Goodbye Niels & Marielle

On Friday, my brother Niels and his wife Marielle arrived. Marielle had not been to Milano before and also for Niels, our house was still new. It was great to see them both, although they unfortunately brought some bad weather along....
Friday afternoon, after a bit of a rest and a cup-of-tea, we went for a bit of a walk through town. In the evening, we were doubting between our 2 favourite pizzerias. One is hip and funky, while the other is traditional and has huge pizzas. Thankfully, the decision was made for us when it turned out to be raining badly. We simply went to the closest! We enjoyed a lovely meal there and came home afterwards. The next morning started out with (as always) the Cimitero Monumentale. By now, the weather had not actually improved, but for the Cimitero this is not such a big problem. After all, it is a cemetary and a bit of fog only adds to the atmosphere there...


After lunch at Corso Como, we went on to Hightech, Brera, the Castello and the Via Dante Photo Exhibition. A nice little tour that has been perfected by a lot of practice. It is amazing that I actually still enjoy making the same tour. I simply love showing people around! (maybe I should have become a tour guide after all). After the Duomo and enjoying some anti-war hardrock music on Piazza Duomo, we went home again to rest before dinner. Dinner consisted of Aperitivo at Le Trottoir, which was enjoyable as always. This morning, Niels and Marielle left again...
Fedor is obviously very happy, because his laptop has now returned from being repaired and it works again! So we have spent our sunday the way it is supposed to be spent: doing nothing important. Filing photos, updating our blogs, laundry, sewing (damn, do I hate sewing on buttons... seriously!). And tonight we will go for aperitivo to celebrate Idil's 30th birthday!!!
Tomorrow will be my first official Italian class (as I missed the real first one, being stuck in the Police station) and my last day before going to Cordoba on Tuesday. I will actually fly into Malaga Tuesday Morning, from where I will take a train to Cordoba. On Saturday, when the conference has finished I will return to Malaga and on Sunday I come back to Milano. I am looking forward to it, although it would have obviously been nicer if Fedor could have come along.... Oh well, nothing I can do about it now! And besides, I expect to be very busy there anyway, so it would not have been much fun for him...
Ciao,
OJ

Not Lazy, just busy

Ciao Dudi,
finally I have time to update my life again... As I wrote last time, I was about to go to the Police Office to renew my Residence Permit. Obviously, this was, once again, unsuccesful. After waiting for 2.5 hours, it turned out I had arrived 5 minutes too late and didnt realise (I thought everyone was simply waiting for the office to open, but apparently the office had already opened and closed again). This was rather unfortunate and I wasnt happy.
The rest of the week consisted of working, visiting seminars, et cetera. Many many things. Thankfully, we did have time to enjoy a little Aperitivo every now and then, as well as a beautiful sunset (from our apartment window):

Friday afternoon, we went to the Airport in Bergamo to catch an airplane to London. The roads to the airport were incredibly busy and at one point I gave up hope that we would be in time. However, as I had decided to take an extra hour in case of security issues (and surprisingly: there were none), we did make it to the flight and arrived at Stansted in the rain at about 20.45. For an unclear reason, no buses were departing from Stansted until 21.45, so we stood in the rain for about one hour. We then paid our 21euro return tickets (21 euros each) and made it to London to meat Fedor's ex-flatmate Marike, who lives in London (and whose weblog can be found here). By this time, it was already extremely late in London (23.00: everything was closed), so we did not get a chance to meet Marike's friends. We did however spend a lot of time catching up with her, which was obviously enjoyable.
The next morning, we went to the British Museum, which I must say is one of the most impressive museums I have ever seen! It is absolutely stunning (and also important, it is free and it is on The List). After a few hours of strolling through the Egyptian, Greek and Japanese sections, it was time for lunch and shopping. In the evening, Fedor and I took a train to Coventry, to see our friends Matt and Anthony. It was great to see them and we thoroughly enjoyed a lovely Libanese meal had that night.
As always when we visit them, Matt had arranged something to do the next day. We took a train to Oxford, where neither Fedor nor I had ever been before. This was an excellent idea, despite the very English rain that came down occasionally.


A lovely lunch, some shopping and then it was time to go back to Coventry again. Here we rested for a short while, before taking the train back to London, where we were met by Marike again. She stayed up with us for another few bottles of wine, until we went to catch our 3AM bus back to Stansted. By the time we arrived home, at 11.00, Fedor and I were both "a little tired", and Fedor went to bed straight away. I did not however, because I wanted to use the opportunity to return to the Police Office. After waiting in the cold outside for 3 hours, it was finally my turn. REQUEST DENIED: FILE INCOMPLETE.

Excuse me?

What?

The

FUCK!

Yes, apparently between now and the time I filed my request a month ago, something has changed, because I can "obviously" not get my Residence Permit extension if I do not hand over a copy of a bank statement. What?!?!?! When did they make that up? But I was too tired to go into a discussion and disillusionedly left the police station again. What to do, what to do...
First, there was meeting Maartje and Eden: Fedors Nijmegen friends. Fedor was at work by this time, so I went for Aperitivo with these new arrivals who had already spent a week in Italy elsewhere. On Tuesday, after a good night's rest, I was able to work again and enjoy anther aperitivo, with Fedor and his friends. Unfortunately, their visit was a short one, because they left again this morning...
Ciao,
OJ

PS VOTE D66: KAJSA OLLONGREN (5) or MARK SANDERS (7)

photos etc

Well, I finally managed to post photos. These are just a few of them, of course. The first picture is a picture of us on the Cimitero Monumentale. Don't we look like a boyband?
The second picture is from La Trottoir, the place where we went dancing on Fedor's birthday. It was very cool, as you can see. Finally, there are two pictures from the top of Duomo. An absolute tip for any Milanese visitor: climb Duomo during the sunset: it is absolutely gorgeous at that time...
Finally, just a quick picture Henning took on the Antiques Market. The weather was gorgeous, as you can see...
 
 
 
 
  

This week, the weather significantly worsened. Well, at least the temperature plummeted. By now the daytime temperature is around 12-13 degrees, but as long as it remains brightly sunny, we cannot complain I guess!
I also finished (actually started and finished) an abstract for another conference. It was accepted straight away, about which I am obviously excited. Now I have to actually write the paper that belongs to the abstract and send it in before february 1. The conference organisers will then decide whether they would like me to come to the conference and if they do, I will have an all-paid-for conference in Izmir in April!!! It would be really awesome if that would be succesful, but we will simply have to wait... For the rest, Fedor and I are enjoying our free visitor-less weekend. It is a nice to be able to be at home cleaning, reading a book and not having to do anyting else for a while. On Friday we went to see our friends Nina and Antonio. Poor Antonio has just returned from hospital after breaking his leg a while ago, so we went to see how he was doing...
Tomorrow, I hope to receive my Permesso di Soggiorno!
Ciao,
OJ

Goodbye Stephie & Henning

Unfortunately, I cannot add photos to this message. Which is unfortunate, because I have a lot of nice photos to accompany this message.... I hope to be able to add them later.
On Friday, my friend Stephie, whom I have known for years, arrived with her boyfriend Henning. They flew in from Germany, where she lives and came to stay for a few days. I hadnt seen them for more than a year, so it was really nice to be able to welcome them. Especially because they brought some lovely weather along with them. 23-25 degrees and bright sunny days! On Friday, we made our first little walk through town and went for Aperitivo with my PhD mates. We ended up, as many times before, in the beer-bar La Fontanella, where we drank a bit much. As always. But as Stephie and Henning actually had quite a lot of time available in Milan, we were able to sleep late and do things slowly. So on Saturday, Fedors birthday, we got up very late before going to the Cimitero Monumentale. A beautiful haze created an absolutely mystical atmosphere there (again: the photos are awesome). After lunch and Hightech, we decided to return home again. In a bit of a change of plans, we had pizza at home and went to a bar to go dancing. We were joined by Fedors colleague and friend Bellinda and her husband, as well as my PhD mates. An absolutely amazing and fun night ensued. On Sunday, we got up late again for the thing I have been trying to do since I moved to Milan: the antiques market. Once a month our area (including our own street) turns into a huge antiques market with about 150.000 visitors... But I never actually managed to visit it (for various reasons). And it was absolutely amazing. Gorgeous weather again and an amazing collection of items for sale (yes, we did buy a little something for on the wall). The next thing we did was return to the city center and climb on top of Duomo. We did this during the sunset and once again, the photos are gorgeous...
After another little walk, we ended up at the Bento Bar for sushi aperitivo and finished the night at home playing a card game. An absolutely lovely weekend, it was.
Unfortunately, I had to do some work today, so I left Stephie and Henning in Fedors hands and he made sure they would manage to get back to the airport and fly bank home again. At the same time, I did some work and participated in an experiment for a fellow PhD mate. Unfortunately for her, the experiment got completely out of hand and exposed a very serious design flaw. As a result she was going to have to pay out approximately 800 euros (incl 60 euros to me) for 45 minutes of work. So when the experiment had finished, she decided to cut the pay-out ratio by 2.5. Oh well, I still received 24 euros, which is a nice little bonus! And tomorrow, I get to participate in another one of her experiments... See if she manages to remove the flaws out of her research design....
Now I am at home, waiting for Fedor to come out of work so we can eat dinner (he usually comes home around 22.30 on Mondays).
Ciao,
OJ

Visitors.... from outer Space!

I am sorry for not writing anything recently. I think I deserve to be expelled from the blogosphere. The reason is twofold: As people have noticed recently, the arrival of Fedor has decreased my number of posts significantly. This should be taken as a positive thing though! We enjoy spending time together and are busy doing many different things. Unfortunately, this does mean that the amount of time I can spend on my blog is decreased a bit...
The other reason, specific for the current long absence was an enormous number of visitors that we have had recently. I have therefore been unable to post, because visitors tend to take up quite a bit of time. But I can give an overview now of the past week or so. First, last Wednesday I made another attempt of renewing my Permission to Stay. I waited for 2 1/2 hours (the advantage of having an appointment: you wait for such a short time!), and I can return in 2 weeks, hopefully to pick up my renewed Permesso: We will see...
On Thursday, Fedor's mother, brothers and sis-in-law arrived. Wow, that is certainly a lot of people! We had a gorgeous dinner in the restaurant Antonio showed us a few weeks ago and continued on to go to the Birreria. We ended up with Fedors mother and little brother at home drinking a lot of wine. As a result of this, Friday was a rather heavy day on my account. Of course we had to show everyone the city, which we did despite the horrific weather. Unlucky people, those who came to visit us during the past week. The weather was terrible and from today on, it is sunny and warm again.... Anyways, Friday night was another eating and drinking fiesta, but I was in a significantly better state on Saturday. Good, because my parents were due to arrive in the afternoon. Waiting, waiting, waiting, but no word of them. An sms sent, but no response. A call to the hotel brings no relief. But by the time I was really getting worried, I received a phonecall of my mother saying they had arrived at their hotel. However, not without any problems on the way. Not only did their telephone not work (I had noticed that already), they also lost their way in Milan (not strange, without a map), but they also ended up with a flat tyre in the centre of Milano (deja vu!!! I had the same car with me 2 months ago and had a flat tyre too!). You can imagine they were happy to finally have reached their hotel. So I went to collect them and we made a little walk through town. At night, my parents and Fedors mother went to a lovely restaurant and ended up drinking rather copious amounts of wine and beer. Sunday, however, was a dry, reasonably nice day, so we managed to get a good look at the city. All the sights: Duomo, Galleria, Cimitero, Hightech, Brera, Castello in one day... And at night, we enjoyed another aperitivo of course. By that time we had also been joined by my friends BarD and Marlous, who arrived from Rome Sunday morning...
On Monday, I got up early to take my Father to a garage to repair his tyre. Of course, I was "lucky" enough to actually know a garage where they would be able to temporarily repair a broken tyre, having been in the same situation only 2 months ago... So after that was done, I continued to Uni, where I followed an embarrasingly bad class in Income Inequality (where it turned out that my ancient, Indian Professor really, really has no clue what he is talking about anymore... Rather unfortunate that I have spent 20 hours in his classes!!!)
At night, Bard, Marlous and I ended up in a restaurant and later a bar and got quite drunk again. This strongly (and negatively) influenced my ability to get some work done the next day, so we had the good intention not to drink much last night. We succeeded a little bit in our objective, but getting up at 6.45 this morning to make sure BarD and Marlous would make it in time to to the metro was tough. Fortunately, I could go back to bed again for another few hours afterwards. When I finally did go to Uni today, I was able to do some reasonable work. And now I got home to clean up the house a bit and enjoy one of our two nights alone... Friday, the next visitors will arrive...
Ciao,
OJ

Cordoba, here I come!

Today I heard some great news!

Last month, I applied to go to a Winter School (the cold equivalent of a Summer School) and following Conference about Polarization and Conflict. Today I was told that I have been selected!!! So next month, at the end of November, I will go to Cordoba, Spain, for 4 days to learn more about this fascinating topic. All the specialists from the field will be there and I am sure I will learn so much!!! I am really, really excited about it. Especially because it will also be mostly funded. The accomodation and food is paid for by the conference and I hope Bocconi might be willing to assist in funding the flight... It is not that expensive, anyway, but it would be nice to get the flight reimbursed. Woohooo, I am totally excited about it!!! And of course, a secondary advantage is the presence of the Mezquita of Cordoba, which is yet another item on the List of Wonders...
I discovered another cool thing about Italy today. Apparently, the government decides when you are allowed to heat your house! Even though our flat is termoautonomo (own heating), as opposed to building-based heating which most flats have in Milan, we still have to wait for the government to sanction the use of central heating. Since the 15th of October, we are allowed to use our heating. Or, in fact (due to our heating arrangement with the neighbours), it is compulsory to use the heating! We had a little fight with the "termostato" today, but finally managed to convince it to switch on the central heating at certain hours...
Finally, I have managed to upload the picture of Our Naviglio that I wanted to show you:

Ciao,
OJ

Another week without news

Well, no news is a bit of an exageration. I worked on my research, followed some seminars and classes, but overall, there was not too much to do. On Saturday, apart from our weekly groceries, we also went shopping for real. Unfortunately I was not very successful and only managed to buy one pair of desperately needed trousers. I dont even really like them. Italians might be known for their fashion industry, the main street fashion (especially with respect to trousers) is absolutely horrendous. So it was quite a frustrating bit of shopping I did. On Sunday, we had another day of relaxation and quiet. Of course we did clean the house, as we do most Sundays.
Last week, I also discovered that Bocconi actually has a Faculty Council. With Student members. I was highly amazed, because it was the first time I had even heard about the existence of this council. We are currently working on the elections for the Faculty Council and of we are all hoping to be able to elect our Economics Representative Marianna. This is my second encounter with Italian democracy (after the municipal elections a few months ago), and this is yet another interesting experience. We are supposed to vote anonymously so we are provided with an anonymous white envelope in which we are to put our voting papers. However, in order to hand in the vote, we have to put this envelope into another envelope which has our name stamped on it. This way the University can safely claim that votes are cast anonimously, while actually being able to check who voted on whom... Am I the only person thinking this kinda defeats the whole purpose of the elections?
Tonight, the house has been a little instable. Or at least, the electricity supply. So I am now sitting with a few candles on, just in case the electricity switches of again. It reminds me of Athens, where it was extremely common that the electricity would switch off for a while (occasionally hours)... A lovely flashback, it is...
Now I wanted to end with another gorgeous picture of Our Naviglio Grande, but unfortunately Blogger is having some issues and it therefore it refuses to upload any new pictures. So no picture.
Ciao,
OJ

Parma, senza Parmegiano

Friday, we went out with some of my friends, for Aperitivo. We went to a new, Spanish, place, which I really liked. However, not everyone completely agrees with this... We didnt stay out too late, because it had been a busy week already.
On Saturday, it was time to do our things-to-do for the week. Go to the supermarket, clean the house, that kind of stuff. And at night, we stayed in and enjoyed a lovely lasagna dinner...
Today, finally, we went to Parma. It was AMAZING. Such a beautiful city and, different from many other Italian cities, not swarmed by tourists. We also had a lovely day for it, with about 25 degrees and Sun. An absolutely perfect day in an absolutely perfect city. Most interestin in my thought, were the residential buildings. Absolutely lovely houses and Fedor and I had more than a few "oooohhh, I would love to live there!!!"-moments. Of course there are also the great churches and shops et cetera, but the houses were the best!
Unfortunately, our lovely lunch there, did not include any Parmesan cheese OR Prosciutto... Too bad, but Fedor had has share of Prosciutto when we came home, so he didnt mind so much after all.
Finally, a few pictures from Parma.


Ciao,
OJ

Don't Worry

Dont worry, I have now reached the end of my blog-fiddling. I promise to keep it like this for a while. There are now 20 different banners, which should be coming around randomly (as a matter of chance, it seems my computer actually has a preference, but oh well), and there is one non-Italian picture involved...

Of course, I do not actually spend my days playing with my blog. I do work as well. However, my primary research project has kinda reached a bottleneck, where the bottleneck consists of a particular book that I need. And even though the Bocconi Library is supposed to be the Largest Economics Library in Italy, it doesnt have the book I need (only 2200 citations according Scholar Google... Why would you need such a book!). They promised to order the book for me, but I am kinda stuck while waiting for it. Fortunately, I have had another idea yesterday (while sitting in an extremely boring lecture) of a theoretical model, which could also lead to another paper. The only major question I now face is whether there actually is empirical evidence for the fact that I am trying to prove. So I have spent my day on doing that. And of course I also take time for other important matters, such as having lunch and entertaining first-years...

Tonight, I have had a quiet night at home, while Fedor went to the cinema with a colleague. It gave me the chance to completely finish everything I wanted to do with my blog. So I can now officially get on with my life! Btw, I will just add another picture taken 100 meters away from our house, next to the Naviglio (one of the banners is based on this picture)


Ciao,
OJ

New Blog, again

I am getting the hang of this personalising-my-blog thing. I have changed a few things again (making it look less LateX, I hope). Please note the banner in the top. It changes when you reload the page.... (yes, I do think this is a cool feature. And no, I dont care if you call me a nerd for this). I hope to be adding more and more banners, so they will always be a surprise. For now, the banners are made by me, based on photos in Italy, made by me, or by Jorryt (for the visually impaired, I am not sure whether the contrast is actually still visible, with the red-on-purple for links. If it is not: sorry)
Ciao,
OJ

No More Alcohol, Please... Ever...

Well, this certainly was an interesting weekend... On Friday, I went out with some of my PhD mates. I hadnt seen some of them for ages, so it was good to be able to go out together again. Of course we ended up at La Fontanella again and drank huge beers. At least this time, I didnt get extremely drunk, but we did end up in a thorough discussion on Italian politics etc. Fedor was out with his colleagues that night, so I finally went to bed alone. Of course he had returned by morning (after a long nite of dancing)... We had a very relaxes Saturday: groceries and chilling. Saturyday nite was the birthday party of our friend Antonio, who lives with Nina in the outskirts of Milano. This certainly was a fun party: Many new faces and some time to catch up with Nina and Antonio. We ended up extremely drunk, though, and walked home at about 4.30AM. The walk home was gruesome, but at least we were able to have a looooooooong sleep afterwards. Today, I had a class and a seminar, and tried to get some work done in between... This didnt really work, but at least I tried. Fedor, by now, has a nearly full schedule with classes as well, and he will be working nearly fulltime this week: woohooo, this makes me very happy!!!!
Ciao,
OJ

New blog-features

Tonight, Fedor went out with a friend from his new job. So I took the evening of redesigning my blog. Recently, part of my blog disappeared (in the links section) and even though I dont know how it happened, I still felt it was a reason for doing some redesigning. Unfortunately, it has been a long time since I did any webpage design and I had to do it the hard way. I think finally it worked out reasonably well. However, I do realise this statement only works for those people who use Internet Explorer, because it looks kinda sucky in Mozilla Firefox: bad luck for you guys!
Anyways, most of the changes are probably too subtle to be noticed (the background went from nearly-black to a-little-less-close-to-black, for example, for which I found a great tool). The most noticeable, however, is the new picture in the top, which is a photo I took today of the Naviglio, practically next to our house. I thought it was pretty.
Ciao,
OJ
PS Fedor also started a blog
PPS Earlier today, I posted this news story, which made me laugh... (people say we are poor: but if we include the illegal economy, we are really not that poor! Now that is creative bookkeeping!

Just a small thing

Interesting link

More Photos

Finally, I took the time today to take a few more pictures of the flat, furnished definitively. I know I put pictures here before, but those were from the time we didnt actually have our furniture here yet. But now we do! So, these are the pictures from how the flat looks now:

 
 
 
And finally, a quick picture from the Naviglio Grande, the canal we live very, very close to...
  

All in all, the house is very, very awesome!
As to my week, no much has been up since Wednesday. On Thursday, we went out for Aperitivo with a group of friends. This was fun, but Fedor and I didnt stay out too late as Fedor had to go to training early next morning. I have been trying to achieve some progress, which is going surprisingly well. Except on Friday, when I was simply having an off-day. The week-ends are still very relaxed (the quiet before the visitor's storm, from half October). We go to the supermarket on Saturday and clean the house on Sunday: nothing else! Finally, there is another link I should tell people about. I have mentioned SkyScanner before, which is an amazing website for looking for cheap airline tickets within Europe or Asia. But now there is Budget Long Haul, which contains information for cheap intercontinental tickets! Always very useful...
Ciao,
OJ

Another year, another Permesso

Recently, Fedor and I have been spending a lot of time on our bureaucratic affairs. For me it is the second time, but that does not make it much easier. What does make it easier, apparently, is coming to Italy to be an English teacher, instead of a student. We first went to the Police Station last week, arriving at 7AM (which, admittedly, is a bit late there). After waiting outside in the drizzling rain for one-and-a-half hours, we got to to the First Desk. Here I was told that, as an EU-citizen, renewing the Residence Permit takes place in a different office. Fedor, however, could go ahead because it was his first permesso. Afterwards, not only did we not have to wait long, Fedor also succeeded in getting his Permesso during the first attempt!!! (it ook me 4 attempts last year). And all that in only 3 hours!!! The most jealous-making thing, however, is the fact that, without asking, Fedor received a 5-year permesso!!! I am having trouble getting a 1-year extension, but Fedor gets a 5-year one without any trouble. A few days later, he managed his Municipality registration in a mere 2 hours as well... In the meanwhile, I managed to find the "other police station" where I was supposed to go. So after an hour or so waiting, I was told to return in the end of October. Which thuse means that my Medicare is running out (which can only be renewed with a new Permesso). However, I decided to go the local office again anyway, together with Fedor. Once more, he was very lucky and he got his Medicare arranged straight away! (it took my 6 months). However, I was able to borrow some of his luck and get my Medicare extension straight away too. So at least that is arranged.
The same cannot be said for my affairs in the Netherlands. Suddenly, a lot of bureacratic bullshit is arriving from my past again too. This includes a large unpaid bill and the recovery of a bank account! "A what?", you are asking, now. Well, apparently, a bank account which, to my knowledge, had been cancelled more than a year ago, still exists. I have not found out whether there is any money in that account, but I am very curious...... (probably not, though)
Ciao,
OJ

Many, many Moons

OK, I realise it has been long since I have written anything. But as my defense, I would like to suggest that NOT having Internet at home makes it significantly more difficult to stay up-to-date with a blog. However, the good news is that this problem has been solved! Since Friday we actually DO have internet at home! So I am not completely Skypable and MSNable any time of the night or day (well, sort of). Over the last week-and-a-half, quite a lot of things have happened of course. We went out with our friends Nina (whom I know from Highschool) and Antonio twice. We went out with my ex-flatmate twice (and ended up singing Karaoke twice as well), etc, etc. I have been working, at Uni. Working on a research proposal, for which I have managed to get the attention and interest of my new sort-of Supervisor. Additionally, we have been quite busy at Uni welcoming back everyone after their holidays... However, Fedor has been significantly more productive! He has had a few interviews and at all the place he went to, they decided they wanted to hire him! So he could actually simply choose a job. And there are still offers coming in!!! But he has made a final decision already and has taken up 2 part-time jobs. For one of the jobs he had his first classes on Friday, and it went really well!!! I knew he was a born teacher...
For the rest, too much has been happening to discuss it all. I will just tell about today, when we (finally) had time to celebrate my gift for Fedor's Master Degree. We started by going to the Absolut Ice Bar. It is a bar, made of ice. With tables and benches made of ice. And glasses made of ice. And everything made of ice. We drank a cocktail there (wearing big warm coats) and went home afterwards. At home, I made a lovely dinner for Fedor, including a gorgeous chocolate fondue, as a result of which we are now feeling extremely fat and kinda sick. But it was verrrrry yummie, anyway!!!
Anyways, now that we have internet at home, I will be able to update my blog more often...
Ciao,
OJ

Back from Holland

Wow, that was one exhausting week in Holland!!! At least we had a little more time then usually is the case, so we had some extra time to see friends and family. After spending 2 days in Nijmegen, we went to the North to visit Groningen. Of course, this involved heavy drinking on Saturday and Sunday, and great eating (especially witth my brother Niels, who is an awesome chef!). After Groningen, we returned to Nijmegen, with my parents' car, as well as the rest of my stuff (books, furniture). On Wednesday, it was Fedor's great day: he got his Master degree in Latin and Ancient Greek! After the award ceremony, we had a family lunch, with his entire extended family as well as a fair share of people from my side. It was all very enjoyable. Just like the party in the evening! Even though many people had to work the next day, we still managed to do some heavy drinking and partying!!! Of course, many of Fedor's friends were very sad to see him go and quite a few tears were shed... But it was an appropriate goodbye.
The next day consisted of cleaning the house and packing the car with all Fedors books and other stuff. On Friday, Fedors father and I drove to Milano with a filled-up car. The journey was actually very enjoyable and we had great weather throughout. Of course there was a bit of stress when we had to unpack the car, because of the parking situation etc, but it was not too bad. But once we had gotten everything into the flat we realised how much junk we had! I got a bit depressed thinking about where to leave everything and whether it was going to fit!

The next morning, when trying to find a parking space for the car, I managed to stupidly hit the pavement and blow the tyre of the car. STUPID. So we spent all morning on repairing the car, which I can now say I am able to do! In the afternoon and the next day, Fedor and his father went around to see the city, while I unpacked our stuff. This went amazingly well, and we are able to fit everything in quite easily! I will soon post some more photos of how it looks now that it is furnished. Very different, I can tell you! On Monday, Fedors father left again and we got back to Real Life. For me, this consisted of returning to Uni and trying to get started again. Officially, the academic year starts Monday 11th, but I wanted to get a head start. For Fedor, however, Real Life consisted of job interviews. Because suddenly, he received invitations for a number of interviews. And they went really well! In fact, they went so well that he now has 3 job offers, out of the 3 interviews he's had... OMG, this is great news!!! He can basically choose which job he will take (all English teaching), which is going to be a problem: he likes them all!
And they pay quite well, too! Better then we expected in advance, anyway...
So in conclusion: LIFE IS GOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ciao,
OJ

Holland, here we come...

Well, since visiting Rome, we have not been doing much at all. Fedor has been applying for jobs, I have spent time at University, but not studying intensively (at all), and we have been preparing a little bit for our next trip to the Netherlands: tomorrow, that is. Of course, this has meant buying presents for people, making preparations, etc, etc. But we are completely ready to rock-and-roll!

Last Monday, we went to my old flat in the Via de Cristoforis, for Marta's birthday. Micky had organised a little BBQ and we had a really, really great time eating and drinking, and drinking, and drinking, and drinking. At the end of this, we were full. And drunk. Of course, by now we had missed the last metro and the last tram, so we had to walk home in the end. Not my first time I walk between the Via de Cristoforis and the Naviglio area in the middle of the night, but definitely the first time of walking in that direction! But we had a really great time and it was nice to see the old flat again...
Yesterday night, we met up with my friend Astrid, who was quickly dropping by Milano for a day or two, between holidays. It was nice to see her and it was nice to show her the flat: she was actually the first official visitor we had to our house!!! And we had a little, nice, aperitivo with her.
Right, so for those of you who I will see in Holland, I am looking forward to it and see you in a few days.
Ciao,
OJ

Roma

Well, well, well, wasn't Rome a treat? Well, yes it was, in fact. Thanks to my personal guide, who knows A LOT about Roman ruins and everything related to Christianity, I have had a journey of Knowledge. Seriously, I learned so many new things, it is amazing! And I took so many pictures, you would really not believe that. But that is just because there is so much to see!
Fedor divided our trip in several parts. Monday was Roma Antica, Tuesday was (mostly) Roma Christiana and Wednesday was Roma Sud (and rest). Unfortunately, one of the main Things-To-Do in the Roma Christiana theme didnt happen: the Vatican Museums (and Sistine Chapel) were closed!!!!! Very unfortunate, because this means I only got TWO Wonders of the World during the trip, instead of the three I was hoping for. But despite this, we did have a lovely time!!!
Roma Antica included the following (most of these do not need explanation, so I will not give any. The other reason for not giving any is found in the fact that I actually do not remember all the names of everything we saw!)




The second day was Roma Christiana, from which these were some of the highlights:





Finally, on the Roma Sud and Rest Day, we went to the South (EUR, the ruins of the Terme and the Via Appia)




All in all, it was very exhausting but we did do a good deal of all there is to do in Rome in only 3 days!
Yesterday and today, we rested and chilled. Of course, I will have to try and do a little bit of work for a few days, before we actually go travelling again! Well, that is, next week we are going to go to the Netherlands for a week! It will be a busy week, that one!!!
Ciao,
OJ

Photo Tour

As our Sunday activity, we have made this little photo collage of our flat (yes, finally we took proper photos. However, excuse us for the lack of furnituture). We start at the entrance door to the building:

After going through the door, you reach the courtyard, from where you look up to our floor:

At our floor, by the railing:

And the actual door to the flat:

First, you enter into the kitchenette

Next to which is the bathroom

attached to the kitchen is the dining room (well, sort of)

And on top of the kitchen/bathroom area is our bed/attic

These last photos, I am not sure whether they will show here (some Blogger trouble). But they are pictures of our living room. With sofa, finally!!!


Now, tomorrow we will go to Rome, so expect more photos then....
Ciao,
OJ