This was the long-awaited, blood, sweat and tears compensation from Easyjet for the suitcase which went on holiday by itself and never came back. At the moment, it’s sitting with a glass of red, feet up on the balcony, watching the sunset over the ocean…. I digress. Anyway, I underwent the usual 10 hour wait behind the 4 million other customers, for the attention of the one and only cashier in the branch at lunchtime on a Monday. As I waited, I played a little game in my head of ‘guess who moves the slowest ’ – seriously I feel like I’m watching a film in slow-motion every time I go in that place! 10 hours later, I presented my cheque and the cashier looked at it like she had no idea what it was. Seriously. “Is there a problem?” I ask. “Er, hang on a minute” she replies, and slo-mos over to the colleague who sits staring at the computer screen without moving. They put their heads together, looking confused, and I start to wonder whether I have actually given them a cheque or if I’ve accidentally pulled my lunch vouchers out, and now they’re deciding where to go eat…. Nope, it’s definitely a cheque. The woman comes back and, looking pleased with herself, announces “I couldn’t tell who it was paid out to – see, the print is quite small here” – and she points to my name, printed in bold black ink, next to the words “Payee”. I guess it’s an easy mistake to make. Especially when you work in a bank. So, once again, I left like a rabid animal, late for lunch and feeling frustrated that bank workers are paid twice the national average salary for a six-hour day which appears to involve: giving people the wrong information, over-charging at every possible opportunity, staring blankly into the space between your eyes and the computer screen, and searching for the payee’s name on a standard cheque. We should all work harder to keep up with these high standards…

Tanti auguri a me!!

2008-02-01T17:57:00.000+01:00

I'm in the office and I've had about 4 glasses of prosecco... Happy Birthday to me!!!

Carpe Diem

2008-01-26T19:14:00.000+01:00

My new year's resolution for Saturdays is this: no cleaning, organising, supermarket, or errands. No matter how messy my house is, how empty the cupboards, or how desperately I need to get to the post office, I refuse. Luca works, so I get to spend the day shopping, hanging out with friends, and generally doing what the hell I want - bliss!!
Today was a typical example- lunch with the girls, followed by a wander around the shops, which included the discovery of my new favourite shop in Milan. It's like an Aladdin's Cave of cute gifts, unusual designs and quirky bits & pieces. If you've ever seen the French film "The Wonderful World of Amèlie", this shop is it. We spent at least half an hour browsing, and I must have done 10 laps of the store, each time finding something new to "ooh" and "ahh" over. Amusingly, my only purchase was a toothpick dispenser in the shape of a little man that pops up and holds out one toothpick at a time - if nothing else, it'll make Luca laugh!
If you're ever in the area and fancy having a look, it's called Carpe Diem, on Viale Tunisia, right before Corso Buenos Aires. The website also lists some (but not all) of their products.

http://www.carpediem-milano.it/prodotti.asp?cid=5&p=3

Busy busy busy

2008-01-22T23:27:00.000+01:00

Dammit I just can't seem to find the time to do anything at the moment!! What with leaving the office at stupid-o'clock every evening (cioè around 19:30 - late no?!!), sticking to my promise to frequent the gym at least twice a week, catching up with friends, going to the supermarket, hanging out with Luca's family, plus the usual everyday cooking / cleaning / watching back-to-back episodes of Ugly Betty on DVD..... well, it's been hectic. I am determined to find something interesting to blog about AS SOON AS!!!!
Actually, one thing practically leaps to mind. Someone gave up their seat for me on the tram on Saturday. I am neither elderly, nor pregnant (and couldn't be mistaken for it, thank you very much(!), nor disabled... yet a young South American guy actually stood up and gave me his seat! It was so confusing that I didn't get it, and thought he was getting off the tram, so I didn't even thank him. He must have thought I was a really ungrateful cow! It was only when he just stood there for another 6 stops that I realised what had happened. Not sure whether to take the feminist high ground and suggest that it's chauvanistic to suggest that a perfectly healthy young woman is any less capable of standing on a tram than a young guy... Or marvel at the old-fashioned gentile gesture which is so rare these days.... And there I go sounding like my mother AGAIN!
Talking of chauvanism, there's a new guy at work who I might just have to kill if he calls me "Bellezza" or "Bellissima" or "Carissima" one more time. It's the office equivalent of the building site mating call of "Awright darlin!!!"....

Rock 'n' Roll

2008-01-16T22:28:00.000+01:00

We're watching Grand Designs dubbed into Italian. We do this pretty much every evening after dinner and before washing the dishes - it's yet another sign that, with each day that goes by, Luca and I are gradually turning into my parents. Or at least leading a lifestyle that they agree with. As I approach my 28th birthday, the days of maxing out my credit card with no idea as to how I would cope with the bills, and downing cocktails in one go, become more and more distant. At the office coffee machine earlier today, a colleague asked me what I wanted, and I said "a B52 please". "You don't look like a B52 drinker!" was his response. I didn't think to ask what I did look like, but it kind of suggested that my party girl days are well and truly over. The really strange thing is that I'd rather be watching Grand Designs than ordering my sixth cocktail (six was my perfect number back in the day), and a night at home with Luca, a pizza and a DVD is a million times more tempting than paying 30 euros to get into an impossibly pretentious nightclub, where the drinks are 10 euros each, and the toilets are permanently occupied by groups of 18 year-old stick insects doing as much coke as daddy's allowance will permit them to purchase.
A big indicator of this 'new era' is that my close friends have started having babies. That's when you know you're a proper grown-up!
So, Grand Designs is over, Luca's in the shower and I'm about to wash the dishes - it's a rock 'n' roll life here in Milan...

Cultural oddities

2008-01-09T16:25:00.000+01:00

Despite having lived in Italy for a few years now, I am nonetheless surprised by things I see or hear on an almost daily basis. Many of these ‘cultural oddities’ are just that - cultural oddities, which I realise I just have to accept as something that is different to the way in which I was brought up - like the way many Italians drive, or the lack of respect for a queue, or the fact that no one drinks cappuccino after 11am. On occasions, however these 'cultural oddities' become huge, smack-in-the-face / what the hell / I can't believe what I'm seeing issues, noteworthy enough to be written down. This is one such example.
Last night, I was watching the main evening news on Canale 5. They were talking about the refuse emergency in Naples. For those who aren’t familiar with the situation, Naples is currently buried under 200,000 tonnes of household waste, which has remained on the streets for weeks, following the mafia’s blocking of new landfill sites. These sites would effectively see them lose their grip on the area’s refuse collection and disposal – a move which has led to the government introducing emergency powers and the army being sent in . Another day, another political / environmental /social mess - on this occasion, literally. Anyway, the news item showed Gianfranco Fini - one of the leaders of one of Italy’s many opposition parties, Alleanza Nazionale – as he toured the area to assess the extent of the problem. The images were fairly brief – around 5 seconds – but what struck me was the fact that he was smoking a cigarette, and was shown flicking his ash on the top of the pile, as he picked his way through the chaos and spoke to concerned local residents. Is it just me, or is this weird? I can’t for the life of me imagine a British politician visiting an emergency, and not only smoking on the job, but being shown on the news adding to the problem! It may seem insignificant, but for me this is all part of a serious issue, whereby good examples are not set by those in authority - whether it be in flicking your fag ash on a mountain of rubbish piled up outside a primary school, or being accused of big-time tax evasion (no names mentioned Berlusconi) – it all makes a difference. The most worrying thing for me is that I often feel I am the only one who finds certain situations unacceptable, and end up being forced to helplessly write them off as ‘cultural oddities’, when realistically there’s nothing ‘cultural’ about them.

Start as you mean to go on

2008-01-03T20:46:00.000+01:00

I finally did it! Following some not-so-gentle persuasion from Luca, I dragged my increasingly-expansive ass to the gym last night, and to be honest, it wasn't nearly as traumatic as I had expected it to be. The worst part was the day before yesterday, when I stopped by to make sure that a) I'm still a member, and b) the gym is still a gym and not a Chinese restaurant. Feeling slightly disappointed that it was still a gym, I walked in with my head held high and innocently asked the stick insect behind the desk if she could confirm when my membership was due to expire. "We haven't seen you for a while, have we?" was her response. Er, no. "About six months it appears" she said, looking into her evil computer. At this point, she was joined by stick insect number two, standing behind, who obviously saw an opportunity and jumped in with "Six months?! Honey, you have to come and see us more often!", complete with fake smile. It should have been enough to make me run a mile (might do me some good!), but actually these shock tactics really gave me some impetus to get in shape - if only so I can kick their stick insect asses at some point in the near future. And so, I returned yesterday.

The thing about me is I'm an all-or-nothing person. Either I go to the gym religiously every night for a month and spend two hours practically killing myself on the cross-trainer, or I don't go at all for six months. Having forced myself back onto the wagon, I started to remember all the reasons why it's actually a good idea to work out. Apart from the obvious health and weight loss benefits, you get to spend an hour in your own head, with no phone (I choose to lock mine away), no email and no TV (unless you count the sports channel on the big screen, which I don't). I planned the weekend, decided what to make for dinner, made a mental list of what to buy in the sales, listened to people gossiping around me, and tried to remember what happened in the last episode of Desperate Housewives, which together with a glass of red, became my post-gym reward. I even spent about 10 minutes while I was stretching not thinking about anything at all - bliss! So, not only will I be fully equipped to kick stick insects' asses, but with a little bit of effort over the next few months, I hope to be organised, have a carefully thought-out wardrobe, be fully informed about who's doing what with whom at the gym, and be onto series 4. I reckon it's a pretty good start.

Happy New Baby!

2008-01-03T15:35:00.000+01:00

My friend Maria finally gave birth to long-awaited (she seemed to be pregnant forever!) baby Rossella yesterday. I'm so happy for her and her husband - can't wait to get over to the hospital and meet the new arrival!! AUGURI Maria & Pietro!!!!!!

Most depressing day

2008-01-02T09:25:00.000+01:00

1/8W+(D-d) 3/8xTQ MxNA

Last year, a scientist at Cardiff university came up with the above formula to establish the most depressing day of the year as January 24th. The key is: W=weather, D=debt, d=money due in January pay, T=time since Christmas, Q=time since failed attempt at quitting something for the new year, M=general motivational levels, NA=the need to take action.
Personally I would take these factors and combine them with the fact that today is officially my last day off work, a pile of washing and ironing still to do from the holiday, the fact that I weighed myself this morning, and the introduction of a congestion charge to drive in central Milan = January 2nd: most depressing day!!!!

Happy New Year everyone!!

We're off!!

2007-12-23T11:17:00.000+01:00

Well, the bags are (almost) packed, the gifts are (almost) in the (almost) packed bags, and we are (almost) ready to go! Actually, I've been ready to go for about six months now....
We're off to England to spend Christmas with my mum and dad, and I've never been more excited. It's been a long, stressful year here in Milan, and I'm feeling a serious need to go back to my roots - even if it is only for four days. It just doesn't feel like Christmas to me until I'm in my mum's house, eating mince pies and listening to Christmas music on the radio. I've been very disappointed at the complete lack of Christmas music here, and no Christmas films on TV at all - it's just not festive!! OK, that was my last little moan about living here until next year....
Merry Christmas everyone!!!!!

La Scala & Rinascente hell

2007-12-19T11:14:00.000+01:00

If you suspect that some of the anecdotes I tell on my blog are made up, or in some way elaborated, I can assure you that this is not the case! It occured to me on Saturday, just when I was thinking "this is one for the blog!" that some of the situations I get myself into are so ludicrous that they must seem fake, or at least embellished in some way. Take this one, for example.
On Saturday afternoon, I went to La Scala for the first time. Despite living in Milan for two years, the opportunity simply hadn't presented itself, and given that my friend and I both have other halves who would rather walk across hot coals than sit through a three-hour opera or ballet, we decided to go together. It was a Christmas performance of Swan Lake. The dancers were a bit wobbly (that's a technical term you know) but the setting was - obviously - spectacular, and it was nice to do something a bit different. However, I still found that I couldn't get away from my increasing difficulty in tolerating other human beings. We were in a box of six people, two of whom - a mother and small daughter - arrived 20 minutes into the performance. Having made their grand entrance, little Anastasia (really!) decided she didn't want to be in the theatre, and spent much of the entire first act moaning "I want to go home" loudly. This is obviously fine - small children don't understand theatre etiquette - the problem was that the mother kept engaging her in high-volume conversation, even when she was sitting quietly. When not attempting to distract little Anastasia, the mother would be writing a text on her mobile, or - unbelievably - answering a call. She received a total of three text messages and two phone calls during the performance, and on no occasion did she think it might be a good idea to switch her phone off, or even put in on silent!
Following the ballet, I decided to suck it up and head for Milan's largest department store, Rinascente, to buy gifts for Luca's young nieces. I was fully prepared for the two-saturdays-to-christmas hell, and in fact it took 20 minutes of crowd-surfing up the escalators to the 6th floor to reach the toy department. Not being all that experienced in what might appeal to a 2 year-old child and 8 month-old baby, I grabbed an assistant, and having considered and rejected practically every item in the department, finally settled on a set of animals that fit together and make noise if you get it right for Carolina, and a plastic mushroom thing with different buttons for Maddalena. All I can say is, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Having waited 15 minutes in the queue to pay, I got to the front only to discover that the credit / debit card machines in the entire shop had stopped working, and so they were accepting cash only. This is a store where you can buy items of clothing that run into four figures - I don't know about other people but personally I don't carry that amount of lose change around in my pocket! I was 5 euros short so their suggestion was to find a cash point and come back later. Great! The largest department store in Milan, 2 weeks to Christmas, and they can only take cash! Since there was no one to take my frustration out on (the poor assistants were getting it in the neck as it was), I calmly headed for the lift. 50 people. So, I headed for the escalator. 150 people. Six long escalator rides later, I was out the door and heading for the nearest cashpoint. 200 million people!!! A mere THIRTY FIVE minutes later, I had my money and was back on my way to the store to purchase my gifts. Having done so, I headed for Luca's bar to proudly show him the fruits of my first solo expedition to buy presents for the girls. "Can I say something?" says his mum, as she looks over our shoulders. "Carolina already has that".
I haven't summoned up the strength to take it back and change it yet, but I will have to at some point before Saturday. Wish me luck!

Strike it (not so) lucky

2007-12-11T16:11:00.000+01:00

For the past two days, Italy has been subject to a transport strike by Road Haulage firms, whose lorries have been blocking motorways and sliproads, and causing general havoc up and down the land. The latest news is that 60% of the country's petrol stations are without fuel (a grossly-exaggerated figure if you ask me, and asking for trouble, given the increasing queues to fill up) and supermarkets are running out of fresh produce. The thing is, here in the 'bel paese', you can't walk ten metres without running into a picket line of some sort. Most of the time, no one has a clue what it's all about, or takes any particular interest other than being mildly annoyed at the inconvenience, and nothing ever seems to change, as the same sectors continue to strike year after year. Over the past 12 months, the following industries have walked out on strike for one reason or another:

- Water distributors (great start!)
- Practically every railway company in the country (no surprise there...)
- Lawyers
- The Naples office of the Ministry for Justice (!!!)
- Water purifying companies ( I haven't quite understood this one - it's something to do with making land viable for crop growth)
- Italy's largest bank
- Pharmacies (very bad)
- Hospital staff (worse)
- Surgeons (excuse me??)
- Anaethetists (say what??)
- Italy's main electricity provider
- Helicopter pilots (errrr....)
- The Environmental Health Agency
- Security firms
- Metal Workers
- The Transport Ministry
- The Post Office (lots and lots of Post Offices actually!)
- Cleaning companies
- The local police of Busto Arsizio (HA!)
- Various local authorities / town, city, provincial & regional councils
- Private medical clinics
- Telecom (no comment)
- Airlines, pilots, cabin crew - various and often. Alitalia practically every week.
- Baggage handlers (grrrrr)
- Airline safety companies (not too keen on this one)
- The Port Authority
- Local transport providers - bus, metro, tram (once a month in Milan booooo)

In 2006 there was a Catwalk Models strike. I am not kidding.

Joking aside, apart from the general disruption caused to people who are prevented from going about their everyday business, these situations can have an even more sinister effect. Doctors and hospital staff go on strike and operations have to be cancelled or postponed, putting patients lives at risk. Transport strikes prevent vital deliveries of food, water and medicines - I was reading in the Corriere that ambulances and other emergency vehicles may be left without fuel as a result of it not being delivered to fuel stations. Also, they are predicting that tens of thousands of live animals being transported by the striking truckers are likely to die from starvation / dehydration from being left in the lorries, parked on the motorway. It makes me sick, to be perfectly honest. Sadly this is one of the harsh realities of life in the 'bel paese' and there's nothing 'bel' about it.

Tree!!

2007-12-10T18:31:00.000+01:00

It's up! The tree is up!
And not without a certain amount of effort, I have to say... The queue at IKEA was distinctly unfestive - a bit like the supermarket deli counter on a Saturday morning, only colder and with more prickly produce. Just as I arrived, some woman at the front was having a real go at an older guy for jumping ahead to pick out a nice-looking tree that had just been brought out of the lorry. When he protested that he was only choosing - not being served - she started screaming about how if he picked the tree she'd wanted when in theory she was ahead of him, then he might as well be jumping the queue completely, and that he should wait his turn to choose as well as take away.... Mamma mia.... Then a young girl next to me spotted that our receipts had numbers on them, and suggested that we implement a number system. That was fine until someone pointed out that the numbers were only sequential if you had paid at the external till, not the one inside - so that little idea didn't pan out. The guys doing the bagging and tagging were taking no notice, so in an I'm-turning-into-my-mother moment, I decided that if anyone had to sort out these bickering Italians who have no idea who's next and who isn't, it should be the English girl. "Can people not just take notice of who arrives before them and who arrives after? We're all grown adults after all...." was my contribution, at which point they all shut up and waited their turn. Brilliant!

The price of furbo

2007-12-06T09:44:00.000+01:00

I knew it! I knew when I parked my car on the pavement last night that some idiot would come along and block me in this morning without thinking about it. And that's exactly what happened! For the FOURTH TIME in as many weeks...
The problem is that on a Wednesday evening in my street you are forced to park on the pavement as the street cleaners pass during the night and give you a fine if you are on the road. That means that people who arrive early on Thursday morning simply park alongside, blocking in those cars still on the pavement. Do they not look? Do they not think? Are they not aware that, unless you drive Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, you are simply not able to sprout wings and hop over obstacles in order to get your car out???
And so, in an attempt to manoeuver between the offending vehicle and an unfortunately-placed lampost, despite the enthustiastic attempts of passers-by to guide me out, I still managed to end up with a king-sized scratch down the side of the back passenger door. In the end, a mechanic from the nearby garage came to my rescue and, after much shunting backwards and forwards, the car was out.
Arriving at the office very incazzata indeed, I recounted the story of the inconsiderate parking to an Italian colleague, whose reaction was to shrug and say "That's just the Italian way. It's like when we jump queues or red lights - we don't think about the danger or the annoyance to others. We just have to be first. We have to be more furbo than the next person".
'Furbo' is a word that comes up a lot in Italy. It literally means 'sly' or 'cunning', and is considered a positive attribute to have. You're furbo if you can find your way around having to pay a fine, without getting caught by the authorities; you're furbo if you succeed in pushing your way into the supermarket queue; you're furbo if you jump a red light and therefore avoid the chaos left behind for all those other suckers to endure. Bravo! Well done, you're furbo!
The problem with this attitude to life is that it tends not to consider the consequences of a person's actions, or the way in which they might affect others. In Italy, the general impression seems to be that if you don't try and outsmart the next guy, he will outsmart you.
So quick - grab that parking space before someone else gets it (don't worry about the fact that you're blocking a driveway); push the old granny out of the way to get to the front of the queue (you don't want an old granny to beat you to it, surely??!!); run the red light to avoid a 2-minute wait (nevermind the lady with the pushchair on the crossing - she'll soon realise you're just being clever and happily jump out of your way...)
Moral of the story?? DON'T BLOCK ME IN!!!!!!!

Liliana

2007-12-01T18:08:00.000+01:00

It's not often that we meet people who inspire and move us whilst going about our everyday errands, but that is exactly what happened to me today when I spotted a seamstress' shop as I was collecting my dry cleaning. Since I have been driving around for about a month with a bag full of clothes that need to be adjusted and mended in the back of my car, I thought I would take the opportunity, and so I stopped and rang the bell. A little old lady let me in, and as she took my measurements, began recounting her life story. An hour later, I was still there.
Signora Liliana was born in a seamstress shop just outside Milan, where her father employed 12 women to make and mend clothes designed by important local designers. One of those designers was a little-known but highly talented young man by the name of Valentino Garavani. Known to you and me simply as "Valentino". Liliana showed a talent for clothes making, but was determined not to end up working for her father her whole life, so she pursuaded him to allow her to study at college in exchange for a few hours a week working in his shop. During this time, Valentino - who had become a family friend by this time - noticed Liliana's talent and offered her a job in his Milan shop, making clothes for his haute couture lines. She accepted and worked for him for the next seventeen years. During this time, he announced that he was moving to Paris, and offered to take her with him, but she had married a local man and had a young son, and so remained in Milan, becoming a full-time housewife and mother. Then, one day, the unthinkable happened, and she lost her husband suddenly. Being widowed left her with no job and no money, and a young son to care for. Her father had died a few years previously, leaving his business to Liliana's brother, who very sadly had turned his back on her when she left the family shop, and was determined not to share his inheritance. Just when things were at their worst, and Liliana was struggling to feed herself and her son, a friend stepped in and offered her a job working as a secretary for her lawyer husband in the city centre. She remained in this job until she reached retirement age, which was when she feels that her life really took a turn for the worst. Four years ago, she was waiting to cross the street at traffic lights on a busy roundabout when a motorcylist who was travelling too fast lost control of his bike, mounted the pavement, and knocked her into the path of an oncoming car. She broke several bones, and was left with partial blindness in one eye. It took her a year to recover from her injuries. Then, in a cruel twist of fate, just 18 months later, she was waiting for her son outside the bank, when she felt a pulling motion from behind. Three young men dragged her to the ground and ran off with her handbag, leaving her with a dislocated shoulder and serious bruising. Again it took several months for her to get back on her feet, and when she did, she was left contemplating the paths her life had led her down. Liliana is convinced that her husband is watching over her, through her hardship and misfortune, making sure that she always bounces back. One year ago, her son - now an architect - bought her the small seamstress shop where she spends her days putting into practice the skills that she learnt all those years ago, and browsing through Valentino's books, which are brought to her each season by an ex-colleague whose daughter also works for the designer. The same ex-colleague recently sent her a ticket for one of Valentino's Paris shows. Much as she would love to be re-acquainted with her old employer, she doesn't want to go as she feels she will be disappointed with the way in which the fashion world has changed since she was involved in it. She told me that some days she looks in the mirror, and doesn't recognise herself. She keeps herself busy in the shop, and as she works she thinks back to when she was Valentino's promising young seamstress, looking forward to a lifetime with the man she loved and a family to raise. Her advice to me was simple: enjoy each day as you never know what tomorrow may bring.
Wise words from a wise lady, who really made an impression on an ordinary Saturday afternoon.

The best Italian film ever made (in my humble opinion)

2007-11-28T12:23:00.001+01:00

Must do better. This is my new motto in the light of criticism from those - OK, one person - who have noticed that I'm not really keeping on top of the blogging thing - and it's true. It would appear that the three elements of my blog title are encroaching on blog itself and blog is letting the side down....

It's been a busy week so far. This morning I arrived at the office in record time, just before nine (despite having overslept and woken up at 8:20 rather than 7:20!), parked my car and headed in, only to open my bag and discover that I had picked up Luca's car keys by mistake. So I had to get back in the car, queue in the traffic going into the city centre to get home and give him the keys before returning to the office an hour late. Great start!

On Sunday evening I introduced Luca to my all-time, number 1, favourite of all favourite Italian films. I love it so much it even makes it into my top ten favourite films ever. It's an Italian classic, and if you haven't seen it, drop what you're doing and rent / buy / steal it NOW... It is Nuovo Cinema Paradiso.

The film is set in a small Sicilian village during the 1940s / 50s, and follows the life of a young boy called Salvatore (otherwise known as Totò) and his relationship with the village cinema, which at a time when foreign travel, entertainment and education were very limited, serves as a single point of reference for the entire village population. The film is very authentic in its depiction of 'the old Sicily', beatifully put together and set to tear-jerking music by the one and only Ennio Morricone. It's impossible to watch this film and not cry at the end - no matter who you are! Even Luca found it emotional, although he claimed it was just because it reminded him of his Sicilian childhood... Well I was brought up in Essex and it still gets to me every time!

If you don't have it already, this is definitely one for the Christmas list...

Three cheers for Ikea!!

2007-11-20T12:50:00.000+01:00

Ikea have recently announced that this year anyone who buys a real Christmas tree from any of its stores in Italy will be provided with a living tree and instructions on how to keep it alive. After Christmas, you can then return the live tree and you will receive a voucher for its original cost to spend in store. The tree will then form part of a new butterfly farm, to be built in a national park in the province of Udine. This initiative has been launched in collaboration with Friends of the Earth and the Comune di Bordano. The original press release and other information can be found in the links below.

What can I say? If you live in Italy, get your tree from Ikea.... and tell your friends!!!

http://www.ikea.com/ms/it_IT/about_ikea/press_room/press_release/national/com_stampa_io_sono_vivo.html

www.bordano.org

www.casadellefarfalle.it

Badge!

2007-11-13T20:17:00.000+01:00

I work for one of Italy's most historic, influential and successful organisations. Today I discovered that as part of 'company policy' for all but senior management, if you badge in on your arrival in the morning even 1 minute late, you are automatically docked half an hour from your overtime. The same deal if you arrive a minute late from lunch. Apart from the fact that the badge culture is unacceptable in itself if you ask me - unless you're working in a chicken-stuffing factory in the 1970s - in any case, my protestations to the Human Resources department were met with "I know, it's a pain in the ass; it happens to us too...". I asked where this 'policy' comes from and who makes such decisions and all I got was a classic shrug, followed by "It's just always been this way..."
I hear from my American colleagues that us 'English / North American' employees are considered to be the 'rompi-palle' ( ball busters ) of the organisation because we always complain about little mistakes on our payslips and question things that most of the Italians just accept. GOOD!!

The lunatics of Lulù

2007-11-11T10:37:00.000+01:00

One thing that I have always felt is missing in Milan is a simple, relaxed place to drink tea and eat cake in a cosy as opposed to trendy environment. A little bit of chintz once in a while never hurt anyone... So anyway, out and about with a friend yesterday we're at a bit of a loose end when she remembers a really cute little tearoom called La cucina di Lulù, where they do a mean hot chocolate and have more choice of cake than your grandma's house on a Sunday. Despite the fact that it means a bit of a trek across the city, we decide it's worth it so we jump in the car and 25 minutes - and much road rage - later there we are. What do we find? "Closed". Noooooooo I can actually see all of the cakes lined up on the counter and my stomach is already rumbling. Upon closer inspection, K notices a sign on the door stating that they open at 6. "What's the time?". "5:30". "Damn it". What to do? It's cold and the nearest shop sells sheets and towels. So we decide to go for a wander, and in our cake-staved state end up drooling over a stupidly-expensive designer shoe shop, picking out our fantasy favourites for imagined occasions... At 6 o'clock on the dot, we are outside the cafè, expecting some kind old lady to come along with the keys, open up and put the kettle on the stove just for us. 18:05, 18:10... We start observing the comings and goings of the neighboring gym, the groups of girls tottering in in their stilettos and heavy make-up (??!!), the "hip" young guys in their designer gym gear, and a middle-aged couple having a blazing row about his 'appreciation' of afore-mentioned females. 18:15, 18:20... Getting really annoyed by now... 18:25...At this point, we decide we've had enough and just as we're starting to move away, I notice a light on towards the back and so I knock on the door. A chef appears, turns the key, pulls the door open slightly, and lets go of it so it slams in my face. Errr, ok... Not sure what to do, I put my head around the door and say "Excuse me, are you open?" "Six thirty" is the response I get as Mr Rude Chef Man turns his back and starts to walk back to the kitchen. "Oh, it's just that on the door it says that you open at 6" I protest. "Does it? Well it's six thirty" he snaps as he disappears, slamming the kitchen door behind him and leaving us in the dark. I'm sorry? What? Say what?? Needless to say, our desire for tea and cake made a sharp exit, as did we. Being used to a lack of customer care, and the general rudeness that seems to be a part of everyday life here is one thing, but this was beyond the limit. The plan is to go back this afternoon and 'have a word' with whoever is responsible for the place. I doubt it will make any difference, but at least we'll feel better - more so if the tea and cake really is as good as they say it is.

The land of contradictions...

2007-11-08T19:46:00.000+01:00

I've been thinking recently just how much Italy is a land of contradictions - or certainly Milan is a city of contradictions. This is a city where people take home the minimum wage, yet dress from head to toe in Dolce & Gabbana and carry genuine Louis Vuitton handbags. It is where people live in small, overcrowded apartments, yet drive brand new BMWs / Mercedes / Ducati motobikes. It is where you can spend 100 euros per person on a gourmet meal in a smart restaurant, yet find that the bathroom is a hole in the ground over which you have to squat. In Milan, people pay 4000 euros per month to live in apartments on streets where not a single one of the buildings has escaped the work of the local graffitti artist, and where the pavements are smeared with dogs' muck and discarded chewing gum. This is a land celebrated for its artisitic and musical heritage, yet your average Italian will not set foot in a theatre or concert hall from one year to the next. Here everyone spends their lives worrying about "bella figura" i.e. looking good infront of others, yet they're quite happy to cut you up at the traffic lights, slam their hand on the horn, and stick a finger up at you in the rear view mirror as they pass. Stranger still, they have low cost red wine that practically runs out of the taps yet they don't tend to get blind drunk, and the women are slim and gorgeous yet I've never seen so much food in my life. It appears we're no longer in Kansas, Toto....

Decongestant?

2007-11-07T17:12:00.001+01:00

In the local newspaper today, it was reported that there are 800 premature deaths each year in Milan as a direct result of air pollution. The city council's latest idea to help combat the problem is the introduction of a congestion charge, along the lines of the system adopted by London, to discourage drivers from using their cars in the city centre. Whilst in principle, I like the idea and am totally in agreement that something needs to be done, in practice I ask myself how such a revolutionary plan will be executed and maintained in a city where even the most basic rules and regulations go ignored (and the ignoring goes unpunished) on a daily basis. If it takes the city administration anything up to 6 months to process a residency request, and even a year to provide a Permesso di Soggiorno, where the hell are they going to find the necessary resources to manage such a system? Plus, when the congestion charge was introduced in London, the city council spent months planning and implementing a whole new road system, adapted the traffic lights, and tripled the public transport links within the centre. It is not uncommon to wait half an hour for a bus to pass, even right in the centre of Milan, or to find that your route has been spontaneously cancelled for a reason known only to whoever did it.

Milan simply has too many cars. The city is densely populated, with the majority of its residents living vertically - in blocks of apartments whose inhabitants were never meant to have 1, 2 or even 3 cars per family. When much of modern-day Milan was constructed ( or rather re-built ) in the post-war years, who could ever have imagined that 50 years on the motorcar would have become a cultural necessity, rather than a luxury reserved for the special few? When I look at my street - cars parked on every available pavement space, the grass verge, the zebra crossing... - I wonder where it's all going to end. As a driver myself I am well aware that I am contributing to the problem - actually Luca and I both have our own cars - indispensable during the day when we both travel for work, but which I wish we could fold up and put in our pockets when we get home at night and begin the daily ritual of 5-times-round-the-block-to-find-a-damn-spot.

Perhaps the 'powers that be' could do a little more to get the worst polluters off the roads - I don't know how many times a day I find myself choking in the wake of some rusty old heap which lost its road-worthiness long ago.

Ultimately, whilst I think an initiative such as the congestion charge can work well in a city such as London, which is equipped both financially and culturally, I am not convinced that it will go down so well over here. Aside from the fact that saving the planet doesn't seem to be all that high on many people's agendas, the Italian and his car go together like horse and carriage. I can't imagine the very many young "fighetti" ("cool people") dumping their sports cars and getting the number 54 bus to the Armani Caffè on a Friday night. And when it comes to 'finding a way around the problem', Italians are world experts... We'll see.

And again....

2007-11-06T21:34:00.000+01:00

Having enjoyed a whole month of good health, here I am again in my dressing gown, ibuprofen to hand, feeling very sorry for myself indeed. I did some research today on the internet (didn't feel much like working...) on getting a tonsillectomy. I wondered if this might solve the problem as I seem to suffer constantly with swollen glands and throat-related issues, but from what I have read it looks like a fairly horrendous procedure for an adult to undergo. One website even compared the pain of having your tonsils taken out with that of childbirth! I don't see how that can possibly be the case since they use a general anaesthetic and fill you with painkillers for a week afterwards. Ugh, the more I think about it, the worse I feel - I guess I will have to learn to live with a neck like Mike Tyson's, feeling pretty much like I've been hit by him too....

Angry!!!

2007-11-05T22:49:00.000+01:00

Having lost our suitcase on a flight from Milan to Naples in August, we just received a letter from Easyjet stating: "I note from your Baggage Questionnaire that you are pursuing a claim through your private insurer for your losses. As you are unable to claim through both the insurance company and the airline for the same losses, we are unable to assist you further with this matter". Guys, the "private insurance" was some ridiculous plastic wrapping that cost 7 euros , obviously did nothing to prevent our suitcase from being stolen BACK IN AUGUST, and who pay out ONLY IF THE AIRLINE COMPENSATES....... When the Easyjet lost luggage office opens at 9 o'clock tomorrow morning, wherever you are, you will hear the fireworks I promise....

When in Rome....

2007-11-03T19:21:00.000+01:00

The link below takes you to an article written in 2003 for the UK's Daily Telegraph newspaper. It has recently sparked a long, heated discussion on an Expat website which I frequent - and both the article and discussion have proved very thought-provoking. First of all I have to say, I agree with much of the author's observations, and am impressed by his courage in putting such strong opinions in the public domain. Some (mainly Italian natives) have found the article to be unneccesary scathing, and whilst I am certain that everywhere in the world - not just Italy - has its lifestyle / culture / economy problems, I believe that many of the issues in this article need to be addressed. What do you think?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2003/08/27/feat27.xml&sSheet=/arts/2003/08/27/ixtop.html

My island in the sun

2007-10-28T15:49:00.000+01:00

I've been reminiscing lately about the 3 years that I spent living in Sardinia. It seems like a lifetime ago, not least because my lifestyle has changed beyond recognition since I left. Firstly, I was younger. OK, so 27 isn't exactly pensionable age, but somehow the emotional difference between 27 and 22 feels like light years. Sitting in the usual morning gridlock of Milanese traffic the other day, I decided that the only way to properly ignore the cretinous behaviour around me was to stick on a CD at full volume to block out the sound of car horns and rain, and the CD I picked at random was one I made in the summer of 2003 - undoubtedly the best ever. I arrived in Sardinia in May of that year to work as a rep for a Tour Operator and spent 5 months working in 5-star hotels, and getting to know the locals, my fellow reps from across Europe, and it has to be said, myself. I had already spent a year living in Italy as a student, but somehow the idea of getting a job and finding my way on my own in a foreign place without tutors, Erasmus societies and other English students by my side, was exciting and scary. I remember the first night in a strange, damp apartment with none of the home comforts I had expected, wondering what would have happened to me by the end of the season and how I would feel. Somehow the memories of those early Italian experiences are more real and seem closer now than the memories of what I did last week or last month. I only wish I had realised at the time just how much of an historic moment it really was.

Suffice to say, I ended up staying in Sardinia for just over 3 years, moving from tourism to property and starting my own little business, which is still going strong without my direct input. When I think about it, I can't believe I had the courage to do many of the things I did then - good and bad(!) - and although I would never go back, I do miss the carefree years before the responsibilities of house, career, boyfriend, credit card repayments (sigh) etc. seemed to take over. I guess life has its stages, and things have to change in order to move onwards and upwards - I'm glad I have those memories though and I honestly believe that I learned much more than I would have done had I stayed in England and settled down with a job and a mortgage straight from uni as many people do. A few weeks ago there was a robbery at the post office in the Sardinian village where I used to live, and one of my ex-boyfriends was caught in the cross-fire, although not seriously hurt. Having joked with my girlfriends that to be honest, you could stand in the middle of the piazza, fire a gun in any direction and you would probably hit one of my exes, I now find myself being quizzed by my colleagues about my 'crazy' former life. It wasn't actually that crazy, but just crazy enough that when I put on my 'Summer 2003' CD on a rainy Monday morning on the Milan ring-road, it raises enough of a smile to get me through the day....

Che giornataccia!!

2007-10-22T20:54:00.000+02:00

Right, that's it. I think this is what is known as 'the limit'. For those of you who know me and haven't seen / heard from me in about a gazillion years, this is why - I have turned into a lean, mean working machine, programmed to churn out presentations, capable of interacting exclusively with excel spreadsheets and interested in making genuine human contact only when I get the opportunity to wind down my car window and shout "Che cazzo fai, stronzo?!" It's a sad state of affairs. I realise I am by no means the only person in the world - or in this city for that matter - who is stressed out by the ups and downs of everyday life, but I'm starting to think that I might need some sort of an outlet for the aggression which I feel accumulating in my blood minute by minute. Maybe yoga? A cat? (to stroke, not kick..) Any suggestions?
I don't like to talk too much about work in my blog - more than anything because you never know who might be reading it - but suffice to say it's an agressive, competitive environment where everyone is under pressure and people are more likely to listen to you if your contribution involves a certain amount of 'strong language'. My team is all male (apart from me!) and when you get them all in a room together to talk about targets / budgeting / deadlines etc., the testosterone is enough to make your head spin. And God help he who tries to duck out of the office before 7 o'clock in the evening oooooooo!! Add to that the fact that I am forced to fight it out on the roads as I need my car to get to clients (Milan is roadrage central) and often spend 20 minutes driving around in endless circles at 8:30 in the morning in an attempt to park my car within 20 miles of the office...
Blimey I feel better already! On the up side, Luca's bringing home his mum's Cannelloni for dinner - and I'm on my third glass of prosecco... Happy Monday!!

Festive feelings...

2007-10-20T18:32:00.000+02:00

Following much time and effort on my part, we have finally booked our tickets to go back to England to spend Christmas with my family. This will be Luca's first proper trip to England (we spent two hours in London whilst waiting for a connecting flight in April) and I absolutely can't wait to introduce him to my culture and the people and places that are important to me. We spend so much time in 'his world', surrounded by Italian / Sicilian culture and traditions (which is fine but...), that I am desperate to take him to my world for a few days - and Christmas time will (hopefully!) show it at its best. I was chatting to a friend the other day about the difference between Christmas in Italy and in the UK / US. I know that I am obviously biased given the fact that I grew up in England and so have all of those warm, fuzzy memories of Carols from Kings and the Queen's speech every year for the last 27 years. However, as a holiday, Christmas seems to be so much bigger at home than it is here in Italy. Maybe this is because there are so many religious holidays / festivals here, or perhaps the fact that Italian families tend to be close by nature, whereas in the UK it is normal to see your closest relatives only at Christmas, Easter, and, if you're lucky, once in the summer. Obviously this depends on whether or not you actually like spending time with your family...

So, being in a festive mood, I've been making a mental list of all the things that come to mind when looking forward to Christmas at home.

LOVE the smell of pine needles and cinnamon in my mum & dad's house

DON'T LOVE the fact that said pine needles tend to find their way into your socks - whilst they're on your feet...

LOVE the "holidays are coming" Coca-Cola advert!

DON'T LOVE the fact that they start to show it in September...

LOVE my mum's turkey dinner - best meal of the year

DON'T LOVE the stomach cramps that come on around 2 hours later

LOVE "Carols from Kings" & "The Snowman" on Christmas Eve

DON'T LOVE the fact that they both make me cry

LOVE the fact that almost all the houses on the street are decorated with fairy lights

DON'T LOVE the fact that each neighbour tries to out-do the next by putting up bigger and better displays each year

LOVE walking to the pub on Christmas morning

DON'T LOVE walking back from the pub ( gin and tonic at 11:30 in the morning doesn't seem to agree with me...)

LOVE Nat King Cole singing Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire

DON'T LOVE Nat King Cole singing Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire

Yep, I'm really feeling in a festive spirit now - can't wait!!!