Italian recipes

I've just found this web-site, very interesting and looking ...yummy
il broccolino
in French, though ...

ciao
yvan

Sunday

The weather is better than yersteday, my clothes risking nothing drying outside, I leave my stanza et go to Villa Medici, on heights of the left bank. Piazza di Spagna, a crowd in front of Dior's shop is blocking my way; is it already the beginning of sales? There are too many tifosi of la Lazio di Roma, soccer team, to answer positively. Those guys are there to acclaim a soccer player who came to burn thousands of euros from the millions his contract counts and whom bodyguards, at the time of leaving, violently urged a taxi who was there and wasn't going fast enough for them. To see how a bunch of people can get into a such jubilation for a guy who spends his money in a shop they are almost forbidden to look at makes me sick. While fans scatter or take pictures, the shop assistant reads, once again, the invoice.

Near Campo di Fiori, I buy a caffè et start Tu, mio, a novel written by Erri de Luca, in intalian. My cargo of books has run out ; I'll have to take advantage of Christmas to bring back a new case to Rome .
Piazza de la Fontana di Trevi, people are there with signs "Baci gratis", "Free hugs", "Embrassades gratuites". As I didn't really understand the trick, I dodge the nice girls I meet first, give a friendly pat on the shoulder of a guy a bit too much "enterprising" but eventually fall into the arms of a nice mamma who was blocking me. Why do you do this? Why not? To make you spend a nice day, to make you smile... So it works, grazzie. Yep, it worked, until a dazed policeman pushes me out of the road to give the way to Idon'tknowwhichasshole too hurry to move at the normal Roman traffic's speed. Fortunaitely, I discovered the Rome's ruins, Linaria cymbalaria, I was looking for. Plants don't care about privileges and keep pushing their seeds into mortar's cracks, mortar which will give up, later, under the pressure of the flower... The Villa Medici offers from its balcony and its terrace a wonderful sight on terraces and roofs of Rome : I think its the most beautiful lookout onto the city. Only drawback, it faces the South so it's impossible to take picture of the scene without having a backlighting which will clear all nuances of ochre and raw sienna, and all the details of domes, steeples and antennas. A place reserved for contemplation and which only reminder will be our memory...Back at my place, my landlord says me that bad weather is coming... holy cow

Saturday

This week-end has been a pleasant one: I spent it leisurely walking on top of the hills, looking for the best sight of the city, diving into the whirl of alleys, going up to catch my breath and diving again to meddle myself into the rumbling of streets. A quiet sea seen from the surface but agitated and noisy as one goes further down.

The sight from Garibaldi's hill is not bad : one has a wide angle. However as the place wasn't favorable to revery I went down, croosing on my way two acrobats floatting in the air. He shows her how to do, she listens to him with attention, the oak, impassive, supports the sheet which makes them fly.

Hidden garden in the alleys.
Once on the other side of the Tiber, I played at losing myself in the maze of streets. A blue white and red flag helps me to find the place on my map (did I thank you for it, Liz?) : I'm in front of the French embassy, Piazza Farnese, nearby Piazza Campo di Fiori I cross every morning. The place is pleasant, although I prefer the Cyprus embassy in front of the dark French building.
From there I tried to find my way to Villa Medici, where privileged French Academicians can enjoy life in Rome. I haven't found it but policemen looking like corrupt mercenaries and carabinieri, more serious. I need to make myself a fake Press-accreditation to take pictures of those guys : they looked like milicians directly taken from "Tintin and the Picaros", a French comic I invite you to read... However, they weren't waiting for me, french tourist lost in the urban immensities. Once chosen a good observation post, and quickly met by a couple of English from Chester, close by Manchester, a nice city with its own roman ruins, yes young man, I understand I'll watch a Roman demonstration.
Demonstrators arrive at dusk ; it's 5:30pm, this is the terminus. It was a friendly demonstration, there was even a small band (like our "banda" at Toulouse). Slogans for liberation of Palestine and stop of economic and military cooperation between Italy and Israel seemed legitimate but there were those mother fuckers flag burners. I'm not a patriot, I don't think it's one of my main features, however I hate this action : a flag represents, abroad, a whole country, as much idiots as others, and in this way, burning the israelian flag is burning efforts people are doing there in favor of peace, and mix their ashes with the ones of stupid expansionists... As burning the American flag is forgetting that half of the population doesn't support US policy in Mideast : 6 and a half strips and 25 stars don't deserve to be trampled on the pavement.

Policemen haven't charged and I finished my day listening to a jazzband on Via del Corso.

My way to work

I have the chance to live near the Vatican and to enjoy very nice days for two weeks I've been in Rome. Both allow me to go walking to my office, located near the Circo Massimo, 45 minutes away.
My way to work snakes within the streets of Rome, starting by Via Candia until the crossing with Via Leone IV which brings me to Piazza del Risorgimento and then to the Vatican and Piazza San Petro. There, I meet the calashes (is that the good word?) and smell for a while the odour of horses, eating their bag of flour. Dodging cars I cross Via della Concilazione and branch off to Vittorio Emmanuele's Bridge. Stop at the end of it to let cars going, walk until the future metro station and, at the level of works in the building,I fork off to small street and soon meet the market on Piazza di Campo de Fiori. Buy two apples there. Small ones so I can put the second in my pocket while I'm eating the first one.
I soon cross the Jewish neighbourhood and its kosher butcher shops, near Circo Marcello. Usually, sun's rays are reflecting against 1rst floor's windows.
5 minutes later, I arrive in front of the FAO building, walking along the Circo Massimo.

And then I spent my day inside this stupid building. I hope it won't rain tomorow morning...

ciao

yvan

Aaaahhh!!

You should have a look on this website, if it's not already done
the footprint network

ciao
yvan

SARD-M

The website of the project I'm working for :
http://www.fao.org/sard/en/sardm

1rst week

1rst week... I want to go back to my calm hills...
The ones here (Rome, city of 7 hills) are so populated : you won't find kiwis there, neither blue jays.

Sunset above the Vatican, from the bridge Umberto I

ciao

yvan

Sunday November 5th: arriving in Rome, 6:30 am

I'm in Rome, so...after a long trip in train along the mediterranean coast Sight on the Circus Massimus and the Roman Forum, 200m away from the FAO which will be my headquarter during the next 5 months. My other three quarters will be hanging around, somewhere in this city.
Heavy clouds above the Vittoriano Palace, the ugliest building in Rome, according to Romans.

I'm creating this blog as rain falls in Roman's streets. It won't be as big as the kiwi one but I'll try to update it though.
ciao
yvan