In the morning winter sun, everything's black and white, like an Italian Realism movie from the Fifties.
I spent the day with my Italian translator Daniele Brolli, he translated about six of my novels, including the Ware series. Daniele translates my SF word “uvvy” as “poppyno.” He's a good guy, a writer himself, journalism and novels, also scripts for Topolino (Mickey Mouse) comics. This picture was taken on Via Dante, crowded with Sunday strollers. Everyone out on the street today.
I had read in the guidebook that the Navigli (canal) district is cute and trendy and wanted Daniele to go there with me.
Whoops. The canals have been drained for cleaning, so it's not too scenic, also people mainly only go there at night. Daniele was maybe too polite to tell me this before I insisted on going there. So we cranked up on a couple of cups of tea and headed back into town.
Later he bought me a great dinner at a restaurant called da Ilia.
Speaking of Italian web addresses, they announce one in the tram every now and then over the speaker, and the initial part of the address comes out like “voo-voo-voo” — I'd been wondering why they were making that sound.
Daniele told me that zucca means “yam”, which figures, as I had zucca risotto last night and it had yellow cubes in it, this was at another good place called Le 5 Terre. Eating in Italy is where it's at.