now Gaborno if you complain again I pass a silk-epil on your belly when you sleep

miei cari, I am sure that you missed my random ranting, bullshitting and swearing. Or perhaps not. In any way, since this is a free democracy I will rant as much as I want. And to prove how free and democratic we are, please say hello to the little google guy that is monitoring the shit that I write (and from where) to sell it most likely to some advertising agency.
So why am I writing again? Because our friend Gaborno decided to bother me shitless about me being laaaaaaazzzzyyy, boooooooriiiing, and so on. So I could have decided to keep my cool and disregard the comments. But obviously not.
So what is happening? I see that in the last post I was swearing against Ikea. I still hope that they get hemorroides as big as chestnuts; that said, my wardrobe is standing and full, thank you very much. Apart from that, everything is going very fine. Life in Bruxelles is more entertaining than I thought (or perhaps I am just lucky and moved here in a year where there is actually a summer). Friends are nice, Flat is nice. Work is nice. Frites are still very good. Beer is also very good. So overall I like it a lot and I am happy.
In the last month I went to Prague with Heather and Randy and then to Benicassim with Gaborno.The Prague trip was very nice altough a bit tiring, since I had to drive with little Jean Jacques all the way. And the town itself is beautiful, even though we went out in the countryside to get get some beads for Heather and definitely it looks run down.
Benicassim was a lot of fun, we definitely need to go there again next year. Despite our great plans of going there with a big group, as usual it ended up being me and Gaborno (surprise!), since our friends are boring chickens. And being as organized as we are, we didn't manage to get a place in the camping so we had to find a hotel (the same day we arrived, of course, do you think we would book??). Which, after all, proved to be a lucky move, given that the second night a freaking tornado decided to come to the Spanish coast, taking away tents, passports, probably a couple of drunken anorexic English girls and most likely a full set of illegal drugs. It also prevented Kings of Leon to play, which bothered me a lot since I really wanted to see them. Well, anyway, the rest was extremely good, Franz Ferdinand were extremely good live, Gaborno nearly lost 10 years of his life proving that he still young and therefore can handle staying in the front rows close to the stage and as usual some underage kids tried to hit on me.

OK, enough for now, need to go to bed (in reality I bought an iphone and i downloaded tetris, this thing is addictive)
ciaociao

let's rant about Ikea

miei cari, as you might have noticed, I haven't written, or ranted, it's the same, for some time. Well, the new job is interesting, I like my flat, I am meeting new people so there is not too much I can write, or rant, about. But today, eventually, I found something: I HATE IKEA!!!!!!! So, you wonder, or perhaps not, what happened? Let me tell you. As you know, I had these PAX wardrobes when I was living in Frankfurt. When I moved I decided to leave them in the flat and take with me only the doors and the drawers, since I feared that if I dismantled the structure and tried to build it up again it would fall into pieces on me while I was sleeping. Because you all know, I assume, how good the quality of Ikea "wood" actually is. So I arrive here, go to Ikea, order my wardrobes and wait 2 weeks for them to carry them to my place. And here the trouble starts: comes the day in which the idiots were supposed to take the wardrobes home. I wake up at 8 (on a Saturday, ladies and gentlemen), wait until they arrive, they ring the bell and then they tell me that they refuse to bring them upstairs because I had not booked a parking spot in front of my house. Reasonable, you may think, and I would agree, if they had to carry the things for 2 kms. Reality is that they parked at no more than 10 m from my door, so actually there was no need at all for a parking space. So I tell the guy to call his boss, I spend 15 minutes quarreling on the phone until she tells me that I am not the only client that morning. To which I reply that if instead of wasting our time on the phone she had told the guys to bring the wardrobes upstairs by now they would be done. So, after some more quarrelling, we agree that they would take the wardrobes into the house but not carry them upstairs. So, fine, I have to call poor Daniele and Raffaele to carry them up for me. Ok. Fine. Then the next day Vincenzo helps me building them and I put all the new drawers in. The problem starts when I decide to put the old drawers in. Because, ladies and gentlemen, they simply DO NOT FIT. Basically I found out that Ikea Europe does not sell these drawers any longer, and apparently they have also changed the distance between the holes on the sides of the structure where you are supposed to screw in the support for the drawers themselves. So I call Antonio, the guy I left my old wardrobes to, and ask him to check. He comes back telling me at which distance I should screw the stuff, I try and there is no chance on heart that these bloody things fit. Some leave 2 cm distance one to the other, some don't even close. I re-check everything and there is no hope. So today I get completely pissed off, take my drilling machine and put them on. Unfortunately the last drawer does not fit, for the simple reason that they have changed also the part on the very bottom, so the overall height of the wardrobe is the same but the effective height on which I can screw things is decreased by 1 cm. I do all sort of tricks but am still missing 5mm. So next weekend I will have to unscrew the door again, take out some plastic thingies and hope that this gives me the remaining 5mm (and hope that the door doesn't slam down on me because I remove the plastic thingies). So, overall, great service. And the best thing is that I still have my underwear, socks, jumpers in boxes in the middle of the living room because of this. I HATE IKEA.
OK, enough said. Now I go to bed. Still in the middle of boxes. Arghhhhhhhhh.

bliss

miei cari, I need to say it: I really like this place. This town is pretty nice, there are things to do, places to go to, a lot of things to see. And I am starting to get in love with my flat: it still looks like a complete mess, but this weekend I had Naka+Peter visiting on Saturday and then Ana on Sunday and not only I can chat with the people while I am cooking (instead of being stuck in a small kitchen) but I also can host people and don't have to sleep in the living room. And now that I got the money from the company I will get a tv, a sofa, the bookshelves and I assume in 1-2 months my flat will really look nice. Sweet. Well, and another nice thing is that this place is pretty well connected to the rest of Europe, so for instance next weekend I will go to London with Gaborno, Ana and Betty - i can get there by train in less than 2 hours. And Paris is at 1.5 hours, Amsterdam the same, Frankfurt less than 4, .... Cool. This on top of liking my job much more than what I used to, it's good to feel like I am learning new things every day.
So all for now - and don't forget to come visit:)

wake up the small engineer in you

miei cari, this brief post is only to let you know that in case you are around in Bruxelles tomorrow you have the UNIQUE opportunity to discover the little engineer in you! Wouldn't feel great to build things, see them shaping from random pieces of wood? So come tomorrow at 12 at my place and you will have the chance to experience the bliss of building my wardrobe! Doesn't sound fantastic?? Ehm... OK... then just come for the food. I will cook. You will eat a lot. Pleeeeeeeassssseeeeeeee.
:)

first rants from the new flat in Bruxelles

miei cari, as you have probably guessed by the title of the post, I actually did manage to find a flat in Bruxelles, despite the fact that the lady of the relocation agency was actually a real bullshitter. So let's start ranting immediately that I haven't been writing on my blogs for a long time and perhaps you started to think that the world is, after all, a nice place. NO!

where are my square meters? and, by the way, do I look like the secret daughter of Bill Gates?
these were the questions that I had to ask my relocation agency lady after she showed me the 2nd of some 50-to-55 square meter flats. After I specifically told her that I wanted at least 70 square meters. Then she sort of understood so she showed me flats in which most likely a grandma had just died, with old wallpaper, old bathroom, stinky kitchen... All of this for rents that were significantly higher than anything I had seen on internet up to then. Basically I went back to the hotel the first night feeling completely down, thinking that I would have to sleep on the benches in parc du cinquantenaire. Thanks god I had my computer with me, so I went on the site I had been looking at for months, found a flat, forced her to tak me there and now I am writing from the top floor of it:) Alba 1 : relocation agency 0

Having to deal with Belgacom is equivalent to having to drink 300 liters of warm beer when you are hangover
So you might guess that I have internet. Right. And perhaps you think that it was an easy process to get it. WRONG! I wanted to get internet and tv and I decide that I am waaaaaaaay too smart to ask the people that are leaving here already and I choose on my own to get them from belgacom. Then the technician calls me saying that he can come on Friday of the week before last and I told him that I cannot be home; to which he replies that anyway he can do everything from outside of the flat. Bullshit, you think? And you are right. So on Saturday I go to the shop, carry my modem, decoder and 15kg of cables to my flat, plug the crap in and nothing works. So I call them and they decide to come again on Tuesday of last week. The technician comes, impresses me favorably at the very first moment when he shows that he has not batteries for his instrument and after wondering around for 30 minutes decides that he has to leave because he cannot find the phone connection. Yours truly, as the little Sherlok Holmes that she is, tries to point out that that stuff downstairs in the cupboard that really looks like the phone box perhaps looks so because it actually is the phone box, but apparently I don't look intelligent enough. So we reschedule for Friday: the same extremely intelligent tecnician comes, opens the box downstairs (which, surprise!, was the phone box) and connects the modem. I am so happy that I just quickly check that it works before rushing to work. I come back at night to see the DSL light blinking, while it should have been fixed. After a very thorough troubleshooting (unplug the stuff, smoke a cigarette, plug it back in and hope in god), yours truly sadly realized that there is no bloody connection. So called the help support again and eventually today they sent a proper technician that fixed the thing in 15 minutes and now it works. Overall, Alba 1 : Belgacom 4.

OK, enough negative ranting. Let's also list the nice things about Bruxelles - cannot really say Belgium because the farthest away from Bruxelles I have been so far is work (3km outside) and Ikea (12km outside):
- supermarkets sell reaaaaaaaaaaaally nice food - I am currently in love with Delhaize.
- fritten, or French fries, or better even, Belgian fries, are reaaaaaaaaaaaally good.
- the little shop in Place Flagey not only is open in the weekend but sells the Gocciole, so I don't have to starve for breakfast
- this Place Flagey has a bar and "art" center that I reaaaaaaaaaaally like and that I can reach in 5 minutes by foot (or better that I will reach in 5 minutes by foot once temperatures will become bereable)
- there is a Kartell store
- there are a lot of nice weird shops with all sort of junk that I like
- and more

And, most importantly, I am only 47km away from our Preeti, Sameer and their little Ishaan! So this weekend I went there, got a lot of fantastic food (can I move in? I swear I don't teach the kiddo too many curses in Italian) and completely confused the little darling with my Italian words. The kid really looks nice and our Preeti also doesn't look horrendously stressed (or she was pretending very well:) ). Now I am seeing where to send the kiddo to school (well, you never know, perhaps the waiting lists are long...). I am so happy to have them close! Next time I will also make sure that I take pictures so that you can all see this little wonder. Bravi!!

And another great thing was that by chance I found one of my high school desk mates, Stefano, on facebook. I knew that he had become
a sound technician but had lost contact. Some time ago I read on fb that he will go touring with Daniele Silvestri (Italian singer that writes and sings decent quality songs and therefore is completely unheard of outside of Italy). Then 2 weekends ago I was wondering around in my new town when I see a poster of a concert of Daniele Silvestri. To make it short: not only I meet with the guy, but I also get in the place without paying, get free beers, see the concert from the stage (because he is the stage sound technician so I stayed with him and I was at 1 meter from the drummer and 4 meters from the singer) and get completely fascinated by this whole sound technician work thing: basically you are in front of 1.5 square meters of little knobs, buttons and junk and you press, turn, flip and the sound simply changes around you, like magic. Super cool. The other very interesting thing is that apparently Stefano became a really good cook, so I will make sure to invite myself to his place for dinner when I am in Milano:)

OK, need to go to bed now
ciaociao

will i manage to get a flat?

miei cari, I have less than 1 month to pack everything and move to Belgium. So everything on track? Don't think so. First of all I have no flat yet, which according to the lady of the agency is not a problem - apart from the fact that I think the lady of the agency is a bullshitter so let's see what happens. Tomorrow I will go back to work and start sorting things out.

And to those of you that came here from frakfurtpig: WELCOME!!

it's (sort of) a secret

miei cari, I am writing here my first post of the new blog, which I will keep a secret (until someone, most likely Gaborno, finds out that I have it). So what is happening? Well, I am moving to Bruxelles. And leaving Frankfurt. But since I will still like pigs, I have decided to keep the name (sort of...).
The move is making me crazy. I have one lady that is my main contact. So, I thought, very naive, she will do everything for me. WRONG! Basically she is just putting me in contact with all sort of different people:
- the moving company, which is sending me 2 different sub-companies to make quotes for the move
- the estate agent, which is not an estate agent but a company that simply will help me with dealing with Belgian landlords (and I think they are bullshitting me already, their prices are at least 100 euros more than what I see on internet).
- the tax consultant, one for Germany and one for Belgium, both with very annoying habit of asking for receipt when I open their mail, and planning for a meeting 1 day before, as if I was at home scratching my balls waiting for them.
- the company for immigration and work permits, even though I tried to explain to the lady that I am Italian and Italy, as far as I know, is still Europe and not Africa as she thinks.
- the bank people, that are offering me a suuuuuuuper account, if I go on the site of the same bank I find one for 15 euros less a year with more stuff inside
- and I don't know what else
So basically I am trying to cope with this, while finishing all the work before the move, with planning for the onboarding of the new guy, and please let's not forget that it's Xmas so I have to take care of presents. what the fuck.