Yesterday in Italy the 14th edition of the National Day for Food Collection took place. What this consists of is that you arrive to do your shopping at the supermarket (any branch of any chain in any city) and you are given a small yellow plastic bag. As you go around the shop doing your own shopping, you are invited to put aside some food to donate to the poor (the usual non perishables). When you get to the till, it goes through with your shopping and then the volunteers take the yellow bag off to add to the boxes of food they are collecting. 

It's an absolutely fantastic idea. It really encourages everyone to think about those less fortunate than themselves, and it takes no extra effort to just put some things aside in the trolley. Everyone who went through the same checkout as me had contributed something. 

I don't think anything like this happens on such a scale in the UK (correct me if I'm wrong, I've never seen anything like it though). Often at church there was a collection box which was taken to a local charity which distribute food to the poor, but nothing like this which involves the whole of society in such a simple gesture of solidarity. Plus as I said before, there's no effort involved - you don't have to remember to take things to donate, you don't have to carry them anywhere, you don't have to do anything at all really, just pay for them! 
According to the website, 5 million people donate and 100,000 people volunteer their time. Last year they collected 8,600 tons of food (equivalent to €29 million). That's a really really good effort! I'm impressed.

In other news, I now have a way of paying for things on the internet (BAD news for my bank balance ). I wrote a little while back about the annoyance of not being able to use my "debit card" online. Well, I discovered that I could order a rechargeable credit card equally easily and use that. It arrived a couple of days ago and I have already enjoyed using it on 3 different websites (2 UK based and 1 Italian) and it's working like magic. I still can't believe how terribly complicated the banking situation was last year when it could have been so wonderfully simple like it is now!

On Friday it snowed, but although it was very heavy snow in the air (looked like a blizzard!), it didn't settle. I had a lesson cancellation at lunchtime, so after an hour of Teacher Development in the morning, I only had the teens to teach from 3-6pm - another lovely Friday! Then in the evening I was at a party for the patron saint of musicians, Saint Cecily. Great fun! 

Yesterday after work, and after supermarket shopping, I wandered into the centre to check out a market that's taking place at the moment. Very very similar to San Faustino in Brescia bascially - the same crowds, the same stalls selling all the same things (magic mops and potato peelers and other gadgets of the moment). I resisted buying anything, except a nutella crepe... nice atmosphere though.  

It's taking place in the huge square (which is actually entirely round - piazza doesn't always translate well as square!) below the castle, so after looking around the stalls, I trekked up the hill to have a look back down. In fact, I haven't gone up to the castle since I arrived in Udine! I went on the day of my interview and haven't been back, so it was nice to do that. I didn't make it into the museum this time as I got up there too late and it was just going to close. I did see a beautiful sunset from up there though! 

I've gone on about the place enough for all of you to know by now that the place closest to my heart is Taizé, in France. I'm not alone in this, and as I have mentioned several times before, it is fantastic to have found people who share the Taizé love, in each of the cities I have spent time in in Italy. 

Some of you may remember that when I had only recently arrived in Brescia, I got in touch with the Taizé group there and the first meeting I went to was one that happened to be being attended by a group of young people from Poznan who were touring Italy to publicize the European Meeting which was going to be held in Poznan that year (and which I had already booked to go to).

Me with some of the young Poles in a village just outside Brescia, October 2009

Well, out of 35,000 people who travelled to Poznan, I managed to bump into one of the girls I met in Brescia (the one in the far left of the above photo). Then, I met her again in Taizé at Easter. Then, I met her again at Taizé in August. Already quite amazing. Then.... guess what....

Yup, she was there at the preparation for Rotterdam meeting tonight, which was in Caneva di Tolmezzo, about 50km north of Udine! What a small world it is when it comes to Taizé And how absolutely beautiful it is to sing Taizé chants far away from Taizé, but in the company of so many people who have been there and experienced the real deal! Amazing though...she's Polish, I'm English, and we have met in Italy twice, once in Poland and twice in France at Taizé, all in the space of little over a year!! Incredible!

The evening was absolutely wonderful though...SOOOOOOOOOOOOO glad I was able to go, and it was really lovely to spend some more time with Francesco, Francesco and Emanuele (pictured here below)

 
I am really very happy this evening  But, it's 1am now and I have to be up at a normal time tomorrow as we have a choir practice at 10.30am, before mass...which means getting the bus at 10am or something. Eek! Better go to sleep now or I'll be tirrrrrrrrred Charis tomorrow  

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo

Taking advantage of my rare Saturday off, today I explored Udine a bit more, focusing mostly on the works of Tiepolo. 

"Giambattista Tiepolo, one of the greatest European painters of the 18th century, was born in Venice in 1696, and it is there that the largest group of his works is on display today. But another Italian town played an important role in Tiepolo's formation, and it is Udine. From 1726 to 1730, the local Patriarch, Dionisio Delfino, lavished his praise and remuneration upon the artist, commissioning frescoes that make it well worth the detour to this lovely Friulan town." (http://www.initaly.com/regions/friuli/tiepolo.htm)

On route to begin my tour at the Museo Diocesano e Gallerie del Tiepolo, I actually stopped to have an ice-cream! It's November, but the sun had come out today and the gelaterie were raking in money from people happily reminiscing about summer days...  it's been really really dull and miserable this week, so it was nice to enjoy a little bit of cocco and fragola (they didn't have frutti di bosco - gutted!). Anyway, so I was walking to where I thought the museum was, when I saw a sign for "museum" in the opposite direction, so as it wasn't quite due to be open yet anyway,  I stopped to eat my ice cream and while I was doing so I had a look at my map to check which direction I needed to go. As I was doing so, a man walked past me. He didn't say anything or do anything, but about 10m up the road he suddenly stopped, turned round and came back, and said "I'll leave you this leaflet in case you decide...". At first I thought it was one of those religious leaflets that people often hand out here, but it wasn't, it was the leaflet for the museum I was on my way to!! He was just about to open it up! I laughed and said that was exactly what I was looking for...he pointed out the door to me, and I said I'd be along in a minute. So, off I went, and there he was, just opening up. He was a lovely eccentric old man and we had quite a chat as he escorted me up in the lift to where the museum starts (as I was the only one, of course!). He had lent me the guidebook to read as I went round, which was very helpful indeed as otherwise I wouldn't have had a clue what I was looking at!

So, the museum is housed in the Patriarchal Palace, former residence of the Patriarch of Aquileia and current seat of the Bishop of Udine. Tiepolo was commissioned to do frescoes in the palace, and as such there are a lot of his works there. 

Picture credit: http://www.paesionline.it/udine/foto_dettaglio.asp?filename=DD1920_udine_tiepolo_museo_diocesano

This fresco is the main one in the Galleria del Tiepolo, where the majority of his works are, and it depicts Rachel hiding the idols from Laban. Not my kind of art work at all, but it was fascinating to see the depictions of various biblical episodes. Like Jacob's dream, below. 

Picture credit: http://www.backtoclassics.com/images/pics/giovannibattistatiepolo/giovannibattistatiepolo_jacobs_dream.jpg

Anyway, aside from these frescoes, the palace was full of other artwork, and a magnificent library as well. Well worth a visit!

From there I went towards the Duomo, which I had previously only been in very briefly. I knew there were some more Tiepolo works in there as my Rough Guide describes them as "not to be missed". So, this time I didn't miss them, I went round carefully and sought them out!

While I was there, and as it was open, I visited the Museo del Duomo which is in the Baptistery and side chapels. More wonderful frescoes (not his this time, but a young pupil of Giotto) and a very interesting sarcophagus, depicting scenes from the life of Bertrando. I got a full guided tour of this from the lady who was manning the museum... she was the second quite eccentric old person I met today! I had a lovely little chat with her during the course of which I had to tell her SIX times how long I was staying in Udine for! But she was very complimentary about my Italian (of course not about my accent, just my "perfect grammar" ) so that was nice. 

I still have some places to visit to see the complete list of Tiepolo (list found here: http://www.initaly.com/regions/friuli/tiepolo.htm).  The Castle and one other church which I didn't find today.  All in all very interesting, and it was certainly nice to have time to go and explore a bit, as I feel like I've hardly been into the centre at all! Well, I haven't - I think that was only the third time, and I've been here 7 weeks! Very different from living right in the centre as I was in Brescia...not that I'm far out, but I haven't got bags of time to go wandering into town!! 

Incidentally, it's a wonder I was able to enjoy any of this artwork at all - when I woke up this morning my right eyelid was so swollen that my eye was more than half closed! I looked like the one eyed monster! Luckily it had gone down quite a lot by the time I went out, but it's still not fully functioning!! Thank goodness I didn't have to teach!!  

Hmm, so last time I said how wonderful the bank account is. It still is, but I have just discovered something I *can't* do, which is really rather annoying... 

So far I've successfully:
- taken cash out of the hole in the wall
- paid by debit card (here: Bancomat) in the supermarket
- verified that my salary will be paid in monthly by direct transfer.

That's all great.
BUT.

I just went to buy some books online from Amazon, and I went to pay, and then realised that my "debit card", my Bancomat card, has one 6 digit number on it and my name and that's IT. I.e. There's no start date, expiry date, issue number, security code etc. That makes it totally useless online. How annoying! I don't know whether there's another type of card I need to apply for or something. It seems totally bizarre to have a Bancomat card that can only be used in person, but perhaps it's just because online shopping is only just starting to take off in Italy...

Very annoying though as I had to use my Nationwide debit card, but my account has very limited funds in now. I've got a Nationwide account, a Natwest account and a Natwest credit card, and an ING savings account with rapidly diminishing funds. I *can* use any of the cards to pay, but the accounts have no money going into them and no chance of replenishing what I take out, so it's really a very bad idea to use them at all (I already have to use them while I'm at home to get £s). It was going to be so easy having Italian salary and taking cash out of that account and only making payments with it... because to transfer money from my Italian account to my ING savings or anywhere else would cost more again too, and it's just not worth it with the exchange rate. Grrrr!

Still, all in all it's still much better to have it, I just don't really get how it's possible that the card can't be used online! I'll have to ask my colleague whether she has ever tried to and what she does... 

In other news... new housemate (number 2) has just moved in today. It's already quite different around here - hopefully won't take long to get used to it!! 

Ahhh, how lovely it is to be at home for a day. At home with plenty to do, but at home nonetheless. The rest of the weekend I was out most of the time, so I have taken advantage of having an extra day off work due to All Saints' Day bank holiday here to catch up with boring chores (washing, ironing etc), to do some lesson planning (not much and not nearly enough yet!) and general chilling, which included actually sitting at the kitchen table drinking a cup of tea all the way through (rather than taking gulps whilst trying to do everything else at the same time which is how it usually goes in the mornings!). 

It's a shame the weather is pretty awful at the moment (constant rain) or it would have been nice to go somewhere today. Still have MUCH to explore. I've realised still haven't even done Udine properly yet... haven't had the time or mentality to be a tourist properly here. Perhaps I never will be!
I've also realised that I've been here over a month now and am STILL not officially registered in any way, shape or form here. All my documents still relate to Brescia. I think I can update my Carta Regionale dei Servizi (in order to register with a GP) without too much trouble but it's quite possible they will tell me I have to register myself as living here first. I need to avoid doing what I did in Brescia which was registering as resident here. I only want to be domiciled for the moment...it's all thoroughly complicated and confusing, but my work contract is based on me being newly arrived from the UK and therefore paying taxes in the UK (with an apparent 2 year exemption for teachers). Who knows how it will all actually work out. When I have time to go and do the queuing thing at any of the relevant offices is another question. It's my fault for not getting on with it before I actually started work (which was the whole point of coming here early...). I was a bit blasé because I already had all the things definitely required (codice fiscale etc). I'm sure it doesn't really matter that much though because as an EU citizen I don't actually need a permesso di soggiorno or anything. 

The good news, for anyone who remembers the Barclays Italia saga from this time last year, is that I am now fully set up with an Italian bank account! I opened one recommended by a colleague, and so far it couldn't be better. It's an online one without all the ridiculous charges, and so far it seems to function perfectly normally, like you would expect a bank account to (and exactly like the Barclays one didn't). So, after a year of having cash stashed in the "Bank of Charis" in my bedroom, I now have it safely stored in a bank account, accessible from anywhere via cash points (what a novelty!!) and I can make debit card payments, and have my salary paid direct into the account. Amazing!!! All it took was a recommendation from a fellow Brit in It!!