Mortadella for Breakfast!

Finally I have what I have been longing for since November: I am in Italy! Physically I started my journey to Italy with a free train ride form Chiasso to Millano Garibaldi on Monday evening, where I took the taxi to reach the hotel. However, in reality I arrived the other day in the morning when I had Mortadella for breakfast. I saw it less as a culinary experience, but as a symbolic and authentic start of my trip in Italy. The day went on very well and ended in Parma. Parma? I took my not one second to guess what I will be looking for the diner. Parma Ham. But it came even better. I had the big pleasure to taste Culatelllo, a very specific piece of ham only produced in a small area in Italy. I have to admit it was even better than already delicious Parma ham. But since Italians do have their own gourmet culture and traditions, the Culatello (together with Salami, Coppa, ham, Parma ham) was just the Antipasti. We went on with Prima Plati and tasted some Chnocchi with Gorgonzola sauce and Tortelli filled with spinach and Ricotta. After this I was FULL! We skipped the secondi plati and ended up with the desert: The best Parmiganio ever with pears and honey. New to this combination I had a high fly taste-in-my-mouth experience. Really delicious.

So far my testimonials from culinary Italy. Since I am currently not belonging to the vicious world of the Blackberry or something similar (and I am happy with this), I am constantly running after the internet. Between meetings, meals and sleeping I need to be able to catch up with regular daily business. But experience shows that internet is sometimes available, but you can not rely on it. Either the signal is too weak, or the connection only provides 2kB/sec. Impossible to do the little necessary. Even worse, it is upsetting me and I start thinking about alternative solutions for the future. And in the future it is likely to have similar situation than I am experiencing at the moment, meaning.: On the road, no office and a clear need to communicate and access information stored on the server, e-mail, etc.. What options exist? I want to preserve my private life, I do not want to let work be 24h around me. But still, I need a better solution than now. Do you have any idea?

By the way: In the meantime I arrived in Rimini. It is cold and grey and the beaches and hotels are empty - it almost scares me. In the summer it must be a different world here.