Visits, container, apartment

Had two visits this week from Israel - work, though. One, from the security and the other concerning the promotion of Israeli companies participating in Medica in Germany. I think the visits went OK, but it's been a very tiring week.

In between, I'm studying Italian - pronouns, and conditional... aaaagggghh. Italian is not hard to understand (at least the day to day things, I have problems with very formal letters and reading the serious newspapers but the day to day things are OK) - since a lot of the words are the same or similar to words in English (I'd say about 40%) or at least have the same general meaning (so at least you know what the subject of conversation is, a luxury I didn't have when I first came to Hungary, for example). However, the grammer, being based on Latin, is not easy at all, and is hard to understand and more than that to implement (which is the whole point of the exercise). But, on the up side I can say that people here appreciate it very much if you try to speak Italian and are willing to forgive the mistakes you make. I just have to be less afraid to make these mistakes.

My container has arrived in Italy. It's currently in Genoa waiting for customs clearance (paperwork from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs). In any case, whether I get the clearance or not (I mean, I'll get it eventually in any case) I'm moving out of the hotel (haleluya!!!) and into the apartment on the 24th. I'm really looking forward to this. Also, it's gotten cold here all of a sudden (well, I suppose it's expected really, it being Oct. already....) and I really need my winter clothing. I'm just about surviving right now with what I brought with me and a few things I've bought. but if it gets much colder I'll have to buy stuff to keep warm. Two of my workers have bad colds (the third one was sick last week). I hope I don't catch it, too.

On Sun. I'm going to hear a Gershwin concert. The same orchestra which played last week (did I write about it? don't remember. Anyway, it's a young orchestra, called La Verdi, not fantastic but quite OK in an unpretentious sort of way). They give concerts on Sun. at 11:00 in the morning or at 16:00 in the afternoon which is are nice times to hear music.

On Mon. going to Rome for the day (it will be very long - from 6:30 in the morning till about midnight). But, it's high time I see the embassy there. Then, Thursday, probably, Turin, unless the container decides to come on this day. We'll see.

and a car. Got to look for one. I hope I have some time to do this next week. Luckily the public transportation here is not bad at all so I get along quite nicely even without one.

That's all folks. Will write more soon (maybe from my own computer at home....).