My Bologna Weekend!

Hello my Friends!

Oh, it's been a while, huh? This week is the last one before Artù will be here with us and it's passing so quickly! We are preparing everything for our Puppy (actually this is good material for a separate post). Anyway, here's my report from my Bologna trip. It was awesome. If I was to describe this city in 3 words only, they would be:

1. Elegant
2. Clean
3. Enchanting/Romantic

But let's start from the very beginning:

THE HOTEL

I had very high expectations of this hotel after having seen the pics. Yes, I know the managers usually use the best rooms for the pictures to be put on the Internet, but I usually know (premonition) if there's sth bad about the place. Well, this time there was nothing that triggered doubts/unwilligness/uncertainty. Everything looked just perfect. Well, it was : ) Just take a look here and if you want to visit Bologna, I highly recommend 4 Viale Masini Design Hotel.

COMPANY. We were quite a group! There were my bf's parents, his sister with her husband, his brother with her girlfriend. It was a true Italian family reunion : )

THE MONUMENTS

Bologna is a perfect place for a weekend tour for all the most important monuments/museums/buildings are located in the very centre of the city.

(this is a library, one of the most modern and beautiful I've ever seen!)

(there was an on-going opendoors exhibition, I loved it!)

And there were also some beautiful houses/mansions in the suburbs of the city!)

And last but not least: the food. The food is amazing! As someone called it: "Goia per gli occhi", i.e. "Joy for the eyes" and for the stomaches too! : )








Now, I'm rushing off to your blogs! Gosh, I have so much to catch up! : )

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What the heck??!!!

Sometimes you just want to leave and never come back. Sometimes you're sick of everything, you're fed up and angry with the entire world. This is one of these days... and I feel hopeless and helpless and lonely, though so many people are around. I don't know, maybe I feel homesick.. afer all it's Christmas and I'm Here, not There. But maybe it's just an excuse. Or maybe not... Anyway, I feel so grateful that I can just put a picture here so you know how I feel today...

I'm sure I'll be much better tomorrow...

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Siracusa Spot.

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My last two weekends...

Girls, on emore time thank you, THANK YOU, THANK YOU for all the posts, comments and emails I have received from you! You're great and I cannot imagine my bloglife without you! : )) REALLY!

Today I'm going to tell you what I was doing during my last two weekends. Unfortunately the weather in Sicily is not really summer like this September and October but I manged to go to the seaside and take some pics for you!






The colour of the water this time of the year is so intense, so amazing! It's still possibile to immerse in the sea, water is cooler than in August for example but pleasant : ) I didn't out on my bathing suit but still, you can see in the pictures was too tempted to resist:



There are some splendid flowers blossoming in fall time.. just look:





Then, last weekend we went to a small village called Bronte, near Etna since there was a Sagra del Pistacchio organized. According to Wikipedia, in Italy, a sagra (plural: sagre) is a local festival, very often involving foodis often dedicated to some specific local food, and the name of the sagra includes that food; the array of gastronomic specialties covered across Italy is amazing. Among the most common sagre are those celebrating olive oil, wine, pasta and pastry of various kinds, chestnuts, and cheese.

I love going to "sagras" because of the food, of course. Naturally, there are some accompanying events like concerts, film/theatre shows, art exhibitions which are more or less interesting, but the food... guys the food is worth 2h spent in a car on a road full of curves!

Everything we ate this day was green: I had a sausage with pistache, pancakes with pistach,e ice-cream à la pistache, even coffee was with pistache! Just look:






And then to finish off and reinforce my view that Italy is a really strange country... I saw this house in Bronte... Can you see that the pines are growing out of the roof of the house...???!!!!

Tomorrow I'll show you all the presents I received yesterday! : ))

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Stay.. or go..?

This is the question that by no means most of the Italian "graduate to be" pose themselves constantly.

I have just read an interesting article in the online version of Corriere della Sera (an Italian daily newspaper, first in sales), concerning young people in Italy, their ideas and expectations of the future.. the results of the survey are kind of... hm... let me put it this way: interesting...

First of all, 2 out of 3 undergraduates declare they want to start their working experience abroad just after finishing their studies. Only 36.8% of the interviewed decisively decline the idea. However, according to the commentators and work consultants, most of those intending to leave Italy have rather "romantic" approach to their future in a foreign country. They perceive the world abroad as better, easier and with more potential for their career and personal development... And now my personal view.. how the heck, are they going to succeed if 74% of Italian students study only one foreign lg, supposedly English, (source here) and I can bet that most of them are at the very beginner/elementary level.

But let's suppose they all go.. what are the countries they would choose? In the chronological order: the US, England, Germany, Spain, Sweden (?), and France.

And what is the first, the most important criterion when looking for a job abroad? Money, of course. This is understandable, especially if we consider the fact that statistically the first average salary for 43% of the post graduate in Europe equals 1700 euros, whereas in Italy most of the young employees receive a little bit more than a half of it.

And what is the list of jobs the Italians would never like to do? Well, let me cite the poll results: mechanic, operaio (physical worker), hairdresser (really??), aesthetician (really??), fast food worker, soldier, road sweeper and the most hated ever is the mason. According to the consultant there are two types of jobs: those ones which are taxing but not dangerous and those which are dangerous but not taxing. Mason is a combination of these two types. No wonder then that in Italy most of the masons are foreigners...

And now... what do you think about the Italians... : )

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