March has been the month with the least entries of this blog and the reason is simple, Susanne has been here the whole time, from the last days of febraury until last monday and, as they say, people who live life have little time to write about it and indeed we did live the period.
A month. A month that seems to have passed almost overnight. I managed to fix for her two internships in Rome so that she would be busy while I was at work. One at the Unidroit, the other at the law firm of someone I met when I started again taking german classes at the Goethe Institut.
It's hard to describe 4 weeks so intense. In a way, it's hard even to remember all the things we did. I know we had a lot of movies, thanks to the fact she was here while a special promotion called "Cin Cin Cinema" was ongoing offering shows at a very reduced price (3 € in afternoons and 5 in the evening, against the usual 7,5). So it happened that we went to see Letters from Iwo-Jima and the Last King of Scotland (in the same day, figure...), A Night at the Museum (We had to counterbalance the two hyper-serious ones, I suppose), Borat and Notes on a Scandal (again on the same day), a Guide to recognizing your Saints and Still Life.
Then there was a day trip to Tivoli, to show her Villa d'Este and its famous fountains (unfortunately, half of which closes for maintenance works) and walks in the green at the small, badly maintained and yet charming botanic garden of Rome, from which a majestic view of the city can be enjoyed. Unfortunately, two other trips, one to Siena and one to Ariccia, had to be abandoned.
Then we had dinners (two of the ones I do organize - The VCN Ethnic Dinners which made up most of my posts of March -, a vegetarian one and another couple just the two of us) and happy hours (one of which surrounded by half drunk welsh people who migrated to Rome for the Wales-Italy game of the 6 Nations tournament).
Then there was the internal moment when we participated and, in a small way, co-organized an AEGEE-ELSA conference for the 50th anniversary of the Rome Treaty which started the European Union (at the time, European Economic Community). Something that actually brought me back to ELSA, at first in a pretty conflictual way facing the disarray my board seems to be, now in a more constructive one.
There have been formal moments, in one of which Susanne wore such a nice (and, in my opinion, "elvish") dress for the gala of the above mentioned conference that another girl commented she was "a splendour", and way informal ones, with me wearing, after years, a jeans jacket that was almost forgotten in my wardrobe or when we went flower picking in the kind of natural park which is next to my house.
There have been new friends (in particular a couple of italian friends we first met at a VCN happy hour and then again at the VCN dinners and finally the last week-end Susanne was staying home) and old ones (among whom Francesco and his new argentinian girlfriend, Mercedes, who seemed to go along with Susanne very well... but then again they are both "Carlosites") while some others were nowhere to be seen, quite sadly so.
There have been sublime moments and fights, one of which so major that seemed for a moment to be able to shatter our couple. We had sport (we went playing basketball together with another VCN group that plays every week-end, while we couldn't go swimming together as we discovered that just 10 entrances to my pool cost one fourth of my year-long entrance ticket) and "couch in front of the TV" times (and I swear I had Susanne laughing at "Grey's Anatomy" scenes). We did have dancing, but far less than Susanne had wanted as we discovered it can be quite complicated to find a good place for dancing in downtown Rome with not too much or too little people and of the right kind. There has been music too, with a concert of students' bands at Rome University, one of which, for Susanne's amusement and delight, was German (funny moment when the front-man of the band called for germans in the hall and she screamed, probably alone, a lound "JAAAAAA").
We got invited at a marriage (well, not exactly, a PACS) in August in south France (and I'm already planning a wide trip...) and we had tension and happy release moments about Susanne's first exams (all passed, at least the ones we could check over the net, included a very though one). We did cook for my family once, we had an "official" dinner at home with a highschool mate of my parents and his, 20 something years younger, second wife and we had Susanne's discovery of Pastiera, a typical Easter cake my mom is a master at cooking (she does cook a number of them for Easter and distributes them around between friends, colleagues of my brother and mine, former neighbors and now my brother's gf's and Susanne's families... probably more than a 100 people in the end, while her recipe has been sent over to Russia, Germany, Kazakhstan and at least twenty families in Rome by now).
We had all this and more, but how can one remember everything, really? I'm sure, should Susanne read this entry, she will come up with something else and I'll add it, but right now... that's all, my friends, and I hope I shall be excused for having disappeared for a while.
Oh, and another two things: the 5th april my parents celebrated 35 years of marriage and... Happy Easter everyone!
A month. A month that seems to have passed almost overnight. I managed to fix for her two internships in Rome so that she would be busy while I was at work. One at the Unidroit, the other at the law firm of someone I met when I started again taking german classes at the Goethe Institut.
It's hard to describe 4 weeks so intense. In a way, it's hard even to remember all the things we did. I know we had a lot of movies, thanks to the fact she was here while a special promotion called "Cin Cin Cinema" was ongoing offering shows at a very reduced price (3 € in afternoons and 5 in the evening, against the usual 7,5). So it happened that we went to see Letters from Iwo-Jima and the Last King of Scotland (in the same day, figure...), A Night at the Museum (We had to counterbalance the two hyper-serious ones, I suppose), Borat and Notes on a Scandal (again on the same day), a Guide to recognizing your Saints and Still Life.
Then there was a day trip to Tivoli, to show her Villa d'Este and its famous fountains (unfortunately, half of which closes for maintenance works) and walks in the green at the small, badly maintained and yet charming botanic garden of Rome, from which a majestic view of the city can be enjoyed. Unfortunately, two other trips, one to Siena and one to Ariccia, had to be abandoned.
Then we had dinners (two of the ones I do organize - The VCN Ethnic Dinners which made up most of my posts of March -, a vegetarian one and another couple just the two of us) and happy hours (one of which surrounded by half drunk welsh people who migrated to Rome for the Wales-Italy game of the 6 Nations tournament).
Then there was the internal moment when we participated and, in a small way, co-organized an AEGEE-ELSA conference for the 50th anniversary of the Rome Treaty which started the European Union (at the time, European Economic Community). Something that actually brought me back to ELSA, at first in a pretty conflictual way facing the disarray my board seems to be, now in a more constructive one.
There have been formal moments, in one of which Susanne wore such a nice (and, in my opinion, "elvish") dress for the gala of the above mentioned conference that another girl commented she was "a splendour", and way informal ones, with me wearing, after years, a jeans jacket that was almost forgotten in my wardrobe or when we went flower picking in the kind of natural park which is next to my house.
There have been new friends (in particular a couple of italian friends we first met at a VCN happy hour and then again at the VCN dinners and finally the last week-end Susanne was staying home) and old ones (among whom Francesco and his new argentinian girlfriend, Mercedes, who seemed to go along with Susanne very well... but then again they are both "Carlosites") while some others were nowhere to be seen, quite sadly so.
There have been sublime moments and fights, one of which so major that seemed for a moment to be able to shatter our couple. We had sport (we went playing basketball together with another VCN group that plays every week-end, while we couldn't go swimming together as we discovered that just 10 entrances to my pool cost one fourth of my year-long entrance ticket) and "couch in front of the TV" times (and I swear I had Susanne laughing at "Grey's Anatomy" scenes). We did have dancing, but far less than Susanne had wanted as we discovered it can be quite complicated to find a good place for dancing in downtown Rome with not too much or too little people and of the right kind. There has been music too, with a concert of students' bands at Rome University, one of which, for Susanne's amusement and delight, was German (funny moment when the front-man of the band called for germans in the hall and she screamed, probably alone, a lound "JAAAAAA").
We got invited at a marriage (well, not exactly, a PACS) in August in south France (and I'm already planning a wide trip...) and we had tension and happy release moments about Susanne's first exams (all passed, at least the ones we could check over the net, included a very though one). We did cook for my family once, we had an "official" dinner at home with a highschool mate of my parents and his, 20 something years younger, second wife and we had Susanne's discovery of Pastiera, a typical Easter cake my mom is a master at cooking (she does cook a number of them for Easter and distributes them around between friends, colleagues of my brother and mine, former neighbors and now my brother's gf's and Susanne's families... probably more than a 100 people in the end, while her recipe has been sent over to Russia, Germany, Kazakhstan and at least twenty families in Rome by now).
We had all this and more, but how can one remember everything, really? I'm sure, should Susanne read this entry, she will come up with something else and I'll add it, but right now... that's all, my friends, and I hope I shall be excused for having disappeared for a while.
Oh, and another two things: the 5th april my parents celebrated 35 years of marriage and... Happy Easter everyone!
