holidaaaaaaaaaaaaay

After last weekend's visit to La Bella Toscana, this week consisted of more work. Not very intensively, I admit, but work nonetheless. By now, I was actually the only person still left in the office, with the exception of Lin Lin who comes in occassionally, so it was very quiet. Like the rest of Milan. Because everything is currently closed. Thankfully, there are some supermarkets still opened, but it is generally very quiet. You can safely cross the road without paying attention, because cars are very few as well.

On Thursday, I locked up my office and went home: My Holiday Has Commenced! On Friday, we took the train to go to Monate (near Lago Maggiore), to stay with our friends Enrico and Belinda. They showed us their house and after a bit of lunch, we spent the rest of the day at Lago Monate, a small chrystal-clear lake about 60kms away from Milano. It was incredibly enjoyable



In the evening, we had pizza and then met up with Enrico's cousin and her husband (who were also staying in the same town, of course: they're Italians after all!) to go to a local Festival. It was interesting, to say the least.....

Imagine the following: A stage where a blond girl (Valentina) stands mumbling, with the rest of her band (Orchestra Valentina) around her. The music they are playing is mostly Bavarian-sounding Humpapa music, in Italian. In fron of the stage, there is a large dancefloor where the entire village is swirling round-and-round. Around the dancefloor, there are long tables where people drink beer and wine (very cheap, I must say). If you are now thinking of the Oktoberfesten in Munich: that is pretty much the picture I was indeed trying to paint. Quite a shock, I must say. Of course, this did not stop me and Belinda from participating and dancing our little legs off! The moment where the entire village started line dancing, however, was our cue to get off the dancefloor. But much fun was had, nonetheless!!!

Yesterday, we came back to Milano and went our for dinner with my ex-flatmate Meghan and her most recent (Dutch) conquest: An interesting guy, whose mother was born in the same village where I grew up.... It's a small world, after all, don't you think?

Today we cleaned the house and prepared for leaving. Because tomorrow morning (REALLY early), we will fly to Bucharest, from where we are going to be enjoying our holidays (general itinerary: Bucharest-Chisinau-Odessa-Kiev-KamianetsPodilsky-Lviv-Cracow-Holland (where we want to see people: let me know whether we will see you and where.....)
Ciao,
OJ