VCN Ethnic Dinners go to Spain

(click pictures to enlarge) The 9th edition of the VCN ethnic dinner moved back to Europe, but stayed in the same language zone than the previous dinner, from Peru to Spain.

Honestly, the Spanish dinner was hastily organized and that might have had an influence on the number of people present which dropped to the maximum ever registered the previous dinner to the lowest number ever of this one, with just 16 persons (7 Italians, 2 Americans, 2 Brazilians, 1 each for France, Belgium, Japan and Norway).

However, the dinner went along nicely...and slowly, as the restaurant was probably the slowest one in serving that we have ever been so far. Yet, to some nice (and pretty italian) focaccias and some tortillas, served as appetizers, three different kind of paellas followed: the classic Valencian one, a meat and (just for one person, but abundant enough to be tried by several people) a vegetarian one, the whole thing accompanied by abundant sangria.

I must say I'm not an expert of paella, but I found all three of them pretty tasty and rich, if a bit greasy (but I suppose that's as meant). The sangria surprisingly went along pretty well (and fast!) with the food and conversation kept nice and lively, hopefully making feel the new faces (making about a quarter of the whole) feel welcomed and integrated.

The only bad point of the evening at least for me, was that the service took so long that eventually we finished right about the time of the last day-buses' and metro' run, which meant that suddenly almost everyone had to run away without having had the chance of enjoying the free coffees and limoncelloes offered by the restaurant's owner. Personally, I closed the evening escorting Yoko to the closest (and crowded, just to be on the safe side) bus station and Lucia (Yoko's friend) directly to her place, lost in Rome's suburbs... quite a trip, I must say.

The lack of our semi-official photographer (Laura, where are you!?) was heavily felt as, I do not know why, two thirds of the pictures I took came out unfocused, with only 4 surviving... my apologized to the ones who intervened and didn't show up in the pictures here.

Next time it will be Africa time again.. Cameroon? Senegal? Nigeria? We'll see...

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...

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.

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.

VCN Ethnic Dinners go to Peru

Yesterday was quite a day. Combining work, swimming, barber and then a dinner out all in the same evening is already difficult, but if weather plays hard against you and Rome's streets produce half a meter deep ponds for lack of drainage, then it becomes borderline crazy to do just one of the things. Somehow, I managed tho.

And so, we did have the 5th VCN Ethnic Dinner. After Mexico, Turkey, Eritrea, Thailand, it was the time of South America again and Peru in particular. Of course, Following the most obvious application of Murphy's law, after a winter absolutely poor of rain, yesterday we had a perfect storm to make logistics complicated for many of the participants. However, it didn't go all that bad, considering that of the expected 20 participants, 13 were stubborn enough to fight against the elements and make it to the restaurant and other 3 late comers made the whole number raise to almost the one considered in the original plan.

The evening turned out to be quite nice, the food tasty (and abundant, we all left overfed and there was still some leftovers...) and all in all inexpensive, considering that, with the exceptions of the ones who decided to try the Peruvian beer, we ended up spending less than 20 €.

(click on the pictures to see the enlarged version)

So, at 20.15, quarter of hour before the planned time, I was at the restaurant, which, as it can be seen, is in a definite Inca fashion. As it had to be Expected, there was no one yet, but already a message was waiting for me about the forfeit of 2 persons.

Prodigiously ahead of time, Can did show up a few minutes later.

But then, the storm took its tool and it eventually took 45 minutes before everyone managed to arrive at the restaurant and we finally managed to be all assembled and ready to start. Visible on the left Laura (Italy), Magda (Italy), Silvia (Italy) and Can (Turkey), on the right Claudia (Italy) and Cristina (Brazil).

The other side of the table. Visible on the left, Dario (Croatia), Isabella (Italy), Liesbeth (Belgium), Maria Rosaria (Italy), on the right Frances (USA) and, partially, Jean-Fracois (France).

Now why is everyone having their right fist up? Some sort of ancient Incaic ritual? The one on the left is Deborah (UK), then Jean-Francois and Frances.


Can tries the... slightly... spicy "orange" cream.

Isabella smiling... as usual.

Does Caroline (France) have a secret to tell? French people, for once, made the second most numerous group at this VCN dinner, whereas usually this position is taken by the Americans, this time represented by the sole Frances. The most numerous group was, as usual, the italian one.

Someone is apparently enjoying her food...

About half the people who attended this dinner had not been to another VCN dinner before. The atmosphere looseded up quickly anyway, and while some people were having fun and some had serious talks (talking with Deborah is Cliona from Ireland)...

...someone was doubling himself to control the table and make sure everything is ok with service and food (that's me).

But eventually I managed to relax as well. In the middle, Maria Rosaria (Italy).

Boy I'm beat

News, more news...

Yesterday was a day devoted to sport. After my usual 2 kms at the pool (with a time of 52 minutes and 25 seconds), as that was not enough, I went to play football until 10 pm. The result is that today I'm aching all over, but I'm sure once I'm back in the water I will be ok again (or my arms will fall off, which is also possible).

In the meanwhile, it's sales time here in Rome. Over two days I got myself three shirts, three ties, a pair of gloves, a hat and tried out 3 suits (none of them, unfortunately, fitting well). Suits apart, I wouldn't mind getting a pair of good shoes and maybe a couple of blouses, we'll see. All that while I should be studying a bit of english grammar as this coming friday is the day I will be taking the TOEFL exam.

What else, what else... I've decided to start the VCN ethnic dinner for 2007 and organizing a peruvian dinner coming tuesday. A half a hour ago, using my lunch break, I drove quickly to the place, arranged the menu and, considering I'm basically skipping lunches these days, came out of the place with an immense hunger. To make things even nicer, I was caught midway back to the office by a storm.

Thinking about it, the coming days will be pretty full: TOEFL on friday, Mainz over the week-end, VCN dinner on tuesday, the following weekend out of Rome with Nova Romans and on monday my surgery. All along, swimming and possibly some reading and german studying. I wish I had 48 hours days.

VCN Ethnic Dinners go to Thailand

And so, yesterday at least one of the two VCN-related projects I was working on, codename "Ethnic dinner", was realized. It wasn't easy. First of all, the "I'm coming" "I'm not" process was more confused than the one, already not exactly linear, that had taken place for the Eritrean dinner. Then, an underground debate took place about which restaurant we should had gone to. Finally, as the dilemma was solved, the restaurant wasn't reachable until a few hours before the actual dinner (A restaurant closed on monday and with no one to take bookings until 4 pm of tuesday.. bah).

Anyway, so it was that, after having picked up Liesbeth at home, I found myself way ahead of time at the Thai Inn. We got inside anyway (it was cold) and got some wine with which arrived the first of many little gifts by the restaurant's owner: some appetizers accompanied by a kind of peanuts' jam. As time passed by, people begun to arrive. Eventually, we had 12 people from three different continents (3 americans, 3 italians, 1 Belgian, 1 Dutch, 1 Maltese, 1 Iris, 1 Brazilian, 1 Philippine). Food came in an abundant quantities, soups apart, and averagely good quality, wine was pouring and conversation flowing. Too much wine, maybe, as, at some point, one side of the table was exchanging tongue twisters in the respective languages (and if you have never heard a Maltese or a dutch tongue twister... it's kind of an experience).

Time passed nicely and we even celebrated someone's birthday (which triggered another wave of little gifts from the restaurant, included more wine and some small pastries) and we arrived to the after dinner shots. Now, despite someone's efforts aimed at being served a sambuca (5 , which met all the time with a counter-offer of whiskey), we eventually were served with a half dozens of mysterious bottles wearing long labels all strictly in chinese (or some similar language). the only one we were able to identify was some ginseng liquor, and just because there was a ginseng root floating in the liquid and because someone met it with a "Oh! that must be the aphrodisiac one", causing a second of silence and a volley of laughter right after.

As the dinner came to an end, we were pleasantly surprised by the lightness of the final bill and by yet another present.. each one of us walked away with a bottle of red wine.

On another news, while the atmosphere in my office reached sub-Arctic temperatures, today I had a kind of interview for the new position... which might be delayed up to one month. I must say, I had to summon quite a bit of strength to keep my poker face and reply with a "Well, ok, if that's what is really needed for the technicalities...". Now, I'll be a block of ice if I shall have to stay much longer on here, with my present and hopefully soon former superior hitting me with laser beams every time he looks at me.

And, to top it all, Susanne's net is dead once again.

VCN Ethnic Dinners go to Eritrea

And while some of my friends are having their fun commenting the previous entry of my blog (isn't it what friends are for?), yesterday I had the ethnical dinner I was organizing since last week with a few VCNers.

The evening went quite well, with eventually 16 people (more than expected and more than I had booked for actually, but that was promptly solved by the pretty nice owner of the place) representing almost every continent.

We had:

Sweden (3), Italy (3), Croatia, Germany, UK and (briefly) Turkey, for Europe
Libya and Zambia for Africa
USA (3) for North America
Ecuador for South America
Turkey (but in a way, we could say that Korea was represented by proxy...) for Asia
No Aussies or Kiwis, unfortunately.

Food was in massive quantity (only the vegetarian table, I think, really finished its plate) and of good quality (and spicy, at least half of it), the Sambussas were great and we even broke the VCN famous "Law of Curt on social metaphysics" (10 honest people + Group Check = 30 Euros short), as the final bill per person, included wine and appetizers, was slightly more than half that (and actually less than that for the poor souls who didn't drink wine...). I think we even managed to arrange the returns home so that no girl was on her own, too, which is a good thing considering the stripe of sexual assault we had in the city a couple of weeks ago. Personally, I found myself driving someone on the other side of the city from where I'm living and ending up in bed at 1 am.

I think, a pleasant evening, I should had taken a camera with me, a restaurant to recommend (and thanks to all the ones who with their suggestion eventually had us going there) and for the next ethnical time... something asian, pheraps? We'll see, but it's a pity that japanese restaurants are so damn expensive or I wouldn't have any doubt at all. I have to think about something to do for the week-end. On saturday I've lunch with the Nova Romans, but I'm thinking about going to disco on friday, if I can put some people together, as there is the un-official VCN disco evening, aka Aziz's party, the first after the summer.

In the meanwhile, something is moving at work and I might be transferred at the Institutional Relations office within next week. Let's hope...

The last days

The weekend was a very busy one. The fact is that, considering I will be in Germany for 7 of the next 9 week-ends, I tried to concentrate everything over the last 4 days. And in fact:

Saturday morning I had lunch out with most of the Nova Romans of the roman community. It was nice and for a chance, there were new faces (wives and children of a couple of members), food was good and wine even too abundant. So much that most of us went walking in that little and scarcely known gem that is the a-catholic graveyard afterwards (from which, incidentally, one can enjoy a very different view of the Cestius' Piramid).

Just the time to get back home and rest a moment, and was time to leave again for the bi-weekly VCN happy hour, held in testaccio this time. Weather is being so good these days in Rome that we spent the night sitting at the outdoor tables chatting, drinking and making new acquaintances (most notably, this time, Karina and Sofia, respectively Sweden and Honduras). Also birthdays were celebrated as, we found out, between the 5th and the 7th october, three people had they birthdays (ok, one was me obviously) and a cake was presented. All in all it was a very good time, made even better by the fact Liesbeth was there (for a change) and even Alessandro and my former highschool's mates made a brief appearance.

As the group split (some to go dancing, some home), it was already quite late and it was only at around 3 that I got back home. At that point, with Japan's F1 GP starting at 7, I decided not to go to bed at all in what turned out to be a very poor decision, given the final outcome. As a consequence, sunday I was, for most of the day, totally dazed.

Monday the week started again and the only positive news was that I started to go back to swimming in what seems to be a very nice, and not too crowded, pool. For the rest, more bad news at work in what is becoming a torture. The end line is, i want to change sector in my firm and possibly change firm altogether as it has been a long time since I learned something new here, it is pretty evident they simply do not want me to learn anything more (first, I thought they just didn't care, now I know it's done on purpose) and I'm starting (or maybe I've started a long time and just realizing now) to forget what I knew. Very dangerous.

Anyway, today I'll be heading again to the pool (despite my shoulders are crying not to) to forget, tomorrow never knows and on thursday I will have guests from Hungary. And friday... finally... Mainz.

The Curse on my Scooter and Something Good out of it

Friday evening my scooter was almost stolen in Piazza della Cancelleria, behind Campo dei Fiori, at 9 PM of a friday, with hundreds of people passing by and a company of policemen just 50 meters away. What happened, I returned to my scooter after having had a drink with a friend and caught two people happily and undisturbedly intent in connecting the wires of my scooter and,as it turned out, only within seconds from the moment thay would had started it and taken it away. They fled as I approached, but left my scooter crippled and unable to start. I left it in a garage nearby for the night and today I was looking for a solution to the problem.

Now, to put this into contest, this particular scooter I have must be under some kind of curse as in the last 2 years it has been targeted by "micro-criminality" acts 5 times. The first time, while in the guarded garage under my former house, someone opened it and took away my new helms. The second time, again in the garage, someone (maybe the same person?) took away the whole plastic frontal section of the scooter. The man of the garage paid for all the repairations, but still that was pretty annoying. Months later, while parked in the street, someone took away the little lamp that lights the scooter plate. Some months later again, in broad daylight and when parked in a very busy street with hundreds of passer-bys, someone tried to open the small back-trunk and get the helms once again (the attempt failed, but I had to change the trunk as the lock got broken and couldn't be opened anymore)

What's the good out of it? Saturday morning, after some searches, I found a mechanic that was opened on saturday morning even being downtown, which it's not so easy indeed. It was at 1, 5 kms from where my 120+ kgs the scooter was parked, but better than nothing.

As I was walking form the mechanic back to the scooter, my thoughts lost in a sad analysis of how heavy it would had been to push the scooter all the way back, I heard behind me a "scusi" (something like "I beg your pardon" in the italian formal way). Now, I'm not so used to be addressed in the formal way, especially when I'm dressed with a simple and worn t-shirt, so I kept going, thinking it wasn't me the one addressd. But the "scusi" repeated itself twice and at the same distance, despite my walking on, so it was clear that someone was following me. I stopped, turned and, given my wretched mood, I prepared myself to confront a bold beggar or, at best (but I really didn't hope so), a foreigner looking for directions (I've this thing about me that leads foreigners to always ask me for directions, which is fun in a way, but not that morning).

Instead, I found myself in front of a girl who, still using the very formal third person, simply asked, in italian, something like "Sorry, are you the famous Guido of the VCN?". I was, to say the least, caught off guard and I can't even remember what I said and in which language I said it, but she just added something like "I just wanted to tell you get recognized and wanted to thank you for all the help you give over the list". Well, again, I have no idea what I said, and we just parted.

The whole thing did last less than a minute, but the point is, while I still had to push my 120+ kgs scooter for a kilometer and a half, but I did that smiling, rather than grumbling... ok, not while I had to push it up a slope, I'm only human after all, but you get the point.

So, the end of it is: thank you, whoever you were (she knew mine, but I didn't get to know her name), for having made my effort lighter and my mood better that morning. Pity that today some asshole from the very same list turned sour that very nice moment. Such is life, I suppose, and the world is full of idiots.

The ordinary madness

There is nothing better than hear about a global plot to explode ten or so planes mid-air the day before you have to take a plane yourself. Really, it's so relaxing. Especially when your own father, a man usually level headed and absolutely impermeable to mass hysteria, calls you in the office wondering if you are really sure about wanting to take a plane the day after, that the day after it's the 11th (recurrent date for terrorist attacks) and that if there were some side cells around Europe, now that their plan has been discovered, they'd probably divert on secondary, probably less tightly controlled, airports like the one I'm departing from.

Madness. Which is becoming so usual, as I remember my mom's fear last year when my brother did fly to Egypt a few days after a devastating series of bombs at Sharm el Sheik and the reccomendations of my friends to be careful in London's subway months after the bombs of last July.

Then, you get emails from a mailing list where supposedly the majority of people are intelligent international professional working for UN agencies and where someone, from the country which suffered those metro bombs and that would had probably had more than 2.000 innocent civilian casualties within the coming hours had the police hadn't done its work, wrote, in order to condemn the operate of Americans (and I suppose Israelis too):

"The great allied leaders of the fight against fascism in World War II understood that success in the war effort also required success in winning the confidence and trust of the world. Franklin Delano Roosevelt led the United States into World War II on the basis of defending four freedoms, not just the freedom from fear, but also the freedoms of speech and belief and, crucially, the freedom from want. His stirring words resonate today:

In the future days, we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms. The first is freedom of speech and expression - everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way - everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want, which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings, which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants - everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear, which, trasnslated into world terms, means a worldwide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor - anywhere in the world."

Madness, again. And so ordinary, as it comes more and more often that the thoughts of the past are quoted to demonstrate exactly the oposite point those thoughts were expressed for.

The funny thing, in fact, is that the writer sees these words as a prophetic condemn of the american/english commitment in middle east, while if you actually read it, they sound more like a posthumous endorsement of Bush's policy to bring such freedoms in places where they were definitely unheard of (Iraq and Afghanistan), even using force if necessary, exactly as Roosevelt did, after having pronounced those words, to Germany, Italy and Japan.

In fact, those words were pronounced in January 1941, one year before the americans got involved in WWII and forcefully brought democracy to Italy, Germany and Japan. I think Roosevelt would turn in his tomb to hear such words used to basically endorse a police of appeasement with the undemocratic regimes of today's' world, regimes were most, if not all, those freedoms are denied to the very root.

Anyway, supposing my plane will not explode mid-air on the way to Berlin or back, I will be leaving tomorrow and will be back in 10 days.

Now, given that, somehow, I doubt I shall have the chance of writing while there, to all my friends and casual or accidental reader one heatfelt wish: have some nice summer days!

Le déjeuner sur l'herbe

Ok, it wasn't exactly like the picture, most especially we didn't have the nude participant, but yesterday, after sunset, we did have a white wine evening in Villa Borghese which turned out to be extremely pleasant.

Born as an idea during the last VCN barbecue, it saw a half dozen people (2 french girls, a swiss couple and myself at the beginning, joined later by an italo/croation guy and another italian) gathering at the main entrance of Villa Borghese at 8 and then trying to find a nice spot, possibly with fresh water nearby to keep the wine cool. It took a bit and in the meanwhile I found myself, once again, noticing the desperate need of cleaning that our streets and parks would need.

Anyway, after having turned down the Turtles' fountain in front of the Modern Art National gallery, which would had made a great scenery, but had the downside of not offering much as sitting places (while being a favourite spot, it seems, of tiger-mosquitoes) and given that the lake area was going to be closed soon, we settled near the "Fontana della Pescheria". Once there, we did light a couple of the citronella lamps I had brought with me, opened the first bottle, took out some snacks, and started chatting along about various issues.

Time went by, the first bottle went with it, and it was the turn of an excellent "Pinot Gris" brought over by Vanessa (the co-author of the evening) and then of an agreeable, even if not comparable with the previous wine, Falanghina. It's interesting how three hours and three bottles could had passed so quickly, and yet they were and being the closing of a working day which would had been followed by another working day, we called it over at about 11, soon after the latest arrivals had shown up.

In the end, something to try again, maybe somewhere else.