NEWS FLASH OF THE WEEK! (or as I like to call them ‘OH My Gowd!!’ moments)

Tonight Ladies and Gentlemen there are three new items for your viewing/reading pleasure:

1. Blue Heelers Goes Italian.

Well you will be happy to know that Australian television is pervading the world! Yes that’s right folks I found none other than the all time Aussie favourite Blue Healers (sarcasm intended)! And not just that but the best episodes – Maggie was still in it! Really never was the same once she left, was it? I wasn’t a fan, but it sure was funny to see the dubbing in Italian of ‘Shil’ be right mate’! Translation just didn’t sound so good!

2. Slow Food.

In my personal ‘Anti American’ sentiment at the moment I was so very pleased to hear that Italy has taken a stand on take away fast food (and all things that seem like food, for example plastic dyed cheese and those chicken nuggets that contain 2% chicken and 98% bone, guts and other delightful things with the wholesome goodness of Ribbonden AC3 and Flavour 334) in their campaign for ‘Slow Food’ (food that takes time to prepare and is made from fresh produce and certified by the Slow Food Organisation) when I asked a friendly Italian why they preferred Slow Food they answered, and I quote “who wants to eat fast, shit fast and hurry because there are hundreds waiting behind you to do the same thing” – I think you get the picture! So if you are in a restaurant in Italy and you see the symbol of a snail next to the item on the menu, now you know it means ‘slow food’! – learn something new every day don’t ya!


3. The Birkin Sighting!

For all of those who are not fashion aware, don’t bother to read further! However for all you others all I can say is “OH My Gowd, Oh My Gowd!” today whilst sitting quietly in the piazza sipping my tea (yes, I know I’m in Italy and all but I had already had coffee that day and I’m trying not to over dose), I saw it . . .big, red, and oh so luxurious the one and only hand made Hermes creation THE BIRKIN! Now with a price tag of $AU10,000, (yes, more than the price of most of our cars) AND a two year waiting list, you can understand that my jaw hung open for just a second as my eyes followed it across the café. I took the liberty for including a photo of this delightful bag to educated those who are still in the dark about the wonderful world of ridiculously luxurious bags!

The Weekend!

The Wedding!

Well I finally went with the classic black dress and it was good, also because it was elastic and considering the 8 course lunch believe me the extra few centimetres were appreciated!

And the church was so beautiful! Everything that you imagine an Italian church to be like. It was a small completely covered in old 15th century frescos, just divine!

I was cajoled and coerced (really, I’m not joking!) into being in the group for the tossing of the bouquet. Now, let me paint the picture . . . one of the reasons that I didn’t want to go and be in the group is because it doesn’t take a brain scientist to workout that I had good odds to catch the thing, considering that I am already a head taller that 90% of all Italian girls – probability of catching bouquet 1/6, and then I was wearing heals – probability 1/4, add to the equation that I played forward in Basketball for 6 years (a position which involves pretty much only catching the ball when it rebounds from the ring) – probability 1/ 2. And yes, despite being at the very very back of the group I managed to catch it, . . . but made sure that I quickly threw it away to another girl (the one in the last picture)!!

The Party.

We then rushed from the wedding full as turkeys to a party for the birthday of two of your friends. A good time dancing, drinking and avoiding of mosquitoes were had by all!
Click on the link on the left for all the photos.

The Last Two Weeks . . .

Well well, the last two weeks have brought chaos, and well you’ll see . . . .

1. THE DRIVING

Well I hope you will all be happy to know that I have got back in the car since the fist lesson and not just in a parking lot but also on the actual road! Yes, I’m not longer a fist timer.
Was very much less dramatic than last time. However there is a new challenge: PARKING! Yes that’s right folks, where touch parking is the norm and the horn is used an average of 5 time per 30min trip (..really, I counted!). But really my hats off to them they have such an amazing understanding of the exact dimensions of the car, to the millimetre (…three months later and I still hold my breath every time we park!) And that little white car in the picture –that was a good park!

2. THE HAIR

This one wins catastrophe of the week. In the stupidity of youth (and yes, that is the lame excuse I using! ... in fact its worked pretty well up to now) I had the final straw last weekend when a girl in a shop mistook me for being Russian (yes! how insulting! – especially as that implies so much more that just a nationality in Italy (if you know what I mean), but its really not so strange considering the ratio of Russian to Australian girls in Italy would be hugely in the Russian favour,), I put it down to the blonde hair and white skin, white skin- there’s really not much I can do about it(considering all that time on the Greek islands did bupkis), but blonde hair- ‘ah ha!’ I thought, now there’s something I can change! OHHHH big big mistake, Sure I changed it all right, I changed it from Blonde to Green (who knew brown hair dye would do that!) to Grey (bad brown with blonde don’t mix!) and finally back to blonde!

LIFE LESSON: Tampering with hair that is already good with dye from the supermarket is a recipe for disaster!

COST OF LESSON: (Includes 4 packets of dye from the supermarket and two hairdresser visits!) wait for it folks . . . . €150 and with the current exchange rate you really don’t want to know what that is in AU$!!! Trust me don’t do the conversion!

LANGUAGE LESSON: I now know without thinking all the vocab. to say that ‘‘I am stupid and stuffed up perfectly good hair, HELP, PLEASE!!!!’’ And it turned out that now one thought I was Russian all the hairdressers and all the other clients in the hairdressers at the time all thought I was English (true!).

3.THE DIDGERIDOO

For all who don’t know on this trip to Italy I decided to take my didgeridoo, one my brother and I bought when we went to the Northern Territory. I took it to a dinner party and it was highly amusing, especially as I brought it out at 12pm when every one was very ‘happy’. Out of 12 at the dinner 1 could make a sound, and 12/12 could make a spitting slobbering noise whilst covering it spit- needless to say it under went a thorough disinfecting! And 2/12 didn’t even know what the hell it was (but the were Mexican so all is forgiven)

4.THE WEDDING PREPERATIONS
(and yes I can hear you - NOT MY WEDDING!!!)

The wedding of one of Dani’s friends has been the bane of my week, as finding some thing to wear is not so easy when the whole place is full of fussy Italians who don’t let anything that isn’t ‘designer’ touch there skin. Ok, so exaggeration! But seriously this is a day wedding and I packed only cocktail dresses!
I leant this week that apparently the rule for dressing for a day wedding in Italy is something like this: -
a. totally black is out
b. ‘classic’ is in
c. anything designer is 10/10 (and 11/10 if its an Italian designer)
d. the balance between looking ‘classic’ but yet looking a little different is very (very very ) thin!
e. maybe the biggest rule that was firmly bestowed on me was that under so circumstances what so ever are you able to out dress the bride. Which originally I didn’t think would be so easy considering its ‘Lady in big white dress (with little girls carrying it) with done-up hair and large white veil’ VS ‘little tight red dress’ but apparently that dress was completely unacceptable and may provide a distraction to the giving of the vows!

Will post pictures next blog of the final choice!

5. THE MOTORBIKE

I went riding on a motorbike! True! Not only but I wore all the gear! (check the photo). And because I have a lovely boyfriend I also wore all the safety gear (back-brace etc.)
Italian bike - €6000
Helmet - €2000
Jacket - €1000
Gloves- €100
A Crash - €Very Expensive!

No there was no crash! But how sexy do I look in the picture with all that bike get-up –NOT!! We drove from the centre of Torino to the mountains (1 hour) and back (1 hour). Now, I have to explain something, this bike is a race bike for the track (not built for comfort) and if you can see that little red seat way high up there on the back that’s my seat! And it means that I have to put my hands around the driver and onto the body of the bike with all my weight on my wrists. And when you are going down from the mountain, with all your body weight PLUS 10kg for the gear your wearing and the backpack you have, . . . well I think they just invented a new torment! But really it was beautiful through the mountain scenery. And (look away now Mum) but we only topped a speed of about 160km.hr and there were cars flying past us overtaking! Crazy Italy!!!