Time is a tricky thing

Time is tricky. You think you still have lots of it and then the moment is there. The moment in which the time is up. Months ago I decided to move to Italy in January. And I had indeed lots of time. Now the time is pretty much up and I still need to do so much. I had planned to pack in the last two weeks and figured that it would be enough time to do everything. But I forgot to plan some time to meet friends. I forgot to plan some time to meet family. I forgot to take the holidays into account and the countless Christmas parties. I forgot to plan time to be emotional and femotional. The last two weeks were all about that... meeting friends, family, go to Christmas and New Years parties and be emotional. (and gain about 5 KG, another reason to be femotional) I have three days left to pack and get everything ready and basically detox from all the spumante, wine, beer, prosecco, amaretto jenever and other brain damaging liquids I had.

I'm not a big fan of New Year and esp. of New Year resolutions. But in the moment you don't have time to do the things you need to do, I usually find time to do the things that are useless to do. ( Example : In my student years, my student room was never so clean as during the exams.)

So my New Year resolutions for 2009 are :

• Lose those 5 KG and maybe some extra (just to be safe) and get into shape!
  
• Adapt to a new life in Italy and lose some of my much too pragmatical ways
• Learn better Italian
• Figure out what I want to do professionally
• Find a job
• Make new friends
• ...
  

But my first resolution is to come up with a really good plan to accomplish all the resolutions.

Ryanair vs Easy Jet

I had quite the weekend. Last Friday I flew to Rome (with Ryanair) thinking my last hours on planet earth had presented themselves. There was so much turbulence that the plane didn't stop shaking and it took about 50 minutes to actually put the plane down. Another five minutes and I would have had to search for one of those cute little paper bags. Felt sick all evening but still couldn't pass up on my future mother-in-law's home made pizza. Last weekend was the last weekend I flew to Rome before moving in January. The Italian will be spending the holidays Belgian style and then we will go back together. Writing this I get kinda nervous. Not so much for the move, but for all the things I still need to do. I'm the master procrastinator.

On Monday I flew from Rome to Milan for a job interview. I think it went alright. I had a talk with the Italian H&R manager from the company I work for now. He told me, what I already knew, that they didn't have a job opening in the company we have near Rome, but that he was going to see if he could do something for me anyway. It was a very long day, but I figure that it's never a bad thing to know people like him (read : with his connections).

The flight from Rome to Milan was the first time I flew with Easy Jet. I had made sure I took the smallest trolley I had so I didn't have to check in any baggage. The (young) girl behind the check in desk then decided to show me what kind of power she had. She asked me to please check if it would fit in one of those iron baggage size things. It didn't ofcourse. The little wheels must have stuck out for about half a centimeter. I had woken up at 6 and had a headache from hell, so I wasn't particularly very amused by this. She got very rude in telling me I couldn't take the baggage with me. Ofcourse when checking in for my Milan-Brussels flight (again with Easy Jet) about twelve hours (!) later, the nice (older) lady at the check in didn't see the problem and let me take the trolley as hand luggage.

I blame the Italian. He was with me checking in in Rome, and the rude girl was obviously struck with the 'Foreign Girl Has An Italian Boyfriend and Therefore Is Taking Down My Chance Of Happiness By 1' -fever.

I say to her : go find yourself a Belgian guy and we'll call it even.

And then the bubble burst...apparently people are not equal after all.

Just when you think people are doing the right thing, just when you think we are moving ahead in this world... that's when you read an article about Prop8. Prop8 wanted to overturn a state Supreme Court decision that granted gay couples the right to wed in California. And they did it.

Also in other states in the US people voted YES on the ban for gay marriage.

Unbelievable. In the first place this is not about marriage, this is not even about gay people, this is about equality! Apparently there are a lot of people out there who feel that straight people should have more rights than gay people. I got quite sad and angry when I read this and most of all disappointed. Hopefully they can turn this around again.

Someone explain to me why people get bothered by two people getting married because they love eachother, cause I don't understand. According to me this is just plain discrimination.

I'm inviting all the gay people who did get married or want to get married to Belgium. Yes we have gay marriage and adoption. Here it doesn't matter if you are gay or straight and for that I'm proud to be Belgian.

Can we just for a moment...yes we can!

Barack Obama will be the 44th president of the US of A. The first black president in America. They made him the symbol of many things..mixed races, change, a new image for America in the world after the last horrible 8 years of Bush.

The man sure knows how to deliver a victory speech. I particularly enjoyed this part :

''It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled ....''

And also McCain gave a very nice speech I think. I have to admit that I do respect that. Not necessarily for his VP pick, but he did lose like a winner.

Today the criticism already starts : What will change for Europe? Was McCain a better choice for world economy? Will Obama be able to commit himself to do all the things he promised?
I understand, people need to ask these questions and I think it's a good thing.

Ofcourse he will not be the answer to all the world's problems and will not only do good things. It would also be unfair to put so much responsability on one man.

But can we just for today.. maybe also tomorrow and next week.. have that feeling of Hope. That feeling that we are World Citizens. In a World where colour of skin, religion, sexual orientation, physical condition,.. does not matter and that we are all the same. That we are all people. And that we should just Love. Can you just leave me in my bubble.. just for today?

London DAY 2 and 3

DAY 2

I really wanted to buy a new jacket so we went to Carnaby street to end up with just buying some tea. Went around Regent and the likes to look for shops.
The best thing about visiting a city for me are the walks. I don't need to have seen everything that you are supposed to see. I just love walking around.
We checked out some museums and also went to Tate Modern which I really love. We found out there was a Rothko exhibit but decided not to go because of time and money. (what a stupid decision!)

In the evening we checked out more of the Concrete&Glass festival and saw Lykke Li play at Cafe 1001. They were really great. I love it when bands are better live than on record after loving the record.


DAY 3

First we had to drag our bags to another hotel, thanks to the friend of the Italian. ( see previous post)
The hotel was not really my thing. Clean and everything, but too business like. It did have a nice Apple IMac in the room with free internet though.
After playing with the IMac we went to Portobello market and Camden. Camden is for a lot of people probably too crowded, but I still love the neighbourhood and all the little markets.
For dinner I found this vegetarian restaurant online which got all great reviews.
After taking several tube lines we found out it was full, and since we were starving we didn't want to wait.
Before we had run into a pub that seemed nice, so we decided to just go for it. We ate for
like 12 pounds. This included vegi burger + chips for me, burger and chips for the Italian, a jacket potato to share and two huge beers. The food was great and the scenery entertaining including a drunk middle aged lady who fell over in the middle of the pub and stayed on the carpet floor for about 10 minutes.

After that we went back to the Tate, I really wanted to see that Rothko exhibit but we didn't make it on time... damn it. (I guess we have to go back before January 2009)
To get over this disappointment, we decided to hit the hotel bar, I had what was the best Mojito I have ever tasted and The Italian enjoyed his fancy Scotch.

* pictures to follow

London : oh how I heart thee..

DAY 1

The Eurostar is one of my favourite ways to travel : a mere two hours and you are in the middle of London. I really wanted to go to this Art&Music festival in East End London. But a certain friend of a certain Italian told us that that neighbourhood was comparible with the Bronx in New York. Now, I have not been in New York (it's on my list!), but when I heard 'like the Bronx' I was a tiny bit worried. So we booked two nights in 'The Bronx' to avoid having to take the tube late at night and then moved to another hotel to see the more touristy sites of London.

But East End London/Shoreditch is fine, I didn't get what the fuss was about. As a matter of fact I really loved the neighbourhood. Great art shops, nice pubs, great atmosphere... Anyway, the hotel was great! - and I am one picky chick when it comes to hotels. They don't have to be all that fancy, but they have to be clean! We went to pick up our wristbands for the festival and had lunch /dinner at Cafe 1001. Best vegi burger and pasta salad I probably ever had in London and a great place to hang out! After having freshened up at the hotel, we went to check out the festival. There were so many bands playing and art shows in different venues all over Shoreditch.
We saw an amazing photography show in Shoreditch Town Hall. The photographer was inspired by a poem by C.P. Cavafy and that message came across very strongly in the beautiful pictures she took in the Olympic Rain forest. Very strong images and huge prints.

Ow and another great thing about art shows : free drinks.. and there were plenty...

DAY 2 .. to be continued...

The last couple of weeks...

A lot has happened in the last couple of weeks. Some nice things and some horrible things.
I decided to only write about the good stuff...

The Italian and I went to London two weeks ago, which was great. London still rocks -incase you were wondering... will be writing about that in another post.
I tried out some new recipes. I usually stick to pasta with tomato sauce alla me, but suddenly I wanted to try out something new. Does this mean I am slowly turning into the perfect housewife?

Because the Italian loves his peperoni on bruschetta I decided to do a test run before I poison him with my creation. I actually found this perfect recipe on the frutto della passione blog.
The problem was that I didn't have all the ingredients. So I decided to swing it. I grilled the peperoni and garlic, peeled them and added cream cheese. ( I only had cream cheese which was already flavored with herbs). Added salt and pepper and voilà : a tasty spread for my sandwich.
It tasted quite good actually. But that was not all...
Since going on vacation in the US last year, I couldn't stop thinking about those oatmeal raisin cookies. For some reason I can't find them anywhere here. So - yes you guessed it- I made them myself . Pictures to follow later.

I also gave Jamie Oliver's recipe for pasta with little round tomatoes a try.
You just take yellow and red little round tomatoes, garlic, fresh basil, some aceto balsamico, some olive oil, salt and pepper. Cut the tomatoes in half, put in a big bowl. Add all the other ingredients and mix while bruising the tomatoes a little. Boil some pasta and add all together... It was delicious and very easy.

On top of that I packed a whole bunch of stuff for The Big Move, cleaned, did laundry and washed my car.
A productive weekend it was indeed...