humans have an unique opportunity

humans have an unique opportunity to go full circle.

Actually its not so much an opportunity as a direct fall. Luckily the there will be lots of water to land on, if the global warming continues to melt the ice on the poles.

Have a nice day...

Somebody is watching me

Rome is a beautiful place, as I have probably mentioned before. Its is also a place where every amateur photographer gets froth in the corner of their mouths, taking millions of pictures of everything, from garbage to monuments, many also likes to take pictures of other people, which we all know, other people seldom think is very nice.

Being one of those Romans, I am now a involuntary piece of this display, which is public property for the photographers. In the beginning you get quite paranoid, when you stand somewhere with a view, and just as you turn around you realize that you just became the stranger, that made his picture personal. Hearing the #click# of the camera, looking into a wide lens. Or the more sneaky one, where somebody is passing you on the street having a camera hanging around the neck, and just as you get close, he puts his hands on the camera, very discreet, aims the camera, and you can here that #Click#.

Even the statues sometimes seems to be starring down on you, from everywhere:



I am only paranoid when I get very tired, but I don't believe myself to be important enough for any secret conspiratorial group to be watching me. But who can ever be completely certain.

No wonder some people get a sense of somebody is watching them.

Have a nice weekend, and don't take pictures of strangers.

It must be winter holiday up north.

I guess, since the Metro is so packed with screaming German students, quite nervous danish couples with their guidebooks, shouting Scottish Junior league football teams in matching t-shirts, giggling teenagers.

For all of them it seems that they heard that in the Roman subway you need to push to get in, which is also true during the rush hour. But there is a huge difference between a lot of individuals all pushing but in different direction, and the force of a group of students on caffeine shock pushing into the metro encouraged by their leader - a hungover teacher who drank too much red wine with their colleague, or the coach who had a beer at the nearby Irish pub last night.

I wish that people would remember that this city is also a place where people live and work and not Disneyland.

Wanted to take an illustrative picture, but I was squashed in between an old lady which I almost had to hold on to, so she would'nt fall, and a smelly guy, who hadn't had the time for this weeks shower yet. So instead of a picture of that, I found a picture of the pyramid in Rome.



Its called the Pyramid of Cestius, is 36,4 meters tall, and build 18BC - 12BC. I took the picture on one of my marathon walks.

Have a nice day.

Ciao mamma!

In Denmark, we love our mothers, but we are also proud about the fact that we left home, and handle ourself. So if your mum calls during work hours, you would usually exit the work area and go to the hall, here it is considered strange if you don't talk to your mum at least once a day. And when a cellular phone of colleague screams ( or ring very loudly) he picks up, shouts

CIAO MAMMA

and I giggle. I'm the strange one...

What is wrong with this weather

You can always be a little bit surprised about the things that people will bring on a holiday. Some bring toilet paper, other bring food. My danish friends seems to bring the weather. A good friend has been here for twice during the last couple of months, both periods were very special, in the amount of hours it rained - its pretty hard to convince him that there weather is good, because to him, it rains in Rome like in London.

This weekend we had a small family visiting, and for the first time since I was home in Denmark I experience subzero degrees. Okay only during the night, but seriously IT IS COLD, when you are out of practice. also my friends had some a few problems, cause I had told them that it was warmer, so they were not completely prepared for the weather (apparently the danish weather takes up too much space in their suitcases).



Even if the weather was cold, it was sunny, so it was nice to to go for lunch at the beach, even if the side of the shadow side of the body got pretty cold, it was still a lunch sitting outside, listening to the sounds of the sea.

And of course you cant come to Rome without a walk in the historical center.



Besides the fact that I am very happy to have friends visiting. It was also a nice weekend, in many other ways. For me it seemed like a milestone was passed, because I realized that when our guests wanted to ask something in a shop or elsewhere, I could easily ask the questions and help my friends. So all those Italian lessons I have had in January has really payed of - as I probably have mentioned before, its hard to measure my knowledge of the Italian language, when all I have to measure against is Italians. And they have a natural head start to me. But its seems I am really getting better, and that feels cool.

All in all I think this first year has passed as I expected, in sense of stress, and hardness. I wasn't as fast as I had hoped to learn the language, but I'm getting there slowly. Here in Italy, people who just got their drivers license have to put a big piece of paper in the rear window with a big P on. For me it seems that it is about time that I take the P out of my read window, because it seems I am almost ready for people to stop taking special care of me. Even though I am sure that as soon as I have posted this blog, somebody or something will come rushing to show me that I am not so ready after all, but then I will have something to blog about next week too.

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Se qualcuno leggere queste non sei troppo duro con me :), anche il Vittoriano ha bisogno un po' di assistenza a volte.

Among the strange and frivolous things people talk about over coffee

Today somebody brought a glass of Nutella to work. I always thought it was a German product, probably because everybody in my childhood always came back from the German border with two things, namely Beer and a giant Nutella jar. Now I know Beer is not always from Germany, but I guess I never really figured out where Nutella came from.

In an Italian lesson long ago we had a text called, all Italians have a nutella story (Tutti gli italiani hanno un storia di Nutella (I think it was called in Italian), where different people told obscure stories from their childhood including Nutella. This was the first clue.

Entering the information age, people know more and more about things that is not important to know, so over coffee my colleague and I talked about Nutella, finding that it was actually very old, and from north of Italy - Piedmont. Where a Pastry maker - faced with chocolate shortage due to the WII - created this wonder out of hassle nuts, which is plenty in north of Italy.

Actually he started by making a kind of a Nutella bar, which were supposed to be sliced and put on top of bread. But the nice conscientious Mr. Pietro Ferrero soon discovered that the kids forgot to put it on bread, and ate it directly, and he therefore made into a paste which could be spread onto bread. Here in Italy, it got so popular that many shops starting a service which they called "smearing" that meant that you (kids, grownups ect) could come and buy a piece of bread with Nutella spread on top.

In the beginning the wonder was called "Gianduja" after a famous carnival figure from those parts. When it was turned into the paste it turned into "super crema gianduja" and it wasn't before in the sixties, that the catchy name arrived...

When I was a child, we had Nutella from time to time never for long, but it happened. Either way, I think my mum outsmarted the maker, because she figured out how to eat it without bread, even after it came as a paste.

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Here is a nice thing to know (taken from the FAQ of www.nutellausa.com)

I like to eat Nutella out of the jar with a spoon. Is that OK?
While we agree that the creamy, chocolaty, hazelnut taste of Nutella is
delicious all by itself, we suggest not to "double dip," as it reduces the shelf life of the product.

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Anyway, the thing about breaks is that they should be exactly that. A break away from what you were doing. Hope you had a nice break away from what you were doing. if you need more break, I suggest finding another subject to surf...

(I also hope it is pretty obvious, that my only source of information is the American Nutella site, with all this positive talk. ( well and the Nutella knowledge of my Colleague))

There is something rotten in the state of italy

Even if it is part of my country that was originally the state that was rotten ( Jutland, in Hamlet**), these days seems to be something out of hamlet 2 if ever was written, this time it takes place in Italy.

It all started when the leader of a small party of the government coalition, Clemente Mastella, the minister of justice, was put under house arrest for corruption along with his wife(link). Initially Clemente said that he would leave his post as minister of justice, but uphold the support for Prodi's government.

Prodi ( the prime minister) expressed his support for the man and the minister (link), but that was apparently not enough, cause two days later, Clemente did not support the government any longer, saying to was due to the lack of solidarity ( just if you forgot it here, he was the minister of justice and he and his wife was charged with corruption allegations) (link)

Berlusconi ( the former prime minister) was fast to come to the rescue and propose the clemente could be part of another catholic party which supports Berlusconi as prime minister (link) and that there was need of a quick election. Who knows what Berlusconi could promise that Prodi couldn't. Either way Prodis goverment lost its majority, and elections was called

Berlusconi is going to win an election according the current polls, even if he has been stalked by charges of bribing everyone in the Italian judge system to maintain his control of the Italian major TV stations, among so many others.

The election date is 13. April. In honor of this I will try to make some posts telling about the famous Berlusconi, and his doings.

Correction
In shakespears Hamlet, it was the prince of Denmark. It is now believed that Shakespear got his inspiration from a story written by SAXO, which tells the story of Amleth - prince of Jutland. (link)