My trip to Holland was not overly successfull. Unfortunately, my sister-in-law didn't manage to give birth in time for me to be able to go and see the newest member of the family, so that was quite disappointing. Instead, I went to see my parents, which was enjoyable too, but seeing the baby would have been better, of course!
Thursday night, I went to see my friends Andrea's house and I stayed overnight in a hotel in Amsterdam. I got "upgraded" to another hotel, but it was still pretty crappy... Why pay 135€ for 2 nights in a hotel that smells completely of hasj, doesn't have an elevator (5th floor), has tiny, tiny, tiny rooms and crappy TV reception? I mean, for that price you can stay 3 nights in a 4-star hotel in Milano!
Anyway, I got up early next day to go to Utrecht, where the conference was taking place. It was good to see some of the people that I haven't spoken to for years (from my old University, mostly). Unfortunately, my presentation wasn't the greatest success: there were some very critical voices who did not like what I did at all! Oh well, at least I got some useful comments and I have some more work to do now...
In the evening I went out with my friend Esther in Amsterdam and actually got a little bit drunk (well, I realised the next day, when I was slightly hung-over... This may also be related to the lack of sleep, however). Saturday, I spent all day travelling to get back to Milano, where Fedor's family was visiting in honour of his birthday. At night we went to an all-inclusive restaurant, where we collectively drank way too much. At home we continued drinking for some more time, but I couldnt tell you what time we finished drinking: it was a lot of fun though... And I think Fedor really enjoyed it, as well...
After a hung-over Sunday, the real world started again on Monday. And it turns out I have somehow been upgraded to sole-responsible for a particular group of students of Macroeconomics (last year's resitters), as well as assisting the professor for the group that I am actually responsible for, so there is a lot of grading to do!!! Slightly inconvenient that answering models for the exams are only available in Italian, but at least I am getting some practice!
Finally, of course we are preparing for Halloween tomorrow! We're going to go to a Halloween party at Caroline's house (Fedor's boss) and I can't wait!!! I will try to remember to bring my camera, so you can enjoy the photos at my next post...
Ciao,
OJ
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Next up: Holland
As you can guess, the past time has been crazy busy. The midterms for the macro-courses that I am teaching are coming up very soon, so the students are getting nervous and the amount of time consumed by that increases significantly! In addition to that, I wanted to finish some additional work on my paper before going to Holland to present it. The bad news is: I didn't actually finish the things I wanted to finish. The good news, however: I have had a new idea for a paper and it seems like something that could really be worthwhile! And by worthwhile, I mean relevant, new and relatively easy to do. So I am completely excited about this, and my supervisor was reasonably positive too today: woohoo!
On Thursday, I will fly to Holland (assuming the planned strike at Lombardic airports is going to be cancelled) and I will spend that day either visiting my brother's new child (if (s)he manages to be born in time), or visiting my parents. At night, I am staying in Amsterdam and on Friday there will be the NAKE Research Day in Utrecht, where I am going to present my paper (for the fifth time: I am starting to get mildly sick of it now). Then, after another night in Amsterdam, I will fly back to Milano on Saturday morning. Busy, busy, busy, because we're going to have Fedor's family visiting for his birthday...
On the subject of visitors, we had our first visitors in months last weekend, when Femke and Ruud came over for a few days. It was very enjoyable and it was nice to have them...
Finally, I should add the invite we've been sending around for our Prosecco Party, to celebrate Fedor's 26th birthday which is coming up. I think the invitation looks kinda cool, but of course I have to give credit where credit's due and I therefore thank Jorryt for the background photo that he took (and he doesnt know I'm using it).
Ciao,
OJ
On Thursday, I will fly to Holland (assuming the planned strike at Lombardic airports is going to be cancelled) and I will spend that day either visiting my brother's new child (if (s)he manages to be born in time), or visiting my parents. At night, I am staying in Amsterdam and on Friday there will be the NAKE Research Day in Utrecht, where I am going to present my paper (for the fifth time: I am starting to get mildly sick of it now). Then, after another night in Amsterdam, I will fly back to Milano on Saturday morning. Busy, busy, busy, because we're going to have Fedor's family visiting for his birthday...
On the subject of visitors, we had our first visitors in months last weekend, when Femke and Ruud came over for a few days. It was very enjoyable and it was nice to have them...
Finally, I should add the invite we've been sending around for our Prosecco Party, to celebrate Fedor's 26th birthday which is coming up. I think the invitation looks kinda cool, but of course I have to give credit where credit's due and I therefore thank Jorryt for the background photo that he took (and he doesnt know I'm using it).
Ciao,
OJ
Sunday, October 14, 2007
good times
Wow, I can't believe how long it has been since my last post. It really is just the case that there's a lot going on and I don't find the time to post anything. As I mentioned, last weekend we were in Duesseldorf visiting my friend Stephie, It was great to see her and she showed us her lovely city. And a lovely city, it is! It really is amazingly beautiful, with gorgeous architecture and very friendly people. Apparently, Duesseldorf is actually one of the wealthiest cities in Germany and with the wealthiest inhabitants as well, which explains a lot! Our visit was extremely short, but it was certainly worth it, because it was great!
Just some photos:
For more photos, go
HERE
After returning from Duesseldorf, I went to see the new exhibition in Via Dante (where there is a photo exhibition every winter), this time with National Geographic-photographers around the theme EQUILIBRIUM. I went mainly to check out the great photography, but also to take some pictures so I could write something about the exhibition on Volkskrant Reizen, for whom I write as a Travel Correspondent nowadays (in Dutch, though).
The rest of the week was lots of classes and office hours (I still hate teaching, but at least the classes are going a bit better now than my first one....). And of course, working on my research. I have had a great idea for an extension of my first paper, so I am working on that right now. I also received confirmation that I am welcome to present my paper at the NAKE Research Day in Utrecht in 2 weeks. So that means I can go to Holland for a short time (hopefully in time for my sister-in-law to have her baby........). It will be a very short time, though, because we're also having visitors around that time and it will be Fedor's birthday. So in the end, I will go from Thursday morning until Saturday Morning, but it will be nice, I'm sure. I have already booked a hotel (in Amsterdam, because Utrecht is way to expensive) and I am looking forward to it!
Finally, this weekend we had for ourselves. Well, not completely, because we invited Nina and Antonio for dinner yesterday. So I spent all day cooking and we ended up with a lovely Japanese meal. It was a great success and I think everyone enjoyed it. I tried out something new, buying a big piece of swordfish, which was an interesting addition to the standard tuna and salmon I alwasy use.
Of course we finished the meal with home-made limoncello, which I make occassionally. It was a lot of fun (and I am the only one not hung-over today, so that's good too!).
This week: lots of work!
ciao,
OJ
Just some photos:
For more photos, go
HERE
After returning from Duesseldorf, I went to see the new exhibition in Via Dante (where there is a photo exhibition every winter), this time with National Geographic-photographers around the theme EQUILIBRIUM. I went mainly to check out the great photography, but also to take some pictures so I could write something about the exhibition on Volkskrant Reizen, for whom I write as a Travel Correspondent nowadays (in Dutch, though).
The rest of the week was lots of classes and office hours (I still hate teaching, but at least the classes are going a bit better now than my first one....). And of course, working on my research. I have had a great idea for an extension of my first paper, so I am working on that right now. I also received confirmation that I am welcome to present my paper at the NAKE Research Day in Utrecht in 2 weeks. So that means I can go to Holland for a short time (hopefully in time for my sister-in-law to have her baby........). It will be a very short time, though, because we're also having visitors around that time and it will be Fedor's birthday. So in the end, I will go from Thursday morning until Saturday Morning, but it will be nice, I'm sure. I have already booked a hotel (in Amsterdam, because Utrecht is way to expensive) and I am looking forward to it!
Finally, this weekend we had for ourselves. Well, not completely, because we invited Nina and Antonio for dinner yesterday. So I spent all day cooking and we ended up with a lovely Japanese meal. It was a great success and I think everyone enjoyed it. I tried out something new, buying a big piece of swordfish, which was an interesting addition to the standard tuna and salmon I alwasy use.
Of course we finished the meal with home-made limoncello, which I make occassionally. It was a lot of fun (and I am the only one not hung-over today, so that's good too!).
This week: lots of work!
ciao,
OJ
Saturday, October 06, 2007
Paris etc.
I can't believe it's already a week ago that we were in Paris and I haven't written anything about it yet... That's pretty bad! But my excuse is that it was a very busy week. One of these typical Italian weeks: my "everything has been taken care off" job is suddenly not quite as taken care of as it was supposed to be... Of course, we don't hear anything about it directly, but only little snippets of gossip that we can dilute from secretaries et cetera. Apparently, the Powers That Be are currently in the process of deciding whether or not to cut the hours of all the tutors. For the current courses!!! How on earth is it possible to cut the hours of courses that have already started and for which work is already being done, you ask? I have no idea, but I am not impressed. My friend Idil and I have been trying to work out a system in which we both work our maximum number of hours, but now it may turn out that we're gonna be stuck with fewer hours than expected. It really sucks!!!
So all that, and all the involved information-finding missions, have made it a bit of a stressfull week.
But, indeed, last weekend we were in Paris. And it was lovely!!! The Versailles Castle was great, and we spent nearly an entire day in the gardens and the castle (which was necessary to get good-value-for-money, because damn, it's expensive to get in there!!!)
However, most importantly, this was another point from The List (number 41, that is), so half of the Paris-mission was accomplished.
We then went on to see a lot of other famous sites, like the Notre Dame
The next day, we got up early to go to the Louvre. Number 39 of The List, which Fedor and I, both hadn't done yet. We stayed for about 6 hours, during which we only saw some 15% of the actual museum... It is definitely a reason to go back again to Paris some time in the future!
But we really did have to leave, because we also wanted to visit the famous cemetery. And while I did like Père Lachaise, I was not as impressed as I had hoped to be. It's in quite a bad state of repair, with many damaged graves (who the fck damages a grave, seriously?????) and not nearly as many monumental graves as our Cimitero Monumentale in Milano. But it was interesting to see, nonetheless.
All in all, we had a very good time, but there wasn't enough of it....
Tonight, we fly to Duesseldorf for a superquick visit to my friend Stephie. We wanted to go a bit longer, but Ryanair has decided on our behalf that we should not go at 2PM, but instead at 10PM tonite, so we're not arriving until midnight. Hmmm, not very pleasant, but it'll be good to see Stephie, nonetheless!
Ciao,
OJ
So all that, and all the involved information-finding missions, have made it a bit of a stressfull week.
But, indeed, last weekend we were in Paris. And it was lovely!!! The Versailles Castle was great, and we spent nearly an entire day in the gardens and the castle (which was necessary to get good-value-for-money, because damn, it's expensive to get in there!!!)
However, most importantly, this was another point from The List (number 41, that is), so half of the Paris-mission was accomplished.
We then went on to see a lot of other famous sites, like the Notre Dame
The next day, we got up early to go to the Louvre. Number 39 of The List, which Fedor and I, both hadn't done yet. We stayed for about 6 hours, during which we only saw some 15% of the actual museum... It is definitely a reason to go back again to Paris some time in the future!
But we really did have to leave, because we also wanted to visit the famous cemetery. And while I did like Père Lachaise, I was not as impressed as I had hoped to be. It's in quite a bad state of repair, with many damaged graves (who the fck damages a grave, seriously?????) and not nearly as many monumental graves as our Cimitero Monumentale in Milano. But it was interesting to see, nonetheless.
All in all, we had a very good time, but there wasn't enough of it....
Tonight, we fly to Duesseldorf for a superquick visit to my friend Stephie. We wanted to go a bit longer, but Ryanair has decided on our behalf that we should not go at 2PM, but instead at 10PM tonite, so we're not arriving until midnight. Hmmm, not very pleasant, but it'll be good to see Stephie, nonetheless!
Ciao,
OJ
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