ahhh, I love DSL

Cari miei, I am in Italy on holidays. First of all, BUON NATALE!! (which, surprisesurprise, means Merry Xmas) Then, this new breakthrough technology called DSL has yet to arrive in my grandparents' place - and with a reason, since not only they have no computer but they are also both dead, therefore their usage of the computer would be, let's say, minimal - Anyway, as you might have imagined, I dialed with the old phone connection and this thing is so slow that it's nearly painful.
Well, enough complaining. I received a lot of presents, some reaaaaally extremely nice, some a bit less. I ate a lot. Still eating a lot.
Now I go cooking:-)
ciaoooooooo

I love the Eifel hotel

The Eifel Hotel is the best hotel you can find in Euskirchen, and by far one of the best ones I have been to. Apart from the fact that each room has a different theme (tonight I am in the "Versace" one), the service is really nice: first of all they have an outstanding breakfast, even at 5 in the morning, and then if you are a loyal client, as I am, they really take care of you, giving you the Corriere della Sera, a chocolate bar as present and cooking spiegeleier mit bratkartoffeln when I arrive here hungry as a bull after a late shift. The hotel is pretty weird, full of all sort of junk, but it is amazingly clean and neat. Before they built the Park Hotel, which is a nice but conventional hotel, the Eifel was always completely booked out; that however was not a problem because I could call the owner and he would book me a room under the name "frau Alba". Now that they built the posh conventional hotel, a lot of boring business people go there, not coming anymore to the Eifel: shame on them!
So, miei cari, long live the Eifel Hotel!!
and no, I wasn't paid to write this:-)

Genève-Genf-Ginevra-Geneva

This weekend I went to visit Petero, Tina and Estelle in Genève (have you noticed the burst of culture of the accent? ehm, whatever...). Reason for this, apart from the pure pleasure of visiting some friends that have invited me trillions of times without me ever going, was that they had organized a Xmas party in Estelle's flat. Angry note: we were supposed to go there at least in 3 people. Some called it off for good reasons (Gaborno, un bacio), others simply didn't come. Shame!!
Anyway, on Friday I got my little Jean Jacques, packed with water, cigarettes and CDs and off we went. Actually it is not that bad to go to Genf, basically you take the highway in Frankfurt, you go straight down, you enter bloody Switzerland (my dear friends living there, I will tell you before when I make a lake out of it but I will make it, oh yeah, I will) and, oplà, you are in Ginevra. I also surprised Petero by arriving right at his place, he had offered to come pick me up at the airport fearing that I might get lost: Petero, sono un ingegnere io! :-) My 3 hosts were extremely nice, feeding me coffee in the morning when I woke up looking as if a train had run over and over and over me. You are darlings:-)
On Saturday we had a really nice breakfast at Estelle and then we went buying the last things for the party.
Envious note: both Estelle's and Petero+Tina's flats are reaaaaaally nice. Big, big balcony, spare room for guests:-), brand new and shining. I am impressed and now I want to change flat - or probably I should just change function...
So, on Saturday after the supermarket we went to the equivalent of the Zeil of Geneva, whose name obviously I cannot remember. I cannot really say a lot about the place, next time I will go around a bit more, nevertheless my first impression is that it looks like a smaller and more expensive version of Milano. Again, I might be completely wrong, but I'll come back and verify, especially now that I consider the guest bedroom as mine...
And then: THE PARTY! We prepared everything and waited for the people to come. At the end, I think we were around 30-40. The food was reaaaally good (next time you come here please bring some of the little sausages, they are gooood), the music also and not too loud so the dreaded police didn't come bother us. And, of course, we had tons of drinks, starting with glühwein and ending with beer, with some wine in between. I knew noone, so just chatted up everyone that entered the door, and the people were really nice. For some reason, they were basically all German, so I ended up being surrounded by more Germans there than when I am in Frankfurt. Strange. There are some pictures, starting from the nice ones at the beginning of the party and some weird ones of my boucing around close to the end. Petero, please send them to me so that I can screen:-) and publish.
This morning I woke up feeling kind of bad (see other post that I wrote right before going to Estelle's place for breakfast). Luckily, some nice warm bread, some salty French cheese (Estelle, you are right, it's better salty) and a boiled egg made me recover. I then got my little Jean Jacques and come back home.
Estelle, Petero and Tina: you were wonderful! Let me know when you come to ffm or to Italy so that I can organize something. Un bacio!

Note: mums are always right. I just listened to the voicemail and my mum left a message. She usually calls me when she's home alone and leaves these super lengthy voice mails, makes me believe that I really got a nice phone if it can hold so many minutes. Anyway, she said that Ginevra is a really nice town, "I mean, dead like all Swiss town, but it's nice". Apparently when she was 18 she came to a school that was right above the lake to study French for nearly 1 month, and one day she escaped, she went down on the &%$$ (something French which I don't understand) and went to visit it. This took 5 minutes, then the voice mail cut her off, before she could tell me that after that month her dad, i.e. my grandad Albino, called Bino, came to pick her up with my dad and they went around in Switzerland. Well, at least I already know what she's going to tell me next time I call her...

ahhh, my head...

I hope Estelle has some bread and butter to contain the hangover...

popular petition: make a lake out of switzerland

I was passing the border from Germany to Switzerland when the police guy at the station told me that, if he lifts his fatty hand of 0.1mm, this means that I have to stop. This after bullshitting me in his idiotic Swiss German accent asking whether I understand or not. I do not know whether this week there is something wrong between police and Jean Jacques, but just in case: Let's make a lake out of Switzerland!!!!

Satanic Amex...

This morning I called American Express to ask for on-line banking access. Since we were at it, I asked the operator to unblock my credit card view, as I had screwed it up by trying too many times with the wrong username... While the operator was telling me how to unblock it, he started saying that I certainly am working in a field related to music... because my voice is so musical...... I decide not to comment and then we go to the point where I had to enter a new password: he tells me that the password needs to be with numbers and letters, "like cat666, for instance". Cat666?????? Are they making satanic rituals during lunch breaks?????? I am speechless. Wilkommen in Deutschland!

Jean Jacques kidnapped!

Yesterday night we were going to head back home when I could not find my Jean Jacques any more.
The bastards of the Ordnungsamt had decided to kidnap him.
Eventually, we could manage to rescue him. For 169 (onehundrendsixtynine) euros.
The worst thing is that i am convinced that the Ordnungsamt had no reason to take it away, apart from wanting my money. And that since I have "forgotten" to pay some fines, I cannot even protest.
Therefore there is only 1 solution: resistencia!!!
ORDNUNGSAMT, YOUR END IS NEAR.

Herr Der Wir-Fahren-Nach-Berlin Baum

Yesterday Herr Der Baum celebrated his birthday with his friends, both pigs and humans. This year he decided to aknowledge the great victory of the best football team of the world, i.e. Italy.

As a consequence he wore the Wir fahren nach Berlin (we go to Berlin) outfit.

The Italian colors that summer day were predominants - apart from some French ones, they actually came to Berlin hoping to win, probably the sun hit them in the head, or with the head...-

The year before Herr Der Baum was wearing some peperoncini for his birthday, and we decided to take them with us in the minivan as a good omen for the final; you can see the only survivor on top of Herr Der Baum this year, since all the others were distributed during the penalties.

Campioni del mondo, eh eh, oh oh :-)

Regarding the "Guess Herr Der Baum's outfit" competition, Gaborno got it right ("he's dressed like Berlin!"), however Giulia claims to have sent me a mail with the right guess on Friday. The judges are still out and the pommes are frying...

Update! After checking Giulia's mail, the jury has decided that Gaborno wins the pommes and Giulia the glühwein (or viceversa, sort it out). Rationale: Gaborno got the Berlin word (not only world champions, that is too general) but Giulia got the detail of the peperoncini.

Congratulations to both:-)

for your eyes only

stay tuned...

a new urban legend

miei cari, apparently in Milano in the last days they saw a girl making lap dance in the metropolitana (kind of u/s-bahn). She would get in the metropolitana, strip to the costume she was wearing under the jacket, dance for a couple of stations, the collect some money and get off. Once she was wearing a black leather corset and boots up to above the knee with super high heels. Another time she was wearing a pink shorts and t-shirt (kind of bunny style) and had 2 big earrings in a shape of a cat.
Why am I saying that I think it's a urban legend?
1) the second time they spotted her, at the end of the show she kissed on the mouth a friend of hers. A female friend of hers. Tomorrow we will find out that on top they were twins. Welcome back to teenage wanking dream galore:-)
2) imagine that you see a girl making lap dance half naked for around 3 minutes (2 stations). Imagine that at the end she also kisses on the mount a girlfriend of hers. Now answer: what are 2 of the most amusing (depends on the pov) bahaviours of Italian men? a) Italian men are not shy (euphemism) when it comes to chatting up girls or making a mess b) Italians men carry an average of 2 cell phones, all with cameras, on them. Now tell me: how the hell can this lady dance half naked surronded by Italian men, kiss a girlfriend (yeaaahhhhh) and there is not ONE single picture on internet??
Nevertheless, I think this is a really cool idea: ladies, we should start lap dancing on the u/s-bahn here in frankfurt, we can amuse the poor people that have to stay there like morons when the u/s-bahn is late . Subscription open!

Flash news! Gaborno has started a blog where he registers every time the S3 is late. Go find it on Die S3 is schon wieder verspätet. Gaborno, what about making it public? it would make some sort of release valve for all poor, stressed and late:-) S3 martyrs.