Ziatitina

Last night , 27th November 2006 at 23.54 my dear friend Fra gave birth to a gorgeous baby girl. Her name is Beatrice and as far as I got told by my "Milanese Spy" both Mum and Baby are well. Fra I'm sorry I missed it. Here you have it, she was due a week and a half ago when I was in Milan, but that would have been too much of a nice coincidence! :)

Guys, send me some picures!!!

By the way, what a fantastic day to be born....I know at least 3!! other very nice persons that call this day their Birthday. So it just has to be a good sign, and then there will obvisouly be Zia Tine and Zia Bene that will look after her, so what is there to worry about???? Nothing!!! :)

Good night! Tine x

I'm back!!! Half alive, but very happy! It's been a brilliant weekend back home with the usual catch-up with my parents and some of my closest friends. How to describe it best? It just didn't stop.... :)

I left (running!) the office on Friday lunchtime to catch the 3pm flight from Heathrow. The flight was delayed by 1 1/2 hours because...no, I've got to tell you this... the little car that drags the planes out of the gate area was on the other side of the airport. So this caused the first 30 minutes delay. Let's be honest... Heathrow really isn't the smallest airport in the world, how hard can it be to have that thing ready to go when you need it? Oh well, I guess I am just a grumpy old cow... BUT then it was pouring it down and due to "adverse weather conditions" and the fact that we were in the middle of peak time we had to wait another hour! Anyways, I arrived at home in time for a lovely dinner with my parents. Those of you who always complain about the London rain.... you should have seriously seen the rain in Milan! I swam all the way to Via Palermo to meet up with Bene and Ste and we went to Trattoria Toscana for a few drinks.

An hour later and 3 people richer we made our way to a club down the road for Simone's birthday bash. What a weird place...they didn't even sell beer! Mmmmmmm.....

Here we go, Simone our birthday boy all on the left, Dome in the middle and Puky on the right. Il mitico trio, I had to have a picture of them together... if you meet one of them the other two are just part of the package!! No escape! :o)

More to come.... Stefano (on the left), Zio Ale e Mathieu.

Dome and Bene (by the way, the hand behind there is Stefano's...

And that's Dome and me. See those eyebags??? I'd been up about 19 hours by then.....and also a bit tipsy I admit it!!

Right....after a few hours there Bene, Ste, Ale, Mathieu and me moved on to the Shocking Club where some other friends were waiting. I think we got there around half past 2, not sure though....I blame the vodka-lemons!!!!!!! Michele, Marco and Adelaide work there on Friday evenings, but Ade really was the main reason why we went there. I had to say hello to one of my favourite girlies!!! Fancy a good club in Milan? The Shocking Club has just been refurbished and it's veeery nice. We used to go there regularly a long long time ago, but it still has maintained some of the magic I remember :) According to my dad who heard me falling through the door, I was in bed way after 4am! NICE ONE...22 HOURS NON STOP!!!!

I will try to ignore the hangover I had the next morning, but it was a bad one. Plus...extreme lack of sleep...no good. But...no time to rest, we went to measure up a few things and walls in Bene's new flat and then lunch at Smooth. Next to see Fra at home. We were actually hoping she was going to pop over the weekend (according to the doctors Friday was THE DAY..yeah, right!!!) Bless her, blown up like a little balloon you can clearly see that she can't wait! By the way... it's Tuesday today and still no news, so much about the little Bea feeling way to comfortable where she is.

After a quick break and dinner at home we went to Dixieland for a drink and then onto Fitzcarraldo. Not my favourite place (great design, but weird people...) so we didn't get too crazy. Honestly... I was glad to be in bed when I finally got there :)

Sunday.... let me tell you a little bit about Milan first. During the winter the air pollution tends to get very bad if there isn't enough wind or rain. I guess it has to do with its location in the Pianura Padana, but you can see it quite clearly when you approach any Milan airport during a winter day. It's a bit like fog, but smells pretty bad... So, what do they normally do about it? They stop the traffic...completely! Or they do another thing called "targhe alterne", depending on what the last digit of your number plate is - even or odd - you are allowed to drive.. or not. In fact, the complete traffic stop happened on Sunday. Great for a calm walk around, bit of a headache if you want to get around. Oh well... according to the newspaper on Monday it didn't reduce the pollution by a bit, not surprising really! I went for a very long walk with my Mum into the centre of town - together with another 50,000 people. In the late afternoon I jumped on the tube, popped by Ade to see how she was recovering from Friday night (yes, very very very bad hangover to last 2 days) and reached Bene's place. We spent about 2 hours looking through old letters and laughing to tears remembering all the rubbish we were up to 8 years ago (before I left Milan). Just to mention a few... Bormio, Madame Claude, UB, Porto Rotondo, il motove full optional, la cybercletta parabrezzata, il Propa and the Tutti Frutti, Lecco, la Polo, ripe, Portugal... I could go on for hours. Tata TVTB.

One last picture from little Artu (the one with the funny coat, remember?) He somehow jumped on the sofa behind us and fell asleep surrounded by pillows. Sweet.....

Enough talk for today, I feel like  I have written more than enough. Good night, it's CSI night here....so I will enjoy that and sleep early. Somehow I'm still exhausted... ha ha ha!!!!

xx Tine

It has been a very "sporty" week for me. :) Not that I personally did massive amounts of it, it was more an observing role. Worth every minute!!

First I went to Stamford Bridge to watch Chelsea - Aston Villa playing for the Carling Cup. First time ever at an english football match and it was quite and experience :)

It's a small stadium compared to my favourite San Siro, but great atmosphere. Most of it was packed, I think it can hold about 45,000 people. I was really surprised to be sitting 4 rows from the pitch, with no real barrier....you could actually smell the grass!!! Lots of songs and 4 goals later Chelsea had won the game. The temperature had dropped quite a bit over the last couple of days and we were all covered with warm scarves, gloves and hats. But that di not damp the atmosphere at all, hopefully I'll get a chance to go again soon.

And then there was the big event yesterday: Investec Challenge at Twickenham England - Argentina. Rugby, what an interesting sport. I have slowly learned a few rules and having Paolo in the same flat helps a bit. He's quite passionate about it and plays it as well regularly. So, he invited me to Twickenham for this game and we headed off yesterday morning, with the "Rugby Train" from Waterloo. The stadium is massive, and we were invited to the Investec Hospitality Suite. We spent a few hours there with some free booze and food, an interesting cocktail challenge between 2 rugby players and then made our way to our seats just in time for kick-off.

England unfortunately lost against Argentina, but it was a fantastic experience. It got really cold and windy, but that didn't really matter. After the game we headed back to the hospitality suite, more food, chats, drinks. The pub near the bridge by the station was packed with rugby fans and we joined in.

:) Yes, there were loads of songs and choirs as you can see. Ha ha ha ha, brilliant! So.....when is the next game???!

Next weekend I will be back in Milan, more news then. And who knows, little Beatrice may be born by then!

Tine

Hello again,

Halloween has passed , Guy Fawkes Day is somehow still happening (the bangs have not stopped once today, and it's Sunday!) and next week the christmas lights in Regent & Oxford Street will be switched on. What can I say?? Christmas is approaching much fast than I ever thought, and it's scary!!

But let's get back to Halloween for just a minute, we decided to our own little thing on Tuesday night and as we had to celebrate Louise's return from Australia we thought we combine the two things. Soooo... Lou, Clare and Nathan got dressed up and Helen and myself didn't, ha ha ha! it was fun though, we went to Navajo Joe, a mexican/spanish/something else bar/restaurant near Covent Garden. I can only recommend it, great cocktails, fab food and a really good atmosphere.

I was supposed to look scared on this pic, but that didn't work out...the fight was brilliant though...the devil won!!!! :)

Anyways, in case I didn't mention it earlier...WELCOME BACK LOU, we missed you lots!

Good night,

x