I should have posted this last Friday … better late than never … I will gently push this post back to its proper date at a later time
The day had finally come that the Telecom guy showed up to re-connect us … before that Telecom had called AND send a reminder SMS .. and the tech guy even called that he might be a bit late due to traffic … so far so good ..
I was very lucky that Ellen was there, since the guy had a bunch of questions in Italian … turns out that FastWeb, our former ISP had done somewhat of a crap job, there was no reason that the DSL modem was installed in the bedroom (where the blinky lights were something of a distraction) and he shifted all this to the more central located living room.
A bit of an item was the modem … he had assumed I had one (on the phone I said that I had the old FastWeb modem, which they never bothered to come pick up again) .. but seems this was not good enough … and he kept pushing that I should have my own modem … so I was already thinking about getting a Taxi and quickly buy one … but it turns out he had one in his car, the Telecom brand modem made by Pirelli (and I thought they make tyres … ) and after a quick speed test it turns out that I now have about 3 times the speed as before … at nearly half the cost compared to Fastweb … yeah …
The only weird thing is that the wifi network directly from that modem comes with some issues … a) I cannot configure things like network name or password .. which kinda sucks b) I keep getting a nasty error message on all computers:
And neither he nor the almighty internet had an answer to that riddle … but the quick and nicer solution was to plug in my airport express station and setting up our old wifi network (called Julius) .. and since then .. we are flying!
For reasons unknown Julius insisted today to wear those leftover x-mas antlers to school …
Sure enough, he forgot to bring them back with him …
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On our recent walks I found those intriguing displays on bridges and lamp posts … and I wonder what the story is … Is it art? Is it the new graffiti ? Is this how jouvenile delinquents now display their affection? Many of those padlocks have writings on them, like “amore eterno”, “sempre insieme”, names and dates …
Anyone knows what’s the deal here?
Reader and longtime online-pal shag found the answer and some good links about the phenomenon which seem to have started at the Ponte Milvio bridge in Rome: from wiki:
| In late 2006, the bridge began attracting couples, who use a lamppost on the bridge to hang padlocks as a sign of their love. The ritual involves the couple locking the padlock to the lamppost, then throwing the key behind them into the Tiber. |
This lamppost later collapsed under the weight of the padlocks and you can see pictures of it here
But I still wonder how it all started …
We have a pretty good bedtime routine now and Julius actually plays along and stays in bed until he falls asleep. No more asking for drinks or use of other manipulative measures to extend his awake time …
But on occasion he surprises me with something like that, when I checked on him 40 minutes after I kissed him good-night …
And there he was .. sound asleep … under his bed …
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Back to Julius’ favorite … Swedish meatballs (thanks to IKEA’s food section) .. maybe he loves them so much because he can eat them with the same lingonberry jam that he gets on his toast in the morning …
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This time of year it can get incredibly foggy around here.
I had an appointment at the hospital for yet another blood test* and had decided to walk the 4 km through the clouds and moisture .. it was actually quite beautiful and I stopped to take pictures from time to time …
On my way back I even caught someone familiar on her bike.
Click below or here to see all those artsy, more dramatic by using black&white pictures.
(* routine blood tests to monitor the potential side effects of an anti-psoriasis drug I am currently taking)
… our other weekend eatery.
Besides haunting that Asian restaurant we go to pretty much every weekend … we also like this Egyptian kebab place just south of Porto Palazzo a lot … it is good, cheap, friendly .. we see many other families with little kids coming in and tourist groups. The menu has a nice variety of stuff, but we mainly stick with the meaty kebabs and then some side dish .. this time around it was the baba ghanoush.
Julius especially likes the flat bread, which he likes to fill with meat, french fries and the occasional toy, until we tell him that we do not eat stuff that we just found along the way. (When we walk around he is very observant and picks up everything that is of interest for him .. and he goes by the rules, sticks them in his pocket .. and rinses them when we get back home .. )
We usually finish the meal with a teiera, a small can of sweetened mint tea.
Kebab Sindbad
Via Milano 10 – Torino
Tel.: 011-5216518
almost always open; on Fridays only in the evening
This was at least another 5 km walking for our little man .. and again, only a few minutes of riding papa’s shoulders .. and again .. no nap when we got home … in return he totally crashed around 8 PM in mama’s arms on the couch …
| (Julius pics taken by Ritsu with her iPhone) |  |
The annual chocolate festival … at least this year there were some more freebies .. otherwise it was again mainly a sales point for over-priced chocolate … but kinda fun overall …
More info in Italian.
Today, the weather being very nice, we did something slightly crazy after our traditional weekend lunch at our favorite Asian place: we walked all the way home!
It is a 4km (2.8 miles) walk along the river and Julius was so energetic that I only had to carry him on my shoulders twice for about 5 minutes each time.
There was much to discover for him, flowers, chestnuts, rocks to climb up and down.
We also visited the Borgo Mediviale again, it had been 2.5 years since last time.
And sure enough, we took plenty of pictures, so, enjoy the
gallery below:
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His latest thing is that he insists on putting toothpaste on his toothbrush by himself … kinda hard with hands so small.
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After a 2 or 3 month holiday break, our favorite gelato store is open again as we discovered on our way to the playground … and sure enough we had to stop by.
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The little man has become so proficient in eating his treat that no clean up was required afterwards (also helps that temperatures are still very low and the ice-cream is not melting away too fast)
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Can one put a ping-pong ball on top of lego? … the research continues …
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This time around I just spiced the meat up with everything that goes into a good chili: Garlic, oregano, cumin, chipottle, a few drops of liquid smoke, tomato paste and cayenne pepper. Turned out to be quite nice, had to keep the heat a bit lower for the little guy.
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Quiet weekend, weather not too great, no car, we pretty much just vegged around and tried to get some sleep …
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While other kids might snack on back of chips or chocolate bars, Julius goes for the pack of grainy bread and snacks it away slice by slice … I am trying to get him to ASK ME FIRST .. so I have an idea how much he already ate … it happened on occasion that after his carbo-binging he was too full to eat dinner.
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Some readers have left comments regarding Julius’ hair and we had been thinking about it for some time now, too. I do like his long hair and would even let grow out the front (but that is something that would drive a little boy’s eyes crazy). I am also a bit afraid what he would look like with some drastic new hairstyle … so ..
Tonight after his bath I tried to take a couple of mug shots to eventually use to photoshop around with different hair ideas. But his hair was already too dry to fully stay combed back and after blow drying he had this funky Luke Skywalker look.
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I might have gotten some better pics if the little man would have not constantly moved around …
Now .. we are open to suggestions .. and especially, if anyone has such photoshop skills … send me your design ideas (yeah, yeah .. i know, I will get pics with him in afro or mohawk … well .. knock yourselves out!). It will probably take me a while before I get around doing that myself.
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Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!
To be able to take Ritsu out for a nice dinner I had to organize a babysitter, but our trusty neighbor girl Alice was busy, so the torch was passed on to her younger sister Greta, who by now is just as old as Alice was when she first looked after Julius. To our amazement there was no separation drama at all … instead Julius looked at us (while sitting at the table with Greta), noticed that we had coats and hats on and said “Bye bye mama, bye bye papa!” (with a bit of the ‘let me alone with my new girlfriend’ attitude in his voice) |
Looks like everything went very well (though he was still up when we returned at 9:30 PM, trying everything for 90 minutes to NOT go to bed).
Ritsu and I used the occasion to try a special dish at our favorite Asian restaurant which we had long wondered about, but since you have to order it 2 days in advance, we never got around to it. So tonight we had Peking Duck … and it was pretty much like the description on wikipedia. We actually had even one course more (before the soup) because they had so much duck meat extra. (Enough to bring leftovers):
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1st course: the crispy skin served on rice crackers 2nd course: pancakes to roll in some fresh veggies and duck meat 3rd course: duck meat with mushrooms and bamboo (in a sauce that tasted exactly like the one from Julius’ favorite ‘vitello ai funghi’ dish) 4th course: soup made from duck bones and leftovers |
I only took those 2 rather lame pictures (the first and second course in one) from then on I was too busy eating and flirting with my wife.
It was all very tasty, but I think I was expecting some kind of flavor revelation. So, now I am very curious to try this at some other restaurant, maybe some place closer to China.
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.. and we are hopefully connected again on Friday 2/22.
In case you only look at the pretty pictures and have not read what happened so far: part1, part2.
With big help from Ritsu’s colleague Paola, we finally found the one somewhat smart person at Telecom who had an idea what the basic reason is for our offline mystery: The fact that I do not have an official codice fiscale! The fact that I am not registered with the tax collectors here. That was probably it. You see, Telecom Italia is the only company (in the IT area?) that has actual realtime access to the tax payer database .. and if you are not registered there .. sorry, no can have phone or internet with them …
So .. my theory so far is that my paperwork was submitted to Telecom (using a semi-official codice fiscale, which you can get on websites like vodafone.it, and which I had used successfully with vodafone, IKEA and fastweb), they passed on the cancellation to fastweb, but stumbled over my fiscal code not being in the database … and instead of trying to call me … some lazy paperpusher must have pushed my contract in a bin or the shredder … That is the main point why I am very upset … so hard to pick up the phone and give me a call ???
Anyways .. we now have submitted a new order, using Ritsu’s name and her fiscal code … and if all goes well, we should be back up and running by the end of next week!!! (Let’s see what other snags might arise)
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