The last famous words.....

My boss: What's Friday 13th to Italians?

Me: lucky lucky lucky you can even buy lucky charms with the number 13 on it

I hit a black swan.... and it shit on me.. against all the odds..

Friday 13th Sunday 15th

that was the so planned Maremma's weekend... you can see the angelic pictures on Tot's blog....

but I shall tell you the not told...

Summary:

flights booked 2 flights missed 2

people fainted : 1 

people bleeding : many

people slapped : 1 twice me 

picture for Gina : 1 

13th

15:37

M: at waterloo now. Going to catch a cab to liverpool street. Where are u? what's your ETA at liverpool street?

me: no idea i'm superbusy

M: see u at stansted

16:00 launch of passport and e-mail to colleague to check me in - Failed

16:45 Leave the office

16:53 liverpool street ( missed stansted express by 35 seconds)

17:15 stansted express

17.27 M: where are you?

Me: I think I won't make it

17.57 M: boarding flight on time

18.00 I arrive at check in desk, gate closed.

18.05 Go to customer service beg woman which calls to see if they still accept me- Failed

18.08 Any places on the Pisa's flight? - booked. discover as 1 hr delay

20.10 boarding to pisa's flight F: you are a c*nt

23.00 pisa's airport

23.10 pisa's station pisa's station pisa's station- weird people no train -me myself and a bottle of gin and vodka

01.20 eventually board the 00.50 train - the famous TORINO-VILLA SAN GIOVANNI animal carrier.. famous for people with card board boxes and live chickens.

trot to seat 25 carriage 3- 6 people box closed- reserved sit occupied by feet of snoaring unedentified individual- lights off

01.40 ticket man wakes up gives me my seat

01.45 woman on left dirty talks in mobile - man in front snoars

02.40 grosseto where exhausted m f & j wait for me. Punishment: holding maude

4.00 eventually reunited- wine, cheese, salami

F J & M got even stopped by police... AND THE CHINESE??? Tot F almost accused of smuggling immigrants...

12.00 wake up - no sun no even Swadowy -go back to sleep

brilliant afternoon looking at the tree.. taiching in the landscape. drinking drinking. occupy restaurant, dry their supply of prosecco and order monstrous amount of food.. which we asked to be saved in a doggy bag... ( see we are so recycling people now.. that we won't waste food either.. 

night... research of party - by mistake rock up to wedding anniversary of posh old couple which almost called the police at the sights of the tots.. 

Reserve, hit the right party- neat bottle of vodka downed one- people drunk - all - M never even made it to the party as stayed in the car. 

Slapped by F - twice. 

Lying on street - once

Sunday.... angelical cooking with waves of sunshine and crunchiness as F cooked crackers... yes crunchy tasty and with rosemary from the queen of broth.

Anyhow time to leave already... on board.. of Mina... we by luck reach the first airport but Fiumicino is packed solid, get off, run to pee, get in a cab, 40 minutes later, we haven't moved. 1.5 hr later, still there. 

Return flight missed. 

Call F actually J ( as F's phone drowned during the weekend) they are in Fregene... 

Taxi man takes M and I to Fregene.. 

errrrrrrrrr.

The errrrrrr gets worse as there is the sea... and clearly one two three... skinny dipping ole' - annoyed owner of boat club surprised by our presence chuck us out of their place... 

back in the car, restaurant food alcohol 

back to Rome... where they forget me outside on a road with me not knowing where the house actually is.. 

Anyhow... start searching flights.. nothing available.... sleep

wake up proposal to take train to Pisa and flight from there : rejected

We rock to Fiumicino hoping for a last minute flight... they don't exist.. we go through terminal a b and c... nothing... 

end up booking return flight  ( and yes... we will be back on the 11th for more).

hang around Rome airport for about 4 hours, buy wine and similar... take flight to Milan... Security steals our wine... for some absurd reason... The last drop... THE WINE NO... NO... NO... M stops talking. 

London Heathrow... plane too near to exit... so help was called to manouvre plane and passengers 35 cm backwards.. 

11 pm of the day after HOME. 

And I now have a picture of my new boyfriend on my phone- so Gina can be happy too. 

PS. The insurance doesn't cover such events... so .. why on earth do people buy insurance??

how many ridicolous things can people tell at interviews

Dear reader, you know that between my hobbies there was going for interviews.

Well that was till I was actually looking for a job. 

A while back I decided that I would only change to do what I want to do, not what people need me to do.

The latest excuses I had to sit through ranged between you will get bored to do that job and  you are a woman and women are irrational therefore you can't trust them ( I think they must have wives with terrible PMSs) 

Anyhow last weekend they reached the top!

Let me start from the beginning

Saturday arrived at the famous Terminal 5 to discover that despite I had a ticket and a reserved seat, BA didn't have any recollection of me traveling ( apparently another of my bright colleague doing, as she forgot to issue the ticket) 

Nonetheless.. for once in a lifetime I was early at the airport, so after a couple of emergency phone calls was on a plane, and after a bit of fighting, was also sat next to M. Because you know, people have issues if you go to them and say - sorry would you mind to sit in business class and I take your on the wing middle seat.

Anyhow reach Milan and then train to Turin where Andrea & bf, Gallo, Mazzola gf and Davidone were waiting for me for a party. 

Andrea surpassed himself as the best host in the planet, welcoming me with home made lasagne and all the different things I love to eat. 

All sprayed  with bottle after bottle of champagne and few treats. Result: woke up the day after at 8 pm, to visit his new amazing shop, meeting Cri & Max and learnt of the new baby to come ( that seems to be the latest fashion- babies... seems that more the economy is fuct and people miserable, more they have kids- must be true, something you can't understand till you have them!) 

Anyhow Monday morning, wake up...  after 3.5 hours of train we arrive in Lugano- yes, I'm ready to move to this smiling little boring postcard town, in  order to get the job I like. 

After 4 hours of interview eventually meet the big man. Obviously they had in mind a different job for me. As they like the way I deal with client, my knowledge of financial markets and blabla bla. they would like me to market their fund across Europe, Us & Asia and take care of existing clients which seem to have become more and more picky in their request for explanation of products and trading strategies.. 

Well... I wanted to execute their trades, i.e. a step down for me, but with open potential for eventually trading.... 

So I propose: I'm prepared, to move in dump town, travel the world, raise  your funds and if I reach the target you set I would like to,  then ... start executing your trades. And we are talking about raising 1 bn $, something you certainly don't achieve in a day!

Do you know what the answer was? 

- we have found that anglo saxon people are better at developing relationship on the phone, therefore we prefer to have an English person executing our trades ( 80% of the company including the founder are Italian!) 

- We find women irrational!

And last but not least excuse: YOU ARE NOT JESUS CHRIST- if you are good at raising funds, you can't possibly be good at executing trades ( mind you- I only have about 8 years experience at doing this - and the reason why I actually got an interview was because they appreciate the job I do.)

I stood up, said goodbye and left the town- back to Milan , smuggled M in the hotel to lie on heavenly bed, with heavenly pillows, washed my hand with soap with heavenly wheatgerm ( what I pile of heavenly flipping crap) and went for a kilo of fiorentina which wasn't on a bed of heavenly rocket, because I fucking hate rocket.

On my way back BA kindly lost my luggage- delivered 2 days later by angry unspecified individual.. 

Morning after.. get phonecall from headhunter:

I have a great opportunity for you - a marketing role in Geneva... 

I don't think he will call for a while.