From the New York Times:
Premier Romano Prodi won a confidence vote Wednesday in the Senate, ensuring the survival of his center-left government.
The vote in the upper house of parliament was 162-157.
Prodi resigned last week after a defeat in the Senate on the government’s foreign policy. But the president had asked him to stay on and put his Cabinet to new confidence votes in parliament.
On Friday, Prodi will submit his nine-month government to the judgment of the lower house, where he has a comfortable majority.
So it looks like Prodi’s getting another shot at
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Remember when I mentioned that Italian politics were confusing? Well, add this feather to that cap. Last week, Premier Romano Prodi handed in his resignation to Italy’s president following a defeat in the Senate, right? President Giorgio Napolitano rejected Prodi’s resignation over the weekend, so now he’s facing a confidence vote in both chambers of parliament. The leader of Prodi’s coalition’s largest party is sure they’ve got a majority which will return Prodi to power.
The “do-or-die” vote in the Italian Senate is tomorrow, followed by a vote in the House
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Now, this would be something to see - Vatican soccer teams made up of priests and trainee clergyman start playing this Saturday in a bid for the Clericus Cup.
On February 19th Italy celebrated “World Slow Day,” which was apparently amazingly successful, as the announcement hit the sites I read the day after the event. Now that’s slow.
Want to get out of that speeding ticket? You’d better be on your way to performing a dying man’s last rites.
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If just being in the land that spawned such racing legends as Lamborghini and Maserati isn’t enough, why not rent a Ferrari to drive around in?
Red Travel (because yes, Ferraris should be red) offers one-eight day self-drive tours through Lazio, Umbria and Tuscany. Worried about getting lost? Or wondering where on earth you’ll put your luggage in that little two-seater? Never fear, Red Travel has you covered - a guide drives the pace car (in which your luggage is also transported) and you simply follow the leader in your Ferrari. And because
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There are a million regional food specialties all over Italy, some of which make up what we think we know as Italian food in America. One item that - as far as I can tell - hasn’t made it across the pond is Siena’s contribution to the world of sweets: Panforte.
Panforte is a dense cake filled with nuts and dried fruits and flavored with a mix of spices that (to me) makes it taste like a Christmas confection. It’s often covered in what looks like powdered sugar, but it’s not. I have no idea what it’s called, but
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I know plenty of people who steer clear of the doctor’s office at almost any price. I’m not one of them. If my usual arsenal of pain relievers or whatever else I have stashed away isn’t doing the trick, I’m on the phone to the doc’s office, where the nurses often know me by name. Several of my girlfriends are not only not interested in going to the regular doctor’s office, however, they get anxiety attacks about their annual visit to the gynecologist. Needless to say, I didn’t pass along this expat’s experience with the gyno in Italy:
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If you can’t get to Italy to immerse yourself in the language, the next best thing is to surround yourself with the sound of Italian. Taking a class is a great way to begin (and as an Italian teacher, I have to say that!), and if you’re looking for ways to increase your familiarity with Italian on your own time, the web is full of ways to do that. At the moment, I’m listening to a conversation about the Italians’ love of Nutella on LearnItalianPod. There’s a brief introduction, a short
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Now here’s something that makes you warm and fuzzy for two reasons - eco-friendly hotels and free train travel in Italy!
Through August 2007, a handful of eco-friendly hotels in Italy are supporting eco-friendly travel by offering their guests free round-trip train tickets from anywhere in Italy. They’ll reimburse second-class fare (including the fast Eurostar trains) - if you’ve never taken the train in Italy, don’t be put off by the term “second-class.” It’s really quite nice, and usually first class isn’t worth the hefty surcharges.
At any rate, it’s only around 30
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Italy’s Premier, Romano Prodi, resigned his post today “after losing a Senate vote on his government’s foreign policy” regarding Italian troop levels in Afghanistan and the expansion of an American military base in Vicenza.
Italian politics are nothing short of bewildering - this is, after all, a country that has had 60 governments since World War II. The position of prime minister comes with a five-year term, but in all that time Silvio Berlusconi is the only one to have made it to the end of a term. Prodi’s resignation doesn’t necessarily mean
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Today is Martedì Grasso, otherwise known as “Mardi Gras,” otherwise known as Fat Tuesday. Whatever it’s called, the idea is the same - it’s the final day before Lent begins, so it’s the last chance Catholics the world over have to gorge themselves silly on everything they’re trying to give up starting tomorrow. Not being Catholic myself (and having essentially no will power to resist sugar of any kind), I can’t imagine going through the massive mood swing that must be - stuffing yourself with chocolate one day, and swearing it off for forty days the very next morning. The body must just scream, “What are you doing to me, you tease? That’s just not cool.” Or something like that.
At any rate, those who aren’t Catholic but who happen to live in Catholic areas get to benefit from all the wonderful things about the days leading up to Lent without having to give anything up afterwards, right? Not so fast. Sure, I can eat chocolate tomorrow if I want to, but there are some treats that only come along during Carnevale and disappear during Lent - only to come back the following year. Shelley talks about her favorite among them - frappe. And you thought that was some kind of mamby-pamby blended coffee drink, didn’t you?
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