My Genovese Workspace

It's raining this morning and so I've stayed at the apartment, with plans to meet friends later.  But even when it rains, I find this city beautiful. Reflections appear in puddles on footpaths all over the city.

I have developed a new and terrible habit.  I wake about 8am, open the door to the small balcony, climb back into bed and sleep again ... as late as 11am that first time.  It's bliss.  I'm an early-rising creature and find it easy to wake and begin a day.

Not so here.  I have become a sloth. Quite the delighted sloth.  It won't last. It's only that I'm walking all over the place and talking to so many interesting people.  And I have Donatella and Luciano's cd playing.

But staying in on a Saturday morning in Genova ... you can see why in the photograph below.  The space where I work is an easy place to be.

Thank you, Air B&B.  I can't recommend them highly enough.  My cousin, Julie, introduced me to them and we stayed in them in Verona, Croatia, Budapest, Austria, and Lake Como last summer.  You get to meet interesting locals and live in local homes. 

My bedroom/office space in this beautiful apartment, downtown Genova.

Coincidences ... lovely ones.

A few years ago, I noticed this lovely woman at her window.  Her house is out on the Ligurian coast, in a small fishing village that I love to visit. I raised my camera and asked if I might photograph her there.

She agreed, with a nod.  Then she came downstairs and we talked for a while, and I took some more photographs of her, with her permission.  She was lovely.

Last night, Barbara and I sat down at one of my favourite cafes, in Piazza Matteoti, and there was that woman ... sitting reading a newspaper at the table next door to ours.

I didn't expect her to remember me and I didn't like to interrupt her but as we were leaving, I couldn't resist.  I said Ciao, and asked if she remembered me taking her photograph.

She smiled.  She did!

It was so lovely to see her again.  So very lovely.

Genova, of course ... and my playlist.

Hmmm, which order shall I post them in ... the photograph or my favourite music playlist?

The playlist:

Alexi Murdoch - Breathe (it reminds me I must)

Fabrizio De Andre - Creuza di Ma (because it takes me back to Genova, everysingle time)

Amos Lee - Arms of a Woman (love the sound)

Ben Howard - Old Pine (just love, so much)

Brian Eno - By this River (from a movie, it haunted me)

Counting Crows - Sullivan Street (there has to be at least one, of these guys or REM)

David Gray - The One I Love (somehow this one slipped in.  It wakes me up if I'm concentrating too deeply.

LP - Into the Wild (just simply love and adore)

Marc Cohen - Ellis Island (an old favourite)

Missy Higgins - Everyone's Waiting (love and adore)

Passenger - Let Her Go (new big love)

Sarah McLachlan - Angel (old love, and it reminds me of Pippa singing it beautifully)

Van Morrison - Into the Mystic  (hunted this song down and fell for Van Morrison as a result. Loved 'The Newsroom' too)

Yo La Tengo - Green Arrow (brilliant beautiful exquisite)

Zucchero - Dune Mosse (i enjoy Zucchero)

Paul Kelly - Midnight Rain (possibly my most favourite song ever but on his cd, it opens with heavy rain.  I love songs that include heavy rain, like we used to have back in Fiordland, NZ)

So this is it for now.  There are more I need to add but it meets my needs for now.

And the photograph ... Genova, of course.

Here I am ...

Curled up on my borrowed bed in this magnificent Genovese apartment, top floor, listening to my small music playlist of absolute favourite songs ... the ones that I always play.  I should post that list one day, so you can throw your hands up in horror perhaps, but these are the ones that I listen to, over and over, making sharing an office space with me all but impossible.

Or  so I've been told.

I have lived more quietly today.  The result of one of my allergy/anxiety attacks last night - 4am before I slept.  It seems that I am one of those creatures who 'feel the fear and do it anyway'.  It's always been like that.  The desire to go versus my chicken-hearted fears.

Most amusing, probably, was flying to Istanbul when flying wasn't my favourite thing.  Moving to Istanbul alone wasn't the best thing for a chicken-hearted soul to do either, actually.  But there are many things I have done that left me wondering what I was thinking?!

Cairo was both so beautiful and so terrifying for this girl from small-town New Zealand.

Anyway ... it seems, despite being as much in denial as is possible, I have some allergy/food intolerance issues.  Some things affect my mouth, others my throat, a few my stomach and etc.  I'm thinking, after last night, that I might finally get tested because the allergies are definitely increasing and I have say, they're just not fun at 1, 2 and 3am, in a country not your own when you're alone.

And today ... I'm laughing as I write this blog post, it didn't go well at the pharmacies.  They didn't really have English, and I'm famous for not being good at other languages.  Ohdeargod ... so, I have some antihistamine drops (I think), and I'm meant to take 20 drops once a day, (I think) and some asprin too (which I'm pretty sure I don't like). Not really what I was looking for but they're in the building. 

I'm someone who thinks if the medicine is in the building it's enough.  It makes Gert crazy.

But this isn't what I meant to write of ... really.  I had a nice invitation today, to supply photographs of Genova to a Ligurian magazine here.  I love Liguria, there's no hiding that, and so I said sure. 

The bonus was getting a copy of their latest and it contained an interview (and an A4 photograph) of my first football hero.  Well, technically he's my second but as Milito left, I don't talk of him anymore. 

Oh the fickle world of Series A football.  I don't recall New Zealand rugby players doing these things, these transfers, however ... he has promised he will stay with my team next year.

How many readers will I lose for revealing the truth about who I follow in football ...

Last night, after eating pizza at my favourite pizzeria, I was wandering along Via XX Settembre and found the image that follows this post.  I had to move quickly because there were others around and I'm not sure they all saw what I saw.

But this visit to Genova, I have to  say, there has been just so much ... so many good people, so much divine food, and superb wine.  Great music.  Brilliant conversations. 

Genova has been like that ... and so much more.

It was an extraordinary day ... yesterday

I don't even know where to begin ... last night perhaps, when Alessandra organised a dinner for a few of her friends and I was invited along.  It was outstanding.  

Donatella Soranzio sang, with Luciano Susto on bass guitar, and they were sublime.  I felt so very fortunate to be there listening.  Video by Federico will follow, as it was he who packed his camera and filmed events as they unfolded but they are on youtube as Susto e Soranzo.  And you will see, it was one of those 'pinch me, I'm dreaming' moments, there at Stefano Di Bert's exquisite restaurant called Pacetti Antica Ostaria.

And Stefano ... what a host.  He brought out plate after plate of truly divine food, accompanied by the loveliest of wines ... so many divine wines that came along on that gastronomic journey.  Food and wines from both Friuli and Liguria.  Stefano, Alessandra, Federico, and Donatella are all from the Friuli region. 

1.30am saw Stefano, Barbara, and Alessandra walking me back through quiet city streets to my apartment. This morning, I have to admit that I woke, and lay very still ... checking for hangover damage.  It turns out, the story is true, there is no hangover with good wine and believe me, we had had a lot of very very good wine.

It was one of the most enjoyable evening's I've had in a long time.

Today I had appointments all over the city, ending with a Napoli pizza at my favourite pizzeria on Via Ravecca.

Actually, yesterday I also had lunch with Francesca.  'The' Francesca from Le Gramole.  We laughed often but the dish below, the Troccoli, that made us laugh most of all because I told her of New Zealand's Huhu Grubs ...

I have eaten a Huhu Grub and if you clicked on the link you will have seen why I might have found my Troccoli slightly disconcerting.

I'm too tired to write of everything, although I must add that I also had the pleasure of meeting Sibilla Iacopini.  And I'm enjoying this new apartment in another part of the city.  I'm top floor, with a small balcony and french doors that I open each morning as a way of beginning the day.

I'll take some photographs when my days stop spinning but really ... I love the spinning.

Magical Events ...

Genova is this magical place ... and already I imagine the Genovese doubting me but it happened like this.  My lovely friend, Barbara, invited me to attend Teatro Carlo Felice's ballet - Biancaneve (Snow White in English).

I went along, no idea what to expect and honestly, after the show my mind was completely blown.  I have borrowed one of the photographs from the Teatro Carlo Felice website here in Genova, hoping that nobody minds, giving full credit to the photographer Marcello Orselli.  You can see more of his work here.

The photograph I'm posting was just one of many spectacular scenes.  In it you see the Seven Dwarves leaving work.  They dance on that 'rockface' using ropes  they simply took our breath away.

Other breath-stealing scenes included the wicked witch forcing the apple into Snow White's mouth. It was brutal and yet it was dance and somehow that made it beautiful.  And the scene where the prince danced with his dead princess. 

We were all 5 years old again ... believing all that we saw.  Aching for all of the characters.

I left the theatre both exhausted and exhilarated, feeling so fortunate that I had witnessed so much beauty.  I have no more words besides telling you ... it was sublime.