Blogs from Emilia-Romagna, Italy, Europe - page 34

This is Italy, so all the men are good looking and clean and well dressed. Every one of these gorgeous creatures would be considered "metrosexual" and his sexual orientation very suspect in Australia.....mmm....most of them are married, and ride bicycles with baby seats, just in case you don't get the message.There is a belief in the land of Oz that Italians are fat. Not true...not here, anyway. They walk and ride bicycles everywhere I tossed a coin and went to Italy to learn Italian, Portugal and Portuguese was too near to the awful kids and much worse monitors in this year's camp. As a teacher of English, there are a few things that are constants in a good place to learn English. The same should apply to Italian I thought. The city should be small and ... read more

NOT ONLY PASTA... read more

So it appears that I have been absent for a while. Let me fill you in a little on what I’ve been up to. Let’s start with the most fun part. Last week I went to Italy to visit my darling parental units. Stupidly I chose to fly out of Paris on the day of the grève. Grèves (commonly known as strikes) occur often in France, but this one was supposedly particularly bad as all the transportation unions in the country were staging a strike on the same day. This basically means that in Paris, none of the buses or the metros or the RER (suburban trains) were running, however, business is as usual. The whole of Paris just walks to work, or borrows their kid’s scooter, or puts on a jogging suit and gets up ... read more

After the sprint round the Uffizi we bumbled off to Ostiglia which is the ancestral home of Dean's grandfather, and something of a pilgrimage for him as he was very fond of his grandfather.He had attempted the previous night to ring Ricciardo - a relative who owns a hotel in Ostiglia- in order to book us in and alert him to our impending visit. This he was not able to do due to difficulties with Italian Telecom (he says) - OR Ricciardo's receptionist - he wasn't quite sure which....Anyway, we decided we would give it a go anyway so away we went, turning off the big motorway into the countryside, not quite sure of what we would find..... Well, it turned out to be one of the highlights of the trip (and my, doesn't your Italian ... read more

There were 7 guests from France. Beautifully dressed ladies, one who played piano and guitar, and serenaded Kim and I as we seeded the ground with carrots, lettuces, and radishes. It was hard work setting up the irrigation system; crawling on our hands and knees to measure the perfectly straight lines. In a little time the plants will sprout and grow vegetables to sustain Iris and Gianluca, their guests, and clients. I was in a terrible mood and the only thing to keep my mind off of it was to imagine the ground and rake were my personal zen garden. Two Australian boys came and infused a light gay air in the camper. We shared travel spots and stories of life on the road with WWOOF. Brad and Paul, a lovely couple were making the WWOOFing ... read more