Epiblog

So that's the end of my year on mainland Europe. I'm back on the island. Not much to say, except that all things considered, it was a fantastic year. I spent the last few weeks first with Jacopo in Merano, then with Jenny in Munich and Berlin. Finally, Dan came with me to Genova to hang out for a bit while I closed my bank account and took care of other matters. He also generously leant me his baggage allowance so I could get all my stuff home. There are a few pictures from that trip here.

I really enjoyed my time in Italy. It's a country which seems quite comfortable to conform to its stereotype, i.e. very beautiful and permanently in chaos. It was good to get back to Germany for a few days at the end too. I can definitively say, after hard, dedicated research in 10 European countries this year, that the Germans produce the finest beer in Europe. Or possibly the Belgians..

And that's the end of the blog. Thanks for reading, get in touch soon.

G
x

Am in a dodgy web cafe in Munich, waiting for Jenny and her friends to arrive. Had a great time in Merano with Jacopo. It's a lovely town. We went to the races, climbed a mountain and hung around the city. A few pictures.

Spent today looking round the Englischer Garten. Hard work - it's almost 375 hectares. It's also full of Biergartens. The beer is just as good as I remember it. Yesterday, I had pork liver and roast potatoes and salad at the Dürnbräu.

Packing. It sucks.

This morning I got this photo from Ignacio, showing him, Edu and Chema and a bunch of other guys finally winning the Flynn's Inn pub quiz in Karlsruhe. Looks like a great moment, shame I wasn't there to see it. Good work!

Went to Torino last night to watch Palace play Chelsea on TV. We lost 2-0. We need, in my estimation, about 3 more very good players to have any chance of staying up. Good to see the new signings anyway. I have lots to do now as I'm leaving very soon, so I couldn't stay around in Torino which is a shame. It's a good city. Good to see Andrea and Carlo again.

On Saturday, I'm off to Verona to meet up with Jacopo and then go to his parent's place in the mountains near the Austrian border.

Some photos from Jenny's visit.

My sister Jenny has been here the last few days. On Thursday we went to Bonassola, a little beach resort a little way down the coast. It was busy but a good place to swim. The water gets deep very quickly, so you can just run in and dive. The water is very warm now.

We ate that night in a traditional Genovese restaurant, just off Corso Torino. It was small and family run and you could see the cooking going on in the kitchen. There was the proprietor, his wife and his mother. The food was extremely good, I had fresh pasta in a sauce of broccoli, oil and chili, and Jenny had a vegetable soup. The soup was very special. I guess the vegetables were very fresh. In the kitchen, we could see one of the women sawing away with a mezzaluna at a huge pile of them. For second course, we both had fish. Together with a bottle of rosé from Puglia, it was a very fine meal.

We visited the Aquarium on Friday. It's Genova's biggest tourist attraction and was rammed. The fish were great but the other people inside, banging on the glass and shoving in front of each other, nearly drove me crazy. It was also sad to see big animals like dolphins and penguins in small tanks.

That night we went down to the Corso D'Italia to take in a few seafront bars. The weather is just starting to freshen up, but it's still warm enough to go out right by the sea.

Yesterday we went to Nervi. Jenny had a good seafood salad, and in the park afterwards, we found two four leaf clovers. I have one in my wallet now. Nothing exceptionally fortunate seems to have happened yet, but I did get the last copy of the Gazzetta dello Sport from the newsagent this morning.

I've just come into the lab to watch the 100m final. At the moment, in these Olympics, Italy and Britain have almost exactly the same number of medals, 6 golds and 20 in total. This seems fair enough - the populations are about the same size. However, the Italian press are delighted with the performance, while the British press are moaning as usual..

A lot more exciting than my weblog is this one, which is being kept by a guy competing for Equatorial Guinea in the olympics, in the shadow of the great Eric 'the Eel' Moussambani.

"I feel like unless I go out there and do something ridiculous, like win or come last with my shorts around my ankles, I'm not going to get any slack cut for me.

Genova is not a bad place for recycling. Despite the shortage of parking spaces, there are recycling bins for paper, glass, plastics and cans kerbside all over the city. Even more than there were in Karlsruhe, though there most of your recyclable stuff was collected from your door. In Milan, you even have to pay per kilo for non-recyclable rubbish, which is a great way to get people to think before they chuck things out.

The impression I've formed after 11 months is that the UK is a filthy pit of thoughtless consumption and waste. It's pretty bad where I live in south London, where we have to walk about 5 minutes to get to a recycling site, and most people would have to go further. But Edinburgh really is incredibly bad. There's one tiny set of bins in the middle of the city where you can recycle plastic, and a few other bins for glass, but that's your lot. People throw out huge amounts of glass, plastic, paper. Urgh. And people in the UK like to think that Italy is a bit backwards.

This Sunday was the big summer holiday, the city was very quiet and I spent most of the day sitting on the beach at Quinto. Then I watched some olympic highlights on the BBC website. The Italians won two gold medals on the first day, in cycling and fencing. Peopla are very pleased. The Gazzetta dello Sport had also had some really good photos from the games. In general, the standard of photography in the Italain media is very high.

Perfect weather today. Bright sun and blue sky and breeze. Humidity down to tolerable levels.

This weekend is ferie agosto, the biggest holiday in Italy. It's always on the 15th August, even when that's a Sunday, so the Italians don't actually get any extra days off work this year. Still, there will be almost nobody working. There are some random things going on in the centre of town though, which I might go and have a look at. The city will be pretty deserted. Everyone in Italy seems to have a relative with a house in the mountains somewhere, which is where they go for the whole of August.

Went to Benetton this morning, to exchange the jumper I bought on monday (in the sale) for one the right size. I hate exchanging things even in Britain - I don't know why, I've worked in enough shops to know it's no big deal - so I was nervous about things somehow becoming complicated, but of course it went smoothly. Summer sales are a serious business here, particularly in the big chain stores like Benetton - absolutely everything in the store is half price for a week to make room for the 'autumn collection'.

Benetton has lost credibility witht he discerning Italian designer-label buyer. This is chiefly because all their clothes are now made in China. Why this should be such a big deal I don't know - in my experience, all designer clothes fall apart after about 3 months no matter who made them - but they don't like it here.

I went to fnac afterwards, the big books/cds shop which I think is French owned, to buy another Dino Buzzati to read. In there, I noticed two books of 'Francesco Totti Jokes'. Totti is Italy's most famous footballer, who is Beckham-esque in his command of life and language. However, the jokes were pretty weak, and tasteless. Here is a representative example:

Totti: Doctor, I've got diarrhea
Doctor: Have you tried lemon?
Totti: Yes but when I took it out.. (etc..)

Oh dear.

Arena di Verona

So indeed going to see an opera at the Arena di Verona is one of the best things ever. I went to see Il Trovatore with Jacopo, his sister, and their partners, on Satruday night. We went in far too late, and ended up sitting on the second-to-back row. The stage was miles away, but the sound was still perfect. Fortunately, I remembered my binoculars - essential for long distance opera. The scenery and so on was by Franco Zeffirelli, a famous director of opera who did an excellent job. The way the stage was used and changed as the opera went on was great. At one point the castle tower in the centre of the stage was opened to reveal a gold chapel inside, which was so impressive some people started clapping, though the loggionisti quickly told them to shut up.

Il Trovatore is a lot of fun. The tenor, who plays Manrico (who is Il Trovatore) has an aria ("Di quella pira ") where he has to finish on a huge high C. This wasn't in Verdi's original score, but has been traditional for 150 years, and can make or break a performance. It happens in scene 2 of act 3, so you have the whole interval to look forward to it. Our Manrico, Marco Berti, managed it with some considerable aplomb, and the audience cheered and clapped until he consented to sing the aria all over again. If anything it was even better the second time. The opera continued in strong form with hundreds of gypsies, dancer, nuns, acrobatic soldiers, monks and real, live horses to add to the spectacle. It was superb - 3 and a half hours, sitting on a stony seat, seemed to pass in about 5 minutes.

As well as the performance itself, there is plenty more to add to the experience of going to the Arena. One thing is to think about the Romans sitting on the same actual seats to watch gladiators and lions. Another is to watch the rich and famous going to the expensive seats (€160 a go) in the centre of the Arena. Then you have the libretto and refreshment vendors calling out their wares in four different languages, with various degrees of proficiency. And right at the beginning, when the house lights go down, everyone in the high seats lights these little candles, which looks really magical.

So, the pictures: here.

Oh, and it didn't rain until we were one hour down the road to Milano, after the opera..

Today is the last day the student cafe is open, and also the last day the bar in Albaro is open before the big summer break. Lots of the guys here are taking holiday too, so it should be really quiet. I might sneak off to Parma for a few days. Sounds like an interesting city, though it'll be steamingly hot.

First, this weekend, we're making an attempt to go the opera in the Arena di Verona. I'll try and take some photos if we make it...

If you have 'flash' installed, the ideal way to get in the mood for the forthcoming Olympiad is to play 'herculympics', including events like minotaur throwing and centaur showjumping, together with ancient olympics trivia questions between each event.. this is what we pay the licence fee for!

It rained late last night, which poses an interesting question: what if it rains at the opera in the Arena di Verona? I might find out on Saturday night..

Am beginning to get used to the humidity. You have to walk very slowly everywhere. For dinner, you have to eat a large salad, mostly because you can't handle the idea of working in front of a hot cooker for any length of time. Fortunately, Italy is well cut out for good salad eating. It's easy and cheap to prepare a large plate of dark rocket leaves, perfectly ripe Sicilian tomatoes (called "grappolo" when they are sold "on the vine"), and some Crudo san Danielle, which is the main rival to Parma ham. It's not as sweet and has a more distinguished texture, in my opinion. Add some fresh sardines perhaps, a couple of panini, some high quality olive oil and a little pepper, and you're sorted out.

Almost two years ago, our AI building in Edinburgh burnt down, and today it seems we're finally getting the first installment of the insurance money. This is great - I'd completely forgotten about it, so it's like winning money.

Che caldo

Ok. I admit it. It is, in fact, too hot. At least the Italians agree. People don't say ciao to each other any more they say che caldo instead, which means 'rather warm, isn't it?'

I have preserved the 5 day forecast for future reference.

Jacopo has a deadline for a camera-ready paper which looks like postponing our trip to Milano until next weekend, so I may well head for a beach..

Meanwhile back in England, sheep have learned to cross cattle grids. Arg! The apocolyptic scenario of sheep taking their revenge

"They eat plants, flowers and vegetables in gardens."
"It is soul destroying.

(from BBC news)

Another day fixing broken computers. Sigh. The other two guys here have a camera ready paper due at the weekend, so I feel I should try and help them out as much as possible, though it's something I hate doing...
at least I can listen to the cricket.

Last night, I went with Jacopo to a pub near Piazza San Lorenzo where they sell 36 different kinds of beer, mostly Belgian, in bottles, and 6 different kinds on tap. €4.50 a pint, which is standard in Genova unfortunately. A major plus was the wild boar sausage and rocket foccacine. It's great to be able to get good beer and good snacks in the same place - basically impossible in Edinburgh.

When I walked home at about half 12, it was still 27 degrees according to the big thermometer display in the centre of town. It's well over 30 every day now. I've given up looking at the weather forecast.

Had a 'shakerato' today. This is espresso coffee shaken over ice with a little vanilla syrup and something else (in a bottle I couldn't read). Perfect afternoon drink for this weather. It's served in a glass with a few coffee beans floating at the top.

We're planning a trip to Milano. Jacopo lived there for several years, and knows The Places To Go To.

Spent the morning changing all my passwords. Our login box here was hacked during the weekend thanks to some bright spark setting up a guest login account with a, shall we say, "soft" password. Really amazing that people still do this in an AI department, but that's what happens if you don't have any full time support staff and give all the students the root password. Sigh. The box is a lot more secure now, in case you were wondering.

Had to take a bus just to find some lunch today, and unfortunately it's set to get worse. The student cafe where we usually go is closed all August, and so are many of the cafes and bars, particularly those up here in Albaro away from the tourist areas. Basically, everyone goes on holiday except those people who make their money from the tourists themselves. It's impossible to buy anything serious like a car or a kitchen or a computer for the whole month - which seems like a great idea. Unfortunately, it's also difficult to buy food - for one week apparently there will only be one supermarket open in the whole city (Basko, who have a reputation for crap food available all hours of the day and night). I'm afraid my favourite market is going to close as well...

Went out in Nervi on Friday night. Nervi is the little town down the coast to the East. The bar was literally right on the seafront - during the day, it is a little swimming and sunbathing area. You can buy a gin and tonic and then go and drink it with your feet dipped in the Med while you watch the ferries go past. Not a bad location really. It got pretty rammed later on, and even ran out of beer (ok, so there was some Budweiser left, effectively they had run out of beer). A good place though. Worth the wait for the taxi ride home. One good thing about waiting for a taxi in Nervi is you can go to the all-night focacceria, and get foccacia baked with olives or peppers or ham. Fantastic.

We got the taxi to take us to a late night cafe near Brignole where they had just had fresh croissants delivered. Excellent way to finish the evening.

Sleeping is now a fine balance between trying to keep cool and trying not to let too many mosquitos in. You can close the shutters outside, but they are not designed to screen insects. The mosquitos here aren't all that bad yet, but they apparently become more prevalent later in August.

Last night I ate dinner with one of my flatmates (the other is on holiday in Mozambique) and one of her friends, and actually managed to spend the whole meal speaking Italian. This is progress.

Here's a picture of me graduating in absentia two weeks ago. If you don't want to call me Dr. Steel, then Captain Steel will be fine

Some photos from Spain. I was quite bad about remembering to take photos, so there are none of the spectacular sandstone cliffs around La Rioja, or of the vineyards which go on for miles, or of the town of Logroño itself. Sorry. But I was just having too much fun to remember to take pictures..

It's good to be back in Italy. It's hot, sunny, humid, the food is great and everyone seems to be in a good mood.

Ok, much to catch up on:

Nájera Fiesta

Nájera is a small village near to Eduardo's home city of Logroño. We went there for the main day of their Fiesta, the feast of St Peter and St Paul, just after I had given my talk to the University of La Rioja where Edu works. We'd been warned to wear old clothes, so we ran home to change into shorts and old t-shirts, and in my case sandals, and then sprinted to make the bus at the bus station. We just made it, which is always a good way to start a Fiesta. In Nájera, we met the four girls Eduardo had mysteriously lined up for us to spend the day with, and their instant reaction was to point at my sandals and wag their fingers. Oh dear. At this point I looked around the assembled crowd of thousands of potential Fiesta people and noticed that nobody, absolutely nobody, was wearing anything but shoddy old trainers. Ah. Fortunately, one of the girls had some spare trainers in her flat nearby, and generously gave them to me, and with a bit of swapping I ended up with a pair big enough to wear. So all set.

The fiesta starts with the brass band playing three tunes which you get to hear about 10 000 times by the end of the day. The band are mostly in their sixties and play from a bandstand while everybody links arms and dances in large circles around them shouting along with the music. Then, the band has to march, playing the same 3 tunes, from the bandstand through the narrow alleyways in the old part of the village to the other square, where they will form up and play again. Simple - but not if all the other fiesta people have to squeeze through the alleyways as well, and particularly not if about half of the young men are linking arms and pushing everybody back, while the other half are linking arms and trying to push everybody forwards. Now you're glad you're not wearing sandals, as your feet are trodden on for the 67th time. It takes about 3 hours for the band to go 200 metres, and all the while they must play louder and louder if they want to get through. All this goes on in the heat of the afternoon, with much drinking of beer and wine and calimochos (that's spelt wrong - wine and coke, anyway) and the residents who live in flats with windows over the alleyways chuck buckets of cold water on the grateful revellers underneath. This might sound crazy, but it's actually great fun. Really great fun. And you can slip out of the melee and go into a bar for a cool beer, then charge back in again, it's all very friendly and at the end, all the people who were organising the push forwards are hugging all the guys who organised the push backwards, and everyone's cheering the band who managed to keep playing and probably lost 3 kilos of fluids each in sweat.

However, that's only the start of the fiesta. After that things get really crazy. You go into bars and wonder why all the TVs and speakers are wrapped up in dustbin bags, and why thick polyurethane sheeting covers the bottles and kit behind the bar, and then about half an hour later, drink starts flying all over the place, people are throwing water over each other, and then wine, beer, coke, anything. The bars are rammed with people, drinks are being passed miles over people's heads back across the room, you typically order a round of small strong drinks, like Orujo, and a round of cold refreshing long drinks for drinking/throwing in equal proportions. Before long, everyone is soaked in beer, the floor is an inch deep in a strange mixed liquid, your old trainers are half destroyed, everyone is dancing and singing, and running to the next bar for more of the same. Very quickly you lose track of time, and in my case, forget that you can't speak the language. I made several good friends without any actual verbal communication, including someone who gave me his hat. One place, a sort of village co-operative, is handing out free wine - yes free - in those huge glass drinking horns where you have to hold it high in the air above you and try to swallow as you pour it down your throat. This is of course almost impossible for a first timer, but everyone was very generous in their appreciation of my rather weak effort. I had a certain novelty value being the only foreigner there. The party carried on with conga dancing, stupid jokes, shouting, more soaking each other in drink, more bars, peculiar drinks, podium dancing, confusion of similar-looking brothers with each other (with hilarious consequences) until eventually we were given a lift home to Logroño, exhausted but strangely elated. Anyway, the Spanish, at least in this part of Spain, really know how to have a good time. Really. If a Spanish friend ever invites you to their village Fiesta, away from the English-speaking tourist fest in Pamplona, then go immediately. Do not delay. Pay whatever easyjet are asking. You won't regret it.

Of course I have no photos of the Fiesta. Only a fool would take a digital camera into that. I didn't even see anyone taking photos, which is kind of cool. What goes at the Fiesta, stays at the Fiesta.

First things first.The photos from bass rock, off North Berwick which is near to Edinburgh. Fantastic place. it took two and a half hours to get there on the terrible trains and the food was awful, but the trip more than made up for it. And I got to drive the boat..

I'm now in Edinburgh. Blogging will recommence when I get back to Genova next Sunday - until then the headlines: at the IJCAR conference, I had to do an invited talk in place of my Prof. who was taken sick at the last minute. Went ok though. My presentations also went down fairly well. I graduated in absentia whilst touring the Jameson Whiskey (and Cork Dry Gin) distillery, and taking part in their largest simultaneous whiskey tasting ever. Spent the weekend in Clare which was also good. Pictures and full reports on Fiestas, late Spanish nights, the Guggenheim in Bilbao, and all the rest to follow soon

By the way, regarding Friday night´s result, and with reference to this post, I would like to express my profound thanks to the Greek national team. Ela Ellada! (some good pictures of celebrations in Greece here)

Tomorrow I give a talk on my PhD work here to the University of La Rioja. Universities named after wine are obviously the way forward. They´re expecting a largish audience, which is a bit unexpected but will be good practice for the IJCAR talk in Ireland next week.

All very good here in the Rioja region of Spain. I´m staying with Eduardo in his home town, Logroño. Went into the Basque country today to watch some crazy rowing races involving tradtional boats and teams of huge oarsmaen. Also had a great barbecue on a fire made from vine twigs. Wine good, tapas excellent, last night we were out all night going bar to bar in the old town where every shop is a tapas bar specialising in something - seafood or mushrooms or sorbeto or whatever. you end up eating a huge amount, and everything has lots of salt on it, to make you buy more wine. Another excellent thing is the extremely dry Basque cider, poured into glasses over the shoulder at a range of about 1 metre.

more later

In a big hurry to get ready for a little trip to Spain, so no time to post much, just this article in the Grauniad about Italy's unfortunate exit from Euro 2004, which had peole here very annoyed, but mostly just disappointed and not very surprised. yesterday, Fiona was here, had an excellent day taking the little train to Cassella then hitting the town, ending up at a huge seafront bar/club that has just opened for the summer.

Dutch fans have bought Dick Advocaat a flight home, since they blame him for the 3-2 loss to the Czech republic:

Advocaat has been booked on Tuesday's Virgin Express flight from Faro to Brussels, at a cost of 163.14 euros (£107).

"We will give him the ticket through room service at his hotel. All he needs is his passport," De Laat explained.

When it was pointed out that that the flight was to Belgium, not Holland, De Laat added: "He doesn't have to come back to the Netherlands."

(via the aBBC)

Good game, good game. Even the Italian commentators are calling him Roonaldo now. They love the way he does things like bomb the whole length of the pitch just to chase down the keeper. Vieri only moves that fast when he thinks his hairdresser is about to close. La Gazzetta gave him 8.5 out of 10 for his performance, which is an incredibly high score. The only time they ever gave any player 10 was when a goalkeeper saved the life of an opposition striker with mouth to mouth resuscitation after he was knocked out cold and stopped breathing...

An Italian story: In the monastery at San Fruttuoso, just down the coast from here, there is a copy of a sculpture called "Cristo degli abissi" - you might translate it as 'Christ of the perished'. The original, made in bronze about 50 years ago, is placed out in the sea, immersed under about 15 metres of water. Here it stands as a monument to all those who lost their lives at sea. The statue is famous and is even marked on my map of Italy. Divers make pilgrimages to it.

So, this being Genova's year as European Capital of Culture, the statue was brought out of the water for a clean and placed for a few weeks in a little room just of Piazza de Ferrari for people to look at. I went myself two weeks ago, there were maybe a couple of other people there too, to look at the statue and see the film of it being pulled out of the water. Then, last Thursday, a strange and very Italian thing happened. A woman went to see the statue and thought she could see a suffering face on its chest. It couldn't be the face of Jesus on a statue of Jesus, so it must be, of course, the face of Padre Pio. Headline boards outside paper stands on Friday declared 'Padre Pio appears in Piazza de Ferrari!' and the next day, at least 3000 pilgrims arrived to queue up to look at the statue. Companies all over Italy started laying on coaches to bring the Padre Pio followers over to Genova, and fast, because in a few days the statue is being returned to the sea.

What can you say? One man interviewed in the paper said, 'it's like looking for faces in the clouds', but another said 'I believe!', and the man who made the sculpture apparently believes too..

Excellent article on the state of the Italian Euro 2004 campaign in the Grauniad today:

..the Italians are in the ironic position of worrying about somebody else fixing a game.

Cynical, sarcastic journalism is one thing you just don't get here. You do get something equally entertaining though. For example, in La Gazzetta on Saturday there was an article about Wayne Rooney, with the headline 'Go Rooney! You are the Anti-Beckham.' It described him thus:

Rooney is like an ice cream in summer, a cold beer in the desert, fish and chips wrapped in newspaper on a humid autumn evening...

I bet no British newspapers have described him like that...

It's amazing how many things can possibly go wrong when you're trying to register for graduation before a deadline. Faxes go to wrong numbers, titles get mistyped, faxes are received and then disappear. There's one week to the deadline now..

Had an excellent Insalate di Mare on Sunday in Nervi, with the sea crashing about 5 metres away. Fresh anchovies, mussels, squid, crab - about half my annual quota of omega 6 oils. Fortunately, you get a lot of bread to soak it up with.

Ok, finally here are the photos from the luminara and the cinque terre:

The cinque terre is a national park just down the ligurian coast. It consists of 5 villages right on the sea and a lot of vineyards on the south-facing slopes of the coastal mountains. You can get between the villages either by boat, or on the train, or by walking. At this time of year, it's swarming with tourists, which is a bit of a shame: in particular, the villages with beaches are very full of brattish American tour parties. We walked to the middle village which is slightly raised on a cliff, and was much quieter. I'd like to go back and walk up the hills a bit more - it looked quieter up there and the view must be amazing.

The luminara was great fun. Mostly, the atmosphere around the town is what makes it, but the sight of the old town lit up with candles is pretty spectacular on its own. All the shops set up beer and wine stalls outside on the pavement and sell well into the night, while some piazzas have bands or DJs in them, and are crammed with students. The main activity is just strolling around though, and everything is very relaxed. The Pisanos become even more proud of their city than usual and walk around with big smiles. I enjoyed it a lot. the only slightly unenjoyable part was getting up at 6, after 3 hours sleep, to get the train back to Genova - ouch.

Should have mentioned that I now have a cashcard for my Italian bank. Having a cashcard for the country you're in makes you feel much more like you're really living there and not just a tourist. Interestingly, Italian bank cards have 5 digit PINs. To get your PIN, you have to go into your bank and they hand it over to you. I haven't showed any ID in my bank since the first time I went in there - they rely on knowing most of their customers. The lady who deals with account enquiries always recognises me and remembers my name (ok - I'm probably the only English customer, but still).

It all went wrong for Italy last night - a last minute goal by the Swedes means that, according to the explanation in La Gazzetta, if Denmark and Sweden play out a 2-2 draw, both those teams will go through and Italy will be eliminated. 'But we can rely on north-European fair play though - can't we?' says the columnist. Oh dear. Italy in fact played really well I thought; Pirlo, described as a `hunting dog in midfield' by the paper, was particularly good. The atmosphere in the bar where I saw the game was very good, even though the beer barrels had run dry and we were down to bottles of Tennant's Super. Or at least, it was very good until the last ten minutes. Everyone was very disappointed.

My graduation forms have arrived at last, though with a major typo in the title of my thesis (which I just checked does not figure in the actual thesis, thank God). I hope I can get them to change it.

Watched the England game in Bar Lino, close to my house. They have a huge screen and you get free chips with your beer. The Italians find Wayne Rooney very entertaining. Firstly, his name is apparently quite funny in Italian. Also, they love the way he looks so typically English. A man next to me described his face as 'rossato e birrato', which basically means sunburnt and reddened by beer consumption. Not our Wayne, shurely?

Having said below that I wanted France to lose as soon as possible, I now realise that I mean as soon as possible but only in the knockout rounds, since England's only hope of qualifying pretty much depends on France thrashing the other two teams in Group B. So, allez les bleus!

Pictures of the luminara and the fireworks. Almost all the lights in the picture are candles placed around the architectural features of the buildings in the old town. Each year the Pisanos vote for which one looks the prettiest.

It's always nice to unexpectedly find news of your home town in a foreign newspaper. Well, almost always, not when it's the Gazzetta reporting on 400 English football 'hooligans' rampaging through your home town after the end of the England game. My brother sent me this news parody, which you might appreciate if you've ever been to Croydon:

"400 youths went on an orgy of destruction in Croydon last night after England's loss to France. They caused £300,000 worth of improvements."

It seems the college is going to fax me my graduation documents here, so I don't have to wait for the post to turn up. So it looks like I could make July graduation..

Watched the game in a Scottish pub last night - not a very authentic Scottish pub, as there were no bitter Scots shouting 'I hope you lose you ****s!' from the bar throughout the game. However, I'm sure said Scots were more than pleased with England's injury-time self-destruction. There's no doubt that France were the better team, but it would have been nice to beat them anyway.

Normally when you lose, e.g. when we lost to Brasil at the world cup, you want the victors to go on and win the championship. At least then it doesn't seem so bad. But personally, I hope somebody stuffs France as soon as possible. They're like an international Man U., all arrogance and swagger, and like Man U they unfortunately also always win. Somebody has to beat them - come on Italy/Spain/er... Greece...

On a more positive note, at least there hasn't been any widespread rioting by English fans. Yet. The Italian radio is obsessed with 'l'hooligans'. They have a reporter running round Lisbon looking for fights to report on. More entertainingly, they also constantly refer to Frank Lampard as 'Frankie'.

Have discovered another Chagall exhibition, this one in the Hebrew museum in Genova, which is a converted synagogue. Am off to look at it with Megan now..

Having drawn Greece in the DReaM group Euro 2004 sweepstake, last night was a pretty good start to the championship. Even better, today I figured out how to fix my broken Realplayer to view the highlights from the BBC website. Fantastic. That Spain goal was nice, eh?

We don't have a TV in my flat, which is why getting access to the highlights is important. The games are on the radio, which is adding some useful terms to my Italian vocabulary (like 'spinta' - a push), but it's kind of annoying as when something really exciting happens, like a goal, the commentators speed up from talking extremely fast to talking at warp speed, and although you can usually work out who scored, it's about 5 minutes before I get an idea of exactly how the goal came about.

I can see following Euro 2004 in the Gazzetta is going to be good. For one thing, they actually report on the football, rather than on players appearing on balconies in their underpants. Also, their coverage looks set to be comprehensive to say the least. This could be important - since I don't have a TV, I guess I won't be watching most of the games.

There are signs of possible over confidence though. The front page of the paper reports that the championship starts with Portugal-Greece, and will finish with Italy-France. Hmm. They may be half right.

The bank had no explanation for the lack of cashcard. I have to wait another week to see if it is returned to them undelivered. At least I managed to get them to give me some money in the meantime.

Ah, what fun, think I'm going to have to go back to my useless bank today. The cashcard I asked for Monday of last week still hasn't shown up. I asked when I ordered it if it would come in the ordinary Italian post, which is utterly unreliable and completely untrusted by the Italians, and she said yes but it would be fine. Fine. Anyway, I still haven't seen a single (Euro) cent of my wages yet, so I'm going to have to ask them to give me some money without the card, which could be interesting..

Very hot. I've no idea how anyone did any work in the summer here before they got air conditioning. However, cherries at the market are now 3 euros a kilo, for a bag of really ripe, plump beauties.

Apparently everyone in England is hanging out St. George's flags on their cars etc. for the biennial display of frankly tedious nationalism that goes with the major football championships. Not that I won't be watching the games and supporting England, but I can tell you that Italians, who won the U21 European cup on Tuesday night and have a decent chance of winning the main event, are just as excited about Portugal 2004, but there are absolutely no Italian tricolores being hung around the place.

Using an instinct that may be inherited, I managed to find my way to a graduation party today for Luca's girlfriend, which involved her family paying for plenty of Berlucchi prosecco and cocktails all round. Before midday. Pretty decent hospitality from people that I'd never met before, but that's fast becoming the norm as far as my experiences in Italy have gone.

Oh - to the lots of people who have asked - Hugo is a friend I met at the summer school in Oregon last summer. He came to Edinburgh last year too.

Pictures from Pisa. Great weekend.

It's over 30 here now. Very warm.

Getting hot here now: 27 today, 28 forecast for tomorrow, the same next week. I'm hoping to get to Pisa at the weekend to see Hugo and take a look at the city. Must remember to take an InterCity train - they have air conditioning, wheras the regional trains don't. Worth the extra Euros in my opinion.

The computing situation here in Genova is going downhill. It really is pretty poor that the Ph.D. students have to manage the computing infrastructures themselves with shoddy old hardware. Now the hard drive with the home directories on is dropping sectors, the power is randomly cutting out, and to add to our discomfort, all the servers are now in our tiny office. That's 9 system boxes with large noisy fans blasting away about 3ft from my head. You have to shout to make yourself heard.

There are also no backups made of home directories, so you have to remember to do that yourself which is a pain. I just send all my stuff to Edinburgh.

My thesis has been bound, and sent to college today. They should write to me about graduation next week, but the letter will go to my home address and my folks are on holiday, so I won't find out until the week after next at the earliest. It looks like I should make the July ceremony though, which takes place while I'm at the IJCAR conference in Cork, coincidentally on the same day that we make a social trip to the Jameson Whisky distillery...

While I was in Torino the first time, with Mark, I went to see the Marc Chagall exhibition in the GAM. It was fantastic, lots of really good pieces and very well laid out and lit. They're very keen on audioguides here in Italy, there are rarely notices written next to paintings about where and when they were painted etc. like you see in London. The audioguides are quite high-tech, they are like tiny mobile phones and you dial the number of the picture you are interested in. Sometimes they say something interesting, and sometimes they talk a lot of guff, but it's interesting to hear the Italian English all the same.

I'm unfortunately nowhere near the level of being able to take the Italian audioguide. I was barely able to negotiate for a cashcard in the bank yesterday - again I was astonished by just how bad a deal the banks give you here. You have to pay 10 Euros a year just to *have* a cashcard! Of course if you should use any other bank in Italy, you can expect to pay a hefty fee for getting your own damn money out. Come back NatWest, all is forgiven. Well not all actually, but some things are now forgiven.

On Saturday I bought the Corriere dello Sport because the shop at the station had sold out of La Gazzetta. Although opinions vary on the three sport only papers, it's generally reckoned that the best writers write in La Gazzetta, Corriere is a bit more tabloid, and the other, Tuttosport, is extremely tabloid. It's like The Sun reporting only on sport.

Anyway, I got a free guide to the Eurpoean championships with it. In it they reckon England are about 8th favourite out of the 16 teams, which seems about right to me. They also reckon Eriksson will play Hargreaves on the left of midfield - eh? I doubt it. But maybe they know something we don't. If I was Eriksson, I would play a diamond midfield with Gerrard left, Beckham central and Lampard right, let them switch freely a la Brasil, and get Hargreaves in the holding role..

Am back In Genova after an amazing day yesterday. I had heard about a pub in Torino showing the Palace/West ham play off match on a Palace email list. So I took the train there, walked to the pub where I found two blokes in Palace shirts standing outside. Turns out the pub was still closed, no sign of the owner who had promised to be there an hour before the match. By this time it was 15 minutes to kick off. This was the worst part of the day by far - I really thought I was going to have come all the way on a hot crowded train for nothing. But, about a minute before 4pm the owner arrived, and had the place unlocked a couple of minutes into the game. By that time I had established I was the only Englishman there, all the others were Italian fans of English football. Everyone was very friendly, to the limits that team loyalties would allow, and we shared chips during the match and talked about games we'd seen and stuff. With only ten of us there, I had an excellent view of the big screen for the whole game, which was an agonising experience, Palace had some good chances but so did the hammers and it was really in the balance. About an hour in, Palace got lucky as Andy Johnson found some room to shoot and the keeper couldn't hold it, and our captain Neil Shipperley was in the right place to bundle it into the net. Then followed a long, long half an hour as West Ham had two offside goals (correctly) disallowed and a decent penalty shout turned down, but in the end, it was our day. There's a photo of me celebrating with Andrea and Carlos, the two brothers who arranged the meet-up, here.

After the match, everyone went for a smoke in the park by the river, and talked about the great victory/egregious defeat. Andrea and Carlos invited me to stay at there place and go out in Torino that night; naturally I accepted, and we had an excellent Italian meal with their family (pasta first course, meat and salad second, fresh strawberries from their country house and then Andrea's birthday cake to finish). Andrea's father only half joined in - he was busy watching Palermo winning promotion to Serie a on TV.

At about midnight we went into town and the brothers showed me all the stuff I'd missed on my last visit, like the 'Polenta Palace', a building that starts about 5 metres wide and thins down to less than a metre at the end. It was designed by the same guy who built the Mole Antonelliana. And the palace with a cannonball still wedged into one wall. We also tried some "gianduja" ice cream, chocolate with fine ground toasted nuts, a Torino speciality, bought from what is apparently the most famous Gelateria on the Via Po. All the while cars were driving by waving Palermo flags and shouting, and we were waving back and shouting about Palace. It was an excellent night. Andrea had to go to Bologna the next day, so I got a very early train home, and spent today on the beach resting..

mark was official photographer for the visit last weekend, his (unedited) photos are here

I have a couple to add - my version of the top of Monte Porto Fino shot and a picture of Porto Fino at night

am in a flat in torino, digesting a huge "impromptu" family meal with two brothers who are palace fans I met at the game (which palace won one-nil :-)

are about to head for the turin pubs with said brothers, excellent hospitality. really glad I bothered to take the two hour train ride here, there were 6 palace fans and 4 hammers fans, all italian though, hearing italains imitate the cockeny accent for "i'm forever blowing bubbles" is very funny.

bad punctuation is due to italian keyboard..

more soon

computers here still very broken, so news of my trip to torino with mark will have to wait until next week. have heard that my corrections for my phd thesis have been signed off though, just have to get the thesis bound now. may be in turin tomorrow again to watch the palace/west ham game.

mark also has photos from turin, they'll be here next week hopefully..

When you buy a ten euro top up card for your Vodafone mobile in Italy, you only get 8 euros of credit. They keep 2 euros just for the hell of it. That's 20% down the loo, and they always take 20% no matter how large a top up card you buy. I'm finding it slightly difficult to swallow, despite the fact that it's not a huge amount of money, at least not at the rate I use my phone. I just don't like to hand over cash for nothing.

I almost got paid yesterday, but the finance department decided to go on strike on Friday. In Italy strikes are always on Friday, and occur more often during the summer when the weather is nice. So I might get paid next Tuesday or Wednesday, after which I will have to go down to the bank and try and persuade them to give me a bank card so I can actually get the money out. They're paying me the entire amount of my 5 month contract in two installments, one now and one at an unspecified future date. Very weird.

Next week, the computers in the lab are being re-arranged and reorganised, so it will be closed for a few days. So, no blog updates. I'm taking the opportunity to go to Torino with Mark..

Found some potential language practice partners today. Need to get down to work on that..

Have found the internet feed for Test Match Special :-) the computers here are broken today, you can't log in, so no reason not to listen to the cricket on my laptop all day..

Marine was here on Tuesday night, we walked into the old town and found a bar with seats outside on a quiet little piazza. Had a bottle of fine pinot grigio and tried cima Genovese, Marine had the torta di riso which is also a local dish. The proprietor was very friendly and enjoyed explaining what everything on the day's menu was, and as usual it was very good value. We went down to the beach after dinner to watch the night ferries leaving. They all leave at about the same time, all lit up all over the deck, good to watch.

Just had the very best idea *ever*. So in Elizabeth David's magnificent 'Mediterranean Food' there is a quote about a tiny hotel in Vaour, in the French countryside, called the Hôtel du Nord. You can read the quote on Mark's pages. It's really quite priceless, almost as good as the Venetian Breakfast. I was looking on the web today and it seems the actual hotel from the quote is now available to rent as a gîte, with space for 12 people, and the original huge kitchen and dining room. So here's the plan: book the place for a week in the early autumn or late spring, take 11 good friends, and recreate the meal using local ingredients from the markets mentioned on the webpage. You could go on to recreate the Venetian Breakfast, and then possibly the famous all-day hare recipe.. what a fantastic way to spend a week..
I'm sure the Maitre du Gîte will be interested in us directly he finds out we know how people should breakfast.

Megan was here at the weekend, had a great time relaxing on the beach and by the sea in Nervi and taking very long lunches. Pictures here.

Pictures from the forts where I was walking at the weekend.

Another corruption scandal has broken in Italian football. This time it's match fixing in order to make money at the bookies. Serious money. The Neapolitan mafia are said to be involved (are they vanilla, strawberry and chocolate falvoured?). You can read about it in the Gazzetta here - but in a way, it's not news to the Italians. They all know their football is corrupt, they just try hard to ignore it in order to continue to enjoy going to the games, which is sad. With the players they have and the tradition of football in Italy, the tifosi deserve better.

My #%*!^$* German landlady has charged me 100 Euros for '1 hour cleaning and painting'. I left that poxy flat twice as clean as it was when I arrived, and I was careful not to put anything on the walls that might upset her precious paintwork. Of course I can write to her and protest, but since I'm out of the country now, she knows she can keep the money. Landlords are just the same in every country, i.e. parasitic scum.

Today I did the walk between the four forts on the mountains around Genova. There are loads of forts in the mountains, but these particular four form a well known walk, and you don't have to go through any of the city between them, you can stay on the ridge of the hills. It was a beautiful day, despite suncream and hat I look like a man who spent the day in the sun. I took some nice photos too, I'll put them up soon.

On saturday I watched some of the prologue of the Giro d'Italia. That's Italian for the Tour de France. Not many household names take part in it, because they rest ahead of the tour these days, but it was fun to watch anyway. They start the cyclists off from underneath the victory arch in the centre of town.

Must start looking for somewhere showing the play-offs, now Palace have qualified. My Dad was the first to text me the news, while I was ordering a spremuta and focaccia in Righi at the end of the walk.

Italians go for a walk like this: put on designer tracksuit and plenty of perfume/aftershave, and carry a radio playing the commentary to the football. In one couple I saw, the chap had even trained his girlfriend/wife to carry the radio.

(That's enough corrections - Ed.) I've finished the thesis corrections. Think I'll take the day off tomorrow, and then read it again on Monday before I send it off to Jacques to check over. Claudio and Jacopo have also had some research success today, so we're off for cocktails and apperitivo.. negroni is becoming my Italian cocktail of choice.

Someone came to this blog yesterday after searching google for "naked germans". Quite disturbing.

Only six more corrections to make to my thesis... I promise my blog will become more interesting after I've finished. Really.

From the window of my room, you can see about 100 metres away a large dome on top of a church. At the base of this church are many flowers, ribbons and notices tied to the railings. It was here that the caribinieri shot and killed a demostrator during the protests surrounding the G8 summit in 2001. There is still a lot of graffiti all over Genova referring either to globalisation and related stuff, or to alleged police brutality during the protests. Recently, i saw a group of protestors meeting in a cafe near to the site of the killing for a protest, I guess because it was mayday (the anniversary is not until the 20th July). I stayed a long way out of the way. The carabinieri are trained by the army, and I've heard a lot of stories about them since I arrived. None of them are positive stories.

More rain - what's going on? I'm now being blamed by the rest of the department - the Scottish weather has followed me. Ma il tempo sta per cambiare, mark my words. It's supposed to be nicer at the weekend.

Baths in genova are a little strange. They are very short, and have a step in them, the idea is that you sit down on it. Then there are no shower guards, to stop the splashing I mean. You don't hang the shower on the wall and stand under it, you hold it in your hand and blast your face with it. In my case, due to a lack of practice, you also blast the surrounding walls, the mirror, the floor, your towel, the loo roll etc. It's quite difficult to master. Washing your hair is even more difficult. Once you can't see, it's very hard to be aware of where all the water is going. Fortunately, I usually take a shower last in our flat, so that bathroom has several hours to dry before anybody else sees it.

Rain prevented me from walking across Genova's four mountain forts this weekend. I want to go when it's clear to get a good view over the city. Instead, practised Italian with my flatmates, and did more thesis corrections. Should be finished soon.

Andy Johnson takes a penalty - saved - scores the rebound! Thank you, BBC world service. I wonder if I can find a pub showing the playoffs?

This morning I went shopping to via S.Vicenzo, which is a sort of pedestrianised street behind via XX Septembre. There's a bakery called Mario's which is apparently famous in Genova for its focaccia. I tried some, it was pretty good, but to be honest I can't really tell the difference between the focaccia there and from the local bakery. It all seems pretty good to me. And full of lovely olive oil and salt.

I also got some Veneto salami to try, and some Tuscan prosciutto crudo which looked really good.

Last night was very emotional for Italian football fans, it was the last game in the national team for Roberto Baggio, one of Italy's best players of recent times. He won't be picked for the squad to play at the European championships, much to the disgust of some fans. In La Gazzetta dello Sport this morning there was a photo of some fans holding up a banner which said:

Portogallo
Porto Baggio

which I liked.

Spent most of today chasing bureaucrats, so to speak. I went to open a bank account, finally having decided that I have learnt sufficient Italian to do this, where everything was going well until it turned out my tax number doesn't map correctly to the name printed on my passport. This is because my passport has my middle name on, but it wasn't written on my form for a tax number. This was sufficient to screw the whole process up, despite there being no doubts about my identity. Anyway, they opened an account provisionally, but I have had to apply for another tax number. I don't get bank card until I have been paid, I then have to go back to the bank and apply for it and wait for it to come in the post. So I could be in the amusing situation of having all my pay in the bank and no way of getting at it. Oh, and you have to pay to keep an account here, and you can only use that bank's cash machines. They're stuck in the 80s.

Added to this is the fact that Alessandro, the professor I'm working with, apparently doesn't actually have the money to pay me yet. This is purely a paperwork problem, but means more waiting and form filling before I get any cash. I've been here almost a month now.

While I was in the swing of it, I also wrote a letter in German to my landlady in Karlsruhe, who still hasn't paid me back my € 600+ deposit a month after I left the flat impeccably clean - a lot cleaner than it was when I moved in..

Grr. Will have to buy some more ham to remain calm. I'm sure that's what the Italians do.

Went to Claudio's last night for pasta arrabiatta, which was very very arrabiatta, and some watching of Monty Python DVDs. I failed badly to provide the proper British background. e.g:

"Who was Stanley Baldwin?"

"I think he played on the wing for Blackpool, single handedly won an FA cup final. Er.. no, wait a minute.."

etc.

Have just got the tax i paid in 2003 back from the German tax office.
yippee!
Must send it to a more suitable account before I spend it all on ham, pizza and beer.

Went out for pizza with a flatmate and a few other people last night. Ate 1 and 2/3 large pizzas. That's quite a lot. I will return to the UK fat. Or at least not underweight anymore.

You can get pizzas with carpaccio and fresh rocket on them. Or German sausage, spicy salami, fresh anchovies. Yum.

Properly warm here now. Spent most of the weekend sitting or walking somewhere near the sea. Took a bus out to Nervi, the extreme western suburb of Genova, on Saturday. There's a well known walkway along the rocky seafront there. Of course it's full of cafes, pizzerias and gellaterias as well.

Good news - the Genova Bavarian beer festival starts on 29th April..

Put 4 slightly surreal photos from the mountain last weekend here. Not much in the way of views. It's a lot sunnier now though.

It's really spring here now. 23 degrees (according to the digital display outside the pharmacy) and nice and sunny, with a crisp breeze off the sea. Am working today, but have plans for tomorrow which involve the purchase of more Tuscan salami, prosciutto crudo, focaccia and shellfish, and then some sitting on a beach.

There are also plans here for Sunday to start a series of outdoor summer screenings of films in the courtyard of the department using DVDs and a data projector.

There are two football teams in Genova. They both play here. The teams are called Sampdoria and Genoa. I have decided to support Genoa, because of the many parallels to Palace:

• Palace play in red and blue. Genoa play in red and blue. And white.
  
• Genoa is the oldest football club in Italy. Crystal Palace are the only founder members of the FA still playing in the league under their original name.
  
• Both clubs were founded by Englishmen
  

Actually, the divide here works pretty much along the lines of man city/man u. The locals in the city almost all support Genoa, and Sampdoria are supported by people from the surrounding area, and further afield, who just want to support a side that wins a lot. Having said that, Samp. have had a pretty poor time recently. When I last saw them, in the last game of the season last year against Venice, they were rubbish, but it has since become clear that Venice bought that game to make sure they stayed in serie B. That happens a lot in Italian football.

Didn't get to the gig last night - Claudio, my lift into town, pulled out of going.

Have just been called up to go to a gig tonight, featuring a band who cover 50s Italian communist songs in a Ska style. The photos will have to wait..

Decided to climb one of the mountains surrounding Genova this morning. The youth hostel is halfway up one of the big ones, and you can take a bus there, so I did that and then walked the rest of the way, which wasn't all that far. Unfortuantely, from the top of the mountain, I couldn't see much. It was too foggy. There are some old forts on the mountain top, but they aren't very well maintained, and not really open to the public either. There are no signs telling you anything about them which is a shame because they look interesting. I walked across the top of the hill to Righi, which is at the top of a funicular railway line. There's a restaurant there where you can eat dinner and look out over the city. I just had a coffee though, and then went down on the funicular. It's very cool. For one thing, the line is so steep the carriages have steps in them. Also, you have to go through a long steep tunnel. Eventually you end up in Piazza Zeca, quite near the centre of town.

Photos later..

Added two more Genova photos.

Bought a ciabatta for my room. A ciabatta is not just a kind of Italian bread, it's also a 4-way extension lead. And also, a slipper. Anyway, I can now play music in my room, and charge the batteries in my camera, and my phone, and use my laptop and have the desk lamp on. So life is good. Oh and the new Squarepusher album is great, thanks for that Laura and Alex.

Also bought some amazing tomatoes. In fact, all tomatoes here are amazing. Why do we (in the UK) put up with the crap they give us in Tescos? The greengrocer was strictly old school, in the style of G.W.Steel and co.. The proprietor stands out on the shop floor and asks you what you want and picks out your fruit and veg for you. But you can't just say 'half a kilo of tomatoes please', you have to get into a real chat with him, and wonder out loud if you should take some more, and if you want these blood oranges or these spanish oranges that are fresh today and great for spremuta. Then you go and pay his wife behind the counter. Very good Italian practice. I also got some crudo di Parma from another shop, which was astonishingly cheap but not as good as the deli next to Luca's place, and some salami Milanese. Which is great. Things I still can't find: shower gel, English tea, apple juice, museli.

It's raining today. Only light spring rain, but disappointing al the same. Or perhaps not: I'm going to have to spend most of this weekend finishing a workshop paper (the deadline was.. er.. last Thursday), so better that it's not beautiful and sunny outside. Professionally, things here in Genova look very promising, so I'm not all that annoyed about working over the weekend.

The group here is off for aperitivo to a nearby bar tonight. I'm going to bravely put aside my vital workshop paper and join them. An anthropologist must stick to his task, however onerous.

Finally managed to negotiate the purchase of an Italian SIM card for my phone. It won't work until tomorrow apparently, and they don't tell you the number either so you have to find out for yourself (by calling someone). Strange how different the whole deal is even with the same company in different countries. Here, I had to show my passport, but not prove my address like I did in Germany.

Anyway, I'm feeling that sense of achievement you get from performing tasks that would be completely trivial in your own country but are really tough when you don't speak the language. Celebrated by Buying More Ham.

Mia nuova casa

Moved into my new flat yesterday. It's about halfway between the Brignole railway station and the university, at the bottom of the hill the engineering faculty is on top of. It has a balcony with a view of lots of other balconies. And some trains and mountains. It seems very nice. My room is small. It looks like this. Except not as dark, the bright window made the rest of the picture that way.

My flatmates, Battisina and Sandra, seem like nice people. Living there should certainly be good for my Italian.

Just read this on my German bank website (which is also the German post office)

Außerdem gab Konzernvorstandsmitglied Dr. Hans-Dieter Petram auf einer Pressekonferenz in London die Eröffnung eines neuen Briefsortierzentrums im südlich von London gelegenen Croydon bekannt. Ausgestattet mit modernster Sortiertechnik wird damit die bisherige Produktionskapazität verdreifacht. Die rund 160 Mitarbeiter können nun bis zu 7,5 Millionen Sendungen pro Monat bearbeiten.

I think the implication is that ruthlessly efficient German sorting machinery has tripled the capacity of my local sorting office. This can only be an improvement.

The gate of the city walls that I took a picture of yesterday has an inscription in Latin, dating from the 1100s and translated on a sign nearby:

"In the name of the Almighty God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, I am guarded by men and surrounded by extraordinary walls, and with all my might drive back enemy forces. If you have come in peace, you may touch this gate, but if you have come seeking war, you will be repelled, disillusioned and defeated."

I like to imagine a king riding with a marauding army of 1000s up to the gate, stopping to read the sign slowly in faltering Latin, and then turning round and leading his men home again..

Bona Pasqua!

More photos. We have some (low quality) photos from the last night in Karlsruhe, some from the journey from Karlsruhe to Genova, and a mixture of photos from Genova itself.

Today is very quiet, Easter is a serious holiday here. Most of the shops and bars and restaurants around here are shut. I went into the city to take a look round the old town, and discovered where everybody was: walking around the Porto Antico, or queuing for the ferry to San Fruttuoso, the monastery we walked to during the week. The ferry starts running on Easter weekend, so everyone was taking the chance to get round there in the beautiful weather we have today. I'm glad we managed to visit it before the tourist crowds moved in.

I also gave directions to Piazza De Ferrari to a German couple. It was nice to speak a foreign language and be understood again. I'm still right at the beginning with my Italian.

Just discovered the computer with the sound card. It's not my one unfortunately, but since nobody else is here, I can now play John Peel shows from last week loud through the speakers..

Pictures from our walk from Camogli to Porto Fino are ready here. It was a really lovely afternoon. The walk took about 5 hours in all, but we weren't really hurrying. When we arrived in Porto Fino we had a large beer in a cafe with seats on the main Piazza. The tourist season hadn't really started, so all the cafes and trattorias were pretty empty. They were quite pleased to see us, which they probably wouldn't have been in the middle of July.

The photos from Amsterdam are up. It was a fun weekend. The "Restaurant Croydon" was a bit bemusing though. The guy who worked there had no idea why it had that name.

The best thing about Italy so far is the food you get served with your drinks. If you order even just a couple of glasses of wine in a cafe, you're more often than not given a pile of focaccia, crisps, nuts, cheese and ham to eat. Every bar has slightly different things, like spicy breadsticks or popcorn or fresh tomatoes with herbs. And it's all free. Very civilized indeed.

Can't upload any photos right now as the Edinburgh fileserver is down for the day.

It's raining today, the first time since I arrived. Planning to look for an Italian SIM card later, if the shop is open on good friday afternoon.

I've got a whole raft of photos to put up, from Amsterdam, the last night in Karlsruhe, the trip here, the workshop and our walk yesterday from Camoglie to Porto Fino, which was fantastic. It's through a sort of national park on the peninsula, and has several routes which take you through tiny villages and over mountains and down to a monastery that is only accesible by these paths or by boat. Really great.

Anyway, I have some urgent work to finish, so I'll be sticking the photos up during breaks over the next few days. For now, here are two from yesterday's walk: a view back towards Genova, and a picture of Fiona on an outcrop overlooking the monastery.

here is a picture of us drinking coffee in the Trattoria Ugo after my birthday dinner. it was a very nice evening.

Have found a small room in a flat near the Uni., it's not ready til next week (i.e. just after easter) which is a pain.

more soon.

my birthday!

thanks to everybody who sent a card or an e-card. I opened them just now.

Flathunting in Genova is very hard. It seems everything available is very expensive. This would be ok if it was the going rate, but everyone else in the department rents rooms for € 250 ish, whereas being a foreigner and staying only 6 months and arriving at (apparently) the wrong time of year, i'll be paying in the region of € 400, which seems pretty steep. That's just for a room in a shared flat as well. My whole bedsit flat in Karlsruhe was only € 330, so I'm having trouble adjusting..

The other depressing thing is you have to pay one month's rent to the agency as a fee. So € 400 straight down the drain, not like a deposit that you get back, just a one-off charge. If you're going to stay 3 years maybe it's not so bad, but it's a bit rough for me.

On the plus side, lots of friends from Edinburgh are arriving in Genova today for a workshop which starts on Monday, so we'll be able to go out and celebrate my birthday. I booked a restaurant last night. Well, I hope I did. We'll see what happens when we turn up there tonight..

Banks: Suck here too. I never realised that my UK account was such a good deal. In Itay, you can't even have an account for free, and you pay for everything you do. In Germany, at least they only charged you to use other people's cash machines.

Computers are much better in the Uni. Genova. Even though they have no support staff, and just manage them themselves, things work which didn't in Karlsruhe, like ssh key generation. This is important for visitors.
I'll have to build xemacs again though..

Flats all the rental flats in Genova seem to be under the control of a "casa mafia", who we're going to go and visit later..

Snobby brits will particularly enjoy this (American) list of the 100 most frequently mispronounced (American-)English words. I particularly like the idea of pronouncing Heimlich maneuver as 'Heineken remover'

(via /usr/bin/girl)

So. Breakfast with the nuns was nice. Didn't get up in time for vespers, or yoghurt of an acceptable flavour for that matter. However, I did find someone to help me with the espresso machine - molto importante. I'd actually not stayed in an Italian hotel before - i've always been either camping or in a youth hostel. For breakfast we got yoghurt, espresso and croissants, which is fine by me.

Last night I ate in a place very close to the Instituto Suore Marcelline, it was a sort of pizzeria and tex mex thing. My first ever beer in Italy was a pint of Warsteiner, the only beer they had on tap and a beer I must have had half a dozen times in Germany. Actually, they did have one other beer on tap, Tennant's Super (9% b.v.)! I've never seen that stuff on tap before, I'm suprised it doesn't fuse the delivery tubes or something. Even tramps have been known to push it aside.

After dinner I had a look at the town from the seafront, the beach in town is a bit of a mess, but you can watch ships going in and out of the port with all their lights on in the sunset which is very pleasant.

Have to start a flathunt today, it might be hard to find something near the uni. Also have to learn Italian - and fast.

In citta

I'm here in Genova, with the nuns. They're good value, though we have to communicate in French. The room seems very nice, and I can see the sea. Tomorrow I have to start looking for a more long term place to stay.

The journey through Switzerland was very pretty, though I kept falling asleep as I was up til 2 cleaning up my flat and packing, and I had to get up at 6 to make the train. The Panoramawagen turned out to be mythical, the train was actually pretty ordinary, but the scenery was still amazing.

Need to eat and sleep now.

The landlady didn't show up last night. Quite annoying.

Sunny again today. Here's a picture of a red squirrel and some flowers in the Schloss gardens.

My landlady is hopefully going to come round this evening to look at my furniture. I'm hoping she'll decide to rent the place out furnished and let me leave the furniture there. Otherwise we're going to have to carry it quite a long way to the nearest street collection, which will be a bit boring.

I'm going to go home and make my flat look tidier.

Got my tax form into the Finanzamt this morning. Had to wait a while to see someone, but after that it was relatively painless. Looking back at the language problems I had trying to get my bank card when I first arrived, it's pretty remarkable to me that I managed to do the whole tax declaration thing in German. I even found out how to get a tax card for next year when I'm not here - unfortunately, I have to go to the BürgerBüro to arrange this, another thing on the list off stuff to do before I can leave.

Got some train tickets for Genova, but the station here wasn't able to guarantee Panoramawagen seats. All the places just come up as normal seats on their computers. I decided to book a window seat and hope for the best.

Last night I had dinner with Lena's family (Lena is my language partner, as you no doubt remember). The main course was Spätzle, a south west speciality. I had tried it in the Mensa before where it was mediocre, but Lena's father made an unrecognisably better version. The whole meal was excellent. The wine was a particular highlight. We had German prosecco to go with the pre-dinner nibbles, a dry Badische white whine to go with the salad and goats' cheese starter, a Spätburgunder to drink with the Spätzle, and a fruity dessert wine with dessert. All of the wines were very fine, but the prosecco was probably my favourite. Lena's father sells Badisch wine for a living.

I guess that last night's dinner will probably prove the high water mark for my German until I come back to Germany again. Several hours of conversation ranging over a large variety of topics, from wine to European immigration, with no option to drop out into English like you often have at university parties. It was a lot of fun. It's a little frustrating that I'll have to back to the beginning again with my Italian.

Before dinner Lena and I want to the Caracalla, the newer bath complex in Baden-Baden. It's very modern and has some novel features like a pool outdoors. The water is about 34 degrees, which is warm enough provided you swim about a bit, and then you can sit in a hot tub, also outdoors, and absorb some more volcanic minerals. They also have a large sauna complex, including some outdoors made of Schwarzwald wood that smell really good. And I tried the cold water bucket for the first and last time.

I went out with Ignacio and his brother and father on Satuday night. It was good fun. We went to the bar opposite my flat and then came back to mine and finished off the whisky that my research group gave me before I left Edinburgh. The bar opposite, called Coppa, sells Tapas food. We tried some. The Spaniards were not terribly impressed, about as impressed as I was by Nordsee's fish and chips. When in Germany, eat the German food.

On the subject of German food, last week I tried Maultaschen, a south west German speciality. They're a bit like large ravioli. Very tasty.

Last night I was at Anusch's place for his birthday party. Good fun, lots of German practice. I gave him some Scottish Breakfast tea from Jenner's.

I will be very busy the next few days and might not have time to post much. Not doing anything exciting, just lots to sort out before I leave next week. The current problems:

Where to stay in Genova? I don't have a flat waiting for me, so will have to stay in a hotel for a while. Luca has recommended a place run by nuns, sounds like fun.
How to get to Genova? The current plan involves a train, changing once in either Zurich or Basel. It's about a ten hour trip. If I get up early enough, I can change at Basel for a train with a 'Panoramawagen' for the rest of the trip. Sounds cool, but is it worth getting out of bed at 6am for?
What to do with my furniture? Current plan involves dumping it in a nearby Sperrmüll collection on Wednesday morning, except for the bed, which I will keep until next Tuesday.
Paperwork Of course loads of paperwork to do, including reclaiming tax etc. which is a language nightmare. Better get on with it...

For exiled cricket fans, I recommend the BBC cricket fielding game. Maybe a touch too easy, and gully looks a bit too much like second slip, but still good fun.

I took two photos of the people in the Schloss gardens yesterday evening.

Weather still warm and sunny. Not much work going on in this building. Yesterday it was 24.4 degrees C, a record for Karlsruhe at this time of year. The local TV company was out in the Schloss gardens taking footage for the news.

Yesterday we went to the Irish pub for the quiz again. Being March 17th, it was pretty busy. We finished fourth, just outside the prizes - all the questions were about leprechauns and shamrocks.

Back in Karlsruhe

When I left Karlsruhe it was still winter. Two weeks later, it's summer. It's 20 degrees C today, sunny, smells of spring flowers, fresh cut grass, coffee being drunk outside. Everyone's in shirt sleeves and sunglasses and looking like it's midsummer. I was quite sad to leave London yesterday, but I'm feeling pretty glad to be here now.

Keep on to the post-doc, don't stop till you get enough

Alan (my PhD supervisor) found out today that our application to EPSRC for some money to fund a post-doc project has been successful. The grant details are here.

Some photos from the post-oral exam celebrations here.

The Hamburg pictures are finally ready here.

viva

passed with minor corrections, a good result. Was a stressful experience, glad it's over. off to pub.

I'm preparing my stuff for my visit to Edinburgh to take my PhD oral exam, hence no time to write much about the weekend just yet. It was a very good one though, I was back in Hamburg for a housewarming at Tina's flat and to meet up with Graham. Have just a few photos ready: Graham and me in front of the Alster lake, taking a Sekt breakfast at the Hamburg fishmarket after next to no sleep (timestamped for authenticity), the crazy sekt seller giving Graham his change, while the band blasts out Beatles numbers. And finally, a picture of the sunset on Hamburg docks.

Flying tomorrow, more pictures to come on Wednesday.

A picture from the Faschings parade with my language partner Lena on the far right and some of her PH friends, all covered in confetti from the parade.

Faschings is supposed to chase away the winter. Instead it's snowing again today. I've had more than enough cold weather.

The parade in Karlsruhe was ok, but not as good as the Braunschweig one. There were fewer sweets, and nobody was giving out bratwurst and beer like in Braunschweig. There was less drunkeness at the Karlsruhe parade too, but that was a good thing. Parents getting really plastered in front of young children makes me nervous. Generally, Karlsruhe was pretty sober all day by comparison to Braunschweig. The club underneath my house actually closed early, I guess nobody showed up.

Meanhwile, I went to a half decent faschings party near the PH. There were some good costumes, including a cyborg man with lots of flashing lights and various boys dressed up as girls. The DJ was rubbish again though. He kept playing 10 seconds of a song people liked, then pulling out the plug or something, 30 seconds silence followed by playing another track that nobody wanted to hear instead. The party scored points for accepting cash for beer though, instead of the stupid buy a raffle ticket, exchange it for beer system some other student parties have had. And 1 euro for a bottle of Beck's is pretty reasonable by party standards.

Ok, the parade seems to be starting directly outside my building. Blaring horns, people shouting "Hellau!".. time to go and join in I think..

FotoFotoFoto

Photos of Braunschweig are here. There's the usual problem of low winter sun and big contrast between light bits and shady bits. But they're pretty cool all the same.

Karlsruhe's Faschings Umzug is today - 250 000 people are expected according to the always optimistic SWR radio. I'm off there soon, must do some work first, so more Braunschweig commentary and Faschings digest tomorrow.

Oh - except there was an earthquake in Baden-Württemberg (the state where I live) yesterday - 5.1 on the Richter scale! Nobody was injured fortunately. There's a short report (in German) here.

Carnival

It's very much carnival season here. Today is Rosen Montag, and pretty much everyone in the department is taking the day off. If the Braunschweig carnival is anything to go by, they are probably all recovering from their hangovers. I've never seen so much hard liquor consumed in daylight hours, by teenagers, adults and pensioners in equal amounts. I got home quite late last night, so I haven't had time to sort out all the photos, but i brought four in today. We have: the castle in Braunschweig old town - almost all of the medieval old town was destroyed in 1944, but that which survived or was rebuilt is very pretty. Next, the Happy Rizzi Haus, I'd quite like to live there but unfortunately it's all offices, then Julia demonstrating her device for making Milchkaffee, and finally, a photo from the carnival parade. The main activity in the carnival is to try to catch sweeties and toys thrown by the people on the floats. The photo is a kind of 'action shot' of the process.

More tomorrow when I've got all the photos ready..

Off to Braunschweig for the weekend. Faschings has just started - it's carnival time. Got to run..

German band of the week is Tok Tok vs Soffy O. This is what Berlin is all about. Buy the album now. now!

How, exactly, do you expect the unexpected?

Today I did another thing I didn't expect to do whilst in Germany: giving a seminar on cockney rhyming slang to a group of teaching students. Bizarre. I'm clearly no authority on the subject, coming from the wrong part of London, but even with the dozen or so examples i could come up with, I managed to totally baffle everyone. I've never seen my class so confused. The class teacher really enjoyed it though, she got really into it. As I left the classroom after I'd finished, she said to her students, 'right class, now let's have a butchers at these handouts..'. A thoroughly surreal experience.

Had a good night out with my language partner last night. There are some nice pubs in Karlsruhe.

You might remember me explaining the problems Germany has been having with its new toll collection systems for the Autobahn - i talked about them on nov. 7th. Well now it's really gone pear-shaped -- the contract has been cancelled, all the money lost, the people who bought tracking boxes for their lorries have wasted their money, and the lawyers are moving in for the usual disgusting cash-in. Even worse, various states in germany have already started spending the money they were expecting to get, on new road improvements etc., and now they have been told they won't get the cash. It will be a minimum of two years before a replacement system comes on line. What a Blamage, as the radio stations are calling it. All because they couldn't bear to buy the Swiss system or the Austrian system, both of which are already running without problems.

Before you laugh too hard, remember this kind of thing happens in the UK all the time (e.g. 1, 2...)

Fountainbridge brewery to close

Edinburgh-based people might be interested to hear scottish and newcastle are closing their Fountainbridge brewery. Expect the site to turn into exhorbitantly priced luxury flats within a couple of years..

Return to München

Had a really good time with Mark in Munich this weekend. I like the city a lot.

Mark got in on Friday morning and our first move was a trip to the Vierortsbad, Karlsruhe's sauna baths. The ideal way to relax ahead of a good holiday weekend. It was very quiet being still during working hours. We ate a fine lunch at the Italian deli afterwards.

We got into Munich at half eleven Friday night, after a very smooth and comfortable train ride and appropriate anthropological research in the buffet car. They actually have beer on tap and real glasses in a German train, not half-warm cans of Heineken for ridiculous prices.

On Saturday we went to the Deutsches Museum. It's absolutely huge. There's no way you could really go round it in a day. Lots of people brought pack lunches and flasks of coffee to consume as they went round. We saw the Zuse Z3 which I thought was cool, the world's first programmable computer. It was made with relays instead of valves, for reliability. There were also lots of other huge old computers with mercury delay lines and other crazy technology in.

Other cool things in the museum were the aeroplanes, including a Wright brothers flyer, a replica of Baron von Richthofen's Fokker triplane, and a rocket-powered Messerschmidt plane that was used towards the end of WW2. They also had the Magdeburg Hemispheres, the apparatus used by Roentgen to discover X-rays, and an Enigma encryption machine.

Never mind that, what about the beer?

After the museum, we started in the Bratwurstherzl. This is a sausage and beer hall in the old town. You can order anything from 6 (beginner) to 12 (professional) Nürnberger sausages, which you then get on a heart-shaped plate with your choice of potato salad or sauerkraut. We both ordered 8. Meanwhile, the Bavarians on the next table were engaged in entertaining banter with the waiter about who was eating the most sausages. Really excellent food, goes down especially well with a light and refreshing Weissbier.

Following this, we came across a very friendly pub close to the Frauenkirche (the big cathedral with the distinctive twin clocktowers). It was packed out inside, and people were standing on the porch where they had tables, stools and heaters to keep the determined-to-drink-outside Bavarians happy. The Weissbeer here was cloister-brewed to a recipe from 1426 or something, and was first-rate. If you could start selling this in Britain, without the ridiculous price tag it attracts in the poncy London and Edinburgh bars which do sell it, you could make a fortune. I'd never drink Deuchar's IPA again.

Our next stop was Dürnbräu, in a small street just on the edge of old town called, helpfully, Dürnbräugasse. This is a small, initmate beer hall with a large, sociable centre table. We arrived just in time to get the last seats, they were turning people away afterwards. This is often a sign that you've stumbled into the right place. This proved to be the case as we were served with some excellent Schnapps for aperitif, followed by some of the very best beer of the weekend. And that's some damn fine beer. The Dunkel (dark beer) even came in a glass with a pewter flip-top lid. We ate dinner here too, high quality Wiener Schnitzel. A really good place.

On Sunday, we started by going to mass in the incredible rococo Asamkirche. The priest was on good form. His sermon was about the passage where Jesus tells the crowd that people who are poor now will be be rich in heaven, and people who cry now will laugh in heaven, and vice-versa. He said; "does this mean we shouldn't laugh here on earth? That we shouldn't laugh in church? No! In fact, I don't think we laugh here enough! Here's one about the time I was in the seminary: this famous cardinal was coming to visit, you see, it was just before lent, and.." then he proceeded to tell a long gag about one of the other trainee priests not recognising the cardinal, thinking he was also a trainee priest, and saying something along the lines of 'so I've heard this big-time charlie cardinal that's coming really thinks he's God' - the cardinal didn't take it too well. The 70 year old Asamkirche priest was clearly still laughing about it. He was a good guy.

After mass we were just in time to get to the Augustiner Grossgaststätten for Weisswurst before the theoretical midday deadline. It was really good. It reminded me (and Mark) a little of extremely good quality haggis.

You're standing on the art

We went to the Pinakothek after that for some modern art. It's free on Sundays which is nice as, in addition to personal financial savings, it leads to a much friendlier crowd inside in my opinion. One mishap was that one newly acquired piece involved a lot of frisbees, one of which was on the floor. People kept treading on it and setting off an alarm, all day. As well as junk there was a lot of good stuff, some rooms full of strangely placed pieces of wool which I liked and a good collection of Picasso, Klee, Magritte, Braque - all the usual suspects. There's a design section too, but that wasn't all that great. There were a few excellent pieces, but some sub-Ikea furniture as well which was a bit dull to look at. It was another huge museum, and we were again knackered by the time we had looked around.

After coffee we looked in several of the grand old churches in Munich before returning to the stand-outside-under-heatlamp pub near the Frauenkirche for a few Weissbeers for the journey home. Having retrieved our gear from the left luggage lockers, we made the train home with about 0 seconds to spare, the guard was actually yelling at us (and several other people) to get a move on. When they say 18:43 train in this country, they really do mean 18:43. We made it though and the journey was again very relaxed and easy. A really nice weekend. And a good city.

Finished nowhere in the quiz last night. It was fun though, Ignacio brought along two girls, one Russian and one American, and Carlos came down as well. We had a good time debating the answers, but ultimately made all the wrong decisions.

Booked a 1-star hotel in Munich for the weekend. Mark is coming to visit. The hotel receptionist spoke perfect English, in fact from her accent she must have spent some considerable time somewhere near York I'd say, but she only realised I was English when she asked for my nationality. Apparently, my accent doesn't sound at all English. It sounds definitely eastern European. This isn't a complement in Germany. I've heard people moaning that a lot of the 'repatriated' Germans who moved back to Germany from parts of the old soviet union etc. speak really awful German. Telling me I sound eastern european is all part of the magic of German customer service..

Anyway, one place the service can be a lot better is in the beer halls of München, it's a strict no-Hofbräuhaus rule this time, as we aim to visit some of the more unusual and less tourist-infested places. The daytime plan is to visit the Deutsches Museum, which has lots of exhibits from famous science experiments, and the replica (built by the original inventor) of the world's first computer.