Image by palmamod via Flickr

Among the several groups I’m part of on Facebook and the pages I’m a fan of, there are a few (both Italian and English) that belong to associations of women who have in common a little-known chronic illness, endometriosis.

I don’t want to explain it into too much detail, but it must be said that feeling pain during your period is NOT normal, it doesn’t heal itself with pregnancy and no, you’re not mad if every month you feel really bad, so my recommendation to everyone in this position is to go and get yourself checked by a good doctor to identify the causes.

In Italy, over 3 million women are affected by endometriosis, the number rises to 14 million in Eurpe and over 150 million worldwide, and I am one of them.

This brief introduction aside, the reason I talk about it and I’m not ashamed of doing so is because I would love for people to know about it, and help friends and their families to have a diagnosis as early as possible, to help preventing the condition affect as many organs as possible in the abdominal area. I am really happy to see some recent coverage on Italian TV!

I talk about it because I am tired about the ignorance around this condition, tired of often explaining why I had surgery, going into delicate detail. I saw doctors in Cagliari, Milan, Oxford, London and finally Negrar, near Verona.

A few days back I saw the association Endometriosis UK mention the adidas Women’s 5K Challenge. It takes place on the 11th of September in London’s Hyde Park, with a great number of women, all together, running (or walking!) for 5km to support a charity close to their heart.

It will be a “different” day, surely fun, and indeed an opportunity to know new people, and there’ll be cakes and drinks at the finish line! But above all, it will be a great day to support fantastic charities. Why not?!

I must admit I’m not a big fan of running, it’s something I find tiresome and boring, so I’m not really into it. But at the end of the day, I’ve been walking to work for years and, well, I can train, so to get to 5km when you’ve been walking in London is achievable. And there’ll be people much older than I am so why sould I not be able to do it? I’ve got great motivation to help me cross the finish line.

Another great aspect is that the Financial Times, my employer, is goingto match the finds I will be able to raise up to a maximum of £500, so I really have no excuses.

To run on the day (but who needs excuses to do some shopping!?) I got a nice adidas kit, with 10% of my purchase going to breast cancer research. So I’ll have a nice black and pink kit and I will have made not one but two good deeds!

If you’d like to support Endometriosis UK with me, you can donate here! Even a single pound will make a huge difference.

In the past with some friends we organised a couple of AperiTweets, bringing the proper Italian aperitivo to London. For one of the events we invited Endometriosis UK and we helped raise over £300.

The charity sent me a pack with tips on how to properly train in 8 weeks, with a schedule of about 30 minutes runs, 3 times a week. I do it for myself but above all for all the fantastic people I met on the AIE forum, in hospital in Negrar last Summer, and all the great people I only got round to meet “virtually” thanks to Facebook and other websites. A special thought goes to the girls in the Cagliari and Sardegna group.

I’ll try to make my best to keep you up to date in the coming weeks.

Exactly one year ago I was in hospital, I had a 5-hours surgery, a full day in intensive therapy and it took almost 2 months for a full recover. Now I get myself ready to run for charity to help support and research so that women can avoid going through what I did.

A special thank you goes to the fantastic men who are supporting me with their donations! And to Matteo who’s now my official personal trainer and will be supporting me on the day as well, with dry clothes and more cupcakes at the end;)

Wish me good luck, I’ll need it!

Image via Wikipedia

And just like this, we happily left the magical nothing that is Stepney Green. Not much to be said about the area really, it’s quiet and not much is happening, and the flat itself was nothing incredible, so we decided to move out at the end of the contract. There was nothing keeping us in the area, too, so we had a nice look for a few different options.

Our search brought us to the likes of Shadwell, Wapping, Stoke Newington, All Saints, as well as some “closer” optons such as Aldgate and Mile End. Nothing really struck us or impressed us particularly, but thankfully we allowed ourselves quite a bit of time to find the right place for us.

At the end, we decided for an area we hadn’t originally even had a look at, the Isle of Dogs.

Now of course don’t quote us on that, but we felt prices went up quite a bit in the last 18 months, and from what we’ve seen in those 3-4 months we were hunting we felt for the prices we’d seen the average quality of the flats was actually better in the Isle of Dogs.

After the usual stress that is moving out and into a new flat (although I have to say it all went pretty smoothly) we’ve now been here for a good 6 weeks an have enjoyed it so far. The area is quite nice: the DLR is about 10 minutes away (it drives itself!), we see the river from our little balcony, we have a little park literally 2 minutes away and Mudchute and Millwall parks a bit further away but still within walking distance.

We’ve had our first guests in the form of a few friends who came round visiting, and we went around exploring a bit the area. We’ve identified a couple of local pubs and bars (our favourites so far being the Lord Nelson and The George in Glengall Grove), visited the uber-posh Asda in Crossharbour and enjoyed a nice enough pizza from the local Firezza place. We’ve even been brave enough to cross the River to Sarf London courtesy of the tunnel connecting Island Gardens to Greenwich.

We still have a lot to see and many places to visit. For starters, we should be found at the DLR Tweetup (yep, pretty geek…) on Wednesday next week, but we’ll also be updating this map:

as well as this photo stream

Still, I won’t become a Millwall fan.

We recently entered the new Fred Perry “Tell us your story” competition. Their new micro-site is all about real people sharing real stories, and some are really great stories.

If you fancy supporting us by giving us your vote, you can do so from within our entries, here and here. You will find the “vote” option at the bottom of the post.

On a related note, I had the pleasure of being a guest on our friend Lolly‘s blog BlogTillYouDrop, where I talked about this very social media campaign. Check it out, and make sure you read the rest too ’cause she knows what she’s talking about.

On a non-related note, tomorrow we’re off to sunny Sardinia for the Easter festivities, and to see Cagliari – AC Milan. More about this in the next days!

Hi everyone, this is the first of a series of “catching up” posts. We’ve been quiet on our end despite quite a few things happening in the last months. First things first: we moved house!

The reason

We wanted to leave the previous flat for quite some time, for a series of reasons. First of all, we wanted to move from a studio flat to a one bed. But also, we wanted to leave the flat because of the noise (it faced a main road, with a bis stop right below the windows) and the fact that the entrance was on a cul-de-sac which wasn’t exactly nice. We had to extend the stay there because the 12 months rent would have ended on a busy time for us, but we gave the notice as soon as we could.

The hunt

We had two months to find a flat after we gave the notice. This is a strange period of time as some agents only require one month, so we struggled the very first days to find something suitable. We used Nestoria (yes, of course, I work there!) as primary search tool, as well as Globrix and Gumtree. I also took some time to go around on my bicycle on a nice day to “inspect” potential areas where we thought we could have moved to, particularly old Shoreditch, So-Da, South Hackney and London Fields.

We eventually decided for the third flat we saw, after one we didn’t particularly like and one we did but seemed a bit dodgy, as it was going to be with a private landlord, who we had not met, who would have had to “approve” us (hello?!). We found the flat through the agent’s website, after we noticed that their flats were on average, nicer than the others.

We managed to spend pretty much what we were paying before, and we have one additional room, without moving too far away (from Bethnal Green to Stepney Green).

The move

We had quite a few things we had to move from the old flat to the new one. On top of “the usual” clothes, kitchen stuff and books, we had to carry (well, we wanted to) a few items of furniture. We left the bed behind (and eventually handed it over to my cousin) because the landlord didn’t want to get rid of the one that was (and still is) here, but brought with us a sofa-bed, a bookshelf (adapted and used as a wardrobe), another bookshelf and a cd-dvd tower. This meant that we had to dismount all these items first (they’re all from Ikea), and then re-assemble them once on the new flat. I know, not ideal, but at the end of the day it’s stuff we “need”.

Last time we moved we had far fewer items to carry with us, and eventually moved on foot (distance was much smaller then) in an afternoon or so. This time, we hired a small van from Sixt (we’ve used them in the past, in the UK and abroad, and we’ve always been happy with them) for a day and had 4 or 5 journeys to move everything.

The flat

Well, first of all it’s a one bedroom flat, which is an improvement from the previous flat. It’s on a nice rear alley, so it’s much more quiet than the previous one (we actually get to sleep nicely now!), in a 19th century building. It’s not a mansion, of course, nor it is a fantastic flat in itself: the kitchen is smaller than it seemed initially, and there’s not much storage space. But it’s got two separate rooms, which is what we wanted both for ourselves and for having guests without them being in the same room where we sleep all the time.

We were very lucky in finding nice tenants moving out: they helped us a lot in getting utilities sorted out, finding out which items of furniture were going to stay, they had us around for tea as well!

What we learnt from all this

One of the most important things we have now learnt is the fewer things you carry with you, the easier the move. We had to buy items of furniture for the previous flat, and this of course gets in the way when you move. Try to look for furnished flats, and if you really can’t avoid buying furniture, try to arrange for it to be left behind (either sold or just left) in the flat you’re moving out of. Unfortunately, we could not do this as the flat was not let yet when we moved out, and we had to leave it as we found it. Lame, I know.

Another thing, try to avoid moving around Christmas. We did so because we wanted to move out as soon as possible while still respecting the contract, but we also knew we were going to be home in Italy for some 10 days. This made us want to secure a flat before we went, putting additional pressure on us for a task that is already delicate in itself.

One of the things we will look for in the next flat is a shorter contract. You don’t know if a flat is ideal for you until you move in, and if it’s not ideal and you are on a long term contract this can be a serious problem. Now, we’re now on a 14 months contract (18 months really, but it ends up being 12+2) and if we want to move out before that term we need to make sure we find new tenants. Not ideal.

What about you? Do you have any “moving” story you would like to share with us? Please do so by leaving us a comment!

Hi fellas, just a quick update to let you know we’re going to take a break from the London life and enjoy some sunshine in Sardinia. We will think about you all the time, I promise.

Especially while we’re here…

See you in a week!

(img courtesy of TomStardust on Flickr)

Are you finding your way around London then? Are you a master of the Tube, a prophet of the buses? Even though you might have fallen in love with the public transport, this post might be of some interest to you.

In many cases, in fact, you could be better off trying other routes and means of transport.

Courtesy of Giac Palmieri on Flickr

Cycling around

One thing you’ll sure notice when in London is the number of people cycling in the traffic. Sure, there are better cities to cycle, with more dedicated routes, better maintained streets, and less traffic overall. But cycling is still, probably, the best way to commute and generally go from a to b.

Take my journey to work: 20 minutes on foot to get to Liverpool Street station, 7 minutes on the Central Line to Holborn, and then 4 minutes to get to the office. 31 minutes, and some £1.60 tube fare (off peak). On the bus, it’s about 25 minutes (according to the TFL, but it’s more close to 40-45), plus some 5 minutes on foot to get to the bus stop and then to the office, for £1 on an Oyster Card.

I usually cycle to work, unless it’s really rainy, and it takes me 20 to 25 minutes, and no money. And if I’m not, I take the bus.As for the route, I tend to take the shortest possible. Some people prefer less busy streets or their journey, but I don’t really mind. I do Finsbury Square, Barbican, Smithfields Market and then Holborn. Not exactly pedestrian-only areas, but it’s the shortest way.

You can find information about cycling in London, again, on the TFL website. For a map of cycling routes all over the world (and particularly detailed for London) check OpenCycleMap, which is based on the excellent OpenStreetMap.

Put on your walking shoes

In January I walked to work almost every day, sort of an experiment. Google Maps says it’s a 55 minutes walk, and  agree with that. The fastest it took me was 45 minutes on a non-running pace. All in all, I think it’s worth walking if the distance you need to cover is less than 1 or 2 tube stations (in central London at least), or if you need to change too many times. You can walk the 200 metres that separate Bank Station and Mansion House Station, rather than take the Central Line eastbounds, change at Liverpool Street, and then Circle Line through Aldgate, Tower Hill, Monument and Cannon Street. See the advantages here?

Do you have any tips for cyclists and/or walkers? Do you cycle or usually walk yourself? Would you mind sharing them?

So how are your first days going? Found your accommodation in London? Sorted out stuff like bank account and National Insurance Number? We hope so… You could have well found a job in the meanwhile, and, unless you’re particularly lucky, you will need to commute to get to your work place. The transport system in London is fairly simple to understand in principle, although more often than not practice is different.

Going Underground

Courtesy of Coffee Lover on Flickr

The Underground lines are given different names and colours, so it’s highly unlikely that you’ll get the wrong one. As for the directions, trains go northbound, eastbound, southbound and westbound, so you’ll need to have a rough idea of where you are and where you’re going to. But this shouldn’t be big news, uh? Platforms have monitors for you to know when the next train is due, and where it is going, which is useful for those lines that have different destinations, or for those travelling fairly far on the lines, as trains might terminate earlier than your destination.

All stations on the London Underground network offer free tube maps, which you can keep in your pocket and check if needed. The tube is definitely the best mean of transport for mid to long commutes but they are also very crowded during peak hours: try catching the Central Line around 8.30 to 9 in the morning, and let us know. We don’t do that any more.

London Buses

Buses are those typical red doubledeckers that are so well known among tourists (we KNOW they’re at least in one picture of yours!), but that the very same tourists don’t use. img The buses system is a bit more complicated than the tube, but once you use it a couple of times it gets much, much better. To me, tourists tend to avoid buses because they’re not sure about where they go. Plus, they don’t have a bus map, right? Wrong! They’re not as easy to find as the tube ones, but most underground station and information points should have them available for free. Buses have line numbers and destination written above the driver’s seat, and on the left side. You can’t miss them. You will also see many other places named: it’s where the bus is going to before reaching the destination, but they are not necessarily in the correct order, remember. Buses make you understand the city better in my opinion: you have windows that don’t face a tunnel but buildings, parks, streets and people. But they might not be the best mean of trasport: if there’s a traffic jam, there’s very little a bus can do. There are bus lanes, but they are shared with cylists and, recently, with motor bikes.

Overground Trains and the DLR

There are two other sevices (well, three, there are also boats on the Thames) that we don’t really use, and therefore cannot offer our views on, and they are the Overground tranins and the Docklands Light Railway. The DLR operates, guess what, in the Docklands area, and is (hey hey) a light railway. The Overground is nothing but a normal trains network. You will find all sort of information on underground, buses, DLR and overground trains in the Transport for London website.

Our experience

The overall transport system works, and works well. Night buses operate along the tube lines when the Underground closes at night, so, in theory, where the tube gets, buses can too. I personally have preferred buses for some time now, and only jump on the tube if the journey is too long and/or I need to change more than once. But I ride a bike, so that doesn’t count really. Just read part 2 of this mini-series, where I’ll tell you about private transport. Private as in ‘your own’ private transport. Cause sometimes you’re better off cycling or walking.

18 months. One-and-a-half years.

That’s the time we’ve been living in London, and the ‘recurrence’ was last week. We didn’t do anything to celebrate it (I actually remembered about it just now!), but we should have. It seems a long time now that I think of it, but it’s like yesterday that first week…

Back then, we didn’t have any accommodation, we only booked a b&b for a couple of days, in the hope to get a room as quickly as possible. Finding a place to stay is a very tiring quest, you know that. We had some areas in mind, mostly due to tube connections to my Uni and Gioia’s work, but we didn’t know the city well, so we ran up and down, calling landlords and booking viewings with no breaks.

The whole process was not helped by the fact that Gioia was starting to work on the Thursday (we flew in on a Monday afternoon), and we were lucky enough to find a room in Bethnal Green late in the afternoon of Wednesday!! The space was available from the Sunday, so Gioia started working while we were still in that tiny room in the b&b, round Victoria. I managed to find a job the following day, close to where we would have lived, which I started the very same day.

We stayed there for about 9 months, but more about this will follow.

What we’ve learned. Tips for you.

It’s never easy to move to a new city. London is no different in this: it’s big and scary, although you can be helped by the fact that you could know someone to help you finding a caouch/room/flat, especially in the very first days. A positive aspect is given by the fact that maybe you know the city to a certain extent, or at least are familiar with the tube map (although London and Underground London are two very different entities). Before we moved, the tube map was my desktop wallpaper on my laptop, for me to get used to the areas once we got there. It worked for me, you could try it too.

Also, it’s very important for you to get a UK mobile sim as soon as possible. Just get a pay-as-you-go one, as you’ll need it to call the landlords. Try to avoid the ones by brands you don’t know, they might be difficult to top-up. Go for O2, Orange, T-Mobile or Vodafone, they’re all about the same. You can change your plan later.

Get a weekly Oyster card for the Underground, for the zones you might need (likely 1-2 or 1-4). You’ll need it, as you’ll likely travel quite a lot in the first days. Also, consider putting some pay-as-you-go cash on it, especially if you get the weekly for zones 1-2, as you might end up further than you originally thought. In these digital days, be sure you are familiar with the Transport for London website and their journey planner.

Use the web but don’t rely just on that. There are hundreds of tools to help you with your quest, you have to find the one most suitable for your particular case. If you’re planning to share a flat/house, than Gumtree is probably the best solution (although you’ve got to be careful). If you want to stay on your own, and find a place through a agent, use a property search engine, where you’re going to find properties from different portals. My suggestion is use Nestoria (which I work for, but, honestly, it’s probably the best tool out there). But don’t just stay on the web. Go offline. Which bring us to the next tip…

Buy Loot. It is issued three times a week, make sure you buy it in the morning on the day it comes out (any newsagent will do). Early in the morning. Sit down, with that and a pen. Circle the places that you want to view, and call. And then call. And then call.

And finally…

You will find a place. It might take a day of a week, but you’ll find one. Just be patient.

These were just some thoughts about our first days in London, and some suggestions for you not to make the same mistakes we made. Do you have any other tips of your own? Is there any other little secret you migh want to share with us?

Tonite is a great night for us Italians in London. The football National team is playing Brazil in a friendly at the Emirates Stadium.

It’s a rare occasion to see the two best teams in the world, with 9 (n-i-n-e) World Cups won among the two. The top winner Brazil plays the current title holder Italy: the match is completely sold-out, and that means some 60 thousands people will cheer for Italy and/or Brazil (you never know!), or just enjoying what we hope will be a good game of football.

In what is going to be a very Italian evening, we’ll have a pizza before the game. The chosen destination is a little place in Drury Lane, in between Holborn and Covent Garden. It’s my favourite pizza place around work, and Gioia never managed to have a pizza there. We managed to meet once there during our lunch break, but that happened on the day the oven wasn’t working…

So we’ll get some pizza tonite, I checked earlier today and everything seems fine.

Write you later about the match!