Lunedi 18th aprile 2010

Well, the volcano has caused a mild amount of chaos for us - work-wise mainly, with shipments grounded, as well as people stranded, on holiday and at work. This week I have been on call and in demand almost constantly for a site audit in Finland, meaning that all normal work goes out of the window. My only solace (apart from constantly having that Monty Python song in my head "Finland Finland Finland, the place I'd quite like to be" - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5gdx1c6xdo), is that those people causing the rumpus are now stranded in Finland. My colleagues who were there from Germany have taken a car to the coast, a ferry over to Germany, and then hire car again to get back to near Frankfurt - fairly easy for them. However, our drugs stuck in the UK that we have worked very hard to get ready for our patients all over the world are now stranded in various European destinations which is a nightmare!

This weekend was cycling down at Marina di Alberese - a sort of flat (yay!) umbrella pined park, on the coast, with horned cows, green fields, some sort of white egrets, and the odd Hoopoe or two. Lovely cycle ride, Dawn giving her bike a good road test, afer I'd fitted her very expensive handlebar extender on to it, and my trusty Claude Butler mountain bike, just about staying in one piece despite all it has been through. We cycled the nice cycle paths and into Alberese for some food - a tiny little town in the middle of nowhere - and chose what we were eating, had it all sorted when I realised that I had forgotten my wallet. The guy though, bless him, told us to pay later, which we did after we had cycled back, Dawn had fallen in a bush, and we were driving home. As I've said previously, so far, the Italians have been overwhelmingly nice, by and by.

As we were cycling along, in the lovely sun (approx 21C I would guess) there were a lot of cracks in the cyclepath and kamikaze lizards kept jumping out of them and doing their best to get themselves run over by us. Actually, they were rubbish kamikaze lizards as none of them got squished but it always seemed so close. Lizards are everywhere - but I don't think I will get used to them - funny little things! These ones in the Maremma were two coloured - green bodies and blending into an orange tail. Some of them had tails missing of course :)

Dawn has been given a new car, courtesy of the company. Well, she gets one for a month, then another until the end of the year, and then next year she gets to choose. It's quite a nice perk, but the car that we have now is just odd. Super Italian - I think it's called a Lancia Mura - although I'm not sure. It looks like it's a small car, but is actually quite large but has these tiny tiny wheels. And some gerbils under the bonnet. Actually the gerbils are quite good. The most frustrating thing is the foot space. I can't get my foot from the accelerator to the brake pedal without taking my foot right back and around and then on to it - it is the smallest foot pedal cavity that I have ever seen!

Since buying a Concept II rowing ergometer (vogatore) a couple of weeks ago, I am trying to get myself back into shape. Since I have been here, I have had several good weeks on the training front, but no great weeks, and certainly no good 2 weeks, but I hope to change now. Had an excellent week of training last week - cycled in 3 times, went to the gym 5 times, cycled on the weekend and 90 minutes on the ergo last week. Hopefully, I am turning the corner on the grassottello (chubby!) front, but it will take a lot of work, as I had managed to let things slip, well not slip, tumble, slide, erupt, into a very state of decay. But, I am happy that if I can keep the consistency of training it will be fine, and considering how much work I have last week, and that I managed to train well, I am buoyant that I am moving in the right direction.

Saturday night was RockBand night at Rob's. Great fun after a long time away. Well, not only RockBand but Guitar Hero too. Great stuff. Played "Run to the Hills" by Iron Maiden over and over again. Fantastico.

On Tuesday this week, the expat society, well really our Italian teacher and HR, took us on a tour of Monte dei Paschi di Siena. This is the oldest bank in the world, having been established in 1472 (although the ledgers say 1471 since at that time, Siena was still using the old calender that didn't recognise a new year until the 25th March). This was amazing, the bank is well known (although I had never heard of it) and is the other big employer in Siena, plus it owns huge amounts of land and buildings, and does give quite a lot back, charity donations, sponsorship etc. The HQ is in a nice square - Palazzo Salimbeni, but it really is surprising what lies behind the doors. It really is very innocuous for a huge banking powerhouse to be HQed there. We had a wonderful tour given by dottore Tasso (Doctor Badger!!!!) who had an equally wonderful white moustache. The bank was originally the home of the Salimbelli family, but really is now part of, and at times, the guardian of Siena. The bank has many amazing works of art, including pictures of the palio in times before the spaniards came in and cut down all the 80 towers in the city, and when it was more of a bull thing than a horse thing. Of course, most of the history focuses on the many battles between Siena and Florence over the years, largely the Florentines won them all, except for one big battle, 7 centuries ago. There are ledgers from every year in the museum, great leather bound works detailing all the accounts, and also the first piece of paper detailing the establishment of the bank, and also the world's first ever traveller's cheque, from around 1660! The finale was the family tower, with the best views all over Siena, better than the tower in the Plaza di Campo in my opinion, as you can see all directions at once. One of the viewing galleries was quite funny. The artist who was commissioned to paint the walls and ceilings, decided to paint well known Siena prostitues and drunks on the walls in positions of authority rather than the usual expected people -family people, bank people, Dante etc. We were very lucky to get a tour of the bank, very few people get such a privilege and I certainly found it amazing.
Right, week 2 of being fit, fingers crossed - incrociamo le dita!

Sabato 10th aprile 2010

Good day today. After waking up with a shocking stinking hangover after drinking too much at Rob's birthday celebration in Monteriggioni last night we spent the afternoon at our neighbours place. Dawn had made them cookies and I had picked up a welcome to your new home card, since they had been in another flat whilst ttheirs was being renovated. They liked this and got Dawn a flower and me some interesting herbal teas. Then Isma came over for a guitaring session that we had planned and we stayed at our neighbours place playing Italian and English songs and having a really good time. And I got to go on Giuseppe's 28 year old vespa and now I really really want one. Sunny day too - probably 21 C.
Tired again now. I'm never drinking again etc.

martedi 30th marzo 2010

Mo, I'm sorry that I haven't written in so long - how can you ever forgive me?
Cycled home this evening in the dark, with some light rain. Flashes in the sky told me that a lightning storm is on it's way. Dawn talked of there being big skies here, I thought she was being silly, but I know what she means now - when there is lightning the whole sky lights up and yesterday evening (left work early - well 5:30, and went for a run in the sun) I saw Mount Amiata for the first time in the distance from our house.

So, yes, I cycled in today - it's only 20 minutes but absolutely exhausting and frustrating with the huge hills here. Within three minutes of leaving the house I am out of my seat in the lowest gear and dying with the hills, then seconds later I am flying down a hugely scary hill. So the 21 minute cycle to work, is 10 minutes of painful extreme uphill exercise and 10 minutes of scary downhill, so not much use exercise wise. And since I have risen to a ridiculous weight, have put on 10 kg since I accepted the job offer - I need to get back into a decent exercise regimen. Today I cycled in and then did 30 min beach weights, this evening I did 30 min running in the gym and then cycled home. Worked out quite well.
However, today I did clock up 45.7 mph on the way to work, terrifying!

This weekend we went to Cameri again. Dawn has found a nice horse riding school there - ideally, it would be closer to us - it's 450 km away! BUt it works out quite well - Dawn does horse riding and I do some cycling. I had a great weekend of cycling this weekend. On the Saturday I put in 30 miles and on Sunday I banged out a nice 60 miles. The roads have beautiful tarmac, very smooth, the roads are very flat, so its quite easy to put in 20 mph on the flat, and there are loads of cyclist out and about. On Saturday I tailed a couple of guys, very welcoming, although they didn't speak a word of English. The motorists are very respectful and give loads of room which is great. Despite my fatness, the engine is still strong and 60 miles was tough but comfortable - if that makes sense. I ended up at Stresa on lago maggiore - stunning location.

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

On Saturday at the horsey place they were having a Scottish festival with some caber tossing and whiskey and kilts, which was fun. We left before the evening meal, which was good because when we arrived back for horseying the next morning several of them had only had an hour or two of sleep after destroying a few bottles of whiskey. One of the guys on the farm is Scottish - hence the do. He has lived in Italy for 10 years - but he made everyone a fry up, amazing - the first time I have had one since I left. Baked beans, eggs, fresh dropped scones(!) and even something that looked like bacon - but actually turned out to be strips of pig fat - still damn fine though!

So, on the Saturday night we went back to the hotel to have a meal. The last time we were there we made friends with the owners and some friends of theirs. The friends are an older - he is 71 with a voice box that was partially removed so that he talks like he's out of the godfather, and he says that he is known in town as the Italian Richard Gere - so we call him Riccardo Gero. Nice bloke. Anyway - touchingly they had made the effort to join us for dinner again, along with the owners, and he had even brought some of his home made salami with him which we had for primi.

The hotel is odd, very odd. There never seems to be anyone there and they don't even make any food - we had pizza from the local takeaway (Beverley Hills!!). So, no one goes in, no one eats, so we have no idea how they make any money. Amusingly the hotel is called The Cutty Sark. This time, there were a couple of youngsters in, although a couple of them seemed to work there. Anyway, they are lovely people, but really don't speak a word of english - none at all. Slowly but surely we are picking up some Italian, but even so we need more to understand these people. Plus they have a strong accent "Cara" becomes "Hara". But we get along. It certainly is a strange little town - we have never seen a shop open on the Saturday - none at all, except the huge Coop. Lots of people cycle which is great, and bizarrely there's an enormous sports complex with huge swimming pool, sports stadium, and even some dodgem cars which was going in whilst I was there. So yes, strange but nice. Reminiscent of northern France. The people are short, quite ugly and have blue eyes - most Italians have dark eyes, so they are different. Maybe all the pretty people have gone to Milano?

It was hot at the weekend, 20C on Sunday, my arms got a little pink, and also a small patch on the back of my leg between my sock and my leggings!

On Sunday morning, Riccardo Gero bought us a coffee in the local coffee bar. Exactly how you'd imagine - only men, in a building with no windows, and most of them playing cards and drinking alcohol - at 10 am on Sunday morning! I had a tea - am still managing to keep my coffee abstinence going - nearly two years now! Interestingly in Planet Italia there are loads of coffee shops that sell "Orzo" - a sort of coffee substitute made from barley.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caffé_d%27orzo

So, yes, Riccardo Gero had a glass of white wine, the others were drinking spirits, and we left him to his buddies and went to play horsies or ride bikes. Interestingly, the women were out and about all holding olive branches - maybe since it is holy week they had all been to church (on their bikes) and were celebrating something or other.
On the trip I stumbled across a huge monster rat thing, dead, on the side of the road - massive - see the picture. I asked at work and it turns out it is a nutria, or a coypu!

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

It was by the side of an air force base - I don't know if that had something to do with it.
Back at work, things are intense as ever. Busy busy, been working late a lot, which is facilitated by me cycling in, which means that we don't have to coordinate sharing the car to get home. Pulled some late nights, and am in at 8 am most days, a couple of 11 pm nights. We've had some interesting happenings in the office - it appears that someone has been trying to access our PCs by coming in late at night, so we are in the process of installing a sneaky surveillance camera disguised as a light switch, although, being Planet Italia, we have to tell the unions and HR have got their fingers in the pies!

Also, whilst we were horseying around, we were speaking to a guy who knew Siena as he had stayed at Villa Gori one time - that is the hotel which the company bought in which we now work - small world - he stayed in the hotel in which we now spend our time.

Easter holiday is short here for such a staunch catholic country we don't get Good Friday off, only Easter Monday - boo.

That's all for now folks!

24th febbraio 2010

"All I need to know about Planet Italia I learned from the lunch queue"

Lots and lots to report but one thing in particular has been on my mind and I repeat it goes a little like this:

All I have learned, all I know, all I need to know about Planet Italia, I have learned in the lunch queue.

It really does encapsulate everything about Italian life so far. It starts at the stage of picking up a tray. There is an area where you collect a tray, a little piece of paper to go on the tray (everything in Planet Italia, has to have at least one piece of paper, preferably signed in triplicate), some bread (quite a variety - most hard, some oily, never brown, never seeded), a glass, and some cutlery, before moving through to the main area to collect your food.

Now then - this tray collection area, vestibule, call it what you will, clearly has two areas so you could easily have two or more people collecting their stuff at one time, but it is so badly arranged that it is impossible to have more than one person doing this at a time, and generally you have about 5 people trying to get things and getting in each other's way. Lean manufacturing or six sigma this is not.

Going through to the counters, there are is a pasta or rice bar, a salad bar, a meat and vegetable bar, a pudding bar, a serviette, oil, balsamic vinegar, paprika bar and a fruit bar. It is a mayhem arrangement of people milling around, getting in each other's way. And the staff at the counters are massively outnumbered by the other staff milling around, or outside smoking, so that progress is very slow.

Then there is the pay desk, sandwiched between the serviette et al bar and the fruit bar. Again, impossible to get to to scan your card to charge the incomprehensible amount of 1 Euro from your wages, without getting in the way of the fruities, or the oilers.

Further down is the seating area. With beautiful stunning views.

And then there are the two tray return areas, which again are excessively complicated, and ends up with people bumping into each other.

After dinner, there is a standing coffee bar. Italians don't sit down to drink coffee, but have very short very strong coffees, and huddle around standing tables for a couple of minutes and then scoot off. Of course, this coffee area does overlap into the original queueing zone, which makes things more messy.

The whole is located in the beautiful Villa Gori, a beautiful 18th century, former hotel.

So - how to sum all this up?

Planet Italia is an incredibly beautiful place, the food is excellent, the people incredibly friendly, but there is a variety of frustratingly dumb roadblocks to get in your way, obstructive beaurocracy. However, simply the best is that Italians ALWAYS find time to take lunch, are very social and incredibly friendly. Very different and really very welcome. In fact, if you don't go to lunch it is seen as very strange or almost rude. I like the approach a lot.

Lunedi 22nd Febbraio

I need to make an amendment from my previous posting. I had not gone two or more weeks without speaking to anybody English...on the first Tuesday night in Marburg I spent too long at the bar, and naturally, the last three people left in the bar were the three English guys! Of course. Typical English thing. And of course, these foreigners don't know how to drink.
A domani.

Mercoledi 10th Febbraio

Two weeks away with work is a long time. Two weeks in Germany is a long time. Two weeks away with work in Germany is a long time. About three quarters of the way through now and have got a good routine but am quite tired of it.
We have a mock inspection, in preparation of a regulatory agency inspection in three months time.

The first few days we had a lot of snow, and I enjoyed several runs through quite thick snow, which was very comfortable for my knees. Since then the days have got longer (8-8 every day) and the snow thinner and slippier, so I've walked a little, gymed a touch, spa'ed a bit and eaten and drunk loads. There is a very nice wine in the hotel called "Clancy" which we had 17 bottles reserved and an emergency order for more put in. It is very pleasant, and there are about 20 of us staying in the hotel so the more the better.

The hotel claims to be one of the best in Germany, and it certainly has the best spa complex I have ever seen, all comes as part of the deal. 5 different types of steam rooms with buttons to choose which fragrance you would like - camomile, rose, menthol etc etc. Strange feet shaped sitting places, and a cold hot bath, where you walk round in a circle putting your feet in the hot and then the cold - it's supposed to be good for something. I'm not sure what. And then there's the salt steam room, which dumps a sort of steam of salt on you ever few minutes, and a swimming pool and jacuzzi, of course. But the best bit by far is the special shower room - this has four different settins. The best one by far is "Caribbean Storm" - you stand in the shower and get bombarded by hot strong jets from the side, whilst bird song tweets above you and soothing lights change colours. After a couple of minutes of this, there is thunder and lightning and white lights flash above and an icy cold mist descends on your head, at the same time that you continue to be bombarded from the sides by warm jets. Now that is special!

Naturally, there have been some HR issues with this trip. The first being that I still don't have my credit card and so can't pay for the room by any other method than by my English credit card. Nightmare. Second, Italian HR policy dictates that you cannot pay for food for anyone else from the company. So if ten of you go for a meal, the bill has to be divided into ten. Nightmare. And then, both myself and Dawn are here, but HR will not let us get around the payment issue by letting us share a room. So mine is basically a bag room. And then I am going to a wedding in the UK at the weekend. So I wanted to buy a single to Germany and then buy my own tickets to the UK and then back from the UK to Italy. But again, this is against HR policy to buy single tickets, so I have had to buy a return to Frankfurt to London and then fly back from Frankfurt to Italy on Monday afternoon. Rubbish!

It will be good to be home, for the wedding, to see the parents and also find some time for a martial arts course. I realised this morning that I haven't spoken to anyone English for nearly two weeks which is strange for me.

Work is long and hard, but we are constantly bombarded with moans from one of the Germans about us contravening German working hours. This has surprised me a lot!
Alles nich in ordnung!

The office here is slightly strange. We are in a smallish office away from the main site, but there is no canteen. This seems very strange. We have had food brought in for us every day, but the others have to go out and forage. Next door there is an Aussie Bar and we went there once but I doubt if the Germans would go there every day. JAFAs everywhere as ever. There WAS a JAFA bar in Siena, which is now a non-JAFA bar I'm pleased to announce :)

Also opposite the site is a casino - maybe I should pop along there with some euro after the inspection finishes on Thursday and see if I can win my hotel bill?

This weekend should be good fun, have got a wedding and then some martial arts. My next trip to the UK in March I have been invited by a friend to join his band to play a little light guitar. So - anybody near Bolton come along to watch "Band With No Name" (not a Seinfeld reference I believe).

Auf wiedersehen.

Lunedi 1st Febbraio

"Pinch and a punch, at the beginning of the month, white rabbits"! Yes - I am crossing everything at the minute as I need all the luck that can be mustered. I landed last night in a very snowy Frankfurt airport and ma now in our offices in Marburg in central Germany, with a very beautiful couple of inches of snow on the ground, and an impending sense of doom as I am here for two weeks with an audit next week. This week we have "role play" aka preparation for the audit. It's a big deal.

Hotel is lovely, gym is great, but just like the one at Siena, there is no rowing machine. What's all that about? It may very well be a convenient excuse, but I really really want to have access to a rowing machine to try and stop the rot. I am at an all time high of weight, approximately 9kg heavier than the summer. Of course, it's nothing to do with the food, or the cheapness of the wine, or the lack of a rowing machine - rather the combination of all of them and many more things too. But I need something to help me get out the hole. The whole hole. And it's a big bad hole.

Olive news - well, it's a mixed bag. After a few days in the water, the olives came back to life, and stopped being crispy rabbit dropping sized things and became slightly shrunken olive-sized things instead. They were a mixed bag - some tasted excellent, some tasted rank. I had a few of them raw and they tasted great, but really really intense, and some just tasted awful and were a slightly lighter colour.

That's all for now! Ciao, arrivederci. Auf wiedersehen!