New flat, same demographic :(

Hello my friends and countrymen

Well, I've moved in to my new flat. I moved last Sunday, and in true not-particularly-intelligent fashion, I went out on Saturday. I didn't mean to, and in fact had many opportunities (all spurned) to leave the pub and go home. As it was, I was caught up in the revelery and stayed for the duration. D'oh! Last Saturday there was a carnival in Genoa, which was predictably lame (it was in the 'City That Never Wakes Up', after all). I went to see my colleague Clare sing with her choir, who sang The Age of Aquarius and were all dressed up as hippies. There were lots of other tizi (folk) doing stuff too, including a group who were dressed up as bottles of olive oil and parmesan. No racial stereotypes here please. I also walked past a black Pope, which was a bit surprising (and extremely unlikely, although maybe he was adopting "Yes we can"). Strangely there was a man dressed up with what looked like a pineapple on his head. Unfortunately as the only football geek Brit, no one knew who Jason Lee was, so my football chant didn't last long....

So, yes, I went to see Clare sing. The rugby was on after, so I hung about and went to the pub with her to watch it, and so quite reasonably blame only her for me getting drunk. I had missed the Scotland game, but watching England lose never gets old, even if the game wasn't very good.

Sunday was not a red letter day. March is described as a crazy month here, weather-wise, and so after three weeks of uninterrupted sunshine, Sunday (1st March) was raining all day. It made lugging my stuff unpleasant, which combined with the hangover was not ideal. After living for about 6 months with two middle-aged women I was looking forward to maybe living with young people. But as soon as I got here my hopes were dashed. Another middle-aged woman had already moved in! Also, last night another one came to inspect the other room. I seem to be like catnip to them, unfortunately.

Still, the flat's nice and big, cheaper, and I'm writing this at my window with a great view of the stadium. On Wednesday the foolish Sampdoria played Inter in the Coppa Italia, and I watched it on the TV with my window open so I could get the surround sound effect. It were braw! Inter were terrible and lost 3-0, a feat I hope they replicate this evening when they come back to play the mighty Grifone. There was a Columbian defender called Rivas who played for Inter, who frankly would look only ok in Scotland. Here, it was just embaressing. I have my ticket, and so will make the two minute walk to the pub and then the game shortly.

Here's the view from Wednesday. Pretty super-fly!

Unfortunately the flat's beside a very busy road, so it proved quite difficult to sleep at first, as the buses, cars, tanks and jumbo jets drove past. Now I'm getting used to it, thanks in no small part to earplugs. At first I was hesitant about using them, as my only prior experience of them had me getting an ear infection in Greece. So far, so ear infection free, which is nice.

I now have internet, which is nice. But actually having it has reminded me of what a boring thing I think it is. All I've done really is read about football and play a gangster game on Facebook. Maybe it's not the internet that's boring, but me, but I struggle to believe that!

Without wanting to use a catch-all generalisation, all Italians love nick names. Loads of things have nicknames, from football teams (Giallorossi = Roma, Grifone = Genoa, Bianconeri = Juventus) to politicians (Il Cavaliere = Berlusconi). Italy also has quite a deferrential culture, with the polite form of addressing people that you don't know, and also those that command respect. The football coaches are called 'Mister' (pronounced 'meester'), and so I was very pleased when I was called this in a coffee shop. In the same place, co-incidentally with the best cappuccino I've had here (Tre Corona, Via di Francia - some free advertising for their kindness), the manager guy calls me Bionda (blonde), which is quite cool I think. It's much better than all of the other things that people shout at me, most of which I choose not to understand! Strangely, the guy I'm going to the football with now calls me Nimmo. It seems that no matter what country I'm in, people have a natural aversion to the name Michael. I don't mind, but I thought it was a bit strange. That said, people do call each other by their surnames here sometimes.

Well, I think that's it for me for now.

Adios mi amigos