Hey, who’s this young lady sitting next to Graziano??

Do you remember that young lady jumping behind Monsieur le Président?

A few months later, we find her again, sitting close to Graziano De Silva, the Head of FAO.

Nobody is safe. Who will be her next target???

Leo, leggi una storia a Tommy?

- Leo, leggi Pablo** a Tommy?

- No
- Perché no?
- Perché Tommy non capisce il francese…*

(*) “Leo, would you read Pablo to Tommy?”. “No”. “Why not?”. “Because Tommy doesn’t speak French…”

(**) 'Pablo il pinguino freddoloso' (Pablo the cold-blooded penguin) has been Leo’s favourite book for long time. Needless to say the book was in Italian… (For those who do not know the story, check the short movie here).

The best sea food meal in a long time! (2)

Even though we have spent more than three years in Rome by now, and even though there are a few places and restaurants where we like to return to, I am not sure we have found our ‘favourite’ restaurant yet.

Except, perhaps, for this restaurant in Sabaudia, about one hour and half from home.

When we feel like we need to stay a bit among ourselves, escape from the kids, and enjoy some peace and fresh air, particularly in winter, we take a day-off, leave the kids to Claudia, take the car and drive south, ‘til the sandy beaches of the Agro-Pontino, where, after a stroll on the beach, we refill to our ‘favourite’ restaurant !

Not bamboccione anymore

Bamboccione was the term with which Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, a former Italian Minister of Finance, defined the typical Italian male of my generation: immature, over-spoiled, overgrown and still living with his parents.

And well, even if I left home back in 1998 after graduation, officially - according to the statistics - I could be considered a bamboccione in all respects.

When I in fact moved back to Italy in 2011 after India, I temporarily shifted my residence at my mum’s in Milan while waiting to find a permanent accommodation here in Rome. When we finally found a place to stay here in Rome, I then procrastinated to register myself to the Rome General Registry Office - initially light-heartedly simply because overwhelmed by other more priority duties, then deliberately after having experienced first-hand the challenges of registering Mathilde and Leo.

Anyway, after almost three years having lived as an ‘illegal’ resident in Rome, and after having contributed for three years to feed the statistics - and the stereotype - of the almost-forty-years-old Italian male still living with his parents, I then decided that time has come to grow-up, leave my motherly nest, and finally join my wife and my kids in Rome.

I would spare you the details of the story of my registration. I would just share this sketch, when I met the lady of the General Registry Office in charge of distributing the tickets with the numbers to regulate the priority access the various counters (the Rome General Registry Office does not have an automatic number distributor - or if it does, it doesn’t work):

- The lady (with a strong Roman accent): “What are you here for?”
- Myself (with a clear Northern accent): “I am here to change my residence”
- The lady: “Are you sure?”

(Am I sure???)