The Italian Voice

I feel so bad in these days.

Three days ago my boyfriend’s family found old entries of my Italian blog where I put them down, it was when I didn’t even know about the relocation and something also later, but all written no more late than this spring.
They found harsh word which I never wrote, I realized that someone had access to my Italian blog and changed a lot of things. Yes, I criticised my boyfriend’s family and I am convict about it, but I never thought and written those bad words.
My boyfriend’s family does not believe me or maybe they even do not know this fact.
I do not know how to explain things if someone does not give me the opportunity to do it.

They obviously took offence, I felt bad even by myself reading those words which I never wrote, and now they do not consider me anymore. My boyfriend is unsure about what to do, he took offence too, but maybe he still feel a little bit of love for me.

I had to leave with my parents for Belgium now, but I decided to stay at home to have more chances to talk to my boyfriend as much as I can. I want to proove him that I am not that bad person, that I stopped to think and write those criticisms for several months now, that I was very happy to get along well with his family and to move and that I love him with all my heart.
I hope he will be able to give me that opportunity, but I am not sure at all.

I can not think about these 4+ years together, we were almost ready for the final relocation and we were so happy to start a new life, me too, absolutely (I also wrote it in several entries here).

The unique thing to do now is to stay in touch with my boyfriend, who asks for time and space, and to show him my real intentions and the truth about who I really am.
I hope so badly that he will give me the chance to do it!
Now he does not want to meet me, only phone calls and one or a very few ones per day.

It is ok for me, I can imagine his contrasting feelings, but I also hope that he will think about our relationship, I am ready to be put to the test completely, I am determined to fight for my love and future with him, but I really need to act immediately about the flat and the job.

photo by sp_clarke

I am deciding to spend the major part of the day at my parents’ flat (fortunately they live just at the end of this street) to avoid to see the bills here growing and I am planning to send my CV at some job places around here.

I feel so badly, I hope to retrieve my life with him, but I need him to give me another opportunity, please please please pray for us!!! Then maybe, later in the days or months, I will get the chance to talk to his family.

Everything changes so quickly in this life, I was not ready for something like this, I was ready to move and start a new life with my boyfriend, I love him so much!!!

P.S: Sorry for the whining entry, but I really need to give vent to my feelings.

In this period, I am again dealing with the constant thought of the job hunting.
It is really psychologically stressful, especially if you live in Italy and if you already changed your job some times, like I did for several unwilled reasons.

photo by abuigues

Here you never know what to expect from an interview; in fact, if you changed a lot of jobs, some recruiters may think:

1) that you are very adaptable and flexible and is obviously good;
2) that there is something wrong in you, so maybe you are a goof-off.

So what is the right behaviour to have? What to say exactly during the interview? How to introduce yourself and your working experiences?

I guess that in Italy nothing is ok when you talk about the job, never! If you say that you are flexible, they will think that you are not reliable; if you say that you want a steady job, they will surely end up looking for someone with a more modern mind.

I am also noticing a substantial difference about the job offers in my region, which is the Emilia-Romagna, and my future place, which will be in Piedmont. Maybe I am prejudiced, but it seems that here we have more varied job offers, in many more fields, while there they only offer positions in two or three fields…

Well, I do not mind. I know the job hunting is always hard, I guess everywhere, especially in this era, but I also know that it can be quite stirring in my situation, as I will have the chance to start all over again, choosing exactly who I would like to be and this opportunity comes only a few times in life or maybe only once.
I absolutely do not want to waste my time, I have so many ideas in my mind to explore just before and after my relocation to low Piedmont.

Now I only need a 10 days-vacation to Belgium with my parents (fortunately I was able to plan a little getaway this year, I will say good-bye later, as we will leave only on July 31st), then I will start to move the last things and to really think about my future in Novi Ligure.
Yay, it sounds very exciting!

Italians are very keen about photography, we love to take pictures of what we see and what we like, so much that the act of flipping through the pages of the albums becomes a real passion and a vital sharing moment for families.

That is why I strongly believe in the union Italians-scrapbooking.

This “meeting” is happening in these last years, but we’re quite far from the other Countries with that fabulous hobby.

Anyway, it is showing a growing interest and I am sure that it will gain ground quickly, because it offers a great chance to preserve memories and even to work in that field (I am one of the ones who wanted to take that job opportunity as scrapbooking consultant immediately thanks to a wonderful Italian company so, if you are in Italy and are interested in creative meetings, markets, weekends, I will be really happy to see you where you are and to show you our great products, to suggest very nice ideas for your pages and albums and even to offer you the same opportunity to work for us if you live in Italy, simply contact me via email).

I would have so much to say about scrapbooking, it emotionally affected my life and I guess it will never leave me, I am also affecting my friend with my crazy addiction, so I will surely have the chance during the next months.

As today I am already quite in a hurry, even if it is only 6 am, because my boyfriend is coming home for his couple of days off, I will not be able to write so much, but I certainly want to show you a layout which I created about the 13 points about How to know that you live in Bologna, do you remember my entry?
Well, that entry inspired me this page:

I used two nice postcards of my capital of province, some flowers in tissue and felt, some glitter powder, doodlings, some paper clips, some letters of the alphabet in die cut style and so on.

Enjoy and I will talk to you later about my great hobby and activity, my friends. Ciao!!

In these days, it is quite hard to find good news to report, as the current Italian government is approving several “ad personam” laws.
I find it scandalous, anyone does not seem able to stop it.
Someone already told that we are going straight toward another era of Fascism.
I must admit that I totally agree, but I will try to stay calm and to write and show you the best part of this Country, which surely deserves a nice treatment, especially people who are totally different from the political class.

Some days ago, for example, as you can see here above from the small outline which I took yesterday during an online research, the undersecretary at the presidency of the lower house of Parliament, Carlo Giovanardi, approved a testing which will surely bring great benefits to the attempt of saving more lives.

In fact, four Italian cities (Cagliari, Verona, Perugia and Foggia) from September 2008 will experiment this advance test to verify the presence of drugs or alcohol into the blood of the ones who will get for the very first time or will renew their driving licence. Then, the test will become compulsory for the whole Italy starting from the 2009.

Mr Giovanardi explained that this necessity comes from the fact that Europe will approve the same important measure in 2011 and Italy wants to anticipate it to contribute to the hard process of saving always more and more lives and of educating people while driving.

In my personal experience I can say that in Italy people drive in a very bad way, drivers often break the laws of the highway code, they do not seem to mind about fines and reduction of the points from the driving licence, they cause accidents which are due often to unscrupulous use of drugs and alcoholic drinks which are usually fatal.
Someone has to stop this situation.
That is why I totally support this experiment and the consequent measure, it will surely help our roads to be safer and our lives to be healthier. Good job!

I am bolognese, so I was born with the bolognese habits, one of them is using massive quantities of the Parmigiano Reggiano cheese onto the dishes, it is perfect for their taste and it is wonderful also if eaten alone!

I tried to search for foreign online news about the “Parmigiano Reggiano case“, but it seems that anyone abroad knows nothing of what happened, so I am here to inform you and to find a solution for my own little world.

Some months ago, Greenpeace published an article with the news item that the Parmigiano Reggiano cheese woud be at risk of OGM; it does not mean that it is made with OGM, but the problem is due to the fact that the cows which produce milk eat the genetically modified soy produced by the Monsanto company (read the translated article HERE, if you find errors it is because the translation has been made by the Google’s automatic service).
By now, this Monsanto firm is famous to work with OGM without scruples only to get rich.

Parmigiano Reggiano cheese

I will not write here my thoughts, even if you can easily imagine, together with the citizens’ reactions to this bad news item, especially because it is about a famous great product which everybody abroad envy us, but I wondered how will I act when I will move to low Piedmont.
Now I am already trying to avoid the Parmigiano Reggiano, here we do not have a great choice which could replace that cheese, but other Italian regions surely have!

My boyfriend, who lived with his family in low Piedmont for more than 20 years, affirms that there is a great valuable product which comes from Lombardy with a nice flavour and even a nice price, if compared to the Parmigiano Reggiano: it is called Bella Lodi.

Bella Lodi cheese

Well, the unique evident difference is the rind; while the Parmigiano Reggiano’s one is yellow-light brown like the rest of the cheese appears, the Bella Lodi’s one is black.

Absolutely nothing to say about the flavour, as my boyfriend told me that, every time I visited his parents, I ate it onto the first courses.

Well, I can not be 100% sure about its cows’ nutrition, but they seem reliable, I also found their website which is available in 3 languages.

Extraordinary discovery, I am pretty satisfied today, I can not wait to buy and use it again, when we will establish into the new flat.
For me, without doubts, Bella Lodi knocks down Parmigiano Reggiano!

P.S. I would like to thank the wonderful Joy O’Hare who some days ago wrote a nice review about my blog and the ABolognaNet’s staff which discovered my previous entry and mentioned it into their Italian blog, thanks a lot for your kindness!!

This morning I thought again about my capital of province, Bologna.

photo-postcard by Alessandro Canova

I can not stop to realize that I will miss it a lot.
Well, this morning, almost involuntarily, I started to note down a list of points about “How to know that you live in Bologna or province” which I absolutely want to share with you now; some of these points are even hilarious, but you can also learn more about the city.
Enjoy!!

• when someone tells you about Neptune, you do not think only about the god of the sea, but also about the big statue in the middle of the Piazza Maggiore (Major Square), which is one of the symbols of the city;
• when someone tells you about the Piccola Venezia (Little Venice), you immediately understand that he/she tells about part of the Aposa torrent which flows at the open air between the buildings of the city;
• when someone tells you about the Due Torri (Two Towers), you do not remember only the ones which collapsed in NY, but also the Twin ones downtown (called Garisenda and Asinelli, from the ancient two families’ names who owned them), which are other symbols of the city;
• when you think about the most ancient university of the Western world, you picture in your mind all the ones of the city;
• when you can not decide if the appellation of La Rossa (The Red One) is attributed more to the colour of the red houses and their roofs or more to the historical preference for the Left wing of the citizens (both true);
• when you do not worry too much about reaching every place you want in Italy, because the major part of the trains passes through the Central Railway Station of Bologna;
• when it rains, you do not soak even if you do not have an umbrella, because you can walk along the long porches almost everywhere;
• when you do not find into the menu the dish called “spaghetti bologna” which does not exist, because here spaghetti are eaten with tomatoes, vegetables and other sauces, everything but not ragù (!!!);
• when you can not breathe because of the dampness all day and night long for at least 4-5 months a year, when the fan becomes your best friend in that period and when you see never-saw sort of African insects walking onto your mosquito nets;
• when you have to leave, driving along the A14 highway, at improbable hours of day and night to avoid the traffic jams everywhere, especially from Easter to the beginning of school;
• when you can not find open shops and shopping centres on Sundays (except during Christmas holidays) in the whole province, except the Outlet Factory Store and the Ikea Store;
• when, driving to the Ikea Store coming from the Eastern part of the province, you turn your eyes trying to catch sight of football players at the head office of the Bologna Football Club;
• when you speak the bolognese dialect, you are totally able to talk with French people.

I could go on until tomorrow, hahaha!!
I hope you liked these points, they are very important to remember if you decide to move here =)
Have a nice weekend and see you soon with great news!!

Ciao amici, as promised I am here today to report about yesterday evening when I spent a couple of hours with my mother at the nice Notte Bianca in Bologna.

As we live in province, we left at 7 pm, driving the car until the periphery to take a bus to the city. We got off 5 minutes far from the street of the event; the close streets were crowded and the weather a bit hotter than in the past days, but it was pleasant to walk with no hurry under the typical porches and looking around at the monuments, churches and palaces.

The event was located just downtown, in via S. Isaia, which was completely closed to traffic for the occasion.

I add here the mosaic which I prepared with my most relevant shots and here below I am going to tell you what we experienced at the Notte Bianca in Bologna.

We immediately met the ice cream man and a nice fruit stand, then we found a wonderful show at the open air with ballett dancers which attracted a lot of visitors.
I also took a video about a ballett performed in honour of the upcoming Olympic Games 2008 of Beijing of the , today I was not able to reduce its size as I was a bit busy, but be sure that I will show it to you as soon as possible, I liked it a lot, so stay tuned to watch it when it is ready!!

Going on along the street called via S. Isaia, we saw an exhibition of firemen who prepared a sort of wall climbing for children; in fact, one of the kids was too sweet, climbing the wall, all dressed with the typical helmet and jacket, helped by two men.

Not far from them, there was a special small area dedicated to a tango school literally at the open air, where couples could learn to dance that faschinating dance with a soft light.

All along the street, visitors could appreciate the music offered by disk jockeys at several consoles under the porches and fabulous jazz bands in front of the historical coffee bars while tasting a fresh aperitif and looking at the children while playing with air-balloons, as well as hunting for nice bargains into the shops which already started to sell with the summer sales.

Just before leaving, I wanted to offer to my mother the heavenly ice cream by the famous Gelateria Gianni, which is situated just behind the corner between the central streets called via Indipendenza and via U. Bassi (see this map); it was just the right conclusion for that nice evening!!

Hi my friends, I am finally back from the first part of the relocation, I am really satisfied about the result and now I absolutely want to share with you the reportage with the photos which I took during Saturday, it is so much exciting!

On Friday afternoon we loaded the delivery van which one of my foster father’s colleagues offered for the relocation.

On Saturday morning we woke up at 3:30 am to meet 1 our later at my parents’ flat together with my uncle, who did the night shift at work and came with us without sleeping at all.
Along the road, we met my foster father’s colleague with his delivery van, then we took the highway to Tortona, in Piedmont.

From top to bottom, from left to right: my mother driving the car, my boyfriend next to me, my uncle sleeping (with my foster father and his colleague onto the delivery van in front of us in the highway) and myself with the pigtail.

We arrived there about 3 hours later without problems and with 2 brief stops.
We immediately unloaded the van and put our stuffs into the garage, then we went into the flat with the visitors, who clearly showed their big appreciation for it.

After some minutes, men started to assemble the kitchen while my mother and I took the documents of the delivery of the kitchen, which arrived at the flat on June 27th, and drove to the Ikea Store in Genoa to ask for a replacement of 4 doors which were damaged.
On the way to the capital of province of Liguria, which is Genoa, we chatted a lot and enjoyed the landscapes of the green mountains between the two regions of Piedmont and Liguria, I look forward to visit all those beautiful towns.

From top to bottom, from left to right: the Scrivia Valley, a nice town between Novi Ligure and Genoa (I do not know its name yet, but I will visit it soon), highway between the mountains near Genoa, Genoa Bolzaneto (one of the areas of the city Genoa).

It was not hard at all to find the Ikea Store in Genoa compared to the previous time when I have been there with my boyfriend, maybe because I already remembered the path.
The operator at the customer service was very kind (and also young and handsome, hahaha), he explained that they will deliver the new doors in one week directly in Novi Ligure. Great news item!

After that, we immediately drove back to Novi Ligure and, before going to the flat, I wanted to show my future city to my mother with a brief tour by car, it was my very first time without help for the directions to take.
When we arrived at the flat, we discovered that my boyfriend’s mother and brother visited men, who were assembling the kitchen, just some minutes after our departure to Genoa. It was the first meeting for them, fortunately my foster father and uncle were able to know two members of my boyfriend’s family, but my mother was curious too and I wanted to see them as well…well, it will be for the next time.

We continued to work together to assemble the kitchen. We had lunch in the balcony onto the package of the kitchen, because there are no chairs yet into the flat, with pizza, salted croissants and croquettes of potatoes; we needed to be quite quick, as my uncle was very tired after the night shift and we had to be back home not very late in the evening.

From top to bottom, from left to right: our quick lunch in the balcony (already full of plants, hahaha), men relaxing before continue to work, a glimpse of our kitchen, the part behind our block of flats (our flat is at the 2nd floor).

At 6:30 pm we had to stop working at the flat, because we realized that we still had 3 hours to reach Bologna and we all were very tired.
On the way home, my parents and uncle expressed their satisfation for my future flat, kitchen and city; I was worried especially about my mother’s opinion, because I get along very well with her (well, it is my mother!!), but she told me she liked everything a lot and now she can picture her only daughter over there living her new life with her boyfriend.

You can not imagine how much I was relieved to see those positive reactions, now I really feel better and practically ready for the last part of the relocation at the end of August 2008!!
Another big news item is that I decided to travel with my parents to Belgium for the first week of August, so I will have some days to spend with them into our camper van, before moving permanently.
I could not imagine to live such an exciting summer for this year, it turned out to be one of the best ones in my life, I feel ready to move and finally able to look into the future without fears, it is a great feeling!!

P.S: Tomorrow evening I will attend the Notte Bianca with my mother in Bologna (via S. Isaia), so stay tuned for updates and new shots about the event which will take place with nice music and shopping!

I am still alive, my friends!! Do you wonder what I am doing?

shot by aemkei

Yep, I have been busy for some days because my boyfriend came home and will stay here until Saturday, when we will pack our things and we will start the first part of the relocation to low Piedmont; we are plenty of commitments, such as meeting friends to say goodbye before moving, buying products for the new flat and obviously packing the major part of our stuffs.

On Friday evening we will get the delivery van and will load everything on it, then on Saturday we will wake up at 5 am, we will meet my parents and uncle to reach Novi Ligure, which is our future city, to unload our stuffs and to assemble the kitchen, which is already arrived at the flat.

How exciting!! On Saturday I will surely take some photos to show you the works, the flat and the kitchen.
So stay tuned and have a nice rest of the week, I will be back soon.

Another little news item before cooking lunch today: I joined the contest called Blogger’s Choice Awards and my blog has been nominated for the Best Photography Blog and other sections; if you want to vote for me, you can click on the homonym banner of the section called “Get Updates” here in the right column or simply click here, I would be very happy to receive your recommendation.

Ciao my friends and thanks for following my steps to my new life, it is great to share all my feelings with you!!