hello in belgo

First experiences of Belgium - Bemusement at the labelling of a person on the airport concourse in front of me: he was wearing a 'Stella Artois' jacket and a Tintin backpack; Mirth at the idea that there's a Belgian Beer Cafe even in Brussels airport, Excitement at the abundance of chocolatiers, Concern when trying to understand the train timetables.

Nonetheless I managed to cross the language divides and arrived here in Gent. I haven't been into the town centre yet but it seems like a very nice, organised, well-functioning western european city: bike lanes, traffic lights, fritjeries (fried food shops), big supermarkets. If I were in the french-speaking part of Belgium then I might have a chance with the language but being here in the dutch part I'm forced to learn some extra words. Any clues on pronouncing alstublieft, please?

Last night I was tired from the early wakeup that morning, so I contented myself with a wander around the local supermarket and bought the delights shown in the photo above. Perhaps another mark of your modern western suburbium is the impossibly overstocked supermarket, catering for every market: so it was great to see, and then be able to buy, fresh bread in loaves, different cheeses like Rochefort (with mould that actually looked and tasted like mould), Normandie Brie, types (!) of muesli, and even some belgian beer (only leffes, chimay, grimbergen, kwak, some lambics, nothing too exotic).

So, greetings from the land of the fry and waffle. Tried a waffle this morning (just a plain one) and will go around walking for most of the day to try and justify some fries for dinner, or maybe lunch...

Ciao, Paul.

Climbing up to the Moon

While listening to the Eels' album 'Electrochock blues', I've been preparing the latest website addition - some photos of my first Italian climbing outing, last Saturday at a local climbing site, about 45 minutes out of Venice. It was a lot of fun to actually be climbing real rocks and hanging off real cliffs compared to the rather sedate and knowingly safe climbing wall in the gym. Your approach to climbing changes completely when there are no obvious brightly-coloured bumps sticking out of the flat wall - instead you seem to feel your way along, testing every little cranny for the chance that your hand might be able to grip onto it and your foot might be able to not slip off...as I said, good fun, as long as you assume that the spiders that made that web are just gonna keep on sleeping, and the bees that made that nest are just gonna keep on nesting...

Before going to Belgium next week I've got to sort out my electoral enrolment - Italians are going back to the polls to decide on a new government (or non-government, depending on how you see it...) and now that I'm an Italian citizen I thought I might as well get my vote in...who knows - it might be my only chance in the two years that I'll be here! That's not a common occurrence - Italian governments have a short lifetime and rarely last much longer than a year before they collapse through coalitions splitting, ministers resigning over criminal charges or just spontaneous combustion. Lots of people are concerned that Berlusconi will get back in as prime minister, although the left coalition has a reasonable chance of making up a majority. Unlike Australia, there is too much political discussion in Italy - the newspapers and television are full of political commentaries and talk shows, respectively, which makes it difficult to know really what the larger public are thinking - all the media reports is opinion, which is only marginally less helpful than statistics.

Sorry about the rambling nature of this blog - I've been meaning to write a bit about Italian politics for a while, as well as Neapolitan rubbish, but too many other things get in the way. Like going to Abruzzo this weekend to visit rellies, and going to Belgium next week. I'll get back just in time for the elections - if I get myself enrolled.

Ciao, Paul.

What's in your garden?

Coming home the other day, I discovered that something new had happened in the Hillton hood. Someone had decided to put some strange things in our garden, like two sports cars, a musical spa and a miniature ranch! In addition to the luxury cruising yachts parked on the other side of the building and a couple more luxury cars and boats out on the fondamenta these postmodern garden gnomes are the attractions for the "passion" expo at the hotel this weekend. A bit of a surprise, I have to admit. Anyway, I suppose it means that we can expect strange happenings to happen in our garden this summer with some regularity...


Otherwise, not that much to say: Ali and I are busy with work and planning our respective travels (Ali about Australia with Superengine and myself to Gent and Vienna for work). We're planning to go down to Vasto for Easter to visit my rellies and are just beginning with forward planning of summertime visitors and gigs, so if you want to visit us get in quick with a booking! The website has been updated with some new photos (particularly of carnevale) and of course the coming weeks will provide opportunities for many more...providing that I don't fall off a mountain when I go rockclimbing tomorrow!

Ciao, Paul.

Carnevale!

I've fallen behind with my blogg-a-log-ing....I'm not as efficient, brief or reliable as Dr. Paul "Blog-a-longa".

So.....Carnevale.....I'll have to cast my mind back because it was four weeks ago now and so much has happened since!

Carnevale has been celebrated in Venice since the 13th century and marks the period leading up to Lent. The exact translation of "carnevale" is apparently debated (thank you Wikipedia) but the translation that makes the most sense to me is "farewell to meat"....a celebration of food and good times prior to the fasting of Lent.

The start date of Carnevale is always 40 days before Easter....and with an early Easter this year came an early Carnevale. Carnevale lasts for 11 days and finishes on Martedi Grasso (Fat Tuesday). It seems that Venice really comes alive during Carnevale. Normally Venice is very touristy but during Carnevale, the island is completely taken over for two weeks. During this time it's rare to hear much Italian spoken. There appeared to be a lot of people who go all out - staying in expensive hotels, dressing up in Baroque costumes and having their photographs taken.....by other toursits....like me.

So Carnevale was a massive party. We spent most nights just walking around the streets from one campo (piazza) to the next and soaking in the free music, drinking vin brulee and eating the traditional sweet of Carnevale, frittelle (basically small doughnuts.....but ohhhhhh so good!). Frittelle are only available during Carnevale so I over-indulged a little.....my jumper still smells like cinnamon from spilling vin brulee and frittelle on myself. Oh the shame.

This year a focus for the entertainment was Romanian music / art. Another focus was the theme of "six sensations" for the six sestieri (sections) of Venice. Highlights for me were therefore watching the Bucharest Philharmonic Orchestra for free in Piazza San Marco, and the experience of being led around a completely dark room by a blind Italian woman - the idea being to experience what it is like to be blind and to awaken your other senses! Of course I was missing two of my senses because I couldn't understand all of the Italian instructions!

However, one of the most interesting moments of Carnevale was at the beginning - the opening party. The background to this story is that the week prior to Carnevale, sadly, two Venetian warfies were killed unloading a ship containing maize.....I'm not entirely certain of the science, but there was some form of combustion in the shipping containers leading to the emmission of gas and the two workers died from asphyxiation. As a sign of respect, the start of Carnevale was postponed until 12am Saturday night. My italian teacher informed me that deaths at work are a significant political issue here in Italy - apparently 2 workers are killed on the job in Italy each day. It was impressive to see the level of respect that was paid to the workers.....flags were flown at half mast and some businesses were shut for the day.

However this meant that there was some uncertainty about the opening of the 'opening party' - a five room electronica / dance music spectacular that had been widely advertised. Paul and I discovered from looking at the website that we had to buy tickets......information that was missing from all the posters plastered all over Venice!!! We had assumed it was free like everything else. We also discovered that the time of the opening party had been pushed back two hours so that it would start at 12am.

So we go to buy tickets at 5pm to be told that there were none left. Paul didn't believe this and Erika was also unaware of the need for a ticket.....so we went to the party anyway. We were confronted with hundreds of people outside the doors of the pavillion and very little security to be seen. In fact the only official person to be seen whilst we were getting crushed in the crowd was perched on a gate taking photographs of everyone being crushed to death.

Paul and I were thinking....."So do we need a ticket? Where are they selling tickets? Do these people next to us have tickets? Are we going to get all the way to the entrance only to be turned away? Are we going to die?" etc.

So rather than dragging out the story any further, we got in, we survived. It was only in the coming days that we came to understand all the drama. They had planned for 2,000 people.....5,000 people turned up.....the gate was pushed in.....people pushed their way through the entrance.....no more cover charge.....bad luck to those people who bought a ticket......they compensated by rising the price of drinks at the bar to 10 euros each.....people had to wait up to an hour to reclaim their jacket from the cloak room......toilets couldn't be found so people created their own (this one I saw myself).....etc.

And it was only on our way out, high from the adrenalin of surviving, did we finally see some security. About 15 police officers standing in a circle about 50 - 100 metres back from the entrance....just chatting.

Ahhhhhh yeah. Italy will toughen me up for sure.