Movin on is tough....

I hate to screw up the links and bookmarks that everyone has but I'm going to. With Roam to Rome's help I set up a new site. From now on I will be blogging over at Jeff in Italy. I'm still in Puglia but I just wanted something easier to remember and "tell people" to spread the word. It's obvious how to spell puullleeh in Italian but not English.

Also on this new site I plan to have more photos available in albums and I want to write more in Italian. My local friends seem to be getting on the Internet much more. They love MySpace but I hope they come over to my site once and while.

Anyway change your favorites now!!!

Please...

Another weekend wrap up... Dancing at a Jazz concert?

So what was I up to all weekend? Friday night I had a celebratory dinner with some coworkers. It was mainly an excuse to get together and eat at one of my favorite restaurants "La Locanda te le Spilusi" or just "Lu Spilusi" for us. This place is famous for an appetizer that never ends. This appetizer is a mix of seasonal vegetables and seafood. Some things don't change but others do. The rule of thumb for this restaurant is the larger your group the better. That way when someone doesn't like one particular dish of the appetizer then there is more for everyone else. Theoretically with enough people you have different tastes and everyone can pig out on their favorites. After the appetizer you decide what to order next. I usually can manage a half a pizza on a good night.
After stuffing myself it meant a slow start Saturday morning then a little shopping and light lunch. Dinner was at a friend's house, which is a small apartment, but with a terrace to die for. The terrace encircled the whole apartment and in one area she had giant cacti. Sure, she has a great apartment but she works for my archenemy Alitalia. I tried to not let her profession affect my opinion of her.
After dinner we were going to head to a Jazz concert that was supposed to be "really good." It was 13 euro to get in so it better be good, I thought. Well when we arrived I assumed we made a mistake with the directions. We were at a hotel in the middle of nowhere. There was a huge tent with heaters and big band playing 70s and 80s music. We went to a scene that I would call a huge wedding reception. Despite being midnight there were kids dancing with 30 somethings like myself. There were much older people very nicely dressed which reminded me, I wonder who drove that Masserati I almost side swiped in the parking lot? There was the stage area a big wooden dance floor, and small bar and then tons of collapsible tables and chairs. Like I said it seemed to be wedding reception but it wasn't. A few of my friends and I sat down to access the fact that things weren't as we thought. Usually I need a drink or two before on go on the dance but after about 20 minutes I decided to just go with the flow and went out and danced. I haven't danced like that since....the last wedding reception that I went to. Enough of that you get the point.
The next morning I felt really useful. I assisted Ivan as he installed a very complex light fixture in the bathroom of my neighbor. Word of my handiness is getting around so we may be called on to do more projects. He is very precise and has the local knowledge and I'm engineer so it's assumed I know something about everything mechanical. That afternoon I decided to relax after all that hard work and watch some good rugby action (Italy vs. England in the 6 Nations Tournament). That evening my neighbor made dinner for us as thanks for finally getting the light installed. It seems the saga of the light fixture started long before I started hanging out with them.
So there you have a brief listing of what I did with some gaping holes that I don't care to fill in for you. Sorry.

Technical Problems

I know I've been a bad blogger lately. I'll try to make it up to you. First let me say that it's not my fault! I made the mistake of trying to upgrade my life online. I'm not officially switched over to a new highspeed internet KEY by Vodafone. In fact that photo just loaded in record time (and i was downloading software updates at the same time). Moving forward was not easy, that's all I'll say for now. I will also say that February is flying by. Well I still don't trust this new internet key so I'm going to keep this short.
Ciaoooooo

Life in the Slow Lane...

I can’t put my finger on it but life seems to be moving slowly lately, for instance, its STILL January. How can that be? It seems ages ago when I arrived back in Brindisi after the holidays and all this putanatta in 2008 makes it seem like it’s been 2008 for two months. I’ve been cursing 2008 a little because a few lousy things have happened in this first month of the year. I can’t complain too much because so far every time something comes up that sounds really bad it turns out to be much better then first reported. For instance when I first arrived in Brindisi someone told me that the Goldoni Pub, which I told you about in November, had been closed down by the Guardia di Finanza. This is a common occurrence but I was upset because my friend Ottavio had spent 2 years working on that pub. Well the reports proved false as I stopped in a few days later and he wasn’t closed. There were some “concerns” about his stage and the lights but it was resolved. Basically he couldn’t have a bunch of stage lights. There have been other things like that but I don’t feel like going into details.
I did go out to the beach for a photo trip on Saturday so I guess I could should you a few of those photos… It was REALLY windy and the sea was rough on Saturday as you see in the photos. It’s been like that lately though one day REALLY windy and the next day calm.

Italy in Crisis???

Nah, they’re just changing the whole government, again and at a really bad time for the economy. You see Berlusconi was the first Prime Minister to actually serve the whole entire 5-year term since WWII. And he’s convinced he’s the only one that can do that. To prove this Berlusconi has spent the last 20 months constantly trying every trick to get the Prodi government thrown out of power. It seemed like every time something didn’t go well Berli would be on TV saying the Prodi government needs to “go home.” I really thought it was funny when Berli said, “If Prodi can’t solve the trash crisis in Naples then his government needs to go home.” We should ask Berli what he did to solve the trash crisis in the 5 years he was in power; by the way the trash crisis in Naples has been a crisis for 15 years now. Well yesterday Berli won. Prodi lost his vote of confidence in the Senate and now the government is in a state of limbo until the President decides what to do next. This is the only time the President does anything by the way. The most likely thing is new elections. That’s right, after only 20 months, another election.
In case you didn’t follow how this could happen, good for you. I’ll briefly sum it up. The bottom line is that a member of Udeur party (the Udeur Party holds 3 seats in the over 300 seat Senate) is under investigation for corruption and fraud. The Party is upset that the Prodi government didn’t “support” them against the investigation so they switched sides and are now against Prodi. These 3 little seats in the Senate are enough to stop Prodi from getting any bills through the Senate. They called a vote of confidence to see if it’s even worthwhile to discuss bills if they are going to be voted down. The confidence vote last night basically said that anything Prodi brings to the Senate would be voted down. So we need a new government that has a majority and can get bills completed.
You want to hear the really funny part. Yesterday in the Senate they were about to vote and one of the 3 Udeur Senators decided he was going to vote with Prodi because he wanted the government to stay and continue. The other Udeur Senator went nuts verbally assaulting his fellow party member. Some accounts say he even spit on him before he was escorted out (YouTube should have video proof under “Tommaso Barbato” and “sputo” by now!). The Udeur Senator that changed his mind fainted and had to be carried out under a barrage of insults from other Senators. The 3rd Udeur Senator, oh yeah, he wasn’t even there and he’s the one under investigation too. Hmmm. I like this quote from the spitter “Questo Paese non risorgerà mai se ci sarà gente di merda a rappresentarlo” (In English that's something like: “This country will never rise again if there are people of shit to represent it”). What a nice thing to say about your fellow party member. There are many other subplots and wicked tales that make it almost impossible to find the truth. Did the Prodi government buy the one Senator’s vote? Did Berli buy the Udeur Party’s support? Are they all bunch of overpaid, power-hungry idiots incapable of doing anything for the good of the country?!!!!
On the plus side Beppe Grillo is getting ready for a new election. Will his Civic Lists make an impact? He’s asking that no CONVICTED criminals be allowed in Parliament. I won’t even touch the fact that they were just about to pass a law that changes how Italian elections are done. Stay tuned…

Dreamin'

I may be dreaming but here’s the deal. I’ll let you in on it. When the dollar started to go up Monday (it has since gone…never mind) my curiosity was peaked and I went online looking at real estate sites here in Brindisi. I came across one particular property that interested me. The funny thing is that it is right across the street from where I am now. So what are the details?
It’s a 3 bedroom 2 bath apartment just like the place I’m renting now but a little smaller. I really would like a 2 bedroom 1 bath but this apartment may be easier to resell in the future.

Here’s the big good point. It has a huge terrace. I debated back and forth on weather I would like to live in the country or the city. I’ve decided that in the city would be better but only with a large terrace that gets plenty of sun. I could make it into a little garden. I envision a tranquil garden oasis in the city. This place could be it. Living in the country would be nice too but I love not NEEDING my car to go everywhere. I love my current location where I can walk to work. This place is like my current apartment only with a big terrace.

It’s on the top floor (the 7th floor in this case) of the building. One of the bad things about my current apartment is the street noise. I would hope this place is high enough that the street noises are less of a problem. The building across from it is not very tall so the noise should disperse whereas in my place the noise is kind of channeled or bounced between buildings. Also a majority of this apartment faces Via Appia whereas my apartment faces more the main road Via Bastioni San Giorgio (but it still doesn’t have the address “Via Appia”, which would have been another plus in my book, damn).

Some of the downsides…
The 7th floor, ouch, that’s high, so I need to make sure the elevator works all the time. I would still use the stairs a lot like I do now but if I have luggage or groceries and I need the elevator then it better work. A friend of mine, Andrea lives in the building so I need to ask him about it. The outside of the building looks like crap. It has chipping concrete and the first floor offices have been empty forever. Is this building kept in decent shape or about to collapse? A possible big problem is that there is no mention of a garage. I know there is an underground garage under the building and USUALLY each apartment has one garage but that probably isn’t the case here because it’s not stated in the ads. No garage is really bad because I can’t leave my car on the street and there’s no place to park, legally that is…
The price is pretty good for Brindisi but it’s still really high for me (with the exchange rate). Will the owner raise the price if he hears a rich American is interested in it? How much will I get when I start renting my house again? And when will that be? OF course I’m just dreamin’ so lets say I get the apartment, put a few solar panels on the roof and make a calm, beautiful garden with a hot tub, yeah, hot tub. All with everything still within walking distance....

For Pete's sake....

I don’t use that phrase normally but today I am. Things are a little ridiculous at work right now. I think I mentioned some time ago that my coworkers are not satisfied with the food served in the cafeteria. There was a survey done and nothing seems to have changed. Come to think of it, I never saw the results of that survey. Hmmm… Fast-forward to Friday of last week when the workers took actions into their own hands and did what Italians LOVE to do. They went on strike against the cafeteria. At lunchtime on Friday, instead of going to eat in the cafeteria they hung around outside it making a lot of noise. Refusing to eat in the cafeteria and not letting anyone else go in. I waited until most of them went back to work and then went in and ate. There was still two guys hanging around asking us “nicely” not to go in but I did anyway. There was even a security guard in front of the cafeteria making sure that if someone wanted to go in they could. This striking business is out of control and if I don’t agree with their position then I have every right to go in there and eat. A strike would be necessary if the food was not eatable or if there were health concerns, but the food is fine. I have noticed a slight decline in the quality over the years (I’m sure to Italians this decline probably seems like the end of the world). But the bottom line is that food is getting more expensive and I’m sure the cafeteria is just getting by on the same budget they have always had. I would be taking my complaints to the person here at work that is in charge of the cafeteria. This striking business is just used way too often. Anyway, today I’m having a panino from a little store outside of work because they say I shouldn’t go in to the cafeteria again during this strike. This is so ridiculous. Do they really think they will get better food by striking? Anyway I would love to have a hot meal for lunch today but instead I’ve caved in and I’m a cold panino. Their big statement is that I’ll benefit from this strike in the long run. What happens if the strike doesn’t work?
Also there are no photos today as the Vodafone network is on the blink. It’s really slow. I switched my Vodafone Connect Card from 3G to GPRS just to get a connection that stays connected! I wonder if that new fancy new “Internet Key” that they show on TV is having this problem. Maybe it’s causing it!!!

To quote Sheryl Crow, “Every day is winding road…”

Focara di Novoli part 2

For the story of the Focara click on this: my write up on the Focara last year. This year I'll just give you some photos.

There's always a ton of lights for these festivals. This one I'm taking trying to get the church in the photo. If you look closely you'll see it.


This one is looking right down the heart of the lights. There's noone around because the fireworks just went off way down after the end of the lights. In a few minutes the street was packed with people heading against us. We were salmon swimming upstream until we arrived at the fire. Don't arrive just late. Arrive really late or early!


I don't remember this from last year. These wooden buckets are filled with anchovies in some strange yellow paste. The white bucket has what I think is sardines. I knew I should have taken a picture of the names because now I don't know, Marco auitemi, ti prego!!


Another photo of the yellow fish. I didn't try it. Sorry, but I had a panino of questionable meat. I didn't want to add fish to that equation.

The normal vendor you see at these festivals. Lots of nuts and dried stuff.


Another one. How much nuts and dried stuff do Italians use? He also had olives, figs, and other things....I'm always amazed at the number of people selling almost the same things.


Here we are sneaking a peak in a local restaurant. This place was FULL of smoke. There must have been a problem with their wood fired oven. It was a sweet smelling smoke but thick.

I'll have a scontrino with that....

There was an interesting article in the paper this weekend. It said that 70% of stores in Italy don’t issue a proper receipt all the time (highest was 84% in Campania and lowest was 45% in Umbria). What does this mean? Well in Italy there is a 20% VAT or IVA or sales tax, whatever it's called. One of the down sides of many small stores is that it’s hard for the government to know what they are selling. So if a store doesn’t issue a receipt then the government doesn’t know about the transaction and doesn’t get the VAT. Instead the storeowner gets it. This upsets me because it’s plain and simple tax evasion, cheating, stealing, or whatever else you want to call it. I hate giving the government my money too but if all these stores are cheating the government then “they” still get their money from somewhere and that’s me because I honestly report all my income, so the government takes more from me. I'm getting hit twice because I paid the VAT that the government didn’t receive and my income taxes. It brings about a vicious circle. People cheat the system so the government raises the taxes to get the money they want. So more people cheat because there’s more to gain by cheating. In the big business capitalist society of the USA people still cheat but it isn’t as obvious and widespread, but of course I could be wrong. Well at least I'm not getting hit twice, I think.
This brings me to a second point that these people then have no right to criticize the state of Italian hospitals and schools. If you’re a café owner and you don’t give everyone a receipt and short change the government then how to you expect them to keep your schools and hospitals clean and new? I love shopping at these little stores, as it just feels right. It’s what you imagine when you think of Italy, but like all good things it has a down side too. I think just about EVERY store I’ve shopped at has at some point not given me a receipt. It happens more when they know you because they know you’re not from the Guardia di Finanza. The GdiF is government’s answer to finding all these lying and cheating stores (another expense I pay for!) All of this is really funny when you realize that I could get in trouble for leaving a store without a receipt. So I'll ask for a scontrino and they will give me a double take and wonder what I'm up to. Just a little Monday morning rant. Maybe I’m too idealistic because I think everyone will do the right thing and we’ll get along, blah, blah, blah…
Well at least I put up a photo of the pretty spring like flowers we have already. Along with this I had two mosquitos in my apartment last night! I swear they hang out by my door waiting for me. Maybe that's why I'm in a whiny mood...

Ok, Ok, Something new...

It's just that there isn't much to write about these days. After La Befana the days are pretty boring. This week we have the Focara at Novoli but I went last year and it wasn't that great. Check out January of last year for that review.

One thing about this weekend is I did finally see "Il Padrino" (The Godfather). Yes all this time I had never seen the movie. I figured I really should and then my sister gave me the book for Christmas last year(well technically 2007 is last year). I read through it quickly as I really got into the characters so the next step was to see the movie. Is it just me or does it seem like every time you read a book and then see the movie you're disappointed? The book gives you so much more. Did the movie even mention Rocco Lampone by name? I think the only time I've been satisfied with a movie after the book is the Lord of the Rings. I can see why the movie was such a hit but I still didn't get the same feeling of tension like I did in the book.