Valentine's Day!

A short Summary of what's been happening: work, work, work, my Mother-in-Law came to visit (woohoo, I received Rome, season 2, as a belated bday present!), lots of sun and great weather and more work. And of course, Valentine's Day:

Well, to be honest, we did't really partake in the whole Valentine's tradition and we didn't particularly celebrate it. We did, however, go to Verona for the weekend! And Verona, the city of Romeo and Juliet, is also known as the city of love, so we sort of turned it into a Valentine's weekend-trip. I had used hotelclub (see link on the right-hand side) to book a 4-star hotel for only 53 euros and it was fantastic! An enormous room, nice little thingies and an amazing breakfast: it was gooood!

The weather wasn't great, unfortunately. Cloudy mornings, sunny afternoons, but with rather low temperatures. But that didn't stop us from going around the city and visiting all the interesting sights!



We returned to Milan Sunday night, very satisfied.

In other news, did I mention I presented my second paper? Well, I did and it was received reasonably well. Currently, my supervisors are looking at it and I am waiting for several conferences to respond. It's looking good! I have also started working on my third paper (within the PhD): a cooperative project this time... So now starts the final phase of my PhD, I guess. I am trying to arrange my oral examinations before Summer and I am really aiming to hand in the dissertation before February 1. We'll see.

The week ahead: Thursday we're going to an Eritrean restaurant! Some friends recently went, and were very enthusiastic. So we're going on Thursday, with some other friends of ours. I cannot wait! Then on Saturday, we're flying to Porto, to visit Marta! It will be lovely, and the weather is forecast to be really good too, so that should be very enjoyable. Either way, it'll be great to see Marta, even when it's not sunny!!!

Yes, I realise this post is completely messy and makes no sense. Oh well, shit happens, I cannot be bothered to go through it and let it make more sense...
Ciao,
OJ

Happy Bday....

It's the season to be older.... I wonder if anyone ever researched whether there is a correlation between birth month and probability to do a PhD (actually, I know some research which does look at birth quarter and education achievement, but not on PhD level), because in my PhD it seems that by far the greatest majority is born between mid-January and May. This means: lots of celebrations. Last weekend was Felix's turn, but he decided against celebrating it. Obviously, we didn't accept this and we (well, I) organised a surprise party for him this weekend. And it was fun! Unfortunately, I did forget to bring my new party-camera I got on my own bday. So no interesting photos of the event...
For the rest it's been hard work to finish my paper before a few conference deadlines. And I managed! The first version of my second PhD-paper is now finished! "Measuring Ethno-Linguistic Affinity Between Nations": in the theatres near YOU! Well, the latter part may not be true, but I will be submitting this paper to a number of conferences (Ankara, Tunis, Amsterdam, Zurich, Athens): we'll see what's going to happen... But I must say that I am rather satisfied about the speed with which this paper has been written. I got the idea in November, so it only took about 3 months. And while it is not completely finished of course, the body of it should be just about finished. I will present it at the Graduate Seminar Series at Bocconi on Monday: let's see what people think...
I have also started brainstorming about the next paper, and it might be a cooperative work! Let's see where that goes...
Fedor and I do not see each other a lot, because we both work a lot. But at least we have the weekends together! Not for long anymore, because the bookings are starting to come in seriously now. February: fully booked. March: fully booked. April: 1 or 2 free weekends. May: fully booked. It's hard being this popular, isn't it???
This weekend: Fedor's mother. That should definitely be fun!
Ciao,
OJ

Happy bday to me!

Well, happy birthday to me! As I mentioned in my previous post, I actually celebrated my birthday for the first time in years! And it was lovely!!! I am absolutely doing it again next year. I found a newly opened hip bar near the University and celebrated it there with some 40-ish people present. What can I say: pictures say more than words, so I'll just post a collage of photos and you can see for yourself:








So, that should give a nice overview of what the party was like. My friend Maja had put herself in charge of taking photos and she did an admirable job! 335 photos in one night!

Although, admittedly, Fedor took the last photo, on the way home when I may have been slightly drunk, but apparently convinced that this was an absolutely gorgeous object and that I would not come home until he took a photo of me with the object:

Oh well, what can I say? It was a good party!

Yesterday, we did very little and simply watched some movies. One more movie tip of the week: Go West, an absolutely amazing movie about a gay Muslim-serbian couple who have to flee Sarajevo and are hiding in a small town in Bosnia. Not the most upbeat film you'll ever see, but certainly very interesting!
Ciao,
OJ

Just some things

We were in Coventry last weekend, to see Matt and Antony. A four-hour delay on the way there, meant that we had to miss out on the restaurant we were supposed to go on Friday. Instead we stayed at home and talked and drank a lot: it was lovely. The next morning, Fedor got the English Breakfast he had been looking forward to for weeks, and so did I. Of course we got to a slow start, but finally we managed to get out of the house, on the way to the city known for its ceramic and its sauce....

Do you already know which one I mean?

Do you?

Really, seriously: do you?

Well, it was Worcester. An interesting cute little town, with an amazing cathedral and a cute city centre...

 

 

We spent a few hours walking around in the city centre and take in all the sights. It wasn't too cold and more surprisingly, it wasn't raining, so this was very enjoyable. Matt is very good at making sure we see all the cities in the entire area (previously checked of: Cambridge, Oxford, Coventry, Birmingham, Stratford, Rugby and obviously London). At night, we went out in Coventry and the next morning we flew back to Milan. It was a very enjoyable trip, and it was good to see them again. And to see their new house, which I (bad friend, I know) hadn't even realised they moved into...

Apart from that, it's been lots of work recently. Still aiming for a January 31st deadline to finish a not-so-preliminary version of my current paper and I am still hopeful to make it... And additionally, I have been spending lots of time clearing up other people's examinations mess. Some things at Bocconi are really amazingly unorganised: A group of students who had a midterm exam, but got asked a question that wasn't part of the curriculum, sure that happens. But if you collectively forget to solve this problem and ignore it when people warn you about it, that's not very nice. It gets worse though: If these students (who haven't gotten their final grade for their midterm yet) then get their exam about the rest of the curriculum, you obviously make sure that no such mistake can happen again, right? So I did that, and made sure that the questions were appropriate. Unfortunately, my advice was heeded and instead some of the exercises were added or changed. Result: Students get a 5-question exam, of which 3 questions are not actually part of the curriculum... Of the 2 questions they did get, one was so badly translated from Italian that it was impossible to answer and the other one was an extension of the material they had never seen before and could not possibly know either.

Does this sound like a mess to you? It gets worse: the responible professors are all out of town and no-one else knows what is going on.

Luckily for the students, I do. Which causes a significant upward shift in their expected grades.... This has been my time-consuming good deed of the month!

Ciao,
OJ
PS I am celebrating my birthday this year for the first time in yeeeeeears: I am actually looking forward to it!

Just rambling on...

With Fedor not having to work, I am rarely home alone anymore. And it just feels a bit odd sitting next to him writing my blog. Particularly since, despite Jorryt's best efforts, his computer is now in an even sorrier state than it was before. The only thing that still runs (most of the time, not always) is a dressed down Linux version with which he can access the internet. That's it. Not so nice...

Anyways, right now Fedor's away shopping, so I have time to update my blog. Happy New Year!!! Buon Anno!!! I can't believe it's already 2008. Anyways, it's the way things go, isn't it? Time passes and the years come and go: goodbye 2007, welcome 2008! Now that I mention 2007, Christmas was a lot of fun. I think most of my courses were received well, but more importantly: we had a lot of fun! Obviously, we also had a bit too much to drink, but it was not nearly as bad as some of the christmas dinners I have organised in the past (I have half a mind of adding a picture that clearly depicts how terribly wrong things can go when drinking too much for christmas, but I have promised the person in question never to show those photos to anyone, so I won't...). Interluding the entire christmas dinners were plenty of presents. It's a fun way of spending your time in between courses: unwrapping presents! Both Jorryt and Lilian seemd very pleased with their set of presents (Lilian's new sparkly golden high-heeled shoes fit remarkably well....) and so were Fedor and I, of course! I received CD's of Sarah Brightman and the 1960's Italian singer Mina (who is AMAZING), as well as my long-desired Angels in America DVD. I only had the downloaded copy, but it's so amazing that I really wanted to have the DVD as well. Finally, two of my other presents really stand out: a chocolate fondue fountain (seriously, we now have a chocolate fondue fountain: how frigging awesome is that?) and a book I had been looking for for a long time: The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith (you know, the guy who invented economics), which is an obvious must-have for any economist.
Of course, like last time when Jorryt and Lilian visited, we went on another little trip. This time, we rented a car and drove to the north-western Italian region of Valle d'Aosta (apparently the smallest and wealthiest region of Italy). It's an Alpine region, where there are apparently excellent skiing opportunities and some amazing landscapes. Of course a trip with Jorryt and Lilian isn't complete without a Hillman Wonder to see, and luckily there's the Matterhorn on the border of Italy and Switzerland to see. Or Mount Deer, as they called it in Italian (Monte Cervino).



After seeing that and playing in the snow for a bit (small bit), we had lunch in a ski resort before continuing to the regional capital Aosta. A cute little town, where it was very, very cold, so we didn't stick around very long.

The trip back to Milan was not very far (it's only about 2 hours away, really), but the fog was quite dangerous. At one point, we could hardly see the road markings, never mind about road signs or other traffic participants... I was extremely glad not to be driving (thanks to Jorryt). In the end, we made it home safely and in time to enjoy playing some more games as we do often...
The next morning, Jorryt and Lilian left and I decided to go back to work, and because my own building was closed, I went to my old office, where I was hoping to be able to use a computer. I felt very lucky when it turned out that not only were there computers available, there was even heating! That's the first time between xmas and new year that the university actually doesn't switch of the heating system... Unfortunately, they did decide to (temporarily) switch of the network, making it impossible for me to access both the internet and my own documents. Conclusion: little work was done...
Oh well, a few days later the network was back online and I have been doing quite a bit of work since then. Of course not many people are in the University, although it started picking up again the past 2 days (mind you, both 1st and 2nd year students have exams starting on Monday. So they ought to be back).
New Year's Eve was spent at the house of Belinda and Enrico, who returned from their honeymoon in the morning, after getting stuck in Dubai (piece of advice: if you're not European, make sure to bring your Permit of Stay when you leave the European Union...). It was a pretty good night and we got home around 4-ish.

Finally, we've had snow.
...
...
...
It was disgusting. It rain-snowed on Thursday and actually snowed on Thursday night. Friday during the day, it may have looked fairly pretty, if it wasn't for the rain that was falling, and the fact that the snow had already turned into one big muddy quasi-frozen Margherita. Slush, that is.
I'm glad that's over, anyway, and temperatures should be up again soon!

Ciao,
OJ

PS Movie Tip of the day: The History Boys. A BBC production based on the play that ran at the Royal Theatre in London in 2004. Absolutely excellent movie and interestingly enough, using the same cast as the play. Absolute must-see!

Happy Holidays!

So, the holidays have started. Of course, just my luck, I have been sick for about a week now. However, I feel I am recovering now, and I am ready to start cooking. Actually, I have already started cooking this weekend, but the majority of it will take place tomorrow (and the day after). My 10-course meal is looking to be absolutely lovely, I truly believe. I even managed to get fresh tuna this year, in order to make my tuna carpaccio! So that should certainly delight Jorryt and Lilian, who will be arriving in an hour or so.
And of course christmas is also about unwrapping presents, because our tree is absolutely covered in presents, right now, so there will be quite a bit of that to do as well!

Unfortunately, we're not having a white xmas :-( Unless foggy white also counts, because it's been quasi-foggy all day long today... Anyways, to compensate for the lack of snow, we'll go to towards the Alps on Thursday, using the car we're renting for that day. So, that'll be a lot of fun too!

Anyways, all I wanted to do right now is wish everyone happy holidays!!!
Ciao,
OJ

Too much to discuss.

Well, actually, now that I am thinking about it, there's really not that much to discuss... Lots of work, a few nice evenings here and there, the works. We had friends of Fedor over for the weekend, who kept us rather busy, and we said goodbye to our friends Nina and Antonio who are moving to the Netherlands.

More specifically, I am happy to report that it's nearly christmas! And that means several things. First of all, the courses I am teaching have nearly finished, so that creates a lot of extra time in my schedule. This whole teaching business may be ridiculously overpaid, but it certainly does take up a lot of time. And it's so frustrating when students simply refuse to participate properly (they had complained after the midterm that the classes weren't interactive enough. I try and make them more interactive, but they just refuse to cooperate with me...). But it's good to know that that is nearly over... The second thing I love about xmas is all the functions that are organised. Although I must honestly say that this year there are not a lot of them. Even Fedor's job is not organising a xmas party this year :-(. But at least on Monday, there was a nice lunch of the department of Economics. Tomorrow is the xmas dinner for student representatives (but I'm not going to go) and Thursday afternoon is another session with just the PhD. So, it's not a terribly bad score, but I have had better years! The final thing that is so great about xmas here is the decorations! Milano has really expanded its decorations budget this year, that's for sure, because the city is simply gorgeous! Piazza Duomo is stunning, and I have shown photos of the Castello before: nice, wasn't it?




But, one thing is has been very disappointing: no Swarovski-decorated xmas tree in the middle of the Galleria this year. I was very sad when I found out the Swarovski tree had been dumped...

Finally, the flu has been going around and it has entered our home. Not good... (I say while blowing my nose and coughing my lungs out)

Ciao,
OJ

Happy Sant'Ambrogio everyone!

Ho, ho, ho, it's nearly christmas! Well, maybe that's not entirely true, but we're totally getting into the xmas mood! It helped that this Friday was Sant'Ambrogio, the patron saint of Milano, so Fedor and I were both free from work (well, Fedor was free and at University, they just lock the building so it's actually impossible to work, but that's just a detail). Instead, we started on our xmas shopping! And there are so many things to buy in this city, it's very exciting to go shopping!!! Particularly because I made 200€ last Wednesday by recording the slogan for a radio-advertisement in a few European countries (I did the Dutch, German and English slogans), so I actually had money to spend on shopping!


And the city is becoming so beautiful with all lights and decorations throughout, it's enchanting! A final thing that really adds to the athmosphere are a number of markets that open around this time. The official christmas market, I haven't actually been to, but I know from other years it's really lovely. The Sant'Ambrogio market named O Bei, O Bei, however, was as lovely as always. An enormous market with lots of christmas goodies, and food and mulled wine (gluhwein). I love going there...


A separate market that started in December 1 and ended today is the Fiera Artigianale in the local convention centre. It's an ENORMOUS fair with handmade goodies and lots of food from all Italian regions, as well as many other countries of the world. It's absolutely gigantic and we went today with friends, but there was simply too much to see (and taste).


Of course we have also had a few social activities during these days, going to (finally) see the new, uhm, well, house is not appropriate, neither is appartment, but room sounds too aweful. Let's say we went to see the new "domicile" of our friends Felix and Annaig. It's, well, small. But the building is gorgeous and their kitchen is 3 times as big as ours. And they made good use of it, cooking us a grand meal on Friday. Yesterday we went out for aperitivo because Nissrine was in Milan for the weekend. She was very sad, because of all the trouble with her permesso. She actually has to go back to Canada for a few months, even though she has a job and the company is willing to do everything for her. But the bastards at the police station refuse to give her a residence permit. It's sad.

Anyways, the shopping weekend is nearly over and it's back to business on Monday.

Ciao,
OJ

Where to start

You know how it works: You don't do something for a while and then you realise you really should. But when you don't have time, you jut postpone it again thinking "oh well, it's been a while, so it doesn't really matter if it takes some more time". But then, at one point, you come to the stage that it has been so long that it is too much of a hassle to do it anyway. That's where my blogging is at right now. So I will give just a short overview of the past period and promise a better life in the future.
Up to a degree, I blame Fedor, because he had destroyed his computer and we therefore had only one computer to work with. And because I am rarely home while he isnt, this meant that I basically had very little time to work on the computer without him sitting next to me, waiting for us to be able to watch a movie or something. however, thanks to Jorryt's Magic Touch, Fedor's computer now kinda works again, so I can now finally update my blog.

So, over the past weeks, lots has happened. Work, work, work, what can I say... Progress is being made, but I'll let you know when there is something more definitive.

Socially, of course there are more interesting things to discuss. Like the birthday party of my friend Idil, who celebrated in a church-turned-bar, which looked fantastic!!!

 

 

 

It was the same weekend that Fedor's friend Wouter was visiting, and we had a really good time with him and with all our other friends. The weekend after, Fedor went to see friends in Belgium and I went to the Netherlands to see my new-born niece. And of course, the rest of the family. I had a really good time seeing everyone (and Jorryt was able to repair Fedor's computer, so that was good new as well). Unfortunately, while my sisters-in-law took about a billion gazillion photos, I have only receive 1 so far and I am waiting for others to be able to weigh my options which one I want to put down here.... So that is for the future.

The next party was last Friday, my friend Andreja's bday. No photos for that just yet, but I am sure they will also come in the future...

This weekend, Fedor and I went to the town of Reggio Emilia, where our friend Nissrine moved to. It's a town in Emilia Romagna that is simply gorgeous. Gorgeous, but very quiet as well. So Nissrine does not have a lot to do and she was very excited to see us... She showed us the entire town and we had a lot of fun. Nice dinner, a lovely bottle of wine in a deserted wine bar, et cetera. It was good.

 

Today, we rturned to clean the house, do laundry and get ready for another working week. A short one, because Friday is Sant'Ambrogio's holiday, followed by the Immacolata, so that means celebrations and free days! And of course, Xmas is coming up. We're listing to xmas music, we put up the xmas tree (photos will be shown in the future) and we're very holiday spirited...

Ho ho ho!
Ciao,
OJ

Still Fedor's Birthday

It's amazing, his birthday seems to be unending! Not only is he still receiving presents (although we know there is still stuff lost in the mail. At least the drawings of my niece have arrived today). But more importantly, we also finally had his birthday party last Saturday. About 35-40 people in our tiny flat, for dinner... And it was a lot of fun!!!


I did spend about 2 days in the kitchen, making lasagnas, quiches, pies, pasta salads, rice salad, potatoe salad (huzarensalade, actually! Very nice...), et cetera. But it was totally worth it, because everybody seemed to appreciate it a lot. Particularly my real Dutch FE-DOR Apple pies were highly appreciated:

And nearly everyone kept with the theme of the evening: Prosecco Party! So there was lots and lots of Prosecco to go around (and actually, there was lots left as well). The next afternoon, after having finished cleaning, the glass disposal looked as if it was January 1st!
But I also had fun letting people try out some of the liquors I made. As expected, there was little praise for Rucolacello (probably because it's kinda gross), but the limoncello and arancello was liked...

All in all, I can say that I had an absolutely great time, but it is too much hassle to do on a regular basis... Maybe next year again.

Finally, great news from Holland. My Sis-in-Law gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. Meet Hannah:

Isn't that lovely, with Leah sweetly caring for Hannah? I am very excited about seeing them all next week, when I go to see the family...

In other news: Fedor broke his computer. Stupido.

Ciao,
OJ

Halloween: the photos

And finally a photo from last Summer, when we went to Ternate with Enrico and Belinda. I know it looks like a scene from La Dolce Vita or something, but it's Belinda and me swinging on a local village dance...........



Ciao,
OJ

Halloween etc

What can I say: that was quite a party!!! We went to Caroline's house (Fedor's boss) for our Halloween party and it was great. Of course we had been debating for ages about how to dress, but finally we went our seperate ways and just did what we were best at: Fedor dressed as a 1970s porn star and I dressed as a corpse (well, that is: Dr Black, the Cluedo main character who gets murdered in that game). I wore black clothes and with the help of some fake scars and blood, looked as if someone spent quite some time clubbing my head in with a candle holder! Probably not Ms Scarlett, because there was too much blood for that: I suspect Reverend Green, but I think we'll never know...

Among the other guests at the party, there were at least 10 witches (they may be able to start their own football team!), Wonder Woman, Batwoman, a slug, a schoolboy and most impressively: the Hulk... Now this would obviously be an appropriate moment for photos, but unfortunately Picasa has decided that it doesn't want me to upload any photos right now. However, I can give you a link to my Facebook photo album instead, which is HERE.

The party was so much fun that we actually made stayed until we could get a morning tram home. So we saved money on a cab! Of course this did mean a long sleep-in on Thursday, but since this was a holiday anyway, it wasnt really a problem.

The bigger problem was the fact that because of this bloody holiday (All Saints), the University was closed from Thursday until Sunday, so I had to find another location to do my grading. I had to grade lots and lots of Macroeconomics exams and I have now finally decided that I really do not like to grade.... Anyway, today (Saturday) I finally finished that stuff. The rest of the weekend is quiet for us, no visitors and nothing else planned (Except for going to have dinner at a friend's place tomorrow), so I am happy.

Ciao,
OJ

Happy Bday, darling

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

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

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

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