The freak snowstorms of early March are now a fading memory, and something that can honestly be called spring is blooming. Daylight savings time is now in effect, the days are longer, and begin to be pleasantly warm. In fact, the government has decreed a day when it is officially warm enough and central heating…

Eating in Italy is a very, very important part of life, and eating well is a priority for everyone, in all walks of life. During the evening news on Christmas day, they showed footage of the soldiers in Iraq spending their day, which included a celebration of mass, but also a description of all the…

Not being particularly inclined to “follow the herd”, Ilenia and I decided to take our vacation in October, instead of August, when pretty much everyone else in Italy takes the month off. I have a couple friends in Spain that I had been talking about visiting for several years, and the timing finally worked out!…

Padova, a city of 300,000 some odd people had two chain hamburger “restaurants”: a McDonalds and a Burger King. A few months ago, the Burger King closed. The McDonalds is right next to the train station, and stays in business because of its location (Ray Kroc, McDonalds founder always said his business was ‘real estate’).…

In Italy, “la residenza”, residency, is not just an attribute that describes where you live, it is an actual legal certificate. When we moved back to Padova, Ilenia decided to officially change her residency from that of her parents’ home to our apartment. Just moving isn’t enough, of course. The proper authorities must be notified,…

Yesterday evening we went to what is called a “sagra”, a small festival where there are maybe a few rides for the kids, but where the central feature is always good food, and this was no exception. We had an excellent plate of beans and sweet onions with a light dressing, and another plate of…

The heat has eased up since early June – or maybe I’ve just grown used to it, but we’re now in that very comfortable part of summer here when it’s almost always warm out, at whatever hour you go outside. It’s an especially nice feeling in the evenings, because the absence of the sun, and…

Indeed, nearly a month after we ordered it, our DSL connection was activated, piece by piece. The modem finally arrived, but with no access codes or any of the other bits that should have come with it. After continully hassling them on their toll free line, Telecom Italia has slowly relinqueshed, bit by bit, that…

We’re still in the process of furnishing our new apartment. The place we settled on “only” had a kitchen. You see, in Italy, unfurnished really means that. There is nothing inside at all, and one purchases “a kitchen”, including sink, shelves, stove, fridge and other appliances separately. This is clearly prohibitively expensive, and limits one’s…

I was invited to speak at the JOIN2003 conference, at the University of Minho in Portugal by Jose’ Castro about a week ago. Ilenia and I were in the middle of moving to our new apartment in Padova, but I couldn’t pass up the chance to go to Portugal, someplace that I had heard good…