lunedì 29 giugno 2009

Bits and Pieces

A couple of weeks ago, my internet key broke. After all the tears and frustration of getting one that worked in my apparently aging computer and figuring out how not to get ripped off by Alice Mobile, it just broke. I took it out of my bag one day, plugged it into the computer and the little green light just didn't come on. The bit that plugs in feel too loose, so I figure it was probably all my own fault because I didn't look after it properly. There's no way of replacing it that would be worthwhile for the six weeks or so before I move to France, so at the moment I am internetless and scrounging friends, school and the internet cafe in a bid to stay in touch with the world, because it couldn't have happened at a worse time. I need to book flights, arrange to ship my stuff to Paris and plan a holiday for me and my mum, and this has really brought home to me how dependent I am on the internet for information and communication. I'm sure all of these things can be done in other ways, but it's just so much more difficult. (The best places I've found for internet here are the major bookshops. Although Mondadori is closer for me, I tend to use FNAC because although the internet cafe is open all day at Mondadori, they only sell credit at certain times, and never at weekends. Trust Italy to make even the internet inconvenient!)


Anyway, apart from finding myself temporarily on the wrong side of the digital divide, here are a few of the things that have been happening in the past two weeks.

Summer has definitely come. The school year has ended, it's 30 degrees outside, and the comune (town hall) is shutting for it's 3 month long holiday. It's only open for 5 hours a day at the best of times, so I guess 3 months of being completely closed won't make much difference.

With the end of the school year have come lots of goodbyes and farewell parties. Two of my favourites have been at the bar of the Mondadori bookshop, which has a terrace which is open to the public all the time and another one for private parties, and at La Toscana, a bar and restaurant on the Corso Porta Ticinese. I also attended a Partyamo event for the first time. Partyamo is a social group organised by a Scottish guy called Steve who has been living in Italy for 15 years and that lets foreigners and Italians meet and speak in different languages.

On Friday, my friend and I went shopping in Nadine, which is one of my favourite shops in Milan. She was exchanging a skirt and I actually didn't let myself even try anything on because I was scared I would want to buy everything! Italian fashion, I will miss you...

The highlight of Saturday was quite definitely a visit to the car wash. Mr A needed his car repaired before driving it back to the UK this week, and we were actually looking for a garage but ended up in the car wash by mistake. 4 euros bought us a good half our of fun with the high pressure hoses, the foam brush and a special machine for washing the floor mats, and weirdly enough the place, which had room for about 30 cars, was full of other people doing the exact same thing. It was great. Then we actually did find the Fiat garage (on Via Corsico) and met a very friendly mechanic who, despite the fact that he was closing up, came out into the street to look at the car and listened very patiently to my attempt to explain the problem without any technical vocabulary and then offered to let us skip the queue for repairs first thing on Monday morning.

And now there are just a few days of packing, cleaning and paperwork before Mr A goes back to the UK for a few weeks and I get ready to entertain my mum, who's arriving for a week's holiday on Tuesday, and enjoy Italy like a tourist again!

Paris, je t'aimerai

A while back, I wrote a post about staying in Milan for another year with a list of reasons why, despite my suffering respiratory system, this was a good idea. Well, that's changed. For reasons that I'm not going to go into here, I'm leaving my fabulous life in Milan for what I hope will be an equally fabulous one in (or at least near to) la ville des lumières.

It wasn't an easy decision to make. I was never planning to stay in Italy for ever, but another year to appreciate it would have been nice. My Italian is not as good as I would like it to be yet and I haven't seen half the things I wanted to see yet. I have lots of friends here, a nice flat and a great life. Most of all, I have Mr A, who will still be staying here for at least another year. (Does EasyJet do airmiles?)

So, although it may sound crazy, I'm excited about living in France but I'm not over the moon. It's a great opportunity and I intend to make the most of it, but I've lived in France before and this was not quite the future I had planned for myself. Sometimes, though, life just deals you a crappy hand and if the best way to cope with that involves moving to one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, I guess that's not all bad. I'll try to come back with some more enthusiasm next time!

lunedì 22 giugno 2009

Camping at Lake Garda

Last Saturday afternoon at around four o'clock, I was lying on a sun lounger beside an azure blue swimming pool, drinking a mint granita, watching the thermometer fluctuate between 29 and 30 degrees and vaguely contemplating when to go for my next swim. Beside the pool, a wide avenue of perfectly pruned trees led down to the lake shore, where earlier in the day we had been relaxing on the beach, jumping off the jetty into refreshingly cold water and buying ice cream from a boat instead of a van. In real life, this is what other people do once a year on holiday. In Italy, it's what you do on any June weekend when you feel like it and you can do it less than two hours' drive from your house.

Admittedly, we were lucky. Not every campsite in Italy has lakeside pitches fenced in by box hedges where you can park a car and pitch two tents before you go off to shop at the market, eat in the restaurant, drink in the bar, or go and swim in the 25 metre pool. But the Camping Lido at Lazise does, and that was why we went there.

After our laid back day at the campsite on Saturday, we went to Sirmione on Sunday. Unfortunately, so did most of the rest of the population. Sirmione is a historical town with Roman ruins, city walls and a castle that sticks out into Lake Garda on a peninsula on the southern shore. It's a gorgeous place with a lakeside promenade, lots of little shops and the most extravagant gelaterie I've ever seen. You can't drive in the town, so after getting as far as the city walls without finding a parking space, we ended up doing a few 3 point turns in tiny car parks and parking a good half hour's walk from the old town centre. Once we were there, however, it was actually very calm. There were lots of people, but most of them, like us, were just strolling, sunbathing and swimming. Despite being slathered in sun cream for most of the weekend, I had caught a bit too much sun on Saturday, so one of the highlights for me was being able to buy a big floppy straw sunhat with a ribbon. Mr A was not particularly convinced that this was a good look, but I decided it was better than sunburn. And I can wear it wherever we end up going next weekend too...

Parco di Monza

From my flat in Milan, I can get to the metro by turning right at the corner of my block. I avoid the eyes of the shady men who hang around my street and step carefully among the rubbish on a dusty, smelly street to arrive at the metro, where battered looking grey carriages rattle through the tunnels in the belly of the city. If I get off at the Porta Garibaldi station, I can walk along underground corridors in a station where few of the ticket machines work and the office isn't open on a Sunday and get on a graffiti covered train to Monza, ten minutes ride from Milan.

Things are different in Monza. Outside the station, the streets look a little bit scruffy, but if you follow the main road you soon arrive at a pedestrianised high street with expensive shops, flowers, and a fountain that sparkles in the summer sun. On a Sunday, people stand around outside the beautiful churches in expensive looking designer clothes (I find this weird) and drink post-communion coffee on the terrace of a bar.

If you keep walking, the atmosphere changes. There are people, many people, and especially families on bikes. After a while, you realise that most of them are going in the same direction. If you go with the Sunday afternoon flow, you will find yourself in the Parco di Monza.

The park is a proper Sunday afternoon place. It has a large villa with landscaped gardens, statues and a lake, where you can take a leisurely stroll. Further out, it becomes wilder, with forest trails where people go running. There are some wide roads and tarmac paths which are perfect for gentle cycling or rollerblading. Further out still, there are pony rides, bike hire and fields where people have barbecues.

I went there one Sunday and spent three wonderful hours wandering, rollerblading and reading under the trees.

Then I went back to the station and got a nasty surprise. Even in Monza, the ticket office was closed and none of the ticket machines were working. I guess it's not so far from Milan after all.