Back to blogging!

Yeeeess!!!! I'm still alive.... even though I stopped writing for a while.
After a few comments from my grandma and my mum (my personal fan club) I decided that one of my 2008 commitments would be to start blogging again... and here I am :)

In the next weeks I will try to summarize the many things that happened in the past months... starting from :

July 2008

After my wonderful yard sale, with Kamala and Sharon, who helped me out bringing me some costumers and Tim Hortons coffee, I sold out almost everything. The good bye party was a very nice event and I was happy to see there many of the people who I consider my Canadian family and who made my stay in North America a very special one!

Thursday was my last day at work. After that, I went home and spent all the afternoon and night packing in order to leave my room empty and ready for the next tenant.

Originally I was supposed to leave Ottawa by Greyhound on Thursday evening.... in reality I left on Friday July the 31st at 7am. I arrived to Toronto where I could take this interesting picture (look closely if you don't see anything special.... )
After that I went to have lunch with Lukas....and to the airport! We were ready to leave for Cuba!!!!! But that is the August highlight....therefore the next post!

3 days to go...

3 days to go. This evening is my "good bye Canada" party (not really a party but a get together in a pub).

I will miss waking up in the morning listening to Chin Radio (the Italian radio in Ottawa), going around with my bike, giving a hand for Tele-30 and preparing the radio show for each Saturday morning. Of course I will also miss all the people who were involved in all those activities.

On Sunday I had my very own garage-sale. It was a very small garage-sale because I already sold most of the stuff to friends who saw the items I wanted to sell on an email I sent.... but there was still "Cletta" to go... my Super-Nice-Beautiful Canadian Bike! I even took a picture of the new owner....and I proposed to write a blog about Cletta's history (a blog that should be continued by each owner).... but I don't think it will happen (it was a great idea though)!

Cletta might even show up for my good bye party tonight (as I told her new owner, who is a new girl in town, to come to the party just to meet some people).

Anyways... I'm a little sad and confused (mixed feelings) but I don't have time to care about that now! I have to prepare and record 4 radio shows for the next 4 weeks, put in order my room and pack (and throw away everything else), change my address at the post office, work 8h a day as usual, close my telephone number, send my few savings to my Swiss Bank Account (that sounds cool... but unfortunately my Swiss account is almost as poor as my Canadian account)....and everything before Wednesday night...when I'm leaving my house to go to Toronto, work there until Friday and then leave for a well deserved vacation! (Oh, and I also have my last Harry Potter book to read)... let's see what will I forget!

Felíz día del Amigo!!!!! (Happy friends' day!)

July the 20th. Today is officially the day Argentineans celebrate friendship. Each and every July the 20th, the tradition is to tell to your friends how much you love them (well, with moderation). So I take the occasion to wish a very happy friendship day to all my friends spread around the World.

Another interesting Argentinean celebration is "la semana de la dulzura" (the sweetness week), which is celebrated every year from July the 1st to the 7th. During this week people are supposed to buy candies and give them to friends or even people you don't know.... in exchange of a kiss. A very smart invention by major candy producers in Argentina.

In the pic: my argentinean high-school friends in Piazza di Spagna (I'm the white spot on the upper left part of the image...)

Pizza di Maccheroni Recipe

There are many things that happened these last few weeks and I want to blog about... but for that I need to organize my ideas and thoughts, chose pictures to upload, etc. ... too much work for me right now.
Therefore, instead, I propose you a fabulous Mediterranean recipe, it's called Pizza di Maccheroni and it's great to eat at home but also to carry along at work or for picnics.

I cooked it on Sunday and I was very proud of it. I was even able to give it a perfect round and solid shape (I've never done it before). My roommate told me that it was surprising to see how I could be so exited about a "three-ingredients-recipe". Well I am, this is the dish that my family in Sorrento would always carry to the beach for us kids to eat at lunch! (Well, that and prosciutto-panini, nutella croissants, etc. followed by a strict 2-hours break without being able to go into the water in order to digest these delicious things)

Usually you will prepare this dish with the remains from pasta that you cooked another day, but you can also prepare the pasta on purpose to cook a "Pizza di Maccheroni".

Ingredients:
- Pasta (really?) (I like it with spaghetti, but any sort of pasta will do it)
- Eggs
- Salt
- Oil of olive
(Optional: ham, pieces of mozzarella, Parmesan cheese, basil,...or whatever you like)

1. If is not already done: cook the pasta (boil it with salt until it is very al dente)
2. Mix the pasta with the eggs and salt (I used 4 eggs for 300 grams, but it's up to you)
3. Put the pasta mixed with the eggs in a pan and make sure it's all flat and homogeneous.
4. you wait for a bit, making sure it doesn't stick on the bottom to the pan, and then you turn it around (you can help yourself with the pan cover to turn the pizza around).
5. You turn it on both sides as many times you need to make sure its ready, crispy and "golden-coloured" on both sides.

Wait a bit before cutting and serving. This dish is better at ambient temperature rather than hot. Cut, serve and enjoy!

PS. in the pic you can see the one I made on Sunday and I'm very proud about!

One year later: Rib Festival in Ottawa (reload)

One year ago it was my first summer in Canada and my first Rib Festival... , one year is gone very fast...and it's summer again, so is ribs' time.

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Last year I went with Rita and Kamala in the evening (which is a smart thing to do if you want to avoid the lunch-hour-business crowd) and Chris could not join us (I didn't remember that, but thanks to my blog I can remember many more things ;) ). So this time it was just Christian and me enjoying a full rack of Ribs!

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I guess the reason why there were longer lines for the ribs, is also that there are less trucks cooking and selling ribs around, maybe they did not find so many good clients as they expected last year... who knows? If you have never been to this event it worth trying anyways (there is even a Facebook group about the Ribs Festival in Ottawa). The Festival will be on until June 24th on Spark Street in downtown Ottawa.

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(If you want to see some more pics you can do it through my Flickr link on the right).

Deal or no deal?

On Friday I took the bus to go to Preston Street to help with the final preparations for BookItalia. I took the line n.14 from downtown Ottawa (where I work), but could not reach Preston St. by bus (streets were already closed for the Italian Week celebrations). Preston street was closed to motor vehicles and there were just pedestrians walking around, oh, and Ferrari and Fiat500, but they count as Human Beings). Therefore I decided to walk there (well, not having a Ferrari or a Fiat 500, yet, I did not have many other options)... and that's how I met her!

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She was old, but still beautiful.... and they were selling her. I'm talking about my new green Canadian bike. I asked for the price: 45 dollars, 40 for me. I bought it (10 dollars less than the bike I bought last year -the blue one you can see on the back of the picture). Her name is now Cletta (from bicicletta, bicycle in Italian).

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My blue (older) bike is called "Grandma", she's old and beautiful (as my new bike), makes a lot of noise, but I really love her. The problem is that, already before the winter came, she had a problem (I guess with the chain) and she didn't work very well. To make it worse, during the winter a car hit her in the parking lot...so she's not doing well and it would probably cost me more to repair "Grandma" than to buy a new bike. Therefore I bought a new bike.

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The problem is that my new bike (the green one that you see in the picture), Cletta, had a flat tire a couple of days after I bought it. I brought it to the shop and asked how much would it cost to fix my bike. They told me that it would cost me between 5 and 30$. End of the story: they had to change all the tire and it ended up costing me 42$ (meaning 2$ more than the bike itself).

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I'm still very happy about my bike, but less convinced of my business-woman skills. Now the problem is: how will I bring my two bikes (Grandma and Cletta) to Switzerland?

Want to marry a future Millionaire? Come to Ottawa!

I think my slogan (read the tile of this post) would have brought many more ladies in the Canadian Stadiums for this U-20 FIFA World Cup... but they chose this other more politically-correct campaign instead :)

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In the last few days in Ottawa, I figured out that I'm busier (working) in my free time more than in my working time. Nevertheless, what sounds as a complaint, is something that brings me lots of satisfactions.

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Wednesday I was at the Rogers Studios to record the show that will be broadcast this Saturday and Sunday (Rogers Television Channel 22, Sat 6am, Sun 5pm). I interviewed some people, presented the show and met some new people (and this is the interesting part of the story). Adriano, the responsible for the sports section of the show, had a FIFA representative to be interviewed for this Saturday...and as I was there, and thanks to Adriano's wife who pushed me a little bit in order to network with these FIFA people, I met the Communications Manager of the Ottawa Site Organizing Committee for FIFA U-20 World Cup Canada 2007: Mike Winterburn.

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As a result, and after a few emails and calls, I will be able to have Mike Winterburn as a guest during my radio show this Saturday! I will start the show at 10h00am and Mike will come in for an interview at 10h30am. If you don't want to miss it tune in on Chin Radio 97.9 FM or through the Internet on http://www.chinradio.com/

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After the show I will run to Little Italy as we're having the Book Fair going on! If you don't have any program for this week-end, I strongly recommend you to join me (after you listen to my show of course) on Preston Street and enjoy the ambiance, the Ferrari parade, the biking contest, the Vespa display, food, music and much more!

Little Italy under the spotlight

I'm back in Ottawa! After a very nice week spent in Boston with my Mum, here I am, once again in Canada's National Capital.

It's funny because now that I'm starting to get prepared to go back to Europe, I also start to see old pictures and e-mails that I wrote to my family and friends with my first impressions about this city. One of these emails was about Little Italy in Ottawa.

The first time I went to Little Italy on Preston St., I heard people speaking in italian dialects and saw many Italian Restaurants. As in every Italian City, the main street was called Corso Italia (in every Italian town, village or city you will find a main street called Corso Italia), but here is more a nickname, as the official name of the Street is Preston Street.

The first impression I had is that Little Italy was welcoming me. Why? Well, one of the Cafes was called "Caffé Cosenza" (Cosenza being a main city in the south of Italy... but also my surname). So I interpreted that as a positive sign. And I was right! I consider myself quite integrated in the Italian Community here and this is because it's really an open and welcoming community.

June (as you can see from my previous post) is the month of Festivals and Parades. One of them is the great Italian Week here in Ottawa which is currently going on with all sort of events and will finish this week-end with a big celebration in Little Italy (Preston Street).

I will be helping with the BookFair we are having in Ottawa's St. Anthony Italia Soccer Club (off Preston St.) (I will actually present the Literary Awards and help around -you can check the Programme under "events"on the Italian Week official webite).

Now I just have to find the time to:

• Record my Radio Show for Saturday (and prepare it), because it's in the same time than the Book Fair
• Prepare a Slide-show for the Italian Primary School
• go to a Canadian Women in Communications Meeting
• oh! and prepare the text and present the TV Show tonight...

(all of this just in my free time, as I work 8h a day). I think I will be kind of busy! But busy = happy.

If you are in Ottawa or around... don't miss this opportunity and come visit us to Preston Street this week-end, it will be lots of fun! Guaranteed.