Today, on the 26th of July, I am having a little party. It’s La Festa di Sant’Anna, which means that it is my onomastico, my name day. I think Anne, like Anna, is a beautiful name. Simple yet melodic because it begins and ends with a vowel, a classic in so many languages – from Italian to Russian …
“In the small town of Roermond alone, located on the Meuse in the province of Limburg, 550 Dutch families had to evacuate this morning. The water here reached a record level, and around six o’clock in the morning the inhabitants were woken up with sirens and megaphones”. This quote comes from the liveblog of the …
Whát an evening. Whát an emotion. After 53 years, the azzurri are once again the very best of Europe. It’s true, Italy won the European Championship final against England. But what a match it was. The nerves were palpable in the air all day and when the streets and piazze started to get crowded around eight o’clock, you could …
As you most probably know, Italy played the quarter-final of the European Football Championship against Belgium last Friday. Their 2-1 win set the whole of Rome on fire. After a year of endless lockdowns, curfews and social distancing, the Italians celebrated it as if they had already won the cup. Down the lungotevere, the wide road …
After Lucas – my dear friend and travel buddy and by now familiar to the loyal readers of this blog – and I spent a few days in beautiful Tuscany, we arrived back in Rome late on Saturday night. After a late dinner outside, we fell asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillow. …
And suddenly, there was a shift last week. The long-awaited turnaround. As if everything, after being endlessly delayed and postponed, suddenly gained momentum. It was a week full of positive news that I had not seen coming so soon. It’s possible again to book a last-minute ticket and jump on a plane the very same …
Have you ever introduced yourself as an independent washing machine at a fairly important first meeting? You guessed it, I did. Oh, all those delightful moments when you – so blissfully unaware of any wrongdoing – make huge language blunders. It’s all part of learning a new language and enthusiastically putting it into practice too. …
That Italy won the Eurovision Song Contest this year, is something we all know by now. But what happened afterwards? A week has passed, I got back to Rome and by now I can say I have recovered from this huge and amazing event. The relief and joy in the Delegation Bubble were indescribable when …
En we zijn los! Vandaag, maandag 10 mei, ben ik naar Rotterdam vertrokken voor wat hoogstwaarschijnlijk de twee meest hectische en tegelijkertijd onvergetelijke weken van mijn leven gaan worden. Ik ga namelijk als Delegation Host voor Italië aan de slag op het Eurovisiesongfestival dat dit jaar in Nederland wordt gehouden. De foto boven deze blog is …
I am back in the Netherlands! And although my return didn’t run all too smoothly (something with the wrong type of COVID-test, a train that got stuck in the field on its way to Fiumicino airport, and just too many cotton swabs stuck in my nose than should be allowed) I could walk past customs …