Sunday morning rain is falling..

Murano

Last night I woke up to thunder. I normally love thunder and I would have even gotten up to watch the show but this time it felt so close that I even momentarily wished I hadn't been alone. It's possible I dreamed the whole thing though but the heavy rain clouds hanging on the sky this morning support my observations. The good thing about this place is that rain tends to fall in the nighttime. The bad thing, on the other hand, is that at least lately the sun has only seemed to really come out during office hours meaning that all us poor labourers never get to enjoy it! Weekends in July have been cloudy. My beautiful tan is fading! Oh no!

My mum visited me in June, which was great. As soon as she arrived (also on a Sunday morning, as it happens) we headed off to Venice and Murano. She loved the glass! In fact I think she would have been happy spending most of her week just walking from glass shop to glass shop. I have to admit, some of the things were extremely impressive, if not always beautiful. Some things were also extremely beautiful. Unfortunately I wasn't able to take many good photos as the shops often have no photo-policies. If you are visiting Venice (for the second, third or umpteenth time) and want to see something else than just Piazza San Marco and the Rialto, I recommend Murano. There isn't much to do but it's nice to get away from the crowds, exchange a few words about the weather with some old Italian lady and possibly, if you feel very motivated, visit the Murano glass museum, which we didn't actually visit.

After mum had spent a couple of days exploring (the shops of) my city while I was working, we took the train to Rome. Bella Roma! As we only had two days there I took her on a flash tour of the Colosseum, the Palatine Hill archaeological area, Pantheon, Trevi Fountain (my personal favourite), Piazza Navona, the Spanish steps where unfortunately we were too late for the blooming flowers, and Trastevere. Naturally we walked practically everywhere so our feet and eyes were quite tired towards the end. There is just too much to see in Roma and we left much of it for the next time. Vatican can wait until my dad comes to visit too because he will definitely want to go there.

Tiber River

From Rome we continued to the rolling hills of Tuscany. I wanted to take my mum to Florence because it is the city where I feel most relaxed in Italy. I was curious to see if it would still have that same effect on me - it did. Florence has a special soul. It has an atmosphere of relaxed intelligence. It is full of history and houses some of the greatest artworks of all time, yet it manages to be quite nonchalant about it. Oh they are valued and admired and about a million tourists flock to the city of 380,000 inhabitants every year and you really can not miss them (both the tourists and the works of art) because they are everywhere. Yet Florence has still somehow managed to not turn into a living museum like Rome. And the food. Don't even get me started on the food. Regardless of the Fiorentinis' fascination for strange things such as intestines, most of the food is fantastic. We stayed in a little hotel called Sampaoli (comes highly recommended, I've been there a few times). It is very near the centre, the staff are nice, rooms are basic but charming and the price is reasonable. Ok, enough about the wonderful Florence, there are still things I need to tell you.

Ponte Vecchio, Florence

The real news is this: I resigned! After lengthy discussions with the boss (he talked, I mostly listened) I decided I had heard enough and announced that I would not be coming back in September. In the end it was quite an easy decision to make. This all started when I went to the registry office to finally get my residence permit papers sorted. It turned out that the piece of paper from the school, which was supposed to prove I work in Italy, was worth nothing. The matter is of course more complicated than this but as a result, after the school refused to give me the right sort of paper within a reasonable time period, I decided to walk. Of course as an EU citizen I can stay here as long as I like without any special permits, but in order to have health care and insurance etc I need to register. Kela is soon kicking me out of the Finnish social security system so I feel the pressure of not wanting to stay in limbo between two countries.

The funny thing is that after hearing more than an earful of "you will not be able to find anything better" from the boss, I directly went to a job interview and was offered a job in a different school, all within the space of 2 hours. I have done my training there and now I'm waiting to discover if they give me any hours. The pay is better and the conditions seem not-as-bad too so we will see.

So things are changing. I haven't really done any very interesting and/or cultural things in these past weeks. I've been far too (mentally and emotionally) tired to make the effort. I'm really looking forward to coming back to Helsinki for a couple of weeks though and seeing my family and friends!