Giovanni&Criz

Cari amici, tra il 3 e il 17 Luglio saro' in Italia e trascorrero' gran parte delle vacanze a Roma. Arrivo alle 6 di mattina del 3 e per la stessa sera con alcuni amici stiamo organizzando una serata ad Ariccia visto che mi manca da morire un bel panino con la porchetta :) Ciao a tutti e spero di verdervi quando saro' a Roma. Dear friends, I will be in Italy between the 3rd and the 17th of July. I will spend most of my holidays in Rome. I will be there on the 3rd at 6 o'clock and I am organising a dinner with some friend on the same day. We will be going to Ariccia to eat "porchetta" that I miss a lot :) Hope to see you Gio

In onore del giornalista Enzo BIagi a settembre partira' un nuovo giornale di libera informazione e non schierato politicamente chiamato "Il Fatto". Uno dei collaboratori di questo giornale sara' il Dott. Marco Travaglio. Al momento la nascitura redazione sta cercando consensi tramite emai. Scrive al seguente indirizzo: dettofatto@ilfatto.info . Oppure vedete il video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpRpKXtPjSE&feature=player_embedded . In honor of a great journalist (Enzo Biagi) a new and free newspaper will start its activity in September only in Italy. It will be called "Il Fatto". One of the collaborators of this newspaper is Marco Travaglio. At the moment the new editorship is seeking for support from its future readers. You can do that by sending an email to: dettofatto@ilfatto.info expressing your interest in the initiative. Ciao Gio

Era da molto tempo che volevo dedicare questo spazio a questa specie che sembrerebbe non avere confini. Koatto in romanesco significa Tamarro e comunque sia esprime la tipologia di un determiato sogetto un po' esuberanate ed eccentrico nei modi e nelle maniere di fare. In genere i Koatti a Roma si distinguono subito dalle automobile, dotate dei piu' fantasiosi quanto orripilanti accessori: cerchi in lega, alettone, i dadi di stoffa appessi allo spcchietto e chi piu' ne ha piu' ne metta. Ebbene a Perth i "koatti" vanno in giro con una macchina che sembra un furgoncino, chiamata qui "UT", abbreviazione per "Utility", una macchina di utilita' appunto... che viene modificata ad hoc per renderla veramente Koatta come nella foto (peccato che avevo solo il cellulare al momento). La citta' ne e' piena, la mia teoria e' che un Koatto australiano deve per forza fare Surf, quindi la UT si addice benissimo al trasporto delle tavole. I c...

It is such a long time I do not update my blog. I was quite busy at work but at the end I found 5 minutes and I want to tell you something about Rottnest Island. Few weeks ago I went to that island with Criz and her friends. After a 30 min. journey by ferryboat we started our adventure in a new land to discover :) The first thing we notice are the strange animals as you can see from the pictures; a strange lizard (called bobtail) and a very funny rat that it similar to a mini-wallaby too. It turned out that the rat is called Quokka in this place and it is very cute. Criz is feeding one of them on the pic. She was so keen to feed them that some kids were waiting for her to finish :) Apparently the name of the island (Rottnest) comes from a Dutch explorer. In fact he had the same impression I had and he thought quokkas were just giant rats, for this reason he used the name Rottnest for the island that means "rat's nest" in the Dutch language (maybe Elke can confirm this!). ...

Non solo mi sono comprato il chinotto ma ho pure trovato proprio il chino' Neri di Capranica in provincia di Viterbo ! Trovato in una pizzeria a taglio gestita da un romanaccio che quando esci dal negozio ti dice: "thank you very grazie! " Ciao e alla prossima avventura in terra di canguri! Not only I have bought "Chinotto" here in Perth but I have even found the original "Chino' Neri" which comes from Caparanica (close to Viterbo where my parents are from) ! I found it in a take away pizza shop managed by a Roman guy who says "Thank You Very Grazie" when you leave the shop. To be continued .....

My Friend Carsten is getting married and I went to his Stag party yesterday night. He suggested me to eat some "meat" that he ordered for me. The dish was very yummy even though the taste of the meat was a bit different from the usual beef steak. Afterwards Carsten told me that I had just eaten a kangaroo ! Well, I saw one of them when I went on site, but I would have never thought to eat it :) Ciao Gio

Ciao a tutti, oggi ho creato un numero di telefono "virtualmente romano" a cui se volete mi potete telefonare come se telefonaste a Roma con la vostra normale tariffa nazionale/urbana. Il numero di telefono e': 0698353792 Voi chiamate "Roma" e rispondo io a Perth :) PS. visto che ricevo la telefonata su PC, questo potrebbe essere spento e in tal caso una segreteria potrebbe rispondere al mio posto, a cui potete tranquillamente lasciare un messaggio che ricevero' regolaramente. Ciao e a presto

This was my "Australia Day": sitting next to the Swan River waiting for the fireworks. People were crazy and quite drunk, but it was their Day ! It was like in July 2006 when Italy won the World Cup. Flags everywhere and some people were wearing just an Australian flag instead of normal clothes :)

On the 26th of January we will celebrate the "Australia Day" and I am really looking forward to it cause we will have a day off and a spectacular fireworks show is going to be organized on the Swan River. However I thought it was a kind of "Independence Day", but I was very astonished when I read this from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_Day It seems that Australians celebrate the first invasion of this country on that day! I am not surprised if "....Some Indigenous Australians see Australia Day as a celebration of the destruction of Indigenous culture by British colonialism...." (wikipedia).

I went on site last week in the North of this country. I was expecting a "warm" temperature but 48 degrees are bloody hot ! Nice experience even thought the heat, the environment is completely different from Europe, it looked like to stay in Mars :) I manage to see a baby kangaroo during my trip and it was the first one I ever seen in my life ! Unfortunately I could not take any picture cause it was in the night and the animal jumped away very quickly :)

It was awesome to spend the New Year Day on the beach. It was the first time in my life. But the most important thing was that Criz was with me! She came over last Sunday.

Il primo natale fuori casa, il primo natale d'estate, il primo natale al mare: ma e' davvero Natale ? A parte gli scherzi, mi semba tutto cosi strano ma qui la vita sembra cosi' anni luce differente dall'europa e dagli altri posti che ho visitato. Forse ha ragione mio padre dicendo che la prossima volta che traslochero' andro' su Marte :) La vita in Australia sembra girare tutta la contrario: al contrario sono le stagioni, al contrario ruotano i cicloni e gli uragani come anche l'acqua nel cesso. La guida e' al contrario e ogni volta che uso la freccia aziono i tergicristalli. Pure le costellazioni che sono in cielo sono diverse! In un mondo all'arovescia e cosi distante dall'italia ha pero' in comune questo Natale, che per ora sto trascorrendo da solo ma non mi dispiace questa situazione, certo mi mancano gli amici e la famiglia ma so che in un futuro prossimo le cose saranno diverse. Un grande augurio a tutti My first Christmas out of my na...

Daihatsu, Charade of 1993. Well, it is not very new, but it's a car :) At least I will be able to pick up my girlfriend at the airport when she will have come :) By the way, I have to thank my friend Alessandro that helped me to fix it.

This comes from Keith, my team leader from New Zealand :)

A couple of weeks ago I managed to take a picture of a dolphin in the Swan River. I was on a boat and it was amazing to see a couple of dolphins that were competing with the boat :)

Last Sunday I took part to " The Great Bike Ride " around the Swan River in Perth with some colleagues. It was a 53 km long race and I did not take it really seriously, but it was very well organised and safe. My final result was very bad, in fact my final position was the 1500th. I can not complain after a three month stop caused by my back pain and my sciatica. During the race I was together with my colleague Carsten, as usual I forgot the bottle and Carsten pointed a place where I could take some water. Unfortunately there were just two kids that were not part of the organization but they were selling some water with the addition of some "gatorade" or something like that. I did not have my wallet with me and I could only exchange my muesli bar for a glass of water :)

There is a funny story between and Mark. It was last June... I do not remember exactly when but I was in Rome waiting for the streetcar at the Trastevere tram stop. Well, I noticed a couple of foreigners with a lot of bags. Then I offered my help to get on the tram asking where they were from. It was surprising to discover that Mark and his wife, Simone, were from Australia/Perth. Mark gave me his phone number and I manage to meet him with his wife in Perth!

Finally I have got some free time to write something. Let's start saying that it is very hard to get used with a different country. Actually, it is the same thing that I thought when I was in the USA and in the UK :) My discover of Australia is going on very slowly. I have got some problems with my back, but it was an excuse to get together with different people. I started to visit a physiotherapy centre and my therapist is a big Croatian/Italian/Australian guy who is able to speak three different languages and fix the back of the people in the same time. It was funny when I started the therapy with him, when I told him I am from Rome, he answered that his father was born in Rome, then moved to Trieste and finally lived in Croatia. He is just an example, cause most of the people, here, have a similar background. Justin, my therapist, reminded me a lot Igor, my advisor professor during my studies in the USA, he was from Croatia as well and the way to speak some Italian words was the...

Finalmente ci sono riuscito, dopo tanto tempo che ho tentato alla fine li ho fotografati: due pappagallini che erano appollaiati di fronte casa mia.

Per la gioia di Gimmy il gatto turco ha raggiunto sano e salvo la destinazione australiana per affrontare nuove avventure nel mondo dei canguri e dei koala.