When it rains it pours

Who was it that said "When it rains it pours". At least today this was the truth, Leaving as one of the last from the office today, I haven't looked out the window for a while. An didn't know the state of the weather outside which I was submerging into, All the thunders from outside wasn't just somebody who was unloading something from a wan.

Mannn was I in for a surprise. It rained so badly that it took me about two minutes to get wet from the waist down, even though I was hiding under an umbrella.

Well hiding was maybe to hard a word, be cause after my pants was completely wet I started watching the lightning which made everything look like you were standing in the middle of a photo shoot, of some photographer on speed. But what a show.. I stopped in a port to take a picture, but I sadly didn't succeed in catching one of the lightnings.



It seems like it comes from an endless source, the lightning keeps coming, and the rain keeps pouring. So now that I am home, its a perfect night to either catch up on the Danish crime series "Forbrydelsen", which you can watch on the net. Or start reading "The historian" which is a vampire story, I have been saving for weather like this...

The real monks and nuns.

As a northern European, nuns and monks are something that, in my mind along with knights and princesses, mostly appears in fairytales. It is therefore still a source of amusement for me to watch nuns and monks do everyday stuff, like taking the bus, sit at cafés. I work close to the God gym (the Vatican), so I often meet gangs of priests, which also seems peculiar to me. It is quite a change from Denmark where I only occasionally saw priests in their uniforms at weddings or confirmations and always only one at the time. Down here the costume is a uniform, which they always wear. Since this is the code of catholic priests, and I almost share office building with the big chief Papa Ratzinger, I guess I will get use to it soon.

But now that they are here, I have a bit of trouble to fitting them into the system, because you know that if an old lady is standing in the bus, you getup and let the poor lady save the humiliation of being thrown around by the bus drivers. And also pregnant women should be handled with extra care. But then you have these people of go(o)d, should you be as rude to them as everybody else ( I better mention that being rude is a sport down here, like anywhere else, these days), or should you give them your seat in the bus. Cause they are the picture of goodness, they are the ones that (like the policeman live by the traffic law) live after whats good according to that Christian ethic which I have been raised by.

I have thought up two strategies, one when I was rested and in a good mood, the another after a long hard day at work (see if you can guess which is which).

1. since they are so good natured people, and have devoted their life to "love thy brother, as thy self". You should encourage them, and be nice too them, to provide them with the surplus to do more loving, and be better role models for all us sinners

2. They think that there is a god, who is testing them, and works in mysterious ways. So if they want to suffer, then let them stand, while I take the seat. If they are so good, then they would want me to sit.

Anyway close to my work is also a flower market, where I sneaked at picture of these nuns, who apparently had got a good price.



They know, that people from the north like to take pictures of them, and most doesn't like to be tourist attractions. So instead of walking up to them and ask, I tried the paparazzi way, from our office window. Stupid as I was, I forgot to remove the flash, So either they spotted me, or they must have thought it would start thundering soon.

And just to be sure nobody thinks bad of me after reading this blog, I usually get up and let the nuns sit (along with old people), but the priests get to stand.

On a historical note I read that the first monks and nuns came to Denmark around 1050, and most of them disappeared again in 1536 during the reformation, some of their cloisters became hospitals, while others (the ones for nuns) where turned into virgin cloisters. Most of monks and nuns came from Italy, but here they stayed.

Hiking/Tracking on thursday

On Thursday (31. October its Halloween here in Italy) I have been invited to a five hour guided hike in the mountains around Norcia, in Umbria, with Sara and a group of Spanish exchange students. Finally an excuse to go and buy some tracking boots. I have plenty of shoes and boots but, almost all of them doesn't have that nice feature of being waterproof. And it removes some of the pleasure of going for long walks, when its combined with ice cold foot baths.

To my great disappointment ( and surprise ) my huge feet didn't fit the James bond style boots, but more the primary school teacher model. But its the comfort thats important and not the fashion statement, I bought the good ones ( i.e. the not James bond ones:))

It has been a while since I walked for more a few kilometers, so I decided to walk home from work ( 6-7 km), to test my new spaceships, if they would start hurting me after some time. I had hoped to walk home in an hour, but walking through Rome offers many temptations - very beautiful of historic scenes, shops, funny tourists to watch (For the Romans I was probably one of those, stalking through Rome at fast march speed). Or if you are into freaky parkings, this is the best place in the world. But even if I kept my stops down to only two bookshops ( where one was closed) I finally had to give up and realize that I wouldn't make it in an hour, and by then I figured I might as well take some pictures :-)



Anyway including the bookshops and pictures it took me 1 hour and 20 minutes, which is more or less that same as in a car in rush hour...

Where is the dear children

In a article from a Danish newspaper, a journalist gave some thoughts about what a grand-grand-grand-grand-grandfather would think was most far out, if he came back ( may be during Halloween). There is probably many things, but this journalist choose to focus on the lack of children.

Today’s Europe is a safe place with pensions, welfare and some forms of social security (even if many governments try to undermine it). But there is no longer any serious need for people to have children. The children has become a commodity, which many people choose to get, or not. The not´s rationalizes this choice with wanting to live life to the fullest, and basically view it as many of my parents generation viewed a pet, namely something that limits your freedom, more than a gift to life.

So 100 years ago, women on average had 5 children, while its now around 1.2, depending which European country you choose to focus on. A British scientist published some prognoses about how Europe would look in 2050 if we kept being as unproductive as we are now. It showed that the population of Italy would have halved.

This means that even the pope is right for once, along with a lot of politicians in saying that we are running out of people to go to work, take care of the old, and man the cannons in the wars. Will we (as in humans) create so many helpful machines and robots to make a society where there is many old people for each young person, I wonder. Today there is more people above 65 than under 14. Personally I hope to have one or more children, if for nothing else, to come and visit me after I have gotten too old to be a self centered individualist, and start to focus on what I'm leaving in this world instead of what it can do for me.

from summer to snow storm

Last weekend the meteorologists all agreed that some freak weather was heading for Italy, still I was still pretty surprised when we suddenly found ourself in the middle of a snow storm. We left Rome and it was cold for italians but still well hot for Jakob who just arrived from Denmark.

We were going to Le Marche to show him a bit around during the weekend. With a short stop at this this highly recommendable restaurant on the way (it would be perfect if it wasn't for at exceptional bad taste in music, and the sub woofer which delivered it). The food was great, but we were all very tired, and the music was a bit to much gangster rap for my taste. The restaurant is famous because the cook is has been working with one of the great chefs of Italy called Gualtiero Marchesi

Saturday we ate way too much breakfast and decided to skip lunch and go for a walk in the Sibillini mountains (These mountains is supposedly full of magic, if nothing else, then a magical beauty. They are named after a famous witch.)
On the way up there it started snowing, which we thought was funny, and we got out to have a camera drawing competition.

On the way down it got quite exciting, since going down a mountain is pretty exciting, but adding snowstorm, and summer tires, it was quite an experience.



Jakob did at great job, even though it was his first half hour ever behind the wheel of our car ever.

That night we went out to dinner, in a very famous serene Abbey "Abbazia di Fiastra". where we ran into a meting for the local fraction of the political party, of which Prodi was the leader until recently. He was not there even if I have tried to convince everybody since we were there. But we had quite a fun time, the food wasn't great and the waiter, was in a hurry (in lack of better words). It was understandable that the waiters was busy since, that restaurant was packed. But even in a very busy period there is things that a waiter shouldn't do. Like learning across Jakob and me, while we were eating, to take away the girls plates, and arrived with new plates for the next course, while I was still eating (slow eater I know). I think that he got the hint when I lifted the plate I was eating from and asked him to put in under that one.

The night ended perfect in the local Irish pub "Sticky fingers", were they serve one (or several) of the best Guinness I have tasted in Italy.

Sunday, we had a great lunch, with lasagne and goat heads. The last Guinness was severed rather late the night before, and we sadly wasn't really the company which a lunch like the one Sara's mum served deserved. We were pretty tired, but the Lasagne was perfect, and also the goat head was pretty good, even though I cant say that I ate much of the poor animal.

I often wonder why it is...

I often wonder why the only place in the world where a danish is called a Wienerbrød is in Denmark, while the rest of the world pretty much agrees that a danish is a danish and not a Wienerbrød. I have never been to Wien (Vienna) so I wouldn't know how it is there. Here in Rome a danese is something like this:



Which was pretty good, but quite a meal, and didn't beat my personal favorite: the Cornetto con frutti del bosco.

For interested: The cake in the back is a "occhio di bue", which is made of pasta frolla, and the danish (as well as cornetti) is made out of pasta sfoglia. The cups are cappuccino, and the small glasses is not vodka, but only water.

This was our breakfast this morning.

how to make olive oil

One of the things I hope to experience for myself is to see how olive oil is produced. But while I wait I found this description by a fellow blogger (a girl from england living in Italy). If you also wonder how it happens go look here (link)

Have a nice weekend.

It feels a bit like bringing sand to Sahara

Making pizza at home in Italy feels at bit like bringing sand to Sahara, but tonight I tried, its very easy, and not that hard to make tasty, sadly we miss one of those stone ovens heated by wood (forno al legno), cause that really makes a difference. But lets see what the judges say, when they arrive. Judges is probably not a fair word to use, cause they a coming back from a week in spain and have been travelling for about 8 hours, so they would probably think one of those freeze pizzas from Aldi would be tasty at this time.

I made two pizzas where one of them is a white pizza, meaning a pizza without the tomato sauce. These are quite common here in Italy, but virtually unknown in Denmark (Well I never heard about the concept before I sat my behind in a chair of a real Italian pizzeria), there is many kinds, of white pizzas, but the one I did was only with onions and rosemary. The other is red, with prosciutto (smoked ham) on top.


If you don't feel like bringing sand to Sahara and want to go out in Italy to eat pizza, look for pizzerias which says "Forno al legno" cause they usually have the best pizzas (No guaranties)

The pasta alla italiana

Almost everybody has some kind of inherited feeling of how to make their national food (well except for the Americans who probably just have an inherent feeling of the phone numbers of the takeout places close by). As a Dane, I know which potatoes goes with what and what kinds of things you can put together on top of a piece of brown bread. The Italians have the pasta feeling, which is not easily learned. You can off course try one of the Italian cookbooks and follow them but beware, cause usually they are filled with recipes which an Italian would not even serve for the neighbours dog, even after it bit them.

One of these is the Pasta Napoli, which I am currently (well when I not writing) doing, sounds very authentic, but its takes its basis from a Danish cookbook, so what was I expecting :). Anyway I was proud of my adventures into the Italian gastronomy, and thought I would show off a bit and call my girlfriend to ask if I should maybe substitute the Spaghetti with some Penne. Instead of showing off how ever, Sara could tell me that the one thing that the recipe got right was the Spaghetti, and that the ingredients in the sauce actually not was something any Italian would put together.

"you are not stupid, you are learning" she comforted me.

The pasta was good, but it lacked the Italian feeling, like pizzas in Denmark after you tasted the real thing. Its a shame since the rest of the recipes in the book I have tried was pretty good... But again what did I expect, I once saw a English cookbook of Danish cooking, and the horrors they had done to our proud and good food. So next experiment, is going to be done with backup from Italian cookbook.

Have a nice evening...

Weeding in Umbria

Last Saturday we went to a weeding of some old friends of Sara's, in Umbria(the region between Rome (Lazio) and Tuscany). It was a great trip, even if it started a bit hectic like most of our trips :). We arrived 40 minutes too late. Which in Denmark would mean a very embarrassing entrance, because up there north a church ceremony, is something where you enter the church into one single aisle in the middle of the nave, and the door is closed when it starts - making it virtually impossible to sneak in. In Italy, the ceremony is held for open doors, with parents running( that kind where you try to run while sneaking, in high heels or shiny shoes with leather bottom) in and out with the babies if there were signs of crying, or people having a cigarette, or even just out to make a phone call. Where you sometimes get the feeling of a trail in a Danish weeding, a italian weeding is much more like a jazz concert. So except for some smiles and blinks our late arrival was unnoticed. The priest was a big, happy guy (who actually got lost finding the place, so we wasn't that late any way). He held more than a ceremony, a long, very funny speech(according to Sara, my Italian brain wasn't awake yet) about the things called love and marriage. For a guy who supposedly never had that kind of love for a woman (can't get married if you are a catholic priest) he new quite a lot. but he made people laugh allot and that was cool (or very unorthodox, in my conservative protestant mind ). And then we clapped (!?!) :). I'm the one who's old fashioned...

Anyway the weeding was held in this very romantic place, and luckily the lucky couple have made the day, so that the family would go for big lunch together, and we could go sightseeing, and then all of us could join them around dinner time for a snack and then a party. So we had the opportunity to go around a bit (and to get Thomas, our Danish connection). We went to this small restaurant place, 4 km into nowhere from the in the middle of nowhere place, where the weeding was held, and ate some good lunch (and meet to older Danish guys, small world:)). After lunch we went to see Orvieto which was close by, and highly recommendable, well except for all the other people who thought it was highly recommendable too - the place was packed with tourists.

We walked around, and had a tea in the cafe of the theater, where a philosopher came and started to talk about Kirkegaard. He wasnt scary or anything, he was just a bit too strange, so we finished our tea and left, to have a look at the Duomo (the cathedral of Orvieto). Back in the middelages this town was quite important, with a strong connection to the pope, at the sack of rome in 1527 the pope Clement VII even fleed here and live for a period.
. After about as many wows and how-beautiful's we ended up sitting in this enoteca (which is Italian for wine bar). As a church-o-manic this is duomo differently one to see.

Fortunately the train which was to bring Thomas late, so I had plenty of time to drink a couple of glass of a great red wine (which I sadly forget the name of) and enjoy some time with Sara (and send messages to all my friends who would be envious of sitting there:-)).

The party, when we got there, was nice... but it was almost finished before they started, which were no wonder since, most of the guests had had such a long lunch that they went directly from it, to dinner...