Another trip to Italy (Part1)

Recent years were very difficult for me, especially my first company decided to lay me off, giving no option after having told them my intention to pursue my academic career in Newcastle in the period of one year. After that, I could not find a good job. Last December I finally found a job to meet some of my wishes. But one week was good enough to know about my employer.
To customers and the public, he pretends to be very kind and cheerful. At work, he is very short-tempered. The worst thing is that he does not even speak good enough to communicate in Japanese (he is an Argentinean) and he cannot read or write at all in Japanese. He thinks as we, Japanese are not good enough to understand him. He can not use a computer properly! Even though he demands us to have competitive computer skills. He has no idea how EXCEL works!There is no possibility to continue to work, is it? Employees change so frequently because of his temper. In the end of trial period of 3 months, we broke up.

After a Spanish language exam, I decided to go to Italy for 3 weeks in order to relax and I have found good friends there.

On June 7, I set off for Italy. My last visit of Italy is March, 2002 and it was seven years ago. Since I travel to Europe almost every year, you may think it can't be true that I haven't been there for such a long time. This time, I decided to attend an Italian language course and stay in an appartment for 3 weeks.

The city I chose to stay this time is Modena, a relatively small city in the region of Emilia Romagna. The region is well-known for gastronomy: There is a saying - In Emilia Romagna, si mangia bene. (Literally, it is said that in Emilia Romagna people eat well.) Now, you know why I chose this city! You will soon find what are the specialty in this region's cooking.

Due to a delay of arrival at the Malpensa Milan International airport, I arrived in Modena one hour later than I informed to Romanica, an Italian language school. My landlord was kindly waited for me for some time. But I did not know and when I arrived at the appartment, a Spanish flatmate opened the door for me.

As you can see in pictures, my flat has a spacious living room and a nice view of a medieval square. “How wonderful condition to spend a few weeks of holidays and the school is within a one-minute walk! I can wake up at eight. There is enough time to take a shower and have a breakfast. ”