Language exachange from New York Times

While I was reading the New York Times, I come across the following article:
Learning from Native Speaker without leaving home, where there are suggested some communities for language exchange like Live Mocha.
I haven' tried it yet, but if you have some experiences tell me your impressions.

My crafts

When I was a teenager, I used to work during the summer break.

I worked in different fields and one of these was old wood furniture restoration, I discovered this job by chance and it was very good for me because the laboratory where I worked is near my house, thus I didn't have to get up early :-D

The first impact wasn't really appealing but day by day I started to fall in love with this job and getting in touch with my boss who has become a friend of mine.

The smell, colours and veins of wood are fantastic and I had never imagined how tricky to restore an ancient furniture is, (sometimes you have to start from scratch !), I learnt many wise techniques from shaping wood to painting it.
Every wood has its own brightness, smell and "way of furnishing", a wood can make a dark room shiny, can fill an empty space with harmony.
During those days I developed the passion of creating something with the waste wood (leftovers) before they had thrown away, I wanted to give them a new shape, arrange something; I can't accept the idea of wasting wood for a personal purpose.
I built some items: a bass getting it directly from a raw olive branch, a little bear which embraces a heart, other subjects that I gave away, an old style airplane and two butterflies, these last objects are the only ones that I currently own.

The Airplane, in the pictures, was built with different kinds of wood for example the wheels come from a dismissed broomstick, the body is made of fir.
I left it as it appears without painting, I like seeing the veins of wood and its real colours, paint it, from my personal point of view, is like to overwhelm the wood.



The other pictures show a couple of butterflies, one of them I gave to my sister. Their wings are made mostly with oak stripes and their body have been built with olive wood pieces remaining after the airplane was made.

Thanks to Zsofia for her corrections

Something to teach

After Capello, who is currently manager of England football team, another national team, Republic of Ireland, has decided to leave its faith in care of an Italian manager, Trapattoni.
Trapattoni and Capello are both among the most representative Italian managers, two men with a high experience and a great career of outstanding results, they have won in Italy as either player or manger and abroad they have led great club towards challenging goals with the determination that they bring into their job every day.

Why did English and Irish chose them?
For their unquestionable technical skills, of course, but in my humble opinion because they are able to do something that is more than teaching game plans, they can spur players to reach ambitious goals, make they believe in themselves and in their capabilities, at the same time Capello and Trapattoni have always faced tricky situations face to face by making facts not fictions.

On BBC web site there is an article entitled Italy's football factory from which I extracted the following lines:
...Capello was extremely successful as a club manager in Italy, winning championships with AC Milan, Juventus, Roma and in Spain with Real Madrid.
Where does that winning formula come from? Perhaps from the Italian football academy at Coverciano, near Florence, where Fabio Capello began his career...
(also Trapattoni started his career as manager from Coverciano)
Going on listening the Christian Fraser's report, he says that Italian mangers study football at Coverciano as a science and the English need an academy like Coverciano to improve themselves and probably they will copy Covericano's teaching model for football managers, but they can't copy the mentality, the enthusiastic spirit that some Italians just like Capello, Trapattoni, Lippi and so on bring with themselves and this is something to be proud of because if we, Italians I mean, want to do something we can, we aren't only the pizza people.

A neapolitan Braveheart: Davide Imberbe

Davide Imberbe, 35 years old, is our Braveheart who has decided to struggle "O' Sistema" (name of the criminal organization in Naples, a.k.a. camorra) by rebelling to the racket.
Davide and his family, currently, live under the Italian police protection because they have been threated of death many times, nonetheless Davide keeps on speaking out about O' sistema both at TV programs (LE IENE) and in square.
He revealed how the criminal organization headed by Vollaro family forced him to pay an extortion, if you own a shop with ten rolling shutter, you must pay 10.000€ for three times (Christmas, Easter and mid-August holiday) a year without arguing! the poor bosses need money for their holiday and gifts!
Davide lost his old friends and now the guards who protect him are his best friends, Imberbe's life has dramatically changed, but he still fights.
He remarks that Italian government helps who denounces the racket and invite other business men to join him in order to defeat O' sistema definitely, if we are tens, then hundreds, then thousands; who can kill us? Davide says earnestly.
I hope other people will follow Davide Imberbe's suit and all together will beat O'sistema, because they can...

Good luck, Davide

Thanks to Selma for her corrections

The Carnevale day

On 5Th February, in Italy we celebrate Carnevale.

On this day every child masks themselves with a costume, and makes tricks to the people, indeed a famous byword says "E' carnevale ogni scherzo vale" (It's Carnevale day every trick is valid).

Some masks worn this day belong to our ancient tradition and symbolize a specific city, for example in Naples we have the funny and poor Pulcinella, in Bologna there is the fat and rich Balanzone and so on.

Just a few words about Pulcinella; he is the symbol of the poor side of Naples the tale tells that he is a negligent worker, always angry and looking for someone to cheat by selling his fake swills, but he is also kind and sensitive.
For some aspects, Pulcinella represents what Neapolitans are.

Going on
To celebrate this day we also make some sweets: the crispy chiacchiere, the cold sanguinaccio and the round castagnole these are their name here, but in other cities they could be named differently, for example in Liguria the chiacchiere are also known as "bugie".

Chiacchiere's recipe needs few ingredients: eggs, butter, flour, lemon skin
flakes. After making the dough, roll-out it and cut into narrow strips, then fry them. In the end, dust them with icing sugar.



Castagnole require the same ingredients of chiacchiere but you have to add rum for cooking too, make the dough and shape it in little balls which will be fried.
Like for chiacchiere dust them with icing sugar.

Finally the sanguinaccio, in the past, lots of years ago, it was made with pig's blood, but today we no longer use the it (disgusting...how could they eat it? madness).
To prepare it you need: milk, sugar, flour, cocoa, cinnamon.

Put them into a pot, keep the fire low and mix the cream slowly for a while.
Let it get cool and then take some chiacchiere to dip into it... what do you think I'm doing now :)

I was going to forget migliaccio ! which is the one I like the most....
take some sugar, milk, butter, seed corn, eggs, ricotta.
Place the sugar, milk and butter in a saucepan over low heat, when it stars boiling add ricotta and seed corn, stir them for a while then let it get cool.



Since I'm really busy with my exams I can't help my mother and sister in making them thus I play the tiring role of taster :)

Thanks to Zsofia for correcting me

Bye