Salzburger Zeitung - Sunday - I

I've been wanting to get something up about the Festival so far but unforunately the Internet connection at the Hotel has been down since yesterday afternoon. Just putting this in on a local connection until I can get a full connection.

Quickly:

Il matrimonio inapsettato - a delight
Andreas Scholl and Accademia Bizantina - if I can't have Andreas I want Stanfo Montanari the violinist - seriously a great concert.
Neapolitan Church Music - the Balthasar-Neumann Chor und Ensemble did some fine work but then showed us what they could really do with a Bach encore.

And don't let anybody tell you Austrian food is heavy and unimaginative - we've had some great meals, snacks and confections. Okay some of it can be heavy but tasty.


And it is spargel season - asparagus, ham, butter and Parmesan cheese!

More to come.

11 maggio - San Mammertus

And Now Back to Our Regular.....

Its been a very odd week or two here. Between the flu that seems to be striking everyone and was really energy-draining and ADSL problems I haven't been either able or in the mood to update. Though I've been reading all my favorite bloggers I just haven't felt much like sitting down and commenting let alone putting finger to keyboard and writing about what's been going on here in the Eternal City.

However things seem to be on the turn around - Eugenia, my Italian teacher, assures me that Spring is just about to begin - and I'll post a few things that I had been working on with their original dates.

And to my buds - you knew the silence was too good to last. I'm back!

08 febbraio - San Girolamo

News Footage at Eleven

My apologies to all my friends who must think by this point that I have fallen off into a pit in the Coliseum and been devoured, like the Christians, by lions. It didn't really happen to them all that much - Christian propaganda - and it hasn't happened to me.

We are all doing fine. I've just finished a sex week language course and frankly at 60 I'm too bloody old to learn all those irregular verbs. Laurent is in week three of his four week stint. We are slowly getting the apartment together - shipments arrived at staggered times and we brought too much stuff with us. We were able to host Canadian Thanksgiving dinner this weekend for colleagues with a degree of success.

Reese is having some problems. Adjusting has been a hardship for him and the effects of old age are creeping up on him - hell even I have to get up in the middle of the night these days, though that may be the wine and mineral water with dinner more than age - yeah I wish! We have found a good vet for him and he is getting more exercise than before - as indeed are we all, Rome is a walking town.

The Internet saga continues; Fastweb came last week and dropped off the ADSL modem and we were to have service today. Well it is now 9:15 pm and not only do we not have Internet we do not have phone service either. But we must be learning - we both shrugged our shoulders, delved into our risotto and poured another glass of a rather nice white from the Veneto.

By tomorrow I should be up and running; I have so much reading to catch up on - Tater, Belle, Cowbell, Sticky Crows, Evilgnome et al. And got a cache full of photos of the past two months to share with the world.

My thanks to all of you for the comments and the concern, we are here, we are definitely queer and MORE DETAILS AT ll!

PS: I've piggy backed on a colleagues wifi to send this post.

Erratum: You're right Lynette it is a typo - "sex week" - only in my most ferverent dreams!!!!!!

9 Ottobre - San Diogini

SORRY FOR THE INTERRUPTION

Well we still are internetless and its has been difficult to get to a computer. I have 5 minutes on the system at school and that has been taken up with banking etc. I hope to get over to the Embassy later today and post a few items. Well I say a few items but it will be more like seven or eight. I have been saving stuff as I go along.

Lynette, thanks for you concern. We are doing okay and our Reese is fine. He came through a minor operation for an abscessed tooth and we have found a good vet. Unfortunately I have not found the apostrophe on this damned Italian keyboard as easily. 13/09/07 - 09:20 AM

Update: Well I still haven't found the apostrophe but I have got to the Embassy and managed to get a few items posted.

13 Settembre San Giovanni Cristostomo

Inter not yet!

Okay I thought they were kidding – two to six months to get ADSL installed! Impossible! But in Italy it appears the impossible is possible.

We have now been here for six weeks and we still don’t have an internet connection at home – nor will we for at least another two weeks. The process has been worthy of a Goldoni comedy without the masks – though I am now aware that sales and service people here all wear masks of one type or another.

A company called Mercurious has been offering to handle all our telecommunication needs here in Italy. Having been told of the horrors of dealing with Telecom Italia we decided that one stop shopping would be the best solution. Sergio – twentyish, compact, cutish and told by his mother since birth that he was the most wonderful boy in the world – assured us that in his hands we would experience only the finest in service. And would that mother’s son ever lie to us?

Let’s just say that Sergio sometime gets fact and fairy story confused.

Fact 1: There are four companies each offering six or seven plans depending on our needs.

Fairy Story 1: Fastweb (our choice) had a connection to our building and fiber optics was not a problem.

Fact 2: Decision made, unfortunately there was Ferragosto, when as much as he would like to take action our Sergio could not as everything was closed.

Fact 3: First week of September Sergio and the installer show up and thump walls and examine conduits then shake their head sadly.

Fact 4 and Fairy Story 2: The line into the apartment was owned by Telecom Italia and, Scuzi, but they would never allow an intrusion by a company dedicated to the destruction of one of Italy’s most beloved and efficient government services. I’ll let you decide where the fairy story is in that sentence.

Fairy Story 3: It could not be done that day because it would take three men to run the new line into the apartment.

Fact 5: Second week of September Sergio and another installer show up – giving lie to the three men story from the week before. Again much thumping of walls, unscrewing of conduit covers but, Gratia Deo, now some cable has appeared. Then they both disappear for 10 minutes. The installer returns and I desperately try and understand his explanation as to why it is not possible this time.

At this point Facts and Fairy Stories become intertwined and too numerous to count: Sergio returns and explains that there are only 10 connection boxes in the building and they are all in use. And there is no way to introduce fiber optics into the building in any case. And the line is registered to the Embassy and cannot be altered in any way. And, despite their status as a beloved and efficient government service, it will take Telecom Italia at least a year to run in another line. At that point mama’s wonderful boy is extremely lucky that I did not muss up his carefully arranged hair and mention why they say Roman boys drive big, fast cars – a fate almost worst than being forced out of your mother's house!

At this moment a colleague of Laurent’s is trying to separate fact from fairy story and it looks like there just might be a solution. However I won’t count on anything until I do my first posting from home base – that six month figure looks like it may be a fact not a fairy story.

7 Settembre – Santa Regina

Postings

We still don’t have Internet at home and with Ferragosto (see below) in full swing it may be another two to three weeks before that happens.

That means that I can only post if I go to a “hot spot” or one of the very expensive Internet cafes. Since the apartment has to be cleaned, clothes washed and ironed, Reese attended to, shopping done and meals prepared (oh my God I should have entered Italy as a member of Laurent’s household staff!) I often just don’t have the time so postings may be erratic for the next little while.

As I’ll probably be putting up several posts written on different days all at once I’ll identify the day it was written; and because its Italy, because its Rome and because Big Ben, Father George and the Boys live just the other side of the river, I’ll include the Saint’s Day – and god knows there’s a Saint, sometimes two, for every day.

Sadly the lack of Internet means that I haven’t been able to keep up with my favourite blogs and I miss them. Once Fastweb comes through I’ll have a lot to catch upon.

15 agosto – San Alfredo