Ferrara

The Duomo

We had been invited to our first meal in an Italian home last Sunday. One of the guys who works for Hubby and whom he had promoted recently invited us to his flat in Ferrara for lunch.

Ferrara in the Po Valley is a UNESCO city. Used to be a very important medieval city.

The Castle

It has quite an imposing castle in the centre of town that actually has water in its moat. Apparently it was built to defend the ruling family from subjects rebelling against tax increases (haha). There is also a cathedral with a mixture of Gothic and Renaissance styles and we saw the statue of Girolamo Savonarolas (often compared with the later Jansenists) who used to rule Florence and who was burnt at the stake at Ferrara. A speciality of the city is the cappelacci di zucca which is basically pumkin ravioli in a salty meat sauce. Made me wonder if I shouldn't buy a ravioli maker so that I can create my own ravioli recipes.

The Main Square

F and his wife C are a good looking and really friendly couple. They are expecting their first child and will in January move to Bologna as their current flat is quite small (imagine my 3 kids in there, like bull in a china shop) and F has been living away from home during the week for 6 years now.

And interesting confirmation about closely-knitted Italian families e.g. the couple lives in a flat owned by C's father and when they move to Bologna they'll be house-sitting C's brother's flat. And C's parents will be moving to Bologna too so as to be close to their future grandchild. And F's parents too are ready to move to Bologna if they had to! Wow.

Anyway, the Italian lunch (especially the cheese and rucola lasagne) was delicious, C loves to cook and better still, F likes to clean up after her. They really complement each other.

It is always nice meeting the people working with Hubby. So that you can put a face to the names that he has been mentioning. I expect to be entertaining quite a bit soon, though in the first part of October I'll have to deal with Eldest Son's Birthday Party first and then I'm expecting a girlfriend with whom I'm in cahoots with a little later.

Meanwhile I went to Ikea (again) last Friday. Am still short of storage space. It's starting to be a neverending story. Anyway, you may have heard of the Italians escaping taxes whenever they could and things being so bad that everyone has a codice fiscale and they actually send agents around the country checking receipts randomly outside shops.

Well, that's no myth but a reality. I was checking my receipt after paying up at Ikea and a uniformed guy came up to me asking to check my ticket. He noted the number, amount etc down and even verified what I had in my trolley. Though it was stupid and a waste of time (and my tax money) doing this at Ikea. You always have a receipt at Ikea. They should just stick to small shops and professionals like Doctors etc. Small shops certainly as once, I walked into one in a mall asking for the price of a wooden valet. The girl showed me a folder and the item had 3 prices : official normal, official discounted and no-receipt discounted. Heh heh.