Loving Italy

Well not always, but this last Sunday was a day to remember. There is a group here in Belluno that organizes concerts of various types of music, usually in or in the garden of one of the local villas. Sundays was outside a villa on the opposite side of Belluno from where we live. It's up hill from the city and from the garden outside one has a fantastic view of all the city and surrounding valley. We could even see our home. The weather was perfect, the setting beautiful. And the music very enjoyable, it was European jazz from the 30's performed by a young group featuring an excellent guitarist. Actually he was amazing. For a taste of their music you can check out their web site http://www.almaswing.it/ And the cost 5 euro can't be beat. So it was one of those I love Italy moments.

Otherwise, what's been going on. I haven't written much lately. Seems we are always busy and the day ends being too tired to sit down in front of the computer for anything other than a bit of reading. The Summer has past all too quickly. We haven't had much of a vacation. But then this is were much of the family here comes to vacation themselves. Maybe we are already on vacation. Luisa would not agree.

Our time has been taken up working, visits to the hospital for various tests for my upcoming surgery, and lunches and dinners with family and friends. Our big project was to make a connection between the two apartments that we occupy. The hole was cut by professionals and I took on the tasks of painting, and some finish woodwork. The biggest job was the clean up of the dust from jack hammering out the wall. It was everywhere in spite of our efforts to isolate it with plastic sheets. Then came the job of moving the furniture. We moved our bedroom into the room that was once in a while used for guests and converted our old bedroom into a room for Julia and a sometime guest room. In the process I learned the real reason why Italians rarely move. Their furniture is just too dammed heavy. To move one dresser with it's marble top and mirror down a floor of stairs is a major task involving the dismantling of the dresser, taking off the mirror, removing the marble top, taking out the drawers and then taking all the pieces one at a time down the stairs and then reassembling them. Do this for a couple of them and then take our four modern ones up the stairs and one does not want to do it again for a long time.

We have also taken some nice hikes in the fairly local regions. In my next post I will put up some pictures.

In the News

Well sort of anyway. HERE is a story written about us and our Bell Tower project.

Otherwise what's new. We have had some contact with friends from the US lately. Steve and Kathy Tanaka made a tour of France and Italy and stayed with us for 3 days, that was great. Steve got me into Geocaching, and kind of treasure hunt using GPS technology. I think it will be a fun thing to do with the kids.

Then a few months ago I decided to find a friend, Paul Holland, that I hadn't seen for it turns out 30 years. Thanks to the internet it wasn't that hard to find him took all of maybe 15 minutes. He and his extended family are currently on a cruise which started in Venice so we were able to meet him in Venice for a few hours and a pizza dinner. Wow eating in Venice has to be one of the biggest rip offs in Italy. But at least the pizza was good and it was great to see Paul again. He brought at our request 3 dozen corn tortillas and some other things which made the visit even better.

Julia ballet

At the end of the year they have a little test to graduate to the next level. HERE are some pictures.

Lago di Caldonazzo

About an hour from Belluno almost to Trento there
is this nice lake. It has camping and nice beaches.
PICTURES We took our bikes and road around
some then started off on a bike trail that runs
along a river for some 40k. We only did a bit of
it. But in all we including Giovanni who is only 5
did about 22k for the day.

BBQ with friends

In mid June some friends, mostly parents from Julia's school invited us for a BBQ HERE are more photos. Those Italians can get a bit wild especially the three woment siting in the sun.

Camping Bibione

Here a few pictures, our camp was one of the more primitive, we left home in a hurry.

Italian Beaches

We took a short break and did some camping at Bibione Pineda, the beach is long and clean, the water warm, and clean but murky. The location is on the Adriatic about 30 miles or so north of Venice. I've never been a fan of this type of beach as there is no surf and not a lot to do. But I am starting to like them. They are good for the kids as they can play in the water without getting buried in the waves and the warm water makes it comfortable for them. The camp areas are full of pine trees, the one we stayed in has a nice restaurant, clean restrooms that have toilets with actual seats and hot showers. There is a big grocery store and most every night they some sort of entertainment. One of the nicest things is the long boardwalk that connects the city of Bibione with all the camps and resort hotels. It makes a great bike ride.

The week was a full one as we left on Tuesday morning after spending 3 hours packing up all the camping stuff arrived in the early after noon and put up our tent in the wrong place, we mistook a weird looking 3 for a 5, but it worked out and we had a better spot because of it even if we had to leave a day early as the site was reserved by someone else last February. We went to Pradipozzo Saturday. Unpacked the camping stuff and took off for Milan on Sunday with Julia for her orthodontist appointment on Monday. Then on Monday it was back to Pradi, a long drive as there was an hour delay in traffic. Spent another night there and then today back to Belluno. Overall though it was nice, we had some fun at the beach, some good family time both at the beach and in Pradi, and discovered a cheap Chinese restaurant in Milan where the food is good and the portions generous enough.

Now there is the mess to clean up. I have to admit that I'm a bit burned out on camping. The actual camping is fine, it's more the time it takes to pack up, unpack, setup, repack to leave (another 3 hours) and then the unpacking and cleanup at home. We are thinking about buying a travel trailer.

4th of July & Italian Healthcare

We pretty much missed it in fact it was totally ignored here. Were we are we only know of one other American a young mom married to an Italian. So it was hard to get into the spirit. I was hoping we could take the kids to Aviano the big US air force base not far from here as they put on an airshow and some good ol American activities. But I was disappointed to find out that only people with a DOD id card and their guests were allowed in. Seems totally unfair. Someone who happens to work in the kitchen can bring in any person of any nationality, but a US citizen with a US passport represents a danger to the US military. What happeded here.

I've also been absent a bit lately as I found out I have one of those diseases everyone fears, but the good news is that it's at a maybe, hopefully, probably totally curable stage. I'll be having some surgery the first week of September. It's been a couple of weeks of a lot of ups and downs. Living in Italy healthcare is very accessable, but it seems that it also helps to have friends and relatives who work in the system. I thank God for my extended Italian family.

Bob Dylan

We went to a concert last night, billed as a tribute to Bob Dylan. It was fun and entertaining. Basically it's a yearly thing where local groups play for charity. The theater was full, the music too load. Lots of grey hairs in the audience and on the stage as well as young musicians. As one can imagine the quality varied from really good to wish they would stop now. There is a local guitar player who could have given Jimmy Hendrix a run for his money and some of the singers were very good. Overall enjoyable, but the Bob Dylan aspect was a bit disappointing, maybe I expected some imitators, rather than interpretations of his music.

We also finally had a bbq yesterday, invited some friends and their 3 kids. It's been raining every afternoon for the last two weeks. So we scheduled it for mid day and everything turned out fine. One thing I don't quite understand is that when one invites at least some Italians say at noon, they tend to stay the whole day and then even make excuses about why they have to leave at 7:30. I'm not complaining, it just takes some getting use to. In the US people would normally come for a meal, visit a couple hours after and go home.

Weekend In Milan

Luisa's parents took Julia and her cousin Sara to Rome on Saturday, so we took her to Milan on Friday evening as they were leaving from there. Saturday we had the afternoon off from kids. Luisa's sister took care of Giovanni and he had his first ever sleep over at her house with his cousin Guido. And we went to the Renzo Piano exhibit. Wow that was great, he must really be an inspiring person to work with. That evening we had our first dinner alone together in months - Japanese food, good.Sunday we took the two boys to a castle near lake Maggiore, the castle is great as one can go up to the highest levels, they also have one of the world's largest collections of antiques dolls. I got a kick out of the mechanical one that is an old lady picking up her skirt and peeing, they have some of the mechanical dolls on video, showing them in action.In the afternoon we went to the museum of transportation. It's really amazing, and free. It's the private collection of one man and has everything, from trains, to ski lifts, to subways. It's a bit like being in someones giant garage, though it's all outside and pretty well organized.This is I think a bit amazing, at least for the catholics. Julia and Sara walked into St. Peters with their grandparents for the mass and were picked out of the crowd to deliver the host to the cardinal giving the mass. Can you believe it? Even more amazing is that Julia also had an unusual experience there the first time we took her when she was a baby. She started to cry during the mass, pretty loudly. An old nun who was near us came up and lightly caressed her forehead. After that she was silent.Now we are back at work in Belluno, seems like it's going to rain all Summer

Good News

We won a competition for the design of a bell tower at one of the large churches in Belluno. I'll post some 3d renderings on our design blog. www.helpudesign.blogspot.com It's a big help for us to have this project as it's a kind of welcoming into the community. Hopefully it may lead to us getting other projects in the area.

We had a nice visit this weekend from a friend and client Phil Deane. He lives in Oceanside, California and is touring Italy mostly in the Southern half. So it was great that he made the effort to come up here in a busy schedule of touring.

Back on LIne

We were offline for a few days as we switched Internet services. We now have Alice 20 meg or so they call it. So far we are only getting 2 meg or a little more but that is way better than what we had with Tele2 which was supposed to be 4 meg but rarely exceeded 1.5. It's been raining here the last few days and aside from everything being super green we also have some snow on the high mountains we can see out our window. It's very beautiful.

My garden has been growing very well and we are over run with lettuce. We even have some tomatoes. But they will be awhile before they turn red. Just hope the bugs don't get them.

The Polka

It was a nice weekend in Belluno. In town there were events supporting local industries and businesses. In the park there was a big tent in which they served polenta cooked the old way, in a copper pot over a wood fire. We had a nice lunch on Saturday there.

Today we went back the four of us on our bikes, Giovanni was a little nervous as he's still not that good on the two wheeler. In fact he fell a couple of times. We passed through the park for a while. In the big tent they were still serving the same good local food.

There was one of those two man bands, you know with the recorded accompaniment. A few couples danced to some polka music. They caught my eye, a couple somewhere in their eighties. He was thin and spry, with a lively look as he moved across the asphalt dance floor, she looked somewhat frail but very focused. They moved together in unison, their feet one inside the other, moving and turning in a dance they must have done more than a thousand times before. The music stopped and when it began again they were back, gliding through the room to the lively beat of the Polka in a way that could only be accomplished through years of ups and downs and the understanding that can only come through so many moments together.

Country Life

We went to the house in Pradipozzo for Luisa's dad's 70th birthday. The house is an old country home, 9 bedrooms. In the evening there were 4 families there spending the night. It was all pretty standard, birthday lunch, then dinner later. But what struck me was around 10:00 everyone just went off to their rooms. I had this feeling of being in a world of 100 years ago when large families worked the land and all lived together in those big homes one sees somewhat abandoned in these times. Each family had to find it's space.

What's your day like?

I have noticed that even though we don't get a ton of viewers you are coming from all over the World. So tell me what is your day like. Mine is like this:

We get up at 7am, I make a pot of American style coffee from coffee we grind. Then I check the email and read a little news on the internet. Luisa and the kids get up she does most of the morning work with the kids as I'm not a morning person. It takes me some time to start functioning. At around 7:45 I take Julia our daughter to school either walking or in the car if we are late. Sometimes we also manage to get Giovanni going to preschool then too, otherwise Luisa takes him around 9.

Then it's across the hall to our office where we work until lunch time on some days I take off around 11:45 to swim at the local pool. It's a great facility, all enclosed so it's good also in the winter. When I swim Luisa eats lunch by herself and I eat when I get back. On the other days we eat together.

In the afternoon it's back to the office around 4:00 it's time to pick up the kids. They have after school sports, swimming lessons, dance classes etc. So it's always a bit hectic until around 6:30. On various days since much of our work is in California I'm on the phone or sending email in the evening. This can go on until 10:00 when I usually put the VOIP phone on do not disturb.

We share the cooking, kitchen cleaning, putting kids in bed, etc. so that takes us through dinner and until 9:30 or so. Around that time Luisa sits down for the first time in a few hours and almost immediately falls asleep. I watch TV, ck email or read and then it's off to bed. That's it, pretty standard, and not so different from life anywhere.

Of course there are differences here in Italy but they mostly involve things outside the daily routine.

So lets hear from you, what did you do today?

The Garden

How about a picture of my garden. Thanks to global warming, I'm 3 weeks ahead of schedule with it.

And the recent rains turned everything around here super green. Here is a picture looking out one of our windows.

DRIVING IN ITALY PART TWO

This will probably end up being three parts so today I’ll talk about some general rules of the road and a few regulations.

Note, I’m just giving some personal thoughts on driving, so don’t depend on this as an actual list of the laws. I take no responsibility for these comments. Use them at your own risk.

First if you think you might drive while in Italy stop off at the Auto Club and get an international drivers license. It’s basically just a translation of your US license. It is required in Italy, you must also have your actual US license in your position.

If you get stopped which is actually pretty unlikely, and are ticketed you might have to pay a fine on the spot that is the law for anyone coming from a country such as the US that does not have an agreement for reciprocal licensing.

You can drive in Italy with your foreign license for 1 year before having to get an Italian license.

So now some general points, no matter what you might think about the craziness of Italian drivers you do have to follow the rules here. At least you do in the North where I’ve been driving. It’s not that much different than driving in the US. Don’t be afraid of driving, just pay attention and drive pretty much like you do at home.

Wear you seat belt, it’s the law
Do not drink and drive if stopped you might get the car taken away and arrested.
Do not talk on the cell phone, unless using a hands free setup.
Do not eat a hamburger, French fries and drink a coke while driving, just kidding. But generally, don’t take your eyes off the road things seem to happen faster here.
You can not turn right on a red light.
Look for the white line at the stop light it is well before the actual light if you stop too far forward you might not be able to see the light change.
If you see a pedestrian standing in the crosswalk you must stop for him. Some people actually do stop.
A stop sign does mean stop but it seems to be more of a stronger yield sign, rolling stops seem to be ok.
Drivers are required by law to stop and aid injured people in accidents.
No matter what you may have heard there are speed limits, so pay attention to them.
Italian drivers get really pissed if you don’t signal before turning, it’s mainly because they are usually following too close.
Round abouts are fun and all over the country, the cars inside them have the right of way, when entering there seems to be a bunch of confusion about who has the right of way. It should be the person on the right, but I don’t think anyone understands that, just be careful and a little aggressive.
You are required to drive to the right of the road. It means stay in the right lane, but more about that next.
When driving on the Autostrada or main roads you must have your lights on even in day time. So just turn them on all the time.
Get a copy of the European road signs and study them.

Now some general hints that don’t have much to do with the rules.
The Autostrada is pretty much like a US freeway. They are generally in good condition. I always use them.
But, you must be a little more careful than in the US. You only pass on the left, so no weaving in and out.
If another car comes up behind you move over out of it’s way so they can pass. Try not to get too pissed off, as I do at times, when they ride your rear bumper flashing their lights even if there are twenty cars in front of you going slow.
Trucks are the major hazard on the Autostrada. They will pass each other moving into the lane you are in cutting you off. So watch them, if you see one approaching another in front of him be aware that he will probably want to pass rather than lose his momentum.
I’ve discovered that it seems safer to drive fairly fast and stay in the far left lane as much as possible as on a three lane road the trucks aren’t allowed in that lane. If you drive slow in the left lane you will be constantly having to move over so cars can pass you which is a big pain in the ass.

Finding your way around is a lot fun, the good thing is that there are plenty of signs, almost too many. The main idea is to know what major cities are in your general direction. The signs will always point you towards those cities. If you have a portable navigation gps why not get maps for Italy and bring it along. We got one and use it all the time.

Driving in the city, good news is Italians don’t generally get too worked up if you cross three lanes to make a left turn in front of them and other such things that might cause road rage in the US. Seems to me like everyone is just trying to get where they are going. They can be pushy, my hint is to never acknowledge the presence of the other drivers. Just drive like you know where you are going. Of course you still have to look out for them and follow common sense driving rules. It’s just that if you get too timid you’ll get left behind.

I think that’s it for this chapter.

The Hunting Club

A friend of ours along with his family owns a hunting club about 40 minutes drive South of Milan. It's really a big farm with one of the old farm buildings that is build around a very large courtyard. The original entrance to the building was through a huge gate that could be closed to keep out intruders 200 years ago. Now the building has been divided diagonally through the courtyard. Half belonging to the brother that farms on the land and the other half to the one who raises ducks and peasants and uses the land for hunting. They raise something over 40,000 birds a year and release them for hunting or sell them to other hunting clubs.

Here are some pictures. It's not hunting season so the pictures are just of the overall area, the pens, baby ducks and so on. http://picasaweb.google.com/HMItaly/HuntClub

And here is the website of the club http://www.venatoriaerbogna.it/allevamento.htm

Of course it's all in Italian but if you click on the various titles at the top you can see some of their pictures and get a good idea of what it's like.

Flying Tour of the Dolomites

Last November I did a little picture taking tour flying from Belluno up to Cortina and back click here to see the pictures. http://picasaweb.google.com/HMItaly/FlyingTheDolomites

You may have seen them before in an email, but here on the picasaweb picture site you can see the full resolution pictures.

Sexism in Italy

Well I started something about nudity in Italian advertising and then when I got a couple of heated responses decided to delete it. But now it's back. Maybe controversy is good. Anyway Italian advertising and tv is full of big tited small waisted young women. One might think they are just a bunch of bimbos, some I suppose are, but are many of them smarter than the rest of us. They probably make more money than we do. Driving through Milan this last weekend we noticed a completely nude profile in an ad visible as we drove down a busy street. In the mall here in Belluno is a big poster of a large breasted women.

Funny thing is I recently read about an experiment where they basically proved that sex does not help sell anything. Men remembered the ad but could not remember what it was about. Women were more or less neutral. It's true, I don't know what that girl in the mall was selling, but she sure has a fine set of knockers.

The thing that gets in peoples head is that all this nudity in advertising and on tv portrays women as just sex objects without a thought on their minds. I think that is just prejudice, when you can't think a person is capable of an intelligent thought because of their, face, skin and body shape what else is it.

Bottom line, beautiful women aren't going away, I hope, and people mostly men will always enjoy looking at them. Our last Pope John Paul wrote something to the affect that God created the human body to be enjoyed. It's lust that gets us in trouble.