Italy's bureaucracy

It may be a surprise to some, but Italy is one of the countries that brims with rules and regulations. And no surprise that these rules are hardly given a sniff. One of these rules that is more tricky to get around (at least for immigrants like me) is a sporting certificate. If you want to join a gym, you need to go to the doctor and get the medical once over. If you want to get a PADI license, you need another medical once over. Same with getting a pilot's license - although this I can understand.

So I'll finally get around to sending the bits and pieces off for the PADI license after coughing while . Then with any luck, I'll be using it down in the red sea next. A mission to Belize is in the distant future, but probably not till 2008.

The itinerary for this weekend includes a trip down to Florence followed by a couple of days in Cinque Terre. After seeing plenty of Europe, I get to see a bit of Italy for a change.

In other news, I've enrolled for a degree in politics and other things. It starts in the next few weeks. It's one of the most flexible university degrees (not out of a cereal packet) I've seen. No assignments and no required attendance at university except to do the subject exam. Even that can be done overseas. And the best part? You can drag it out for up to 8 years.

www.londonexternal.ac.uk

Back to Milan, which is Italy, but isn't really Italian

So after my last rant about flakey mates, all turned out well in the end. Rob didn't make it down to Italy in the end, so I had a great weekend down in Sicily. Most of the time I spent enjoying the choice hospitality of Sicilians. Apparently they regard guests as "sacred" and I can agree with that. We stayed with Pepe, who lives not far from Palermo. On the way out to his place we drove past a memorial on a hill, which read "No Mafia". It was on the place where the Mafia remotely detonated a bomb that was placed under the road. The bomb exploded as the judge, who was prosecuting the mafia at the time, drove past. It left a massive crater in the road. Making mafia jokes in Italy, and especially Sicily, gets a nervous laugh. As in "what a plonker, you're not funny". It's up there with making potato jokes in Ireland and Nazi jokes in Germany. That's why you need to go somewhere else before elicit a laugh.

I got to do a dive out there too, which was just by chance. Scopello is about 90 minutes drive west of the capital and is really just a rocky strip of land that people come to and go swimming. (If anyone can tell me how to take google earth view in to a URL that would be handy). There are a few beaches like this:



As you can see, the water is super nice and you can wallow in it for hours of entertainment. That particular "beach" had a night club next to it, which sold cold stuff during the day. Including a dude who was employed to puff up the cushions on the couches and spent literally about 5 minutes carefully arranging the seating arrangements like he was an artise putting the latest touches on his art nouveau piece.

The following week we cruised out to Sardinia for the weekend. That was also very cool and I am very fond of the bronze tan I got from there - hint for the Italian newbies - you don't get brown in the sun...you get bronzed. The former is reserved for nuts and other edible products. It really is a beautiful island and its rocky outcrops and semi barren countryside is quite unique. We were staying at the Costa Esmarelda, about an hour from a place called Palau. Palau is a place for those people who ooze cash out every pore. It's a place on the coast, which is nestled at the base of hills that descend in to the azure water below. Sitting on the gentle water are what I like to call, understatingly, houseboats. These are ones with 100" rear projection TVs, four levels and electric sliding doors with the woosh sound from the Starship Enterpise. Benedetta called the place plastic and she's not far off the mark. Nevertheless, the Italians don't take such a dim view of people with boatloads of cash compared to New Zealanders. Berlusconi, the richest man in Italy, sailed all around Italy in a huge luxury boat during the last election (which he subsequently lost). At Palau, even on a Sunday night, the place was packed with people, wandering along the waterfront, admiring the opulence of the vessels.

And this weekend, for a nice change I get to do nothing, and I'm loving it. My two weeks capacity that my suitcase seems to have ran out just in time, so after the second laundry load, I'm almost done.

And here's my picture of Emojet taken in Dubai (geeky sense of humour required):

What's the deal with blowouts

I've never been one to have a huge grizzle. Maybe a couple of audible huffs or groans, but not a huge gripe. This is what I like to think, reality be damned.

Anyhow, it's surprising the number of people I meet over the years that are just plain unreliable, whether they mean to be or not. I was in last week that I had the chance to rebook and extend my holiday in Aussie (had a great time by the way). But since a mate was coming to crash in Milan for a few days, I flagged that I idea and came back as originally planned. And wouldn't ya know it, they reneged...without so much as peep. Oh, and Rob was planning to come down to Milan for a weekend, so several weeks in advance I blocked out a weekend for him to come down...only for another reneg at the 11th hour (the cost of the flight was too much). I have other smaller stories, but you get the idea.

Now, I'd like to say what pisses me off the most is not that they're not coming (it does matter somewhat) but it's just how people blow out for the lamest reasons and you're left hanging when you could have planned some other shit to do. I'm sure this happens to other people - there's no such thing as an organised conspiracy like this (now where did I put my tin foil hat?). I'm probably guilty of the same, but I do it less and less as time goes on. One of the good (debatable if you speak to my mother) habits that my old man passed on is to be super obliging if people ask for help and not pussy out unless you've got some good reason... maybe someone died (after the funeral you can continue where you left off).

I'm trying not to sound like I'm trumpet blowing, but I wish others would be less lame. No-one is an island, you need to have other people around; friends, collegues, family, sports mates and it's cool to know such dudes. But here's a synthesis of Chris' rule of thumb when dealing with others:

- Give people the benefit of the doubt on the little things (keep the world spinning with good vibes), but don't rely on unknowns to do something important, the right way , unless you really know them.
--- This is kinda like going flatting with mates. Your boozer mate from uni might be the coolest dude until he starts leaving shit-infested undies all around the flat. He's still a good dude as long as you don't share living premises with him or his stools.
- Don't rely on others to give you feel good vibes. If you act like an attention leech, it's like any drug. You turn in to a cranky princess if you don't get your fix. But I learned this many years ago and it's a damn cool rule o' thumb to live by.
- When someone comes in to your part of the woods (even if they're 5 hours' flight away), book a flight. But this one is a bit touch and go....I like traveling and can't wait to visit some new city/country. So invariably I'm usually booking flights to catch up with mates in new places. But that's cool by me.

Tomorrow, something less emo....although I have to post a copy of "Emoflights" I caught going through Dubai the other day.