Al Friday Market (2)

Al Friday Market

Chaotic, colourful, a bit vintage, the Friday Market (or Jomeh Bazaar) is a weekly flea market held on a multi-storey car park in central Tehran.

You can find almost everything here, from clothing to carpets, from jewellery to paintings, ceramics, musical instruments… even old gramophones! 

Per le strade di Tehran - Italia Street

Per le strade di Tehran

The Supreme Leader is watching you

Ruhollah Khomeini, known as Ayatollah Khomeini, is considered the spiritual leader of the Iranian revolution, the father of modern Iran.

Serious, severe, belligerent… Khomeini died in 1989, but his presence still dominates the roads of Tehran. And the lives of the Iranians…

Tehran (3)

Tehran (2)

Tehran

Chaotic, polluted. Traditional and modern. Grey and colourful.

In some neighbourhoods, you feel like in movie of the seventies; in others in a Western capital.

Tehran. Not a beautiful city, on the contrary - but with an undefinable charm…

Back from Iran

Back from Iran (fascinating country) with plenty of pictures to show and stories to tell - including a story of an incognito journalist, a spy at the hotel, a sequestered passport, a visit to the Tehran police station, and a brave team leader…

Don’t miss a post!

Dolomites

Concluded my week with Leo, recovered Mathilde and Tommy in Venice, we drove towards north, beyond the Cadore, towards Alto Adige, and we finally stopped in the Ampezzo Valley, right at the heart of the Dolomites, where we spent the second leg of our vacations…

(I am leaving to Iran in a few hours, and will be back in about ten days. I will continue the account of our vacations at my return; please, be patient...)

Cuginetti

La colazione del campione

They say that Michael Phelps, the eight-time gold medallist at the Beijing Olympic Games, used to swallow 12,000 kcal for breakfast every day.

With 240 ml of milk, a spoon of honey, and a ‘bombolone’ filled with cream, Leo is on the right path… 

La bici di Andrea

Se macchine, camion, ruspe e scavatrici sono state la passione dell’estate, e la scavatrice di Andrea l’amore a prima vista - la bicicletta di Andrea è stato il vero oggetto del desiderio, nemmeno troppo celato, di Leo questa estate.

E così un po’ Chip (foto 1) e un po’ Easy Rider (foto 2), Leo si è fatto chilometri di lungomare a cavalcioni della bici di Andrea. 

Rigorosamente di nascosto dal gelosissimo proprietario…

In piscina

La scavatrice di Andrea

Leo got grabbed into cars over the summer. Motorbikes, cars, trucks, tractors, caterpillars, excavators, bulldozers… And the bigger and noisier, the better.

With Andrea’s excavator it has been love at first sight...

Adriatico

In vacanza con papà

Come l'anno scorso, e come, speriamo, l’anno prossimo anche con Tommy in quella che possa diventare una piacevole tradizione, anche quest’anno ho passato una settimana in vacanza da solo con Leo.

E come l’anno scorso, anche quest’anno siamo finiti sulle riviere romagnole: Lido degli Estensi: spiaggia immensa, mare basso, pineta, piadine, e, soprattutto, per me una difficile da descrivere sensazione di… ritorno a casa.

Una vacanza di mare, piscina, bicicletta, fumetti, e rutto libero. Una vacanza da uomini!

E dopo un anno di viaggi, passare una settimana solo noi due è stato un po’ come… andare per la prima volta in vacanza con un amico: una persona che conosci, con cui vai d'accordo, ma che non puoi dire di conoscere appieno fino a che non passi per una settimana ventiquattro ore al giorno insieme culo e camicia...

Skype from Badabad

Travelling to the countries I am responsible for, visiting the projects we finance, discuss with our counterparts and beneficiaries has always been the most interesting part of my job. But have to confess that since Leo and Tommy were born, every trip, every day spent away from my little family has become tougher and tougher to bear. 

Luckily there is Skype.  

Skype from Islamabad, or, as Leonardo says, from ‘Badabad’…

In three on a tricycle...

... and with no helmet!!!

Tango!

Tommy - June 2013

Alla festa di Paolo (At Paolo’s party)

First year of childcare, and first good friends. Paolo is one of them. 

Happy birthday Paolo! 

Leo, fai ridere Tommy (Leo, make Tommy laugh)

In time, Leo and Tommy have been interacting more and more together.

To tell the truth, Leo has been very cute with Tommy from the very beginning. He kisses him spontaneously, he provides us with detailed reportages on Tommy’s activities (‘Tommy cries’, ‘Tommy sleeps’, ‘Tommy laughs’…), and - at times - he interprets the role of the eldest brother: ‘Tommy, non si fa’ (‘Tommy, you should not do it’), tells him severely when Tommy does something he is not supposed to do.

Tommy, on the other hand, holds Leo in reverential admiration. Whenever Leo is in the same room, Tommy does not stop staring at him.

The new game is ‘to make Tommy laughing’. When Tommy looks seriously at Leo, we whisper in Leo’s ears ‘Leo, do make Tommy laugh’. And Leo starts tickling Tommy under his chin, and both start laughing as crazy.

And for us there is no greater joy than observing them growing together...

Bottom up!

Tommy, June 2013 

Brothers are like snowflakes: there are never two alike. 

And this is true for Leo and Tommy as well, and we are discovering it day after day. 

Let leave the physical aspect aside: blond with blue eyes Leo, dark hair and dark eyes Tommy. Or bald until the age of one Leo, hairy since birth Tommy. Leo and Tommy are showing different tastes and different personalities as well. 

Leo can’t sleep without his pacifier, Tommy never wanted it. Leo was smiling and laughing from the very beginning, Tommy seems more reserved and observer. 

But the biggest difference we noticed is that Tommy, differently from Leo at his age, does not like to lie on his back, and as soon as we lay him down, released as a spring, he immediately turns on his belly.  

Bottom up!

Let's try again

If June and July have been rather tough months, September and October have been even worst.  

And the Blog has suffered. No posts for more than two months. 

Our followers must have got worried. Or simply must have lost interest, and cancelled Les M&M’s from their favourites. 

And we failed to record the memories of the last months, with the risk of losing them forever - the Blog has more and more become our diary and photograph album.

So, let me try again to recap the events of the last few months and update the Blog, and be indulgent if sometime you won’t find new posts for a while…

Dieci di questi giorni!

Without almost noticing it, ten years have passed since that 7 November in London.

And ten years, six countries, and two children later, we are still together. Thinking of the next ten years, the next country, and the next child.

We could have been in Istanbul, Moscow or Munich celebrating today. Instead, Matteo is in Lahore to rescue the relationships between IFAD and the Pakistan Government, and Mathilde is in Rome to hold the two beasts at bay.

Strange? Sad? Perhaps just normal if we think this is just one among the thirty-six thousand and five-hundred days we will spend together.

And so, I wish us ten more of these days!

Pizza in Rome

Plastic tables on the sidewalk, paper place mat and napkins, a loud waiter, an arancino or a supplì as a starter, Italian beer or coke as a drink. No dessert, you get an icecream to take away in the gelateria around the corner later on.

And then a very very thin pizza, that almost melts in your mouth. 

This is the true pizza experience in Rome…

27 June

For our fourth wedding anniversary, we treated ourselves to a baby-sitter (and a romantic dinner on the Tiber river).

Happy anniversary to us!

A future Miró or a new street artist?