Tuesday 8th Dicembre 2009

Italian day of Immaculate Conception - damn that lady worked quick! This meant a day off for the whole of Italy. Breathed a sigh of relief as I certainly couldn't imagine doing a whole week at work already!

Took a chilled day, taking strong advantage of all that was quiet in Planet Italia. Spent a lot of the morning staring out of the living room window over the hills at the crazy amounts of birds that were swirling around. Actually, those damned birds woke me up. At 10am. What are birds doing making that sort of noise at that time. Maybe they are true Italian birds. Anywhere there were 3 different flocks all doing mad things out of the fields. One set of starling type birds which swirled together and moved around like a crazy whirling dervish - all in one combined multi-organism, many heads acting as one, but really not much going on - just random erratic motion, don't think Brownian motion, more drunken student, staggering from tree to tree. And waking me up - talking and gesticulating like only an Italian bird can! Then there was a flock of seagulls playing down on the fields almost out of view, and thankfully out of earshot as I hate the squawks they make. That was the worst thing about living in Bath - all the damn vampires, I mean seagulls. Kept me awake at night - one time I even ran outside from my flat, in the centre of town near Bath rugby club {lived next door to a couple of pro rugby players} and screamed at the birds to stop, and like King Canute absolutely sod all happened but I felt better, despite being outside in the cold and screaming in my dressing gown. It was blue my dressing gown. Not my favourite. But why were there seagulls in Bath? Nowhere near the sea? I mean, you can almost accept them if you live by the sea as part of the yin and yang of life's rich tapestry - but, seagulls, in Bath? Pah! I digress - there were some other birds too. Doing bird stuff. I hope they are not damaging the vines. Some of the vines have grown too large and have been replanted, or replaced. We need a good crop!

In the afternoon we decided to explore and took a spin out to a place called Volterra

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volterra


as it was somewhere that neither of us had been before and it looked good in the guide. It was a brief drive of about 50 km away, some great fun twisty roads on the way up past some stunning hill top walled towns and as we were approaching the outskirts we say this crazy piece of art like a big "O" - so Dawn jumped out of the car {it was too wet and windy for me} and took some wonderful pictures of the countryside through the "O".

The town was great. Classic old walled town, quaint cobbled bits throughout, old town square and the best bit of all was this well preserved ampitheatre. Stunning. Great day all round. Will try and spend a full day there soon. Lots of adverts for operas and theatre and plays and natale {xmas} stuff so will try and get there again soon.

Went to bed early as Dawn had to go to a meeting in Roma, so had to be up at 04:30.

Lunedi 7th December 2009

Today was a Monday. At work. That's not right is it? Thankfully though it is "Immaculate Conception" day tomorrow - so a national holiday in Italy. I'm not yet ready for a full week in the office.

Early start, in the office at 8am and catching up on mandatory training. Ready for a quick 1-2-1 which should've been 30 minutes but lasted 2 hours. Then I had to boost home to await the arrival of my shipment. Yes 29 boxes of rubbish. So I had to wait outside in the road, in the car, as you cannot get to our house as we're in a gated compound, and I waited, and I waited, and I waited.

They never came. I rang the office. Again and again and again. But it seems that everyone has taken today off as a "bridging" day for their Immaculate Conception frolics - or non-frolics as the case may be. Whichever whatever it meant for me that it was a load of frolics today. I hung around for about 3 hours, then popped back to the office to check my emails, just in case, then I popped back again to the rendezvous for another 2 hours, but nothing. Aaaaargh. Planet Italia strikes again.

Back to the office for more training. Knocked off about 7:30 and then to stock up in the supermarket - went for "Splugen" beer - €0.69 for 66cl, decided not to go for "Birra" at €0.49 for 66cl - looked rather like Asda Yellow Label lager. Found something that looks like bacon - will give that a try in the morning. Went to a pizzeria for dinner, didn't make any good choices, except for the 9% dark belgian beer and then back home for Series 2 of Coupling. And a refreshing Splugen. Classic.

Sunday 6th Decembre Weekend review

Slept in late on Saturday - hooray, whilst Dawn went for a massage. When we got going we went to Pam supermercato to get the usual rubbish and stare at the weird peeled rabbits, octopuses, swordfish, whole pigs with apples in their mouths, lying around like they owned the place. Decided to try a new beer - rather than the usual local Italian beer €0.99 for 66cl, went for the very classy looking German "Wildbrau" pilsner in plastic bottles at €0.49 for 66cl. Update - tastes good, but had a slightly sore head on Sunday morning - won't be trying that one again!

After the normal shopping we took the big step forward and purchased a new iMac. After the deal was done they started packing up the display model to give us - naturally I went mad and refused to accept that. This initiated about an hour of arm waving and a little arguing - Dawn's Italian was excellent. Eventually they found one in another store that hopefully will be with us by Thursday. However, currently we have a very expensive receipt and no computer and no proof that we haven't received it. Gulp.

In the afternoon I went to visit a Swedish colleague and we played XBox all afternoon - a shoot 'em up, street fighter and a bit of rockband. Happy days.

Sunday morning disappeared quickly, a few minutes watching "Grande Fratello" - the Italian version of Big Brother. Looked as annoying as the UK version. After that we prepared the house for the aarrival of my shipment of 29 boxes tomorrow afternoon - gulp. Thankfully it's a bit flat.

Then we went exploring the grounds of our house. Melissa the sexually confused cat came with us for a short while, but after we'd travelled the 40 yards to the pool she seemed to reach the end of her/his/its territory and stayed to guard the house. Lots of olive trees, tumble down old villa buildings with strange wells with crystal clear water, acres of vines, footprints of deer, and the unmistakable sound of shotguns and dogs, probably hunting the same deer, or maybe boar.
The light was rubbish but took quite a few photos anyway:

* Pomi - the strange local fruit in the small allotment out the back

* The pool overlooking the Tuscan hills

* The front of our building - with the statues

* The well in front of our building

* The pool house - with the table tennis table and table football - that's where Saman and Jen will live :)

* Me on a tree

* A view from the pool up to the pool house and our building in the background

We picked some olives to experiment with how to cure them. I can confirm that they taste really disgusting as they are. We have washed them and placed them in a bowl full of salt, for curing for a month, after which time we shall place them briefly in boiling water and then eat them. Magic.

Checked that the table football and ping pong were working and then back inside to eat pici - local egg-free pasta - rather like a thick spaghetti - or the udon noodles from Wagamamas. Work tomorrow but it is Immaculate Conception day on Tuesday so a day off - yay!!

Day 3 at work. 4th December 2009

Wow - what a day. Torrential rain, got to the office at 8ish, then had to dash for a blood test and a medical in the infermerie at 8:30. Shouldn't have dashed! Planet Italia was on super go slow. Got stabbed by some random woman and then was forced to wait in a freezing cold corridor, with no idea of what was going on for what seemed like ages. Eventually when they called me through they went through a medical history which seemed to have more pages than my PhD thesis and went into the minutae of all the jobs that I've had and my famil's medical history and the most ridiculous stuff. And not so easy with a doctor, or someone I presumed was a doctor, who couldn't speak english so well. Took about 2 hours to got through it all, and then she took my blood pressure - which I passed with flying colours, and then grabbed me with VERY cold hands indeed. Anyway, took a long time, was excessively complicated, lots of signing inexplicable pieces of paper - classic Planet Italia.

When I got back to the office - the joy of the 17th Century office building - it had sprung a leak in one place only - right above my desk so yes it was raining on my desk. Still not got the hint yet. Still keep going in.

Nice lunch - risotto and chicken. Another Eurodollar well spent.

At 2pm the technician turned up to install my laptop. Not simple, naturally. Took 2.5 hours and even when I got it home just now - the wireless isn't working.

Another late night at work, got out just before 8 and then we went to one of Dawn's yoga friends for an Italian meal. Yum.

Lie in tomorrow. Yay.

Included a little picture of some of the mad stuff that you find in the Italian supermarkets - I think they're rabbits - but I can't be sure!!

Day 6, 2nd Day at work, 3rd December 2009

Woke up early and dark. By the time the daylight came up the view out of the window was one of fog fog and more fog - like it had all been a dream and someone had stolen Tuscany away from us. As the sun came up and burnt away the fog, little islands of hills and buildings arose like a surreal game of SimCity and waved at us through the haze.

A cold day today, below freezing overnight. In to work fairly early and trying to extract as much from my boss whilst she's here (back to US tomorrow). Long day, 12 hours, punctuated by some lovely pasta and zucchini, a meeting with my Italian teacher and I missed the ex-pats trip to the 14th century hospital in Siena, deciding to have a 4 hour meeting with my boss and interim instead. Discovered that the building that we are in is "The Master's House" of the main villa. I say "discovered" - this involved reading the sign by the door. Clever hover.

Back home late and on with the first of the cheap wine testings! I've decided to try all the cheapish wines (nothing over 2 EURO) in the supermarket to see if any of them are any good. We bought four different ones the other night - two were 1 EURO, one was 1.90 and one 1.99.

The first is a sparkling red (!!!!) - a lambrusco at a mighty cost of EURO 1.90. Strength by volume 8%. Well I can report that it went down very well. Rather like a sparkling grape juice. It was fantastic - didn't really taste like wine, but I enjoyed it a lot!

Nothing much else happened, didn't get home much before 9pm, and need to be in by 8 and fasted to have a medical, with a blood test!

Ciao!

Day 5 Wednesday 2nd December 2009

First day at work!
Well - yesterday changed. It went from super sunny and beautiful to mega AIDS rainy and almost biblical style storm in the blink of an eye. We had a thunderstorm on practically on top of us with super loud thunder claps and a definitely biblical hail storm.

Before this Dawn introduced me to the neighbour - Giuseppe and his wife. Giuseppe speaks English well and is a yokel farmer. He keeps a small garden just outside our place and grows all sorts of strange local things, there are a lot of cabbage things, chillis, weird orange fruits, oranges and lemons and strange variegated squashes. He showed me around and gave me some chillis which are now hanging to dry - is that the best way? Any tips for drying chillis? Annie? He also introduced me to the strange orange fruit you can also see in the picture - he called them "pomi" - they are almost rottenly moist - but this is spot on according to Giuseppe. Also he told me a tale that people told their children - if you cut open the seeds of the pomi, and cut them exactly in half you can see a spoon on one side and a fork on the other! I tried to do this and cut a slightly bent spoon on one half and a headless fork on the other side. Picture included. Also picture of chillis and pomis, with a pen to give an indication of the actual size.

When we drove to the shops yesterday we saw the "walky on their own" dogs - Annie take note! Two dogs, strutting down the road, on a narrow winding bit where they are just removing some of the too old vines, not worried about us at all, and not really getting out of the way. Just looked like they were out and about for a St. Asano walk together.

So - first day. Into HR at 9 and then spent ages and ages signing hundreds and thousands of forms - don't think I've ever signed so many things. Planet Italia strikes again. Funniest part was the Italian descriptions of "single" - for males it's "celebetaire" and for women it's "nubilie" - or something like that.

Then the local bank manager came in to see me, and another new starter from Denmark called Mikkel - he will be going to where his family are in Munich every weekend for the next year. Ayeeee. Bank manager was very nice and quite humble for the bank manager to come into the office to see us. Tried to go and get my laptop and blackberry but there was an issue with the computer server in Marburg (Germany) so my account was not created properly and I will not be able to work until Friday afternoon. Blackberry won't be sorted for two weeks or so. As nice as this sounds it means I won't be able to get much done which could be an issue.

Got escorted by my admin up to the office. The campus is huge, encompassing not only Novartis but also fragments of the University of Siena (one of the oldest universities - founded in 1240) and other small companies such as Toscana Life Sciences. Not sure of the size but probably several thousand people. The campus is sprawling and contains a real hodgepodge of buildings, nestling in some classic Tuscan hills. It also contains wonderfully old Cedar trees, replete with huge pine cones nestling like Sherards of giant shrews (I tried to find the collective noun for shrews - and failed. Maybe they don't really collect. So I used Sherard. Those who know the woods in WGC will understand why!). If they fell down they could really do some damage. My building is one of the newer ones to Novartis. Recently the campus has expanded and Novartis bought a 17th century villa right at the top of the hill. Our building is not the main villa (that's where the canteen is) but maybe the summer house - there is a swimming pool (sadly empty right now) next to us and apparently in the basement of my building is one of the two gyms on campus. I heard some weights clinking around so that would be ace! Also there was a stunning sunset from the office window this evening.

Since I don't have a latop I can't do much. Got my pass with my awful photo on it! Met my group and gave a little speech in Italian to them (thanks Pablo - they smiled so it can't have been that rude!) and then didn't do much else except for sort out some bits and bobs.

Lunch was great - had some gnocchi and some beef and a yoghurt. Lovely food, in the villa.

Left just before 6 and am home and tired. Working and not working is tough. Yawn. Night nights.

Day 4 Tuesday 1st December

On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me... Oh well, it's not the first day of xmas but it is the first day of December and the gods of Siena have granted us sun and a special day off - St. Asano's day. Which we only have off in Siena. Noone is sure why. I put in in wikipedia but nothing was there - however, Italian wikipedia does give an answer (http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sant'Ansano). So I put the first paragraph in babelfish (http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_txt) and got this:

They pant, venerato like saint from the catholic Church, lived between the III and IV the century. According to the tradition it carried the Christianity and it evangelizzò the population of Siena, then Saena Julia, roman Cologne. We do not have precise news of Sant' They pant, if not that it was roman and that came from a wealthy family of Anicia name [1]. The rest is in good part not suffragata oral tradition from historical documents. He is the Saint patron of the city of Siena.

So that's cleared that up. They pant. They pant again. He is the Saint patron of the city of Siena.

I love the babelfish translations, some sense and some absolute garbage. For absolute super garbage try the multibabel where a sentence is translated in and out of english via other languages 5 times (http://tashian.com/multibabel/).

Beautifully sunny today, lazy morning and going to go for a walk later. Omlette for breakfast with toast. For some reason which has not been explained to me, the toaster has to go into the second bathroom to be made. It's one of the quirks of Planet Italy - just accept them quietly. Normally I don't go in to Dawn's bathroom. I have my own bathroom and Dawn has hers, so I sneaked in to hers to use the special strong plug to make the toast and took a photo out of the bathroom window of the church that was ding dinging. I think it is on the same property as us. Maybe it's our own private church for our residence? Celebrating Saint Asano no doubt.

The other photo is of the wine that is made where we live. We live in Residence della Tolfe and this is the wine that is made on our site. Very nice it is too. Last night we went for dinner with my boss-to-be whom I had never met, and is normally based in Cambridge, Mass. Possibly because it's the holiday the first two places were shut so it became quite a struggle to find a place to eat that was outside the city walls where we could drive to. Usual business of going up incredibly steep roads and round stupidly sharp corners and typically for this week, getting wet in the rain. I had a lovely pizza, they had calzones, and then came back and finished off Californication series 1 with a couple of glasses of vino del casa!

Melissa the confused cat is here again. Dawn made me feed her this morning. She's trying to break me down to let her in the flat but I am being tough and will never crack! Mwah hah hah.

First day at work tomorrow. Darn it!!