Yesterday (Wednesday, May 7th), at 19:58, Helen Carolina Welton (Carolina is pronounced “car-oh-lee-nah”, being an Italian name) was born. She weighs 2.8 kilos, and is 48 cm long. Both the baby and Ilenia are doing fine, and Ilenia and I are ecstatic!

To be nice, though, we’ll start with the ugly and wind up with the good. In general, it’s harder to write about Austria than Italy, as I know the latter very well, speak the language, and generally feel at home there; enough so that I don’t hesitate to criticize it and feel like I know…

One of the more frustrating things about being expectant parents is the conflicting advice. Do this – no, don’t do that. Be sure to avoid this. No, it doesn’t matter. And so on. Today we had an interesting meeting with a midwife… We were lucky enough to find a woman who spoke English well, who…

Our baby is due at the beginning of May – not too much longer, but it’s beginning to seem like an eternity for my wife. At her last visit with the doctor, she picked up a package of stuff for expectant mothers, which consists mostly of free samples and coupons to try and get you…

Europeans continue to debate the integration question: how much, how soon, who, and so on. It’s certainly a difficult problem, as there is a great deal of difference between, say, Denmark, and Portugal, or Ireland and Romania. Here’s my very concrete suggestion to enhance European integration: get U-Haul and a few of its competitors to…

My wife was looking around the internet, and found this article from the New York Times archives: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9803E0DE123BE733A25755C0A9679D946597D6CF Pretty amazing to think that this was only 100 years ago, and that significant parts of what is now Italy belonged to Austria (as well as an area of what is now Italy and remains ethnically Austrian),…

The US Customs agents apparently take their marching orders from The Grinch: Then he slunk to the icebox. He took the Whos’ feast! He took the Who-pudding! He took the roast beast! He cleaned out that icebox as quick as a flash. Why, that Grinch even took their last can of Who-hash! Then he stuffed…

This is an excellent article summing up a lot of what’s wrong with Italy these days: In a Funk, Italy Sings an Aria of Disappointment What I find so frustrating about it, is that, as Beppe Severgnini says, a lot of what makes Italy wonderful is unique. You simply can’t find another Venice or Rome…

We did a double take when we saw these in the supermarket the other day: Apparently, someone has decided to use Arnold Schwarzeneggers’s image to sell Austrian apples for a Euro a piece. On the side, they write: Healthy and Strong “Arnold” the Incomparable This apple grows and ripens at the foot of the Austrian…

We knew that we were in for a long, cold winter when we moved up here to Innsbruck, but what we weren’t counting on was such a cold, brief summer, with so much rain. Being from “rainy” Oregon, I know something about the subject, and I can say without hesitation that it is actually wetter…