Good morning world!

Good morning world, it's SUMMER!!!!
Obviously I'm all exited about it, my most favourite season :-D
Summer started good here, 37 degrees today if not more. These last days have been sweltering. I love it, though it's not always easy when you have a job that involves you being outside in the sun in full coveralls. It forces you into the Italian lifestyle of taking everything 'piano piano' :-)
Not missing Belgium too much these days, I checked the weather forecast and it's 21 degrees and raining there. Oh, there is one thing I do really miss: It gets dark so much earlier here! It's supposed to be midsummer's night tonight, it's dark at half past 9. I miss the twilight untill past 11 garden nights with the crickets in the background (although not when it's 21 degrees and raining).

These past two weeks I've been all the way to the South of Italy, and all the way to the North. The food is good in both places ;-) (Alexander, I'm honestly not really eating THAT much). Down South I was in an area called Basilicata, which is in the mountains about an hour from the Tyrhennian sea (West of Italy). I was working pretty much on the top of one of those mountains. I've got pictures but no time to size them down and upload them yet. Up North we were in a cute cute town called Crema, not too far from Milan. I didn't manage to get that many pictures of Crema yet but I'm going back there in a day or two so I'll sort it out.
Comunque (anyway), I'll keep you all posted!

Here I go again!

Yes! We finally have internet in our flat! Which is great news for people like me who sometimes seem to spend more time in this virtual world than in the real one. But basically, it means I have internet now outside of working hours, which gives me more time to keep you all posted here. Here I go with my resolutions :-)

Time's just flying here in Italy. It's been a little more than 2 months now since I got back. And it's been suddenly a whole academic year since I've been working. High time to stop thinking in terms of academic years actually. The weeks just fly! Literally. Every evening me and my flatmate/collegue/friend/pretty-much-sister think 'What shall we do tonight?'. So we go for dinner, or aperitivo, or just drinks, or watch movies or... I can't really keep track of what we do, but somehow it makes time fly.
We're heading for the hottest summer in 20 years time here in Italy. At least that's what I picked up from some locals. This weekend the beach clubs opened. Ironically, it's been raining.
Next week, I hope the weather will be better. I need to work on that suntan :-)

Here's some pictures to give you an idea of my past months.
Some images of Ravenna. I passed by when I had to be in the neighbourhood for my job.

Ravenna's known for it's churches full of beautiful mosaics. And for Dante's grave. And probably also for a lot of other things which I haven't found out about yet.

The old cathedral.

The beautiful concept of aperitivo. All the 'as-much-as-you-can-eat' food which you get with the coctails is obviously already in my stomach.

I know it's a bit late, but I just had to show you these pictures of the easter eggs we got:

(Yes, that IS a left-over christmas tree... yes, I know... but don't worry, there wasn't much left of it after the 'after Easter after-party'...)

My kind of Easter Egg!!!!

Here's some pictures of the beach, taken more than a month ago, when the beack was still unspoiled before they came and covered every inch of it in stupid umbrella's:

Frisbeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

(See the frisbee?)

About an hours drive from the beach: mountains! This picture was the view from our BBQ spot a couple of weeks ago:

Isn't is soooooo Italy?