I would like an icecream (in almost 8 languages)

Monday I took the Italian language exam, at level B1. It went well I think, but I am still waiting for the result. I took it with a group of Chinese which have had a 6 month acceptance course. For them this exam is needed to be allowed to take courses at an Italian university.

The exam contains a two parts, one is written and one is oral. It wasn't too hard (I dare say even before I get my result), but still I am pretty sure that my answers wasn't perfect either.

While waiting for the oral part of the exam, I tried to learn some Chinese, and since the first sentence I learned to say in English "I would like to have an ice cream" ( at the age of 5 I think). It was quite a fun talk, but you should probably have been there. In the end we had almost 8 different languages represented on the black board



The one to the right is in Hungarian, but I sadly didn't fit all of it in the picture.

Do you know any other ways languages to write it in?

prefood

In a danish cookbook called “Nutidsmad” fra 1929. it is pointed out to the struggling housewifes that one should get as much energy out of "formaden" as possible ("formad" roughly translates to prefood.) To save money and don't spend so much on the (real)food like roasts and other meats.

The book counsels

"Jo større Portioner Formad, man spiser, des mindre Appetit har man til den efterfølgende dyrere Kødret. Det er derfor en gammelkendt økonomisk Regel, at man skal spise store Portioner Formad, naar man vil leve billigt"

which most non danish speakers wouldn't understand so here is a translation
"The bigger the potions of prefood, one eats, the less is the appetite for the following meat dish. It is therefore a old wellknown economic rule that one should eat big potions of prefood, when you wanna live cheap".

The prefoods or lets just call the first courses was primarily soups or porridge, (f.ex. water porridge). None of them sounds really interesting. But it made me think if this is the same reasoning which lies behind the italian primo, which is always a pasta, and then followed by the "secondo" ( the second after there first one, what a surprise) which is meat.

Very interesting... no ???

On our second day of holiday

Last week was holiday. Even if my project manager gave me the "opportunity" to stay in Rome and come to work, so I could catchup on the zillions of things, I should have finished long ago.

We went to stay in Sarnano, which is a bit up north and a little to the right, to get a break from the chaos and heat of Rome (even if you cant really say there is much chaos in Rome in august. Its just closed and deserted, but there is lots of heat).

Sarnano is a medieval town with lots of history and a very beautiful historical centre, and like most other villages it has lots of activities and happenings around the 15 of august. The first of which we attended (It wasnt the first event, just the first one we attended) was the medieval restaurant.



“Medieval” means that the people who worked there is dressed up, and the food and tables are attempted to be similar to those of the 1300 ( I think that was the time we agreed it should be), The restaurant is made with voluntary workers from the village to collect money for the annual palio (which was cancled this year, so I guess the money went to something else.



It was a nice evening, with lots of stars to be seen from the small square where the restaurant was. The entertainment was quite entertaining too. In the shape of a big man running around dressed up like pan.



He turned out to be quite the multi artist, his first act was to go around and stuff grapes into peoples mouths. which for some people was pretty surprising (including myself.). Then he moved on to playing with fire, spiting some nice flames, archiving some nice "AUORRASS" from the audience.

By that time we was eating our secondos, which was a lamb stew, with olives and stuff (it was great)



(The thing to notice here is the fact that there is a fork, which wasn’t used before much later. But I guess for practical reasons, they didn’t want us to eat quite like they did back then.)

After the fire act, there was a break. And then suddenly the hole restaurant exploded with a mix of Hawaiian and Irish music and the big man reappeared in big skirt, and starting doing this very bizarre dance, which would be more at home in a Paris bar 18 centenary, then here. But we had red wine so we thought it was funny (or at least I did)

After the show, we went to a bigger square (Piazza Alta) and saw a play about how Saranano had torn itself away from the great count, and made itself into a commune. with a city counsel.



According to the myth saint Francesco himself arrived just after the succeeded and drew the town seal.



There were a big party that night at a nice place. But we were so so tired, and went home to sleep instead.

Berlusconi covers the truth

Berlusconi touched up a painting, so it wouldn't offend people watching his governments press conferences (as I mentioned in a previous post). I need to add that what happened to be a half naked woman on the picture, was actually a depiction of "truth". So no matter how many laws Berlusconi makes to avoid convictions in the courts, he will always atleast on one account be guilty of covering up the truth. (link). The painting is by the way called “The Truth Unveiled by Time”.

ARGGGGG

I have this document that I should have finished last week, which is blocking for the work I should also have finished last week. But how is it that anybody is expected to work while there is a man drilling holes in the wall right next to me. From this side its hard to believe that the wall haven't crumpled yet, with the amount of holes he has made. It must look like a swizz cheese on the other side by now.

The secretary wants to throw out my chair, and I don't want to let it go. In the mess of moving I finally found a chair which is almost high enough for my long legs. And she says it has to go, cause it is spotted. While the administration keeps saying that we should be efficient and finish everything on time, they still kick us out every evening at six, cause there is no keys yet, to lock the doors.

So how should finish be able to finish my assignments...

Poor me! It always helps telling it to somebody. So after writing this I already feel better.

This is the swizz cheese wall.

A real proof that something is wrong in Italy.

Without getting into why, I was at MacD's yesterday. What a horrible horrible sight. In my view Berlusconi is one proof that this country is sinking. He just disfigured a 256 years old picture because after placing it in a official press room, he remembered that it might not be a good idea to have tits in the background, when the press immortalized him in photos. So he had somebody "touch up" the old painting by adding a bra on the beautiful picture. (link).

daily mail

But yesterday I saw the real sign that Italy is going in the wrong direction. Mac. D was full, not full of Americans as they are in the centre of Rome (we were outside of normal tourist route). Not only did I see young people eating big macs in the food capital of the world, but also old people. OLD PEOPLE eating at mac d. they should be home eating a nice plate of pasta, or something. not MacDonald!!!!.

I was shaken, and I felt bad (not only because of the things I just put into my mouth). How can a chain of not-real-food-places be busy in a place where you can eat mozarrella, Suplì and tasty ice cream.

Anyway, don't fall for the tiny "greco" burger, it has NOTHING to do with anything Greek. It just tastes awful. I have refrained from adding pictures.

The new hood

The company, where I work, has changed offices. So now I have a new place to go every morning to play with computers.

Today I was suppose to help putting things in place and not actually work. But after having been here for an hour (where at least half of it was spend walking around the neighborhood trying to decide, which bar would be the most appropriate temple to perform my morning ritual - the cappuccino drinking). Then a manager arrived and got that evil idea that it would probably be possible to locate my computer, and enable me to actually work.


My computer worked with no problem, and even the internet was there only few minutes after I plugged in.

Since then the few colleagues, which are here to help organizing the moving have been coming at intervals to look at the working fool. My boss even came and took a picture of me, as the first good employee working at the new location. The air-condition people also arrived and made the AC work, and now I’m missing my skiing gloves, were are at a freezing 28 degrees here.

At lunch the next problem aroused, because the very nice places close to the old office, where you could buy virtually any kind of Italian food and kebab is not easily replaceable.

So I went at random to this place



Which will not be a place I will return to - their pizza didn't really do it for me. But there is quite a few others, and probably more will show up, when all the funny "Ferie" notes starts disappearing again in the end of August.

I have to say, that the office doesn't really look finished yet. My room is, but the rest looks very un-finished, but I have seen miracles happen before, so I hope that at least there will be a toilet installed :).

Have a nice evening.