# I'm back!



## lulu (Jan 11, 2007)

Hello All!

I am now well and truley settled in Milan, it tooka long time to get the internet installe and we have had a few of the normal new house issues but my internet WAS installed this morning, and now I can resume my DC visits - you have all been sorely missed!

The drive over to Italy was.....interesting! I have a small car and was travelling with my two very vocal siamese cats.  They are both used to car journeys of a few hours, but one decided to sing good bye to Britain, and kept her song going for most of France. By unhappy coincidence there were very heavy rain storms in France and northern Italy, forcing me to drive the 14 hundred miles or so at about thirty miles an hour.  We had hoped to do it straight through, but were often forced by lack of visibilty to just sit at the side of the road.  

We drove through UK to the Channel Tunnel in the evening and got a midnight crossing.  The weeather was so choppy that the motorway to the tunnel was closed and used as a car park for HGVs waiting for ferries, so we had fun driving through some little villages, and the first leg of France was very very good.  The French roads are so excellent.   So our first stop was in the Champagne area, where we bought, unsurprisingly, a couple of bottles for Christmas and New year.  In Reins we refuelled and found some beautiful rose biscuits...like langues des chats or English trifle sponge biscuits.  These are meant to be eaten with Champagne, and they were lovely.  In Dijon we bought, well, guess!  The mistake was to buy a mustard with cassis in it though....pink mustard might look pretty but the sterong flavoyur of cassis and mustard has to be served very carefully!  Then we continued south to Bresse.  Excitingly we stopped at a motorway service station I had seen on Heston Blumenthal's tv programme, where he raved about the famouse Bresse chicken at this humble truck stop, so we had chicken and baguette, just as he had done, and the cats had a big meal of chicken too.  Crossing the Mont Blanc was terrifying.  The visibility had been minimal through the day, but now I could see literally a few metres in front of me and nothing else.  There are also roads works ongoing, so nothing dividing the oncoming traffic.....I was regretting eating I was so scared!   In the actual tunnel everything was lit and there was some reprieve from the weather, but the other side was Italy!

Italian driving is famously...excitable...the rain had got, if anything, heavier and the motorway was covered in quite deep water.  Despite this most of the other drivers were speeding along, merrily flying off the roads and into each other....the cats and I wailed as we pottered along slowly.  The only thing I could see rising out of the rain and the darkness (despite driving through two nights and a day, the whole journey was dark because of the rain!!) were amazingly illuminated castles on hillsides either side of the road.  At any one time several of these many castles were visable.  Arriving at our new home asolutley shattered we had a picnic of our French spoils and slept through and entire wekend, the cats, my DH and I all in a heap.  DH flew back to Uk to share the driving, but I am very precious about my car and in the end refused to relinquish the wheel.  We spent ages looking for insurance that would allow him to drive it, and I have not yet let him, lol!

This is a long post, huh?  I guess you can tell I have misssed DC!


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## crewsk (Jan 11, 2007)

It's great to have you back lulu! I'm glad you had a safe journey even if it was a rather wet one.


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## buckytom (Jan 11, 2007)

welcome back lulu!!!

your trip sounds fantastic. i tried to close my eyes so i could picture being there with you, but then i couldn't read on...lol. 

just kidding,   

great to have to you back safely.


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## XeniA (Jan 11, 2007)

Welcome back indeed! Wondered when you were going to re-surface. Your voice was missed.

Get your strength back. We're expecting a play-by-play as you discover the food of Italy!


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## skilletlicker (Jan 11, 2007)

You've been missed.  Enjoyed the travel log.


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## lulu (Jan 11, 2007)

Arton, my dear, my stomach is expanding because of the huge amount of on the ground research I am doing for you all!  Most of its good, some of it is not to my taste.  Worst food ever at the office Christmas party for example!  But interestingly enough people keep putting in requests for Entlish food, on the Monday after I arrived I had to get up really early to make 6 dozen scones for DH's boss, and mince pies were absolutely fallen on, I simply could not supply enough to keep up with demand....but now that we are in the new year I am sticking to Italian food for a while.  

BTW, I know my typos are getting worse since I was last here but my keyboard has more missing keys than keys there now!


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## GB (Jan 11, 2007)

Welcome back!!!


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## kadesma (Jan 11, 2007)

It's wonderful to have you back with us Lulu. Will be looking to hear more of your adventues..
kadesma


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## wxtornado (Jan 11, 2007)

Welcome back, lulu!!  So good to see you aga....wait, I don't know you.  Hey, welcome back anyway!


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## goboenomo (Jan 11, 2007)

Welcome back. Good to see you.


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## lulu (Jan 11, 2007)

wxtornado said:
			
		

> Welcome back, lulu!!  So good to see you aga....wait, I don't know you.  Hey, welcome back anyway!




Well, you do now!  How do you do and thanks for the welcome back, lol.

Hello Gobo.  I thought of you the other day when a restaurant had the shape of pasta I wanted and the sauce, but would not put them together, rofl!


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## PA Baker (Jan 11, 2007)

It's great to have you back, lulu!  Thanks for sharing your adventures with us.  It sounds like you're having a wonderful time so far!


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## corazon (Jan 11, 2007)

Sounds like quite a trip!  I'm glad you've settled and are back to join us!


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## Alix (Jan 11, 2007)

Poor kitties! Poor YOU! Glad you are settled in and back with us. I have missed your cheery posts. Don't leave again for a while OK?


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## lulu (Jan 11, 2007)

I feel so welcome!  I'm going to try and stay here for a while, Alix!


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## Alix (Jan 11, 2007)

YAY!!!


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## goboenomo (Jan 11, 2007)

lulu said:
			
		

> Well, you do now! How do you do and thanks for the welcome back, lol.
> 
> Hello Gobo. I thought of you the other day when a restaurant had the shape of pasta I wanted and the sauce, but would not put them together, rofl!


 

Hehe. Good to know you're not forgetting about me.
Have you continued looking into country music like you had mentioned in my classical music thread?


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## lulu (Jan 11, 2007)

Yes, I got a few good blue grass links here and I am compiling a list of cd possibilities for my birthday in spring.


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## goboenomo (Jan 11, 2007)

Very nice. It's good you keep an open mind.
I don't like country. It's mainly because I hate singing. If any music comes on I can easily ignore the vocals. Being a musician I have to be able to ignore certain parts of the orchestra to keep my part in time. So I can listen to the instruments alone.


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## lulu (Jan 11, 2007)

Well, (the vocalist shifts uneasily in her chair!) I agree as a musician its important to be able to isolate sound I also think its important to be able to understand the music as a whole.  DH plays mainly jazz, and one of the things we "discuss" is the important of ORIGINAL vocals (not ones added later necessarily).  I feel they are important to the intepretation of the music, particularly to the audience...a non music literate audience relates to lyrics first....I feel part of being a well rounded musician is appreciating the whole too.  (Although I struggle with long bass or  drum solos)


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## goboenomo (Jan 11, 2007)

I do know how to understand the music with the vocals as a whole. I've performed in a few operas, and watched a few. Last year I wen to see the Gurrelieder (sp?) which is about an hour and a half long opera in german. So to understand what is going on, I had to listen to the words, read the german and the english, and listen to the orchestra which I wanted to hear.
I actually just bought Mozart's Requiem the other day. This was a piece he was writing as he was dying. It's an orchestral/choral composition. It's also over an hour long. But it is great.


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## GB (Jan 11, 2007)

I see singing as just another instrument.

lulu if you are interested in bluegrass and are looking for new CD's then check out a band called yonder Mountain String Band. I think they are probably classified as "new grass" as opposed to traditional blue grass (don't ask me the difference), but they are simply amazing.


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## Katie H (Jan 11, 2007)

lulu said:
			
		

> Yes, I got a few good blue grass links here and I am compiling a list of cd possibilities for my birthday in spring.



Bluegrass is beautiful music.  If you want to listen to some exquisite bluegrass, get your hands on some of John Hartford's CDs.  He's awesome and is a master on the 5-string banjo.  Nearly makes love to it.  His music is beautiful and his lyrics are wonderful stories.  Sadly, he died a few years ago, so we won't be blessed with any new pieces by him.  He was a multi-talented person.  Even was a licensed riverboat pilot.  Riverboat, as in paddle-wheeler on the rivers.  Check him out at John Hartford - Welcome.  Enjoy!


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## pdswife (Jan 11, 2007)

Welcome home!   It's good to see ya!


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## urmaniac13 (Jan 12, 2007)

Yeahhhh Lulu's back!!  And I missed your grand return for almost an entire day!! Shame on me!!  Thanks so much for sharing the story of your version of "Tour de France" you must have had some great time (despite the poor kitties...), but oh my, I admire your courage to go through driving in that condition!!  I am really glad that all is over now and you can relax and start enjoying the life in Milano for real, once everything settles down, how about a trip down to Rome???


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## lulu (Jan 12, 2007)

Yes please!  In fact DH will be going to Rome office for a few days in Spring, so I think I'll join him, perhaps we can meet then?  I want to do some sight seeing before it gets too hot....

BTW Urmaniac, on the subject of Italian driving I have to say that I really think my UK plates help, most of the time in the city people see I am a "tourist" and are significantly more patient with me than with each other!  I stuck a post it note on my dash to remind me to pay extra attention to the blind spot on the left, b ut generally its been ok so far!


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## urmaniac13 (Jan 12, 2007)

Yeah!!  That will be way kewl!!  Hopefully we will get the new flat we just acquired in shape by then to invite you two there, though there are some c*apload of work to do, but even if our new home is not ready, we would love to welcome you guys in our current tiny one, not too far from the termini station!!  

Yeah, I am glad your foreign licence plate helps, and probably what you said is true.  But be careful, as you said, it must be a little weird driving on the other side of the road, at least until you get used to it.  And just don't pay attention if anyone gets impatient with you, you know what to say... "Vaff...."


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## skilletlicker (Jan 12, 2007)

Katie E said:
			
		

> Bluegrass is beautiful music.  If you want to listen to some exquisite bluegrass, get your hands on some of John Hartford's CDs.  He's awesome and is a master on the 5-string banjo.  Nearly makes love to it.  His music is beautiful and his lyrics are wonderful stories.  Sadly, he died a few years ago, so we won't be blessed with any new pieces by him.  He was a multi-talented person.  Even was a licensed riverboat pilot.  Riverboat, as in paddle-wheeler on the rivers.  Check him out at John Hartford - Welcome.  Enjoy!


No slouch with a fiddle either.  Aaaah, those were the goodle days.  Lulu, for what it's worth, I highly endorse Katie's suggestion.  My favorite is Aero Plain.


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## bethzaring (Jan 12, 2007)

lulu said:
			
		

> Yes, I got a few good blue grass links here and I am compiling a list of cd possibilities for my birthday in spring.


 
Hey lulu, good to see you back and thanks for the stories.

I am a long time blue grass aficionado, and there are many great instrumentalists in that genre.  Two come to mind; keep an ear out for anything with Bela Fleck and Doc and Merle Watson, their playing will knock your socks off.


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## skilletlicker (Jan 12, 2007)

bethzaring said:
			
		

> Hey lulu, good to see you back and thanks for the stories.
> 
> I am a long time blue grass aficionado, and there are many great instrumentalists in that genre.  Two come to mind; keep an ear out for anything with Bela Fleck and Doc and Merle Watson, their playing will knock your socks off.


Two more excellent recommendations.  Lulu's husband might actually approve of Bela Fleck.  He's a band leader and banjo player with one foot firmly planted in the Jazz world.


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## Katie H (Jan 12, 2007)

skilletlicker said:
			
		

> No slouch with a fiddle either.  Aaaah, those were the goodle days.  Lulu, for what it's worth, I highly endorse Katie's suggestion.  My favorite is Aero Plain.



Ah, skilletlicker, you are so right.  He's a master on the fiddle.  Love "Aereo-Plain."  We have just about everything he's done.  "Mark Twang" is good, as is "Nobody Knows What You Do."  I could go on and on, but you know what I mean.

Buck and I were fortunate to see him perform live several times.  Mezmerizing performances and we were sorry when they were over. I still mourn his passing.  At least we have his records to enjoy.

I agree with Beth, too.  You can't go wrong with Doc Watson and company.


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## lulu (Jan 12, 2007)

Oh my goodness thank you, I'll be googling them on Monday to check them out!


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## GB (Jan 12, 2007)

Oh Bela Fleck is one of my favorites!


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