xmas holidays are nearly here!

Two-and-a-half weeks of agony have gone by. The agony of being on the job market, that is. The OECD in Paris still has not got back to me. In response to me asking, I was told that the final decision had not yet been made. For now, i am still taking that as a kind-of-positive sign (it's not NO...), but I guess hope is not great on that front. And, in all honesty, the number of interviews in San Francisco is also kinda disappointing. I'll obviously continue blaming the market, and the fact that I'm in the wrong field (which, by the way, is definitely true....) to be succesful. Oh well, I'll just have to do my best in those few interviews I have. And after all, it could have been worse! I could have had none... Anyways, my forced xmas holidays are nearly starting (due to the fact that the university is closed between 24dec and 2jan), so it's all quite rushed right now to finish as much as possible before then. Of course, in-the-house, there is also much to do, such as preparing for xmas dinner! Friends of Fedor are coming over, and it will be up to me to prepare an 11-course xmas dinner (details follow afterwards)...

One thing I hadnt posted about yet is our trip to Sicily, a week ago. It was one of my xmas presents to Fedor: a return trip to Trapani, Sicily (I HEART Ryanair). While we had a lot of fun, and had some fantastic food, the trip was not quite the success it could have been. Sicily is not a place to be in December, while relying on public transport. And we did, because Trapani itself is not all that interesting, so Fedor had selected 3 things around Trapani he wanted to do. And while we tried hard, getting up early and exhausting all options (bus, train, walking), we ended up with a total score of ONE of THREE. Even Meatloaf would agree, that one out of three is actually pretty bad... So for any future visitors to Sicily: RENT A CAR. it's not that expensive, and it makes things so much easier!

However, as for the things we DID see:

 

In the background, you can see the mountain Erice, with on top of it the old town of Erice, one of the places we wanted to go. However, after trying a first bus station, we found this huge field of asphalt. Apparently a bus station of some kind, except that no buses seemed to have been there for at least two years. In the end, after walking for quite some time, we did make it to the mountain, but when we got there the funicular was out of service, due to strong wind (it's an ISLAND, for crying out loud! Of course it's windy. And it wasnt all that windy, anyway!) and climbing the whole mountain on foot was a bit much for us.

 

So we, once again, returned to the train station, where we spent quite a lot of time, in general! At least, they had a lovely little tropical garden, as you can see...

 

 

Finally, we did make it to Segesta (dont ask about the way back though.....), which was pretty amazing. It's in the middle of nowhere and constists of an old Greek temple and this city, with theatre on top of a large hill, from which you can see very far across the island. Here, as opposed to Erice, it actually WAS windy... Anyway, it was a beautiful place to be and totally worth it.

However, let me repeat it, for future reference: rent a car.

And I have taken this lesson to heart for some of my future trips and decided to rent a car when I am going to visit Yosemite in two weeks. Doing that on public transport is bound to be absolute hell, so a rental is definitely going to be a better plan! This is part of my trip to the AEA meeting in San Francisco for the Job Market. I will be in San Francisco from december 31 until January 6. Then I go to Yosemite and fly out on the 8th, to New York. I will have a whole day in NYC and take the night flight back to Milan in order to arrive back on the 10th. It'll be lovely! And I will have short week to recover from that trip, before going to the London job market the week after, from the 16th until the 19th (that will be the first time Fedor is actually going to join me on any of my business trips!).

So enough travelling in the near future!!!

For now, however, I will wish everyone happy holidays and a nice and quiet (or not, whatever you want) xmas!!!!

Ciao,
OJ

Immacolata

Happy immocolata everyone! That is, the day of Madonna's Immaculate Collection (uhm, or Conception: I never know which one) and therefore, a forced Free Day! At least this year, the holiday of San Ambrogio was on a Sunday (yesterday), so that was not an additional free day. Oh well, while I would have preferred to be working right now, I guess having a three-day-weekend is not too bad either! It has given me the opportunity to put up all the xmas decorations and make our xmas card for this year.

Particularly the decorating-thing was quite a crisis. I had decided to finally go for a more subdued and traditional xmas tree this year, instead of the horrible collection of light and colour that I usually apply. But, it turned out, that all my neutral xmas lights didnt work anymore! Can you say drama? Anyways, I bought new ones and quickly decorated the tree into a lovely red-white-silve ensemble. And we managed to buy the first xmas presents as well, so it all looks lovely now!

Yesterday, we also got the opportunity to enjoy the O Bej, o bej, market: the yearly San Ambrogio-related event with lots of stalls selling food and other goodies. But, strangely enough, NO mulled wine this year!!!! (ie gluehwein, vin brulée or vin chaud). Quite a disappointment, I must say. Oh well, we enjoyed some on Saturday already, home-brewn and gorgeous!

From the Job Market, there has been no news, apart from the odd rejection here and there (oh, you think that just because I know nothing about Urband Development and India, that makes me an undesirable candidate for working on your Urban Development Project in Hyderabad, India??? Well, FINE! I don't even WANT to work for you anymore!). So in the meanwhile, i just continue labouring on my dissertation and assisting the students that come to me by the dozen nowadays...

Ciao,
OJ