This is a great tool, thank you Joel!  Basically you enter an address and Walk Score looks it up in Google map automatically collecting a list of interesting places you can reach on foot and finally computing a walkability score.  How easy it is to move on foot in your neighborhood?  Do you need a car?  The place where I work got 80 out of 100 which is defined as “Very Walkable: It’s possible to get by without owning a car”.  In fact I own a car by I never use it to go to work.  I usually ride a bicycle and believe me, it’s great.  I can’t stand the stress of traffic jams.

Was quite a bit I didn’t attend a concert and I’m a big fan of J.S.Bach, so tonight I was eager to go to the event at Santo Stefano al ponte.

After a wonderful performance of Air on a G string, the Academic Chamber Orchestra SKC University of Nis proposed Cantata BWV51 Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen. The soprano was very excited and lost attacks, lagged behind and ultimately appeared out of context. Watching director Milena Injac (a woman!) while she desperately tried to let her catch up was real fun.

Next was a very good Doppio Concerto BWV1060. I had never heard this one and was a nice suprise, expecially the bright and joyful 1st and 3rd movement.

Last came the well known Brandeburg concerto no.5 BWV1050. Despite the harpsichord Rossella Giannetti had probably never played with this orchestra before (and the fact was quite evident) I liked the performance.

So Christmas is coming. This golden rain picture has been taken in Florence, walking to Piazza della Signoria. I’m used to associate Christmas with cold, snow, winter, Santa, deers, but this just because I’m European. People living in the southern half of the planet have copletely different experience. This year I’m flying to Rio de Janeiro and will spend my new years eve on Copacabana beach. I’ll keep you posted, promise!

This week in Florence there has been France Cinema, a festival dedicated to french movies. This year’s edition was dedicated to world class actor Philippe Noiret, an actor that both France and Italy literally love. I’ve had the opportunity to watch several movies, and Zazie dans le métro is just one of them. As soon as I have time I’ll write something on Coeurs, definitely a masterpiece.

We moved our office to a new building. This is what we see from the window.

Last night I’ve been to Roberto Benigni’s show in Piazza Santa Croce. In the last few days Benigni has been reading Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, one different chant every night. Foreign people maybe don’t know, but this collection of three books (Hell, Purgatory and Heaven) and one hundred Cantos written in the 14th century is the foundation of italian language as well as a mandatory reading in our secondary school. More or less similar to Shakespeare’s Hamlet in the Anglo-Saxon countries. Well, maybe more Since they were forced to read it in their young age, many italians have nightmares when you talk about Dante, but actually everybody agrees is a great masterpiece.

Benigni is a unique actor and he is great at trasmitting pathos, fun, irony, and to explain the true meaning and beauty of this work. He red the 8th Canto, when Dante and Virgilio cross the Stige marsh heading to the gate of Dis. And he took the opportunity to talk about our country, our time, our world, in Dante’s perspective and using paradox and analogies, and all of this is in a wonderful scenery, surrounded by Santa Croce and the giant statue of Dante on the left. At the end of the show everybody felt elevated, in peace with the world. Of course I was in good company and that helped as well

Last night Daniele invited me and some more coworkers to have dinner at his family’s house. They live just outside Firenze, on the first hills of Impruneta. From their windows you can enjoy a breathtaking landscape over the valley. When you are there, in the middle of country and greenfields, it’s hard to believe that place is just 10 minutes from the city.

We enjoyed a wonderful meal in the tuscan tradition, composed of crostini appetizers, olives, grilled steaks and sausages, sangiovese wine, cantucci and vin santo. Besides meat and bread, everything else was made with ingredients that Daniele’s family grow in their property for themeselves. They grow olives and vegetables, make wine and oil, and they’re all great. The taste was so full that I believe no reastaurant can match it. Thank you Daniele!

This morning me and Anshul left Firenze for a trip to Chianti. He wanted to visit a winery, so I headed myself to Greve. We stopped there looking for some information and to visit a famous wine shop. The tourist info office was closed on sundays and while we were leaving, Jessica, Kate and Lauren, three cute canadian girls, stopped us asking for info and how to get to some wineries. These undergrad students were backpacking around Europe and felt a little lost because they had reached Greve from Firenze on a bus but on sundays almost everything was closed. “We have no car, can we come with you?”

Of course, we’ve been happy to say yes. We wandered a bit in the countryside before stopping to Fattoria Montagliari, a nice place just on the road that leads to Panzano where we’ve had a nice lunch, visited the vineyard and tasted their Chianti Classico (which by the way is not bad at all). This time I’ve played the expert, explaining the winemaking process to Anshul and the girls. After that, we continued on the road to Siena and visited Piazza del Campo, just to take a look. It’s been a lot of fun, expecially because of the nice company with the girls. Who would have ever said we were gonna meet three Canadians lost in the middle of Chianti today?

Welcome to the wonderful world of brand brand companies, that is, companies that instead of selling their products just approve their brand to be used on top of unknown 3rd party products. So today you can buy Mercedes shirts, tomorrow you will buy Lacoste ringtones and within next year you will see Dada cars. And all the three products will be produced in some 3rd world country, with workers payd few euros per day.  You can read all the story in No Logo, a very interesting book written by Canadian journalist Naomi Klein.
Even if this way of doing business is a already common in US, so far Italy seemed to be immune to this non-sense.  I mean, Italian consumer looked smarter.  For example, last year (almost) everyone laughed at FIAT shirts.  Now I’m starting to lose my hope.

Something is going really wrong in this world.