Britons are out of their mind, it's official.

From UK:

"Ministers have bowed to pressure to allow the creation of human animal hybrid embryos for research.

Public Health Minister Caroline Flint denied that the government had staged a climbdown, saying they had always wanted to "leave the door open" for this type of research to be allowed on a case-by-case basis.

She said scientists had put forward more evidence about the importance of using hybrid embryos.

We saw this was an area where these could be used for scientific benefit Public Health Minister Caroline Flint

"We saw this was an area where these could be used for scientific benefit."

The draft bill allows the creation of human embryos that have been physically mixed with one or more animal cells."



That said, I think it's official that Britons are totally out of their minds. Sometimes they are characterized as being pig-headed... well, that could be, in a not so distant future, more literally than figuratively said.

Family and family day

Ok, I'm a conservative and that's nothing new. I hope a wise conservative, possibly a corny conservative and surely, to the eyes of some people, a hopeless or even sleazy one, who knows. But that's what I am, at least in the large majority of subjects, and I've never been ashamed of being one nor to publicly show my standing and my beliefs, and that in a country when, as a teenager in mostly left wing schools where professors openly do political propaganda and literally brainwash their pupils, coming out as a right wing person is worse than coming out as a gay in the most conservative states of the Bible belt.

Now, while on some things I can be borderline progressive and on many others I can at least open up a discussion, there are a few selected subjects where not only I feel my point of view is the best one (which is not uncommon), but with absolutely no manoeuvring space about it, as some unfortunate ones discovered along the years, last of them my girlfriend a few days ago. One of these things, possibly the cornerstone of my own beliefs, passed to me by my father and to him by his own, who knows, possibly since roman times, is the concept of family.

Family is, by my standards, which in this case I assume as absolute standards, the union in marriage (religious or civil doesn't matter, but marriage as solemn commitment to each other AND the community AND the state) of a man and a woman aimed at, first and foremost, having children. A married couple is not a family, even if it can be a family to be. An unmarried couple with children, although very close to being a family, I can't but see as an odd social group where two adults are acting as kids refusing commitment and although they should be granted some legal and social protection in consideration of the children, shouldn't be elevated to the same level of social and legal consideration that a married couple with children should.

I know, by now half the people reading this few lines will have labelled be a bigot and another good number as an oddly old fashioned one, but so be it. I will even go further and add that families, my kind of families, should be encouraged by proper legal provisions, contributions and fiscal measures that shouldn't be granted to the other "family like" social aggregations. And even more, I get annoyed by the people who say that legislation should follow the reality of the time they are forged for, while I always believed that the State should change for the better, not simply certify, the social reality it deals with. Old concepts, ancient ones actually, totally out of fashion these days, but that's me.

So, keeping all that I've said in mind, is no surprise that last Saturday I did something that conservatives very rarely do: went to a huge rally. Yes, conservatives usually don't do that, they usually are the silent majority (or minority?) that think it's impolite to protest, to rise their voices, to invade the streets and cause so much troubles to the ordinary life of their fellow citizens, so it is kind of extraordinary that there was a rally organized in favor of the traditional family and against a bill soon to be discussed to the parliament which basically recognizes and practically parifies traditional families and cohabitations, same-sex ones included.

(Click on the pics to enlarge)
Not only I did go, but I did go with my parents and I must say it felt good to be surrounded by between (even more extraordinary) 750.000 and 1.300.000 people who, apparently, did share my own point of view. People coming from all the country, from different backgrounds (although admittedly the catholic organizations and the groups organized by the churches around Italy played the prominent role), all age groups (the baby carriages were uncountable, with grandparents keeping a extremely watchful eye on their nephews for them not to be lost in the crowd), talking, singing, playing old forgotten games.

People who were so evidently, just like me after all, not used to go to rallies that were wearing the wrong kind of shoes, or had no hats to protect them from the already hot sun (Good thing that my father is a veteran of the '60s and '70s and prepared us properly). People who invaded the immense square in front of the cathedral of Rome, Saint John, a place traditionally used by the leftish parties for their own mass demonstrations (ironic, thinking about it, as they tend to enjoy the shadow offered to them by the tall walls of the church which so majestically represents the institution they usually despise), with the statue of teh said seemingly waving to the crowd.

People who could be met already a mile away from the square and that became more and more thick as the walls of the city approached (Saint John is, for historical reasons, very close to one of the southern gates of the city rather than in the center of the city) to become a second wall themselves right after having passed the gate. People smiling, rather than yelling to make their point across. People playing with their kids, rather than devastating the streets. People laughing rather than setting cars on fire.

Good people. And a good day.

VCN Ethnic Dinners go to Peru... again

Late, late, late report, but better late than never, as we say here (and boy if that's a popular saying in Italy). As usual, you can click on the pics to get a larger version...

The 9th edition of the VCN Ethnic dinners should had seen as "host" country Brazil, yet, as it turned out,it was extremely hard to find a suitable Brazilian restaurant in town. In fact, after a whole week of search, I found out that half the restaurants that were to be found in the various lists were either out of business (one in particular, since "at least 8 years", as I got to know from their former-neighbors) or in places logistically impossible to reach, way in the suburbs or simply in area with no public transportation whatsoever.

So it was that, the day coming closer and closer and with no real alternatives, I decided to organize a second Peruvian dinner, relying on the fact that over the previous months many new faces had shown up and many hadn't been there at the first dinner.

Three factors were actually in play that could had turned the night in a nightmare: first of all, I had announced the dinner very late, just days before the day and right before a week-end when most people were likely not to have a Internet connection. Secondly, as it very often happens when it's time for our dinners, the weather was a mix of hail and heavy rain. Thirdly, I even added on it by mistaking the number of the restaurant communicating 43 rather than 44 and, obviously, it turned out that the wrong number was exactly on the other end of the street.

Then, quite surprisingly, things went precisely the opposite way: not only the turn-out was the higher ever (more than 30 people), but people just kept arriving as some of the guests called announcing they were taking someone else with them or showed up with a friend of them without any warning at all. Although I lost track of all the ones who showed up, I know we had people from Japan, Philippines, USA, Canada, Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, UK, Finland, Norway, France, Brazil, obviously Italy and another couple of countries I can't recall. To make it even sweeter, we also had a canadian couple just about to get married (on the right... and married by now, congratulations Rachelle and Renè).

Being the menu exactly the same that we had successfully experimented the previous time, the satisfaction was just as complete, with lots of food left on the table and eventually taken away in the most common north-American "doggy bag" tradition. Unfortunately for the first time there was a little mix-up with the numbers, but the ones who eventually paid an extra euro to fix the bill were rewarded with free drinks (and a wide array of them, between limoncello, amaro, grappa and I can't remember what else)... the owner actually made the mistake of leaving us the bottles for us to serve ourselves, without imagining the mistake he was doing...

So, I think I can say everyone had fun, and to make it even better, the rain had gone by the time we were out of the restaurant...

Now, some weeks have passed and it's time to be back to dinners and it's Europe time now and while usually the locatons are voted upon, this time I will decide and Spain will be... Paella, Tortillas, Sangria and, who knows what else...

A month in a post... Again

Lately, it seems that if I get to my blog it is only to make long reviews of my previous weeks for my friends who have heard little or nothing from me. Actually, it doesn't seem like that, it is precisely like that.

At my partial excuse I could say that, on one side, work is keeping me much more busy than it used to, basically impeding me from writing from work (which, I suppose, is good), while on the other side I've spent 2 of the last 4 weeks in Germany. Truth is, to be honest, that at least partially I've been lazy. If over the last days my hours at work have reached the 8.20-19-30, while in Germany, at least the second time, I got to spend many hours on my own while Susanne was in class... so what? Possibly, I might be feeling the spring. Or perhaps a lack of inspiration. I do not know really.

Sure I'm busy. Work, as said, is crazy, especially these days that my CEO is bound to face a senatorial commission and, in a few days, a parliamentary inquiry commission. I can honestly say that over the last three months, since I change department, I've worked probably 10 times more than the whole three previous years. And they have been months of discoveries and excitement, just as much as frustration and dismay.

To compensate these bursts of activity, I gladly seized the chance offered by a favourable connection of dates and holidays (not to mention the obligation I had to finish my days off for 2006 withing the 30 of April) and spent the second week of April, the Easter's monday one, in Germany, most notably getting the second and worst ever case of drunkenness of my life for which I still have to understand the reasons behind, having consequently to renounce to an already paid for trip to Metz. Also notable was Susanne and me starting an interesting joint project: the vase. We basically chose and planted some seeds together and we take care of the vase together when I'm over there... and something started growing already. I got to see my football team irremediably smashed by Manchester United in the European Football Champions' League (we lost 7 to 1 in out worst defeat in European history) and the day after Susanne's team also getting eliminated. Oh, and I bought myself a bicycle on Germany, at a second-hand market, a nice yellow mountain-bike which I had, thanks to Susanne's impressive haggling skills, for 25 €.

The first week in Germany was important also for another reason: I went and checked the possibility for studying over there. It happens that, after having thought about it for years now, I've decided to try the study abroad experience and my choice fell on 2 programs. The first, and more promising, is a Master of Science program by the London South Bank University which is taught in English and, for a semester, in Mainz. The second is a LLM in financial law in Frankfurt. I had a nice talk with the administrator of the first program and got the impression I would be in if I only applied and eventually I decided to. The second one is an higher level one, more expensive and definitely harder to get into, but I will send my application anyway. What will happen should either of them accept me is still to be seen, given I'd have to discuss with the HR department of my office for a one year leave, something definitely not easy to get.

The second week in Germany was more low-profile in a way as I had a lot of time by myself. Besides a second visit to the FH schule of Mainz, the week-end was particularly intense with hours of disco (and a "over 30" party at that, gee if I felt old... but at least music was good) on Friday and 90 KMs of biking on Sunday along the Rhine river, going from Mainz to Bingen and back, with a nice little picnic in the meanwhile (and, for me, a little nap...). The result was a bit of a tan on my arms and two very sort legs (and something else) on Monday morning as my totally untrained body did cope with the day before. To be said I was lured into it, as they shoul dhad been "only" 60 kms!

It's strange as April has gone so fast that, even being so close, it's blurry already. There has been another VCN Ethnic dinner, which I quite shamefully haven't put up yet, and there has been the first time in years I've been at the cinema with my parents (The Good Shepard). There were also the celebrations for the 2760th anniversary of the foundation of Rome which was the reason for a national meeting of Nova Roma started with a visit to the newly discovered imperial insigna at Museo Massimo, a visit, I must say, full of atmosphere.

And a new month has started, with plans and projects and expectations and much more...

A month in a post

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!

VCN Ethnic Dinners go to Vietnam

(Click on the pics to get a larger version) It was a dark and stormy night... and it was exactly like that, it's not just the standard beginning. In fact, the day the 8th edition of the VCN ethnic dinner was set for it was also the day when not one, not two, not three, not even four but for FIVE times the sky of Rome decide to shower the city with hail, each time in a heavier way than the previous one so much that the last one, fell just a few minutes before the meeting time, left a good layer of ice over the street and cars, making it difficult to just walk straight.

In such circumstances, I was expecting a high number of defections and I would had even understood them. Quite surprisingly, in the end, almost everyone made it to the restaurant making a fairly crowded dinner with 18 people. As usual, italians made the largest group with 5 people followed by Germany and USA with 2 each, then Netherlands, Philippines, Norway, Finland, Chile Brazil, Croatia and the first Australian ever... and someone else the country was never discovered. Unfortunately, even if almost everyone showed up eventually, the weather took its toll in the form of huge delays, making the proper dinner start quite a bit late...

The restaurant itself didn't have enough place to accommodate all of us in a single table and so we were divided between a main table and two, smaller, ones. Speaking of the restaurant, located in via Giulia (right behind Campo dei Fiori), it turned out to be the only vietnamese restaurant left in Rome after the closing down of a more famous one near the British Embassy. It's pretty unassuming and barely noticeable from outside, and even inside it's nothing really impressive, made of two relatively small rooms. Putting together a standard menu was somewhat complex, in part due some communication problem with the owner and even worse with the waiters, which made problematic at first the service, but that eventually was reason of amusement more than annoyance.

Food was ok, even if not sensational, the best dish being probably, at least for my taste, the beef with onions and talks were, as usual, lively and cheerful (as you can see...). And while I was pretty much stuck against a wall and basically unable to move, fate made us discover the one who could become the official photographer for our future dinners in the person of Laura, who spent a big deal of time happily jumping around the tables to make pictures (being barely noticed while doing it, I must say, making for a couple of pretty funny pictures) and apparently immensely enjoying herself in the process.

Dinner went along smoothly and before we knew it, we arrived to the end, but apparently no one wanted to leave as we kept going with our talks and having more spare rice brought to the table as an excuse for keeping the tables (not like the owner of the place would had sent us out, anyway). But as always, things must come to an end and a few minutes before midnight we called it over, happy to discover that, in the meanwhile, the weather had improved and, despite the bitter cold (well, in italian terms, but what can you expect in a day when ice had been falling down from the sky the whole time?), we could had made it back home dry.

VCN Ethnic Dinners go to Egypt

The 7th Edition of the Ethnic dinners saw the VCN gang moving to Egypt (click pics to enlarge). I ended up choosing the restaurant where a former neighbor of mine had worked for a while over last summer, having only nice things to report about the owners and the cook.

Indeed, I went to check the place with Susanne and, even if small, the place looked nice and charmy, especially due the tent-like arrangement of the interiors and ceiling. Arranging the menu was easy and mostly vegetarian friendly, what was complicated was putting together the participants as, due an unnoticed bug if yahoo, my first two messages about the dinner were never delivered to the crowd. So it was that five days before the actual dinner I had still no one attending. Yet, someone finally dawned on me the problem and after I send yet another invitation, this time making sure it was delivered, withing half a hour I had already more than a dozen attendees.

The dinner could had been a francophone dominated one had all the booked ones actually showed up, while eventually only 3 out of 6 did, leaving to the italians (5) the title of largest group, followed by french (3), UK (2) and 1 each for Germany, Belgium, Philippines, Japan, Croatia and USA.

The place itself was not easy to find, somehow off the beaten track in the Piazza Bologna Area, and that took its toll on the arrivals which were scattered over one hour and a half, so much that I eventually the dinner began while some were still missing.

Once started, tho, the dinner went smoothly. Tasty the vegetable Felafel, between good and obscenely good the various vegetable creams that were served as appetizers together with some spicy arab beans that went by mostly unnoticed. The particular arab bread was nice, while the very big mistake was picking some arab wine from Morocco, overpriced and with a dubious taste.

Once the appetizers were, quickly, disposed of, the main courses made their appearance, with mixed results. While the Swharma chicken served with white rice with raisins and pine nuts was so good that I lost the count of the times I (together with others) served myself and the vegetarian cous cous met the general appreciation, the kebab was extremely disappointed, served in big, oily pieces and left not fond memories behind itself once it was gone (above, to the right, the "asian corner" dealing with the kebab cutting task).

The VCN crowd was showing evident signs of having been properly fed by the time the tables was cleared for the last part of the dinner: mint tea accompanied with special arab pastries that, I must say, looked delicious but I didn't even try, having and indulged too much and eventually succumbed to the shwerma chicken. It was about eleven when the group finally disbanded and while the final bill was higher than the last dinners (around 24 for the ones who had taken the wine, 20 for the others) , the dinner appeared to be a success.

Next time: Vietnam.

Absence

If anyone is wondering what has happened that is preventing me to write, well, this someone hasn't been reading with attention, or has just happened to find my blog.

One way or the other, the reason why my last entry is dated 26th febraury is that on the 27th Susanne has arrived in Rome and here she will stay until the first days of April. That, together with the fact that I can not write extensively during work time anymore (amazingly, I find myself with something to do at work, and happily so) is also the reason why, probably, I will write only sporadically over the course of this month.

In other news, I've been made an offer about my writing, a very tempting one, but have not heard from the offering one since I've accepted, so either he realized the enormity of what he had done, or he has simply been very busy... who knows.

More in the next news flash.

The importance of being (with) Carlos

I've already named a couple of times on this blog a spanish friend of mine named Carlos. Carlos is the perfect personification of the spanish hidalgo: educated, well mannered to the point of looking old fashioned even to someone like me, soft spoken but with a deep laugh. Maybe defining him friend is a bit too much, probably "friend squared" is more like it, meaning he is a friend of a friend, but I like him and even if I didn't, he still would fall in that category of people who are close enough to be entitled to more than general guest' attentions, first of all a meeting whenever life brings us closer than a hour ride.

Carlos happened to come to Rome, at least that I know of, two times.

The first time was one year ago, in a warm july. He came to attend an italian course lasting two weeks but, for a series of circumstances, I only managed to meet him the last day, at his goodbye dinner, or rather at the bar in Campo dei Fiori, where people had moved after the actual dinner. It was one year, seven months and 11 days ago, I can be so precise about the date due a very memorable event happened that night: around the table of that bar, that evening, I met Susanne.

More than a year passed by before Carlos, suddenly, re-appeared in Rome. Seizing the chance given by an Alitalia special offer, he decided to come over from the Canary islands, where he's working as a police officer, and have a roman week-end at the end of november. Once again we met around a table, enjoying a good pizza together (and an awful service) with Alessandro, Ippolito and his argentinian girlfriend Nuria and her friend Mercedes, and Francesco. A pleasant, but normal evening and I didn't think much about it after the goodbyes were exchanged until last saturday, when I accidentally came to know that Francesco and Mercedes are now dating and that, as I'm throttling up and down between Germany and Italy, he's now doing just the same between Rome and Oviedo, where Mercedes is studying.

Now, my single male friends, if you cherish your freedom, you might consider asking me when Carlos will be in town next time, so you would have a chance of moving as far away as you can, he can definitely be that dangerous, that way.

Food for thought

Yesterday I had the rare chance of facing what the foreigners think about my city, in a very candid and unfiltered way. I happened to be invited to a sort of conference organized by the Arcadia University, one of the several american university which opened a campus in Rome over the last year, for his students.

Defining it a conference doesn't actually gives an idea of what it was, as the term makes one think of a speaker addressing a bunch of people lost in a variable degree of boredom. It could had possibly had been like that (or maybe not, considering the speaker who was many things, but surely not boring), but the combined effect of the general attitude of students towards extra-curricular activities not giving you credits and the pouring rain that hit the city yesterday turned the whole thing in a sort of round table, only without the table, by about a dozen people on the students' impressions and the speaker's experience about living in Italy in general and in Rome in particular.

Now, being the speaker american, the students americans and american the university organizing the whole thing, the language used english and english the school that gave us the room (which was, actually, the central nave of a former church), it's no wonder everyone forgot there were italians around and among them a real roman... me. Maybe it's the legendary openness of the americans, which someone less used to deal with foreigners might simply label as bluntness or lack of manners, fact is that the comments were clear, direct and, occasionally at least, bright... just as much as a lightning falling right over your head.

And what was the first thing that left an impression of Rome? The sense of history hovering over your head all the time? The magnificence of the churches interiors? The art hitting you openly in the main squares and jabbing you at the sides when turning less famous corners? Nothing like that, the first thing named was: Rome is dirty. Point taken, it's 10 years this city is turning more and more out of control and the cratered streets and litter everywhere are the most evident signs.

Fine, I took the hit like a boxer who instinctively knows where the punch is landing and had prepared his muscles for absorbing it. But the next one took me so off guard that revived in me one of the most classic stereotypes about americans: their total inability of understanding and adapting to the place where they are, expecting the world to turn around them. Romans, in their view, are "hard to adapt to others", the example given being the fact of being looked down when ordering a cappuccino in the evening.

Now, besides the obvious, english, saying "When in Rome do as the Romans do" which was all but forgotten, the romans tend to be, obviously in my opinion, among the most welcoming people in the world. Two thousands years of dealing with (and admittedly, in some period living off) pilgrims coming from the whole Christianity and having stable communities of foreigners in the city for the last twenty centuries made romans very tolerant, even if probably in a condescending way, towards different habits. We are often amused by foreigners walking around the city and often look at them with the sense of superiority and in the way adults do with children, but just the same way we tend to lend a hand to everyone in obvious troubles. So much that is not rare that people coming for a vacation end up staying here months, years or never leaving again.

Surprised as I was, it's not without a bit of discomfort that I observed the talk moving towards more stereotypes spaced out with experiences' tales by the speakers, those often making a long wide sweep before getting to the point he meant to do. So it came the one about italians being able to forget about any trouble as long as their soccer team wins a major game, being very concerned about the way they dress and conformists too at that and so on and so forth.

So I was there, wondering if that's really the way we are perceived even by foreigners living among us, and that much more surprising from someone, the speaker, who had been doing that for the past three decades, when realization did hit me.

First of all, that the journalist was doing, I do not know how much unconsciously out of an unconscious habit and how much on purpose, his job. During the conversation, while discussing how the students kept track of the news, he had pointed out, not without an apparent regret, how the media tended to channel towards the audience the news they thought their readers wanted to read about and that would had met their already formed idea of the fact so that they could related to them. And wasn't, maybe, what he was doing as well, channeling to the students anecdotes about the stereotypes about italians, to have them echoed back to him?

The second thing is, I realized I had done much the same during the round table and in the past as well. Me and most of everyone here. After all, with our idea of americans as uneducated, goofy people with their own standards of morality, didn't we laugh with gusto at the news of Cheney shooting his pal by mistake, Bush almost chocking to death with a peanut or the whole Clinton-Lewinsky affair and how americans took damn seriously something that we would had dismissed with a chuckle and a telling glance?

So I was left with a dirty town, the stereotypes and their creeping appeal, an obviously smart journalist with very interesting stories to tell and a slightly too self-centered and theatrical way of doing that and a bit of thinking to do. An interesting evening, and the pizza in the end was for free...

Btw, the journalist, Christopher Winner, is the editor of an online magazine, The American, which, for the little I could see for now, looks as an interesting read, even if not necessarly one to agree with...

VCN Ethnic Dinners go to Greece

Now that I've 5 minutes, here we are (oh, and you can, as usual, click on the pics to get a larger version).

The last VCN dinner was slightly more difficult to organize than the previous ones. On one hand, someone decided to pick exactly the same day to have a VCN carnival party (well, ok, it was fat tuesday after all), on the other hand, for the first time, I had to pick a restaurant without any external suggestions and with no previous first hand experience, or so I thought, given that eventually it turned out I had been in the restaurant I had chosen, even if a whole 10 years ago.

Anyway, my worries turned out to be unjustified, as eventually 19 people showed up, from Italy (5), US (4), France (2), Canada, UK, Philippines, Sweden, Belgium, Hungary, Croatia and Serbia (those two happily sitting next to each other), with only one person missing, making it one short of the number I set myself as the maximum.

The restaurant was small, cozy and even if not terribly atmospheric, it still gave the people a nice feeling and I must say the crew there was beyond praise as they dealt, first or all, with an unexpected number of vegetarians (I had signalled 2, when indeed we had three) and then with another couple of people changing their mind at the very last moment about the pre-arranged menu. Speaking of which, also the food turned out to be very agreeable, even if I made the bad mistake of serving myself of tzatziki twice before realizing it had cucumbers inside.

Time passed quite fast, helped by a very quick service and interesting talks. The ouzo (the typical Greek liquor made of anise) was not that great and mixed opinions were raised by the also typical white aromatic wine with pine's gum.

To make things even better, the final bill was not that expensive (for an ethnic restaurant in Rome, that is). So, I think I can honestly say, a very pleasant evening. Now, for the next time, we are heading to Africa... and once again I have no clue about which restaurant...

Happy Blog-Birthday to me

One year. One year ago I started, out of I do not know what strange impulse and with little confidence that the experiment would had lasted more than a few days, this blog. Well, against my own expectations, one year later I'm still here writing, this being the 183th post, making it exactly one every two days.

And what a year it has been, with travels, music, a relationship developing despite distance and objective difficulties, some friendships strengthening and some vanishing, dozens of books, movies, dinners, happy hours kilometers of swimming and, at the very end, changes at work. A very interesting year, all in all, and despite the fact that in China the "May you live in interesting times" is considered a kind of a curse, I somehow hope the coming year will be just as full of things (yes, I know, beware what you wish for...).

On other news, yesterday was VCN Ethnic Dinners' night at a greek restaurant. Later on, if I get the time, I'll post a comment and some pictures of what has been a very pleasant evening.

Carnival and new experiences

After 5 weeks since my last visit to the city and just as long since I had seen my girlfriend, this past week-end I've been in Germany again, bringing with me, as a present both for the missed Valentine day and a particular anniversary we had the 15th, the result of my artistic inspiration of the past week-end, the two venetian-style masks on the left.

uniforms of Right, because Mainz is famous (well, relatively so, I had no clue until Susanne told me) for its Carnival and I must say that, although I could see only a bit of it, the spirit of the period can be found everywhere, included people of all ages going around masked as just about anything, from Prussian Frederick the Great (very popular and much envied by me) time to... a flower in a vase.

Susanne, the poor thing, is swamped in studying for her exams and, while I think I managed to have her forgetting about the coming onslaught and relax a bit, I sure didn't help her with her studying schedule. I feel guilty, actually.

Anyway, to celebrate the above mentioned "special days", we headed out for dinner, finding our favourite restaurant once again closed and looking as it had been so since our previous visit and making us believe it could be closed for good. We found a suitable, even if less atmospheric, alternative and had a pleasant meal, the proceeded to head out and have a little walk in an unusually busy and colorful Mainz (only at Christmas I had seen so many people around, whereas the general feeling is the one of a militarily imposed curfew at 19.30). More dye the curiosity of the moment than anything planned, we entered one of the several big tents raised in the main square and alleys around the cathedral, finding ourselves in an improvised disco where, again, people of all ages (I've seen kids of perhaps 12 together with mature couples in their fifties) were enjoying the disco music, the occasional beer and dancing. So it happened that we danced without interruption (except for drinking a beer and avoiding a brawl suddenly exploded and quickly extinguished just a few steps from us) from 9 until 2 am.

Sunday passed, as always when in Mainz, in talks of impressive depth (this time, about the objectivity or subjectivity of a system of ethics and moral values), dozing off (at least for me, considering that I had slept less than 9 hours in the previous two nights) and glances full of hate to the (three) clocks of the room and, as usual, way too soon it was time to head to the station and get the bus back to the airport and then the flight home, during which I finished the disappointing or, rather, dull "Romanitas".

Today, I'm back to my new work, only slightly less frenetic than it has been the last week (one of my missed colleagues made it back, considerably relieving a bit of the pressure) and with an unannounced news: in 20 minutes I'll be heading off (with a taxi paid by the firm) to some ministry as part of a delegation to I have no clue which authority for I do not know which business: another new experience.

A brand new world

I realized, not without some degree of surprise, that a whole week has passed me as a wink of an eye and that I hadn't time to even think about writing something on my blog. The reason is simple and it's indeed a good reason: my new job.

It's surprising how time passes quickly when you have something to do, I had forgotten the feeling of discovering it's past lunch break not because you have been staring at the clock every five minutes or so, but because your stomach is sending noisy protests (not that he stops afterwards, considering that until I' allowed to be back to the pool, my lunch consists of one banana and a yogurt, but that's another story) or the surprise of rising your eyes from a paper or a PowerPoint presentation to realize it's time to go home or that, as it has happened the last two days, that you should already be there.

Now, to be honest, it could not be always like that. For a series of delays of the HR department I happened to start the new job much later than the date planned, which originally should had been the 1st of January and then was moved to the first of February, just in time for me to be in hospital. That, in turn, made me start the new work two days before the new Board of Directors took office and in a week where, for one reason or the other, the personnel of my department was reduced from 6 to 2 members, one being the totally inexperienced me. So it happened that I had my baptism of fire in the worst situation possible (I didn't even know where the documents were stored, not to mention how) and to make things even heavier, 2 senators and a member of parliament chose exactly this moment to start asking things to the Government about us and on, obviously, who's asked elements about the answer if not the "Institutional Relationships" department?

And yet, despite a lingering feeling of being inadequate, or at least totally unprepared to face the situation, it was exciting to deal with all of that and I probably have spoken more with my new boss over the past week than I did with my former one over the last three years. All in all, I still have no clue for real about what I'm doing in a general prospective, but in the specific I'm pretty happy, even if, having lost totally the habit of working, days of intense use of the brain for 8 or 9 consecutive hours left me exhausted in a way that I hadn't faced since the last weeks of thesis redaction at University.

The funny thing is that in less than a week I already established myself as the computer-savvy guy of the department, especially when it comes to PowerPoint presentations and graphical editing (which, considering we are also a PR department, come handy) and that without doing anything really special but revamping the limited knowledge I had acquired and then never used again since University time, but such is life I suppose.

On the wrong side, because there's no rose without thorns, I've just arrived there that rumors about my boss being removed by the new CEO are spreading around and a few, older, members of the department (even if not of my same area) more or less evidently feel threatened by me. once again, I might be facing in the near future a cold war I did nothing to provoke.

A brand new world, in the end, but with some elements of the old one indeed.

My last two weeks (and a 110/120)

It's scary how easy is to summarize the last two weeks of my life in just two words: surgery and recovery. Indeed, that was almost all that took place in the week, with a couple of notable exceptions tho.

Monday I checked in at the clinic early, had the various analysis done and then waited and kept waiting for the surgeon to arrive. From late morning, when the surgery should had taken place, we moved to lunch time and then early afternoon and, considering I hadn't drunk or ate anything since midnight, it wasn't easy. Then the moment came and I found myself nervous, not so much for the pain to come, but the idea of being put asleep and being helpless, possibly never to wake up again always deeply troubled me. I did wake up, obviously, little more than one hour later, to find myself no so much in pain, but unable to speak due my nose being totally filled by tampons. The day went on well and without incidents, if we exclude my fainting to the ground in the evening (my fault, I had been warned it was too early to stand, luckily, despite my "I'm perfectly fine", I was wise enough to have my father close).

The problems started the day after, when I got back home and I had to start eating something, rather then being fed by flebos. Then I found out that swallowing, that at the beginning was a nuisance, as time progressed became painful and then a torture, just as much as the sore throat and bruised lips caused by days of continuous mouth breathing. Yet, the worse moment was undoubtedly friday, when the tampons had to be removed in what turned out to be the second most painful moment of my entire life and a really traumatic experience as three balls made of 1,5 meters of cloth each were removed from my nostrils. It took a good half a hour before I was able to stand properly again and another quarter of hour before I could walk to the car and make it back home.

The following days were easier, mostly spent in or over the bed reading (and in fact, after months, I finally managed to finish my book about the Russian Revolution), reading, watching tv and playing with computer games. Strangely, I found myself exhausted most of the time and sleeping during the day has not been an uncommon occurrence. I also managed to make a couple of attempts of drawing with my new graphic tablet, but the results were... well,worse than horrible. At least some good news came in the form of Susanne being accepted for an internship in Rome, which means she will be here for a whole month in March, and my TOEFL result, scored a pretty good 110/120 (30/30 reading, 29/30 writing, 29/30 comprehension, but a meagre 22/30 speaking).

Being discouraged to drive (apparently, nose surgeries can have some temporary effect on balance), there was not much I could do. Once I went walking around with my father, discovering things about the place I live I could had never guessed, while on thursday I visited Liesbeth at her working place (making a good 7 kms walk while at that) and had lunch together.

By friday, I had enough of staying home and decided to go to the VCN Happy Hour, unexpectedly receiving a kind of a award, but ending up stuck at the bar for hours waiting for the weather to improve enough to allow me to drive back home. Saturday I started preparing the room for Susanne's future visit, freeing up space for her in my wardrobe and going out to buys some staples and, finally, sunday my artistic side once again emerged while I prepared something to take to Germany next friday, which I cannot write about yet, should Susanne happen to come reading here, being it all a surprise.

And so two weeks passed.

Nova Roman days

I've said over and again what Nova Roma is and who novaromans are and the fact they can be the most different people put together by their love for ancient Rome. Recently, a new member joined who happened to be the owner of a hotel in a touristic place on the Adriatic Sea and who invited over any Novaromans who would had liked to go there. Chance was seized and it was quickly organized a national meeting which was joined by a bunch of representatives of Dacia (ie, Romania). Of course, Murphy's law (renamed for the occasion Murphii lex) struck and we happened to schedule the meeting in what turned out to be the week-end with most catastrophically bad weather of an otherwise insanely warm and dry winter.

A premise must be done: on friday, after months of absence due by conflicting scheduling with my travels to Germany, I had finally returned to a VCN happy hour, eventually making it back home at around 2 am. That was probably the cause that made me live the traveller nightmare: having accepted a ride and having set an alarm clock after having said to my mother to wake me up at the established hour, I was indeed brought back to life by my mobile ringing and my ride announcing me he was basically under my house. Obviously, my mom had overslept and my alarm hadn't fired or I had simply ignored it. If you consider I still had to do my bag, you have the complete picture.

Anyway, I managed, skipping breakfast, to be down in less than 20 minutes and after having recovered the other representative of the roman novaromans we were set to cross the Appennini mountains and facing the snow in what was a travel that I spent mostly sleeping. After arrived in Vasto and got our rooms (single ones, the generosity of our host was incommensurable), we had just 15 minutes to say hi to the others as it was already time to go eating.

Indeed, the whole week-end was a never ending series of eating and visiting of monuments or museums, but especially saturday the eating surpassed anything else. After a gargantuan banquet in a farm and a few hours spent in the ancient part of Vasto (interesting especially for the newly discovered roman baths and for the odd facade of a church, only thing left standing when the rest of the building fell in the sea), it was once again time to eat, this time in the hotel, but with a dinner prepared for the eventuality that the mayor would had attended (which means, even richer than the lunch) and completed with a cake prepared for the occasion.

The day after, rolling rather than walking so full our stomachs still were, it was the time of Chieti, the famous (for the ones into such things) Capestrano's warrior, it's twin temples and the theatre, the visit made somewhat harder by a vicious wind blowing from the north. After the thorough visit of Chieti, in which we were taken by an uncommonly cute archaeologist, we Romans decided it was time to leave and avoid the ice and possible snow that was forecasted for the night and so we parted, regretting not being able to have such week-ends more often and inviting everyone to be in Rome the 21st of april (Rome's birthday).

Back to running... no, writing

Writing a blog is, in a way, very similar to jogging or swimming in that you need daily discipline. You can cover easily a long distance if you do it every single day as a routine and even skip a day or two without consequences, but if you stop for a prolonged period than, unless you are one of those people with an iron will, it can be quite hard to get back to it.

That's precisely why it has been, besides the little message that makes the previous entry, two whole weeks now since I've last written. Yes, I've been down with a surgery and the consequences of it (and, let me tell you, the extraction of the tampons from my nostrils has been the second most painful and physically shocking experience of my life). Yet, it has been days now that I've been fine enough (if for "fine" you mean feeling like having been punched hard squarely on the nose and having a heavy nasal cold at the same time) to write.

And is not even that there are not any news, because in fact there are some news that are of, relatively of course, great proportion, but it was the simple will of sitting down and concentrating enough to put down thoughts in a written form that was lacking. But I know that the more I keep myself from returning to the daily exercise, the harder it will be to do that and so, here I am.

So, where to start, I wonder. From where I left, I suppose, and that was the tuesday of the ethnic dinner. Wednesday was a calm day as the movie evening at the cinema that had been planned was called off. Thursday, on the other hand, was interesting as, after almost a year, I took part once again in the Arcadia's tandem program. The Arcadia is one of the american universities which have opened a campus in Rome over the last 5 years and they try to pair up their students with some "locals", meaning romans, in order for them to practice italian and learn a bit of the local culture.

The first time I took part in this exchange it was a total disaster, as the person i was paired of and myself turned out to be totally incompatible. Since then, apparently the program changed and is now based more than on pairings, in groups around a table with some good wine in front of us (funnily enough, several of the students around the table would be forbidden to drink back home). It was a pleasant evening, all in all.

Friday (the 26th) was also a relaxed day, marking my last day working for the department I have been part of for exactly 3 years. There was an odd atmosphere and I spent my time sorting out papers, some of which had to stay with me, some had to be passed to the colleagues, but thmost part was shredded as useless. There I realized how much time and energies I've wasted over the last three years, since I started working where I work (1st febraury 2004). Yes, that did allowed me to have a bit of money and (thanks to the italian way of life of staying with my family) even to save a bit, it did allow me to travel and see my girlfriend, but on a purely professional level, I feel like three totally wasted years which are pretty much symbolized by my closet, which after the cleaning up was for two third empty.

And the week-end came, but that will get its own post (later today or tomorrow) as it was spent away from Rome with a somewhat odd bunch of people, known as Nova Romans...