It's May ... the official Wedding countdown begins!

In a few weeks it will be officially a year since we moved to Londontown!!  Incredible how the time flies!  Well after almost a year here I think I've got the London fever .  Literally , I have a cold again! hahaha...On a serious note , I don't think we are moving back to Italy anytime soon.  We both definitely want to stay at least a few more years!...

Last time I wrote on the blog it was October and I was living in Tuffnel Park at the time and had a strange encounter with some pesky bugs and the local neighbourhood surveillance squad.  Now I am living behind Arsenal stadium.  You would think match days would be awful right?... WRONG!  The fans here are soooo friggin' quiet when they enter or leave the stadium that you have no idea that thousands of people are walking in front of your flat to get to the game!.  It's absolutely incredible.  The only time we hear them is when Arsenal scores a goal! We hear the crown roar all together GOAL!!!!!!!!!!!! But that's it!...

So, it being May and all that means that the wedding is only like 2 months away! Holy smokes!!...Trying to organize one wedding seems like a task, but two is definitely even nuttier when one of them is in good ole' red tape loving Italia!! Yipee!   Getting married in Italy is like putting a 2,000 piece puzzle together only it's an old puzzle and pieces have gone missing thus making the process even more complicated..non so se rendo l'idea???... Anyway, we are almost all sorted with the documents , but there will be quite a few things to workout in June when we get there just a month before the big day!...  

Overall, I feel relaxed for some odd reason.  Everyone keeps asking me why I am not more nervous and I have Luca on the other end telling me: "Non ti preoccupare" "Per ogni problema , C'e' una soluzione" and that makes everything better.  I know my dress will be done by the time I leave.  My dressmaker rocks btw!...She makes costumes for the West End and different opera shows and festivals and I love travellin down to S. Wimbledon with her for a cup of tea.  She's a doll!...

I know also that  the first meeting btwn Luca's family and mine will go just fine.  Besides, they can only communicate through me ;) ;)...

I am now in the local library and there is a violinist in the hall giving a mini concerto...i'm liking it.  Others seem a bit grumpy about it.  One is  complaining to the woman who organized the event right now as I write...

Oh well you can't pleas'em all !

Watchin' me..Watchin' me...Watchin' me....

I have this huge window in the flat which unfortunately opens only from the bottom half in an outwards motion ( if that makes any sense) I don't really understand this window : it doesn't allow any air to flow in and out of this hole or our flat and it's just illogical...







However, I do like the fact that it is quite a tall window so when I'm staring out of it ,like right now , I can see these huge massive gray fluffy clouds passing over me....it's a sky like no other , the London sky , and I’m finding that I’m not understanding what  the big fuss about the weather is anyway???....






Can you believe that it's October already? Mindboggling! An overused adjective which I absolutely adore! Mindboggling! In fact, here I sit with my boggled mind as I try to write this here blog and fill it with mindboggling observations ....





For starters I’ve got these awful bug bites all up the right side of my body. They're incredible and seem to flare up sporadically, leaving me well boggled!...I find that from time to time I'll itch myself under my right sleeve possibly when I'm in the middle of teaching those delicate intricacies of the English language...like why there IS a difference between I remembered going to the park w- grandpa and I remembered to go to the park. Is teaching English making me itchy?






Who knows?! Someone suggested they might be bed bugs! EW! So why doesn't Luca have them? We've even traded places to see if he might get bitten and he is clear! We sprayed the mattress and yes Mom we're getting another cover for it!(and yes mom if it keeps up , I'll go see the doctor)






Let's see other observations about this town






Well, let's say I knew about Britian's obsession with security cameras ! They are everywhere! In fact, I have just read that they will start spending 380 quid a minute to follow online activity here! I guess the thing that kinda spooked me out the most was when I was out running the other day (another thing I find some English love to do: run while carrying a mini backpack home from work) a little smart car like vehicle approached me with a video camera on top of the roof !! I stopped still wanting to act like a "cheeky lil' monkey" and shook my head in disbelief ...




Did the Islington surveillance team sense that they had come face to face with a hard core rebel ?! A dissident?! a tough non conformist?! a freedom fighter ?! .....Probably not...they probably mistook my shake of the head for a neck exercise or something...






Anyway, am I the only one who thinks they've gone overboard? Oddly enough I arrived here just as they were broadcasting the last few episodes of the last season of Big Brother  , but the reality is that this is an ongoing affair....






So anyway check out the link to Jill Scott's "watching me" song! She pretty much sums it up! And of course underlines how we Americans are no stranger s to the "grande fratetllo"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyFp9fy_72A




Peace






Mel

Lessons learnt in London...

Lessons I've learnt so far...

Now I have lived in a foreign country where the language was not even my own and I have to admit sometimes i find it to be more difficult to understand the British than the Italians! GO FIGURE!HAHAHAHA :)

1. Never put the 0 before my cell number or in general when you call from the states to a UK cellphone! My mother has been trying to call me for three weeks and I just found the answer in 2 seconds on the Internet!!

2. Be careful when you speak in Italian on i mezzi pubblici (public transport!)
While riding the bus to Marble Arch on the busy touristy Oxford Street, I heard an older Italian woman explain to her friend how disappointed she was because she was not able to "lavarsi sotto" or in other words "wash herself down below!" I myself was almost caught today when I wanted to tell Luca that someone was really stinking up the bus in Italian , but then I stopped myself when I realized the guy next to me could definitely be Italian and sure enough!!!

3. Don't make small talk about the differences between American pharmacies and British pharmacies when the guy asks you if you want stamps with your safety pins. He doesn't find it endearing or cute!

4. A vest is a tank top. Snogging is making out. They don't say gotta they say I got to and in British English intonation is everything! I love it!

5. Buckingham palace is not for short people on a crowded day unless you like the backs of heads and shoulders there's really not much else to see...oh except for the palace...

6. Be careful of those 3 pound all u can put in a little tray buffets ....you'll feel it later if it wasn't quality.

7. When you're short and on a crowded tube car and you gotta get off at the next stop try to anticipate moving forward to the exit door as people most likely will not hear you when you say "excuse me" from all the way down there!!

8. London is not SOOOO expensive. After months of listening to people tell me that London is so expensive and why on earth would I ever move here, I have one thing to say it ain't all that expensive!!!! Except for the public transport, but for me it's super efficient so it's worth it!

OK i wanted to write 2 more , but I just got here a month ago so I got time! If you read up to n. 8 well then I guess you-ll wait a bit longer for numbers 9-10.

For now CIAO AMICI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Have you heard what's going on in Argentina?!

Wow !

So a few years ago I saw this documentary called "The take" or "Sin Patrón" or "La presa" in italiano http://www.thetake.org/

Pretty freaking awesome! Here's what it is about:

Sin Patrón tells the story of Argentina's occupied and recovered workplaces. Or rather, it lets the workers themselves tell their stories. Appearing for the first time in English, this book explores ten case studies of recovered companies, featuring interviews with movement leaders that provide a history from the shopfloor — history that is still being made today.

So then this morning I'm listening to Amy Goodman and she has Naomi Klein on her show and get this! They are still occupying that factory and still running that s*&t better than before!

Wow...the power that we have and we don't even know it!...

I find I keep asking myself how come the American people aren't more outraged when we have basically spent trillions of dollars on a bailout of who? What do we get back in return? ...

I FEEL LIKE SCREAMING OUT OF MY CAR WAKE UP !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Then I watched this video and it helped put things in perspective:

I AM THE NWO !!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17pUBYESQBk&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fknnewz.com%2Findex.php&feature=player_embedded

hehehe...

The official "Movies I wanna see" list

This is just the beginning of a list I'm gonna compile of films I'd like to see so I can keep track!!!!!!!!

1. Rudo y cursi directed by Carlos Cuarón - Remember Y tu Mamma tambien?! Yeh , this is from those guys!
2. Sugar
3. Educating Rita
4. Paranoid Park
   
5. Waltz with Balshir
6. Shooting Palermo
7. 
   

The Century of Self - Il Secolo di Se'

Here is the link to that video i was talking about: