Florence - A fine city

In Singapore, where there are fines for everything from chewing gum to jaywalking, there are 1000 naff souvenirs that you can get saying Singapore - a fine city.
I am learning that the phrase applies here in Florence too.
Having a car is pretty much essential in Italy. The public transport is not bad at linking the main cities, but to really see the place, you need to have wheels to get around.
But in the cities, this is not always an advantage.
Friday I received a racomandata (registered letter) at work from the Municipal Police, containing a fine for 84 Euros for passing in front of the station on a forbidden stretch of road (about 50 metres in length.) It is true, guilty as charged, that I used this road, because honestly I had no idea how to reach the other side of the station without crossing this little bit. Of course, there are no signs to the station that let you avoid this bit of road.
The issue is that the penalty was from 11am on December 21st 2007. We are now half way through April. And, in all ignorance, I have used this little stretch many times since then. I am expecting that a large chunk of money could be heading the way of the Florentine local authorities.
Yesterday, following a relaxing day that ended with a stroll in the city with my friend Chiara, I remembered that I needed to move my car from its parking spot as it was street washing night. (This means that if your car is parked in an inopportune spot at an inopportune moment, it is towed away, leaving you carless, with a bill of 150-odd euros to shell out for).
I went off to get the car, parked in its blue line parking. A bit of background at this point. Blue lines mean pay and display here in Italy, but, in theory, if you have a residents permit for that area you do not have to pay.
Residents permits are based on the zone in which you live. I am in zone 3 (dark blue permit) which stretches from my road to Piazza della Libertà, some 10 minutes on foot away. Its a reasonably big area, and very residential, so parking is not normally a huge issue.
But my flat is right on the edge of zone 3. One cross street over and the same road turns into zone 4, meaning I have no right to park there.
But as the place where I had left the car was parallel to my street, I assumed that the Zone 3 pass would still cover me.
Either I was wrong, or given that the parking label is the same colour as the car, the ticket inspector didn't see the permit, as when I went back to the car, I saw the telltale green slip that means you have a fine. This time 36 euros.
Yesterday whilst strolling around the shops, I saw a lovely pair of shoes that I was keen to buy. But at 115 euros, I will have to put them on the list for next month, as I have already spent their equivalent in fines for the car.

What a difference the sun makes

It's an incredible day in Florence today, with bright sunshine that has finally shed the chills of winter, and the whole city looks different.
This morning started as my Florentine Saturdays often start with a trip to the San Ambrodgio market. Less touristy than the Central Market, and much nearer to my house, its a small building, in a piazza, surrounded on a Saturday morning by fruit and veg vendors, calling out the highlights of their wares. This morning the Maremma artichokes were getting a big push, but given that I am never entirely sure what to do with them, and have no desire in this sunshine to be inside studying cookbooks, I plumped for foodstuffs that I was a lot more familiar with.
Having bumped into a colleague and having a natter (for a city, this place is really a village) I wandered home and made myself a salad. The mixed lettuce looks like it was in someone's garden this morning, and mixed with feta, yellow pepper, and ox heart tomatoes, with some lemon juice and olive oil from a frantoio in Marche, it was a delicious lunch on the balcony in the sunshine.
In the height of the summer, the city groans with the weight of tourists struggling in the 40 degree heat in lines behind their umbrella/flag/sunflower-toting guide, red-faced and with inappropriate footwear for Florence's broken and beat-up roads and pavements. But they are not here yet. Right now Florence more or less belongs to those of us who live here.
And the sunshine in the city reminds us of the reasons why we do.

Incredible but true

If the exit polls are correct, Berlusconi has won the election. My colleagues are now sharing tales of woe about the last time he was in power ( 3 consecutive years of 0% growth.....)
Giulio, who is here at the Company doing an internship was spouting statistics like a fountain - all of them terrible.
It appears that, whilst popular with housewives and those who appreciate his charisma and ageless looks, Silvio has some work to do with the working professionals of Sesto Fiorentino.

The polling stations are open

Voting has begun for Italy's 62nd Parliamentary election in 63 years. Polling stations are open as I type, and will close at 10 tonight and be open again tomorrow morning until they close mid-afternoon.
There seems to be moderate interest in the outcome. I have not seen the papers today, but I do have the radio on at home, and figured I would listen into the 6pm news to see what the updates were.
The leading item on the news was that Kate Moss's bags have been lost in transit...
Perhaps the interest in the next government is less than I thought!

Book Club and Blisters

Wednesday was bookclub night. Normally the first Wednesday of every month I meet for dinner with a bunch of girls and we discuss the book we have selected and read the month before. This week the dinner was at a place called Finastaere, tucked behind the Santa Croce church, and the topic for discussion was the classic Pride and Prejudice. And who cannot enjoy Pride and Prejudice with such strong images of Colin Firth in the BBC series emerging from the lake with his wet shirt - what's not to love!
I go down to Santa Croce fairly often, but normally on foot from my house, so I had no idea where to park the car. The riverbank, all along the Lungarno is pretty much restricted to cars, and there are video cameras that take a pic of your licence plate number if you transgress, and the next thing you know there is an 80Euro fine winging its way to you in the mail. So wishing to avoid that, I parked up at the far end of the riverside, near to the place where I do my wine course. And I set out on foot towards Santa Croce.
I had, however, totally underestimated the distance from the car to the restaurant - especially given the high and painful shoes I was wearing at the time. A good 20 minutes later, freezing cold, I hobbled into the restaurant.
The place is nice, and, refreshingly, serves kind of watered down middle eastern cuisine. We had a mix of spanakopita, pita, humous and other dips to start, followed by a chat about the book and Austen, and the changed, or otherwise, role of women in the world today compared to that in Ms Austen's time, during a second course of tagine or moussaka.
Apart from me, all the other book club-ees are married, most to Italians, and one to a Brit. There are mainly Americans, with 2 or 3 Brits, and one French girl - its a nice mixture of people and its good to be out with different people once in a while.
It was late when I tottered back down the lungarno to the car, whilst making a mental note to myself to keep some ballet slippers in the car, or buy a GPS that will indicate better parking spots.
The next book is On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan, that I picked, at the restaurant that I picked, although I have never been there, the Lebanese place also near Santa Croce. This time parking will not be a problem however, as I will be away in Indianapolis when the discussion takes place.

Heading for the polls

Italy is poised to vote. The common opinion seems to be regret, but resigned, that we will, once again, be in the hands of Mr Berlusconi.
It will be interesting to see the effect of this resignation. Will people vote Veltroni or Casini to keep Berlusconi out? Or will the ones that don't feel their candidates have a chance, not vote at all, and as a result Berlusconi will win?
The walls, billboards, lampposts and buses are decorated with the variety of parties on offer. With the charismatic Berlusconi telling Italy to get up again, contrasted by Veltroni's much more sober campaign, at the end of the day the elections, and the results are likely to be complicated.
The voting process, and the structure of the political system is so complex that many attempts are being made to render everything more simple for poll-goers. This includes filmed classroom sessions on MTV in which the VJs explain everything from what the President of the Republic does, to how you need to make sure your vote is counted and what bureaucratic processes you need to go to to be able to vote at all.
I will, with some of the rest of Italy, be watching the results with interest.
May the best, and not necessarily the most charismatic, person win.

Florence Apartment

After spending many weekends, and a great deal of effort with the screwdriver building stuff, my apartment in Florence is almost finished. There are still no pics on the walls, but the rest of the place is getting there. I still have not organised the housewarming, but I do now have a parking permit for residents, and managed to pay the rent online with my Italian bank account - a much bigger achievement than it sounds!
Here are a few pics, to tempt visitors..... The apartment is - by about 180 years, the oldest apartment I have ever lived in, and I feel at home already!

Picnic in Florence

Saturday lunchtime and I headed to Luci's house in Antella for a picnic for her husband Mario's birthday.
It's not so easy to find the house at first, as its outside Florence, and I am still without a GPS device, which means I have to use the entirely disfunctional built-in version and the scribbled instructions from our call earlier in the day.
I didn't want to turn up empty-handed, and my recent workload has meant that the domestic goddess in me has taken early retirement, so I was in need of good cakes, and fast.
Luckily, it turns out that there are at least 3 good cakeshops between my house and Piazza Libertà which is a few blocks away. I wandered down the road and came across the Napolitan pasticceria.
Most cake shops that I have seen in Italy are really bars that also sell cakes and other things. The Napolitan shop is different, it is a tiny place, with the area for selling things much smaller than that for baking out the back.
As I entered, the lady serving said that I must be hungry (she had seen me outside talking on the phone for a while to Mum and Dad in Hong Kong.) As a result of my presumed hunger, she suggested a try a little pizza - deep and filled with capers and tomato - delicious.
Next up she offered me a small cheese straw, made of light pastry (texture, not calories!) and parmesan cheese.
Once we got to the third sample, it took quite some convincing that I really hadn't been that hungry to begin with.
I left clutching an apple tart, and some cheese straws, and made my way to Antella The picture shows the amazing view from the equally amazing garden, and Iacopo and Mario, just before the cork was popped on the chilled Bolinger.