The reason I have not slept for three nights....

When I became pregnant, everyone's big tip was 'get as much sleep as you can now'.

But oh, not me. See I thought I would prepare nice and early for cleaning up poops, getting up at 2am then 4am to the sounds of crying and generally getting in the mood for having no free time at all anymore!

And this is the reason for it! Isn't she the sweetest reason you've ever seen!



In just 3 days, Sophie has just about mastered toilet training which usually takes weeks in puppies and she already knows how to sit on command. Good girl Sophie. Life is sweeter golden :) Or it will be once I can get a full night sleep again!

Being back down under

Well it has been well over a month since I posted and so much has happened.
I guess the blog should be re-named from Ciao to G'day Mate now as we have finally arrived back in Australia! Mate!

We left Florence on the 12th July and had three weeks holiday in Perth and then headed back up to the small-town-in-the-outback Karratha to start our new life here.
When we left I would still call this town a country town. However with the amount of construction and industry that has developed in the last few years this is just a booming booming town which is literally bursting at the seams with people coming here to work from all parts of the world. Single women note: there are about 8 guys to every one girl here! When we left two years ago there was about 4 flights a day and that was it. When I was there last week it was resembling more like London Heathrow ;)

Here are a couple of pictures taken from our car of the typical landscape of the Pilbara - the region where Karratha is located in Australia. The cows are very much to be avoided as you can easily kill yourself when one of these strolls onto the road and collides with the car. And we saw a lot of dead ones on the side of the road along with loads of dead kangaroo's. They seem to be attracted to the sides of the road. Not good for them and not good for drivers.







Husband started his new role (an extension of his job in Florence) and I laugh when I think of him wearing his best collared shirts to work as now he is back to his bright orange and blue uniform (safety colours on the construction site). One thing I don't laugh at is his waking up every day at 4.30am, the time usually when Italians have only been asleep a couple of hours from the previous nights' late dinner or apperitivo's.

We are lucky enough to have a brand spanking new house provided with Jason's job. (Hey there has to be some perks living in one of Australia's remotest towns). Admittedly I can't walk three metres to get a cappuccino or walk five minutes to see the Statue of David. But the house is so beautiful, BIG and the backyard is amazing. We foresee lots of Aussie bbq's ahead and yes, there will be shrimps on the barbie even though we call them prawns here. By the way, so far we have not had one urge for pasta!

After living in this house for just two weeks so far, we have realised just how much we missed having space when we were in Italy. I know it's such a luxury to have so many bedrooms and bathrooms and space for just the two of us, but it's a luxury we REALLY appreciate now having lived in Europe where space is at a premium.

The first time we moved to Karratha back in 2003, I cried for a month. I had no friends, I knew no-one, Jason was at work all day long and I just felt so remote. Although of course we are still so remote (the nearest town is Port Hedland 260 km's away) and still in the heart of the outback. But all our friends are still here and it really feels like we have returned home. I have not had one day yet where I haven't lunched or coffee'd with old friends and it is an amazing feeling to reconnect with people.

Onto baby news now! Bambino is growing steady and he is a kicker. Like I mean A KICKER and PUNCHER and a BOXER. It is so strange to see my stomach bulging out when he is having a good old dance in there. We have 13 weeks to go until our new arrival so it is going to be exciting times ahead and a journey we can't wait to start.

When I was in Perth I had my baby shower. I don't think I've ever been that spoilt in my life. The guys wisely left for the day while 18 girls streamed in with massive presents in their arms. I was shocked as I have never been to a baby shower and I honestly expected a couple of socks and bibs here and there and that is it. When I piled all the presents in the car, it looked like I had just robbed a luxury baby store. I was very touched at how much effort my friends had gone to spoil me that day. Here is a picture of the cupcakes my very talented sister-in-law made for the day:



And here is a belly pic of me at 6 months. This photo is with my best friend Gina who is Italian...Gina, along with my mother in law put on my baby shower. What do you get when you combine an Italian and a Filipino? LOTS of food.





And onto our last bit of news. Before bambino arrives, we are also expecting the stork to bring another addition to our family next week - but this time a furry four legged fur-baby. We can't wait to have a puppy running around again and I have 13 weeks to train it military style so it's a good doggy for when the baby comes!

Now that I'm finally settled, I am looking forward to reading all my blogs that I used to read every week - I need to catch up!
So from Australia - g'day and it feels great to be blogging again! I've missed all my blogger friends!

Arrivederci Italia!

I've been very slack in blogging lately. Well that's if you call moving apartments, organising things to be sent back to Australia, signing a million customs and tax forms and buying a car over the internet! Not to mention the little bambino doctors appointments.
And if I'm being honest, I've tried to sit down and write but I honestly don't know what to write for what will be my last blog written in Italy as we leave this Saturday morning. So here are a few of my random musings and thoughts as we countdown our move back to Australia:

i) Everyone keeps asking me, no actually make that everyone keeps TELLING me, that I will miss Italy and how sad I must be to be going back to Australia. I have to be honest and say that we are SO excited to be going back home. I know that living in Italy is a lot of people's dreams and we were blessed enough to experience living it. But it wasn't MY dream and really was a job assignment for my husband that brought us here. What I'm trying to say is that while we are SO grateful for this opportunity and seeing what we have seen, lived what he have lived through and ATE WHAT WE ATE (!), living overseas has made us appreciate our own country even more. Big family homes being the norm, backyards, organised streets, little bureacracy and the cleanliness of my country. Italy will ALWAYS be dear in our hearts, after all we are even bringing back a living Italian souvenir, but it was never a permanent stay for us and we are so happy to be going home sweet home.

ii) I have been so touched by the people I've met in the last two years of living abroad. Random people in coffee shops, people that I've met from online blogs, people I met at Italian school and especially the couple of dear friends that I have become so close to. Having friends overseas is a hard situation. You know you are leaving, they know you are leaving. Sometimes it's hard for both you and them to make an effort to be friends as it really is just a temporary friendship. If I'm being honest, some of my friends here that I had coffee with will maybe write and email occassionally or I'll facebook them. But realistically they were just a friend for a season. That is awful to write and probably sounds awful to read. In saying that, I have made one dear friend in Florence that I know will be a friend for life. We met in January but I feel like I've known her all my life and I know we will be friends for years to come. I'm grateful for all my friendships here in Florence. I love meeting people from all walks of life and even if we met once and didn't become 'best friends' I still valued this time meeting new people and finding out what brought them to Florence or where they were heading to next.

iii) Italy has taught me a lot of things. Don't necessarily stop at a stop sign. Never order a cappucino after mid morning. Do not expect an Italian to eat by 8pm. But on a serious note, Italians really have it right when I look at how much they enjoy life. They don't pride themselves on having a big house (with a big mortgage) and flash cars. They pride themselves on living life. Enjoying food with their families on a Sunday. They love children. They don't put their jobs before everything else.

We leave Florence on Saturday morning to head back home. It is both with happiness and sadness that I leave the place that has been home to us for nearly 18 months. Even though we have both loved and disliked different things about living here, the most important thing is that we have learnt so much from this experience. For that we will always be grateful. One day we will return to this beautiful city with our son (yes we found out it's a boy!) and show him this amazing chapter in our lives. We'll walk past the apartment where we lived, the pizzeria that treated us like family when we went there each week, our favourite landmarks and favourite gelateria. Years down the track, Italy will all be a distant memory so I am so grateful for having kept this blog to look back on all our experiences. And I'm so grateful to my readers for some of the wonderful friends I've made this year have been online friends that I've never actually met in person.

I'm still planning to keep this blog up when we move back to our small town of Karratha. Although I'm yet to see what I will write about being that nothing much ever happens there and it certainly doesn't hold the same allure as Florence. We'll see if I continue to have readers I guess!
I'll be on holidays for about a month while we holiday in Perth so I won't be blogging. But I'll see you all very soon. Except I won't be strutting the latest fashion in stiletto's just to get some milk at the shop Italian style. I'll be back to flip-flops and 4wd's and fishing in the country. Hope you can join me.

The countdown is on!

I finally felt the bambino kick as of two days ago. Three more days to go whether we find out if it is a Luigi or Francesca or Salvatore or Louisa! Actually we have non-Italian names picked out but we are keeping those a secret. Either way he or she will be a boxer or karate expert if it keeps up this punching and kicking!






Interested in pregnancy? Read about being

10 weeks pregnant, 20 weeks pregnant,

30 weeks pregnant and 40 weeks pregnant.

Auguri!

I've been a bad blogger lately. I have no-one to blame but myself. Well actually that's not true...this baby is the reason I am so darn tired! I can't complain as I don't have many other nasty symptoms that I have read about but I can honestly say I have never been this exhausted in my life. Not when I worked three jobs and went to uni full-time. Not when I partied until 4am and then started my job at the airport at 4.30am (oops). Not ever. And the more I sleep and rest the more tired I become! But the baby is baking now at 18 weeks so I am happy to take whatever comes my way.

I had read in an article before that Italy has one of the lowest birth rates in Europe and that pregnant women are treated like queens in Italy. And according to a friend, apparently you become even more of a rock star if you are pushing a pram.

In the last two or so weeks, I've actually gone from the 'I have eaten way too much pizza' look to the 'do you think anyone knows I'm pregnant or do they just see a chubby girl' look to what is now the 'pregnant signora' look.

What is funny is the reaction that I get from Italian people. I have never been pregnant in Australia but I really can't imagine that strangers including men in their 20's who run our local pizzeria would take such an interest in my pregnancy. As soon as anyone finds out I'm pregnant (usually by overhearing the coffee shop girls asking me how my pancia is today) the first thing they excitedly say is 'Auguri!!' (sort of like best wishes) and they are so genuine it always brings a smile to my face.


Another example is when husband and I went to a trattoria for dinner a couple of weeks ago. The waiter was one of those very stuffy types that was not smiling but not rude either. I ordered a pork dish but asked him to make sure the meat was well cooked as I was pregnant. Well, he became our best friend there and then and suddenly a big smile appeared and he patted husband on the shoulder. Husband ordered a spicy salami pasta and I put my fork into his plate to try some of the pasta. The waiter ran over and said 'Signora, the baby will not like spicy food, please don't eat this'. I didn't have the heart to tell him I had eaten two curries the previous week and so far had no written complaints from the inhabitant.

Last week I went to my local fruit and vegetable market. I went to buy some proscuitto for husband but my usual shop where I buy from made me firstly PROMISE that I would not eat it. It's not good for the baby. Then the cheese man nearby came out of his stall and inspected my belly and said 'yes it's quite small, you must be very early on'. Speculation on whether it's an ItalianO or an ItalianA followed.

And there are so many more examples. Everyone (not just Italians) wants to know how I'm feeling, if we want a boy or girl, do we know the sex, do we need them to recommend a good doctor that Luigi's cousin's aunty's daughter used. The Italian interest in pregnancy really reminds me just how much they value family and children. I don't think all Italians are overly friendly on first meeting but with this belly sticking out, it seems I have risen to a new status level than just a blonde straniera (foreigner) who is probably living in Florence for a month. However, Italians always seem disappointed when I tell them the father is not Italian and the baby is on it's way to Australia in a month's time. Oh well, they say. At least it's made in Italy.

European Road Trip

Last week we got back from a road trip around Italy, Germany and Holland. Although I do not recommend everyone doing this in their first trimester (!), we had a wonderful time and one of my dreams came true, to see tulip season in Holland.

Firstly we drove to Milan and spent one night with our friends Payman and his wife Veronica. Payman is also an engineer (like husband) and used to work with Jason in the Karratha gas plant so we had plenty to reminisce about. I had been off fish for a long time and Veronica cooked salmon for dinner....well it was the best salmon I had tasted and it was delicious. My fish appetite has returned.

The next day we set off through the Swiss Alps (that were still covered in snow and were as beautiful as always) for our ten hour drive to Cologne, Germany. It amazed me how different driving in Europe is where there are road stops every 50 kms. When we used to drive from Karratha to Perth (in Australia) sometimes the next road stop with fuel was 200 km's away.

Lots of singing and eating lollies later on a speed limt free autostrada (very scary), we arrived in Cologne. It was wonderful to catch up with family in Germany and also to do some relaxing. We weren't interested in sight seeing as we had been there numerous times before, however Jay could not resist taking night photos of the Cologne Dom - we think it's the most beautiful cathedral in all of Europe.



The rest of our time in Germany was spent visiting more family, sleep ins in the hotel and ordering breakfast in bed. On mornings when we weren't completely lazy we would get up and go to my beloved Starbucks.

Next on our road trip was Holland. Husband had been to Amsterdam before for work but I had never been and was very curious. Our friends Ryan and Elize live in Amsterdam and we stayed with them. Ryan, an engineer, also used to work in Karratha with Jason. In fact he was our neighbour and is one of our dearest friends.

Ryan and Elize live in a gorgeous apartment overlooking one of the canals and about 50 metres from Anne Frank's house. This didn't mean that much to us until we visited Anne Frank's house and that is when reality hit home. On that very street, just years ago, Nazi's were storming the streets and bombing homes and terrorising Jews, amongst others. It was an eye opening museum which I really recommend (just like I recommend Auschwitz in Poland for everyone to see).

Amsterdam made a funny impression on me. I found it very beautiful with it's canals, gorgeous buildings and cosmopolitan atmosphere. But you could be in a gorgeous street, then seemingly walk two streets ahead and like we did, stumble into the red light district. We stumbled across it during the day so I wasn't as saddened by it as I thought I would be. (I know it's stupid but I get very sad when I see young girls forced (debatable I know) into selling themselves in windows. It was funny in a sense that these girls were there but there was normal looking families just walking past and carrying on with their daily activities of getting from place A to B. After being offered coccaine on the street twice (ummm I wouldn't even know what to do with it, put it in my herbal tea perhaps?) we decided we had seen enough. We walked past all the people smoking marijuana in coffee shops (that is everywhere not just in the red light district) and returned back a couple of streets to the posh side of town again. Very strange, but interesting.

One of my favourite things about Amsterdam was of course to do with food - Dutch apple pancakes!We had pancakes 5 times in Amsterdam and we were there only four days, go figure!





Apart from seeing our friends, the highlight of Amsterdam was driving to a town called Lisse which is famous for it's tulips. Look at what we saw on a random road we drove by!!







One our way home, we stopped in to visit our friends Peggy and Mike in Lake Como. They had kindly offered us a room in their apartment. Peggy and Mike are just a gorgeous couple that I had met in my Italian class in Florence but they had since moved on to Lake Como. When we arrived we soon realised their 'apartment' was in fact a stunning villa overlooking the whole of Lake Como. It was just beautiful and Peggy and Mike (and their two daughters Elizabeta and Nicole) were perfect hosts and we had a wonderful time with them.
Another highlight of the trip: Peggy's dinner that she cooked for us and we ate on the balcony overlooking the view. I couldn't believe how good the food was and Peggy admitted she had been taking private lessons from a chef in town that has cooked for Oprah. So if it's good enough for Oprah, it was good enough for us!

I think we would have had a wonderful road trip anyway, but spending it with friends, both new and old made this trip just even better. It is our last big trip in Europe before we go home and we certainly won't be forgetting it in a hurry.

Bambino's/The search for the best tiramisu is over

Ok, so what is your definition of torture?

Here is mine:

Living in Italy and not being able to eat tiramisu, salami, cheeses or the famous Florentine Bistecca, a massive hunk of meat served very rare (sorry my vegetarian readers especially Erin).

But I'm happy to report that the feelings of torture go away as soon as I think about why I have stopped eating all this glorious Italian fare. No, my jeans didn't finally give way....

I'm three months pregnant!!!!!

So on November 15th we will have a Fabio, Luigi or Francesca making his/her debut back home in Australia. Hmmmm well actually if it is a Fabio or Francesca I may have a lot of explaining to do to my Australian husband.....

Today we had our three month ultrasound. It was the most amazing thing we've ever seen. We could see the arms and legs and even the nose bone. One of the arms was curled up in a fighting position - perhaps he/she will be a boxer?? Or it really IS an Italian bred baby and is starting to use arm gestures already to communicate.

You'll know by my year of blogging that Florence has been both wonderful and challenging for us. However for all the butt kicking we received, Italy will now be forever engrained into our hearts as the place we grew our family. It's going to make me look at tags that read 'Made in Italy' very differently!

ps Next week, I promise I will write about our two week road trip around Europe which we returned from on Sunday. We saw the most amazing scenery ever, stay tuned.