Excitement in Italy and Antwerp

Giulio, Stefani, Hermanno, me and Francesca

A robbery at a pharmacy in my neighbourhood

Of course when I said in my last post I was just going to drink cappucino and sit on the beach, I was exaggerating a lot. So when I met Hermanno the first day in Italy he told me: "What do you mean, drinking cappucino and sit on the beach, we've got a lot to do". I reassured him that I only wrote that for stilistic purposes. So I wasn't at all surprised that on the first day we went to an Iron Maiden coverband, and that all the other days we went somewhere every night to get a drink, go to bands, watch Italian soccer matches and to meet new people.

What I love about Italy is that people know how to enjoy life. Smoking, eating, drinking alcohol or lying on your bed to take a rest in the afternoon are things that are not exactly encouraged in Northern Europe. Maybe it's because there it's socially more acceptable to work yourself to death. After weeks of working non-stop in Brussels, I felt that I really needed to spend some time in Italy. And spending time in the quiet surroundings of Serre and the vivid city of Salerno was as good as I expected. And the last few days in the exciting city of Rome was the perfect way to end a great vacation.

I'm still enjoying one week of vacation in which I e-mail to people, clean up my house, buy new clothes, watching movies and looking for new inspiration on the internet and in Antwerp. Yesterday, while I was drying my clothes at the laundromat, I heard a few big explosions. At first I thought some kids played with fireworks. But when I saw a woman running in panic in the laundromat and when I saw an army of policemen blocking the streets outside, I realized that something must have happened. At the end of the street where I was in, there was a robbery at a pharmacy and the robber was shot to death by the police. Here you can read the article in Dutch. I don't think the excitement can get any bigger this vacation. If I survive all the parties this weekend I'm going back to work on Monday.