The new mayor of Rome, Alemanno, says that the previous administration is responsible for inflicting “ethnic food” on school children. Apparently, the children refused to eat it, and those that did had “stomach aches”! It sounds funny, but I can envision it being a serious issue in Italy, where plenty of people have never had…

When you move somewhere new, and aren’t really that “integrated”, one of the nice things initially is that you concentrate more on just living your life and tend to ignore stuff that you can’t do much about. That’s actually been one of the nicer aspects of living in Austria for us – it’s a nice,…

As an enthusiast of outdoor sports, and cycling in particular, it’s important to have an idea of what the weather might be like while you’re out and about, in order to plan ahead in terms of clothing to wear and bring. Get stuck in a cold rainstorm under dressed, and two hours from home, and…

It’s an exciting time to be in Innsbruck: the town is hosting some games in the early rounds of the European soccer championships, and it would be impossible not to notice: Large swaths of the downtown area have been gated in order to be able to control crowds. There are a number of viewing areas…

Things are slowly falling into a rhythm, and we’re getting a handle on caring for Helen. It’s hard to imagine doing much else in our lives, as busy as it keeps us, but so far we’re coping, and naturally we think she’s the cutest thing ever. In order to share pictures of her with those…

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…