Yes, we’ve been extremely quiet, in fact for the last couple of months.

We’re glad we’ve left 2010 fully behind, with a few things finally over and plenty of things to look forward to.

We’ve had a nice weekend in Paris in November (although the constant rain meant we did not get to try the Velib) and a good break over Christmas between Trieste and Cagliari. Our aim for this year is to go out more, see more places, do more things, eat more diverse things, be healthier, be generally happier.

Gioia is fine, working hard on her conferences, and being rewarded for it. Since the last time we spoke I chenged job, and left the lovely guys at Lokku to join the lovely guys at We Are Social, where I work on some really cool stuff and look forward to even cooler stuff. I am very happy. I’m having a bit of an odd year with the football, as I’m not watching any AC Milan match due to Ibrahimovic wearing the shirt. I’m kind of regretting it at the moment, but hey, I’ve got to stick to it! Also, I bought the home shirt so I played my bit in supporting my team! (in this very moment AC Milan is 3-0 up against Bari in the Cup and I’m here writing!)

I’m not promising anything, but we’ll try to stay in touch as much as life allows us to do so!

As some of you might remember, last year on October 15 we discussed about Climate Change as part of Blog Action Day 2009, giving our 2 cents. This year, on the same date, Blog Action Day 2010 will try to address the problem of water.

We will try to do our bit this year, too.

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We are joining Blog Action Day 2009 to help raise awareness on climate change. It might seem weird, given that this has been talked about for decades now, but there’s an awful lot to do to help our future children and their children live in a better world, and give ourselves a decent chance for some healthier years ahead, too.

What are we doing to help stop climate change?

Personally, we do not travel with private transport. Within London, we commute either on foot or by bicycle and, if we need to go somewhere further than usual, then buses or tube. Green or public transport. It is not easy to see the immediate effect of this of course, but London is a pretty “cycling city” (not at the Dutch or Danish levels, but better than most big cities in Italy…) and more and more people are cycling, so please consider switching to a bike rather than driving to work. Many companies offer schemes to help you buy a bike and spread its cost on 6 or 12 months.

Unfortunately recycling is a bit of a mess round where we live, and people seem to throw away stuff any day of the week without any apparent logic, but we’ll soon be moving (more on this to follow) and will get back to recycling in a proper way. Also, recycling seem to work differently borough by borough, so make sure you check with your local authority to avoid surprises.

Also, water plays big part in our life, right? So make sure you don’t waste it. Limit as much as possible the flow of water whern you don’t need it: washing-up and brushing your theeth are obvious examples, but think about your toilet flush, too. You can place a solid body within your box so that it gets filled with less water, thus reducing the waste.

What about you? Are you doing enough?

Tell us about your efforts towards a hopefully better future, we’d love to hear them, as there’s never too much greenness in one’s life.

Hey guys, we’re back from Sardinia. That’s not big news cause some of you have already met us in the meanwhile (and yes, we’ve been back a while).

AperiTWeat 3.0

Most likely at AperiTWeat 3.0. We’ve had our third London twitter aperitivo at the fantastic Viva Verdi, by TATE modern. It was a very pleasant and enjoyable night, and we are very proud and thankful to all of you who attended (and Lovebox, of course) for having helped us raising funds for Endometriosis UK. £150 were raised on the night, and will generously be matched by the FT, adding up to £300 for the charity.

A big thank you to our friend Niamh, and a goodbye too. She’ll be flying to New York in some days, and we wish her a big good luck for this new adventure! We’ll come and visit you just to make sure you don’t mess things up!

Blitz are 8-0 and at the playoffs

In the meanwhile, the BAFL Premier League regular season is now over, and the London Blitz won all their home games too to make it 8-0! We conceded only 36 points in the whole of the season so far, recording 4 shutouts too! We will now head into the playoffs, with the semifinal at home on Sunday, the 6th of September, at Finsbury Park, where we will be facing the Farham Knights.

And, holidays

[flickr-gallery mode="photoset" photoset="72157622152053814"]
Yes, we were on holidays. We took a much much needed break, and now it looks like we almost never did. Uff… We enjoyed a week of hot sunshine (it peaked 40 degrees, we pictured it), not-too-crowded beaches and transparent sea. I personally quite liked the mojitos, too. We missed that a lot and actually I realised I had not taken a proper swim in the sea for the whole of this summer and the previous one too. I did some bodyboarding in Bilbao in December (of course…) but that’s a different thing. For someone having been born on the seaside that’s a lot of time. And, we miss it again already, so we made sure we’ll take some days off as soon as Gioia will submit her dissertation. But that’s a secret. Unless you’re connected to us on Dopplr.

On a side note, I’m very pleased we went on holiday without any laptop. Yes, we did have our iPhones, but still… But of course we got ourselves a little busy anyway. Ready?

Gioia e il papa' Sergio

This is a picture we took of Gioia and her dad Sergio at the market where he works as a butcher. We had an idea and some brainstorming and the result is we created a blog for his butcher shop! You can check it out: Macelleria Sergio Serra. He’ll be posting some traditional recipes based on bovine meat, which is what he’s specialised in, alongside some comments about the Serie A and the Cagliari games. Make sure you visit them at the Mercato di San Benedetto, in Cagliari, he’s upstairs, at the stand 29!

It’s now only two weeks to go before AperiTWeat 3.0 takes place at Viva Verdi, behind TATE Modern, on the South Bank. We would like you to know that we added a special extra to our event, by joining forces with the guys at Lovebox.

We spoke with Kaushik, Darshan and Michael, who were more than happy to join us to support research for endometriosis. With the help of Lovebox, the next Aperitweat will help raise funds for Endomteriosis UK, the main charity in the uk in support to research.

We are really working hard to make this event a success: the cause is really close to us and we would really love to play our part and, possibly, make a difference.

Come along on Tuesday, August 18, after 6.30pm, at Viva Verdi, the lovely Italian wine bar we chose for Aperitweat 3.0. You can RSVP here to let us know you’re coming. If you want to help us raise funds and awareness for endometriosis research, great! If you cannot make it, but would still like to donate, you can visit this dedicated page at Lovebox, and spread the voice!

We’d really appreciate it.

Hope to see you there!

Hey, what’s up?

Just to update you a little bit on what’s going on here. In these very days it’s a bit of a celebration time for us, as it’s a year we’ve lived in the flat. We were thinking about moving a couple of months ago, mainly to look for something a bit bigger, but did not find anything “wow” that impressed us straight away, so here we are. It seems yesterday that we went to Ikea to get ourselves a bed and a wardrobe as very first and bare necessities. Then came the darkening courtains and other decorations, but, well, it does not seem like a year.

(Yes, we will post some pictures. And yes, the reason for us not doing so is the mess. We’re sure you’ll understand).

As for the more recent past, well, a few things have been going on. The most relevant are Aperitweat, the trip to Warwick and Coventry, and the kickoff of the London Blitz season.

AperiTWeat 1.0 (and 2.0)

we already told you about the little private rehearsal we had for AperiTWeat. We had a very successful 1.0 event at Al Volo, on the 15th of April. Over a hundred people turned up and enjoyed the typical Italian Aperitivo drinks and the lovely home made food, kindly offered by Al Volo, for a good 4 hours of relaxed networking and having fun.

In fact, AperiTWeat 1.0 was so successful that attendees, when leaving, actually were asking us (that’s Gioia, Laura, Niamh, Carmen, Julius and I) when we’re going to organise the next event. Well, to answer that question, on the 20th of May. Same venue, Al Volo restaurant, Ely’s Yard (just off Brick Lane), who will kindly provide their food once again, only slightly later, taking into account work committments and taking advantage of the (hopefully approaching) English Summer.

All the information you will need can be found at our AperiTWeat website. Don’t forget to RSVP here if you plan to attend!

Kenilworth, Warwick Castle and Coventry

Warwick Castle from Matteo Starri on Vimeo.

We had a lovely two-day trip to somewhere very close to our hearts. Gioia was invited to take part into a fam trip by the Sundial Group, so we headed towards Coventry on a Friday after work, from where we then we reached Kenilworth, where we had a lovely dinner and stay at the Woodside resort. The folowing morning we enjoyed a visit to Warwick Castle: it was not new for both us, although we never had the chance to visit together. The morning was very pleasant and we took part in a treasure hunt organised by the guys at Adventure Sports: it was a very nice way of going around the castle itself and the surrounding park (although we did pretty bad in the hunt itself!).

After lunch we headed back towards Coventry, but we first stopped at Warwick University campus. This was the first time we got back to Warwick Uni after we finished our Erasmus year in June 2006, so it was nice to just have a walk around the campus in the April sunshine. Although they are working to renew the Students’ Union, and the number 1 bus no longer stops at the same place, everything else is pretty much the same. And, for being a sunny April Saturday afternoon, well, there were quite a lot of people around the library!!! Go out! Enjoy yourselves!!!

We then went to Earlsdon, the area where we used to live, and made the most out of the afternoon with some outdoor drinks with our friends Anita and Herbert (who we had not seen for ages, shame on us) at the City Arms, and then moved to the Royal Oak, the pub we used to work in 2006.

It’s nice to have some time outside London every so often, it really recharged our batteries!

London Blitz

The American Football season kicked off! I only now realised I haven’t told you that I joined the London Blitz this year: I have been playing American Football for some 6 years now, but last year did not manage to find enough time to committ to play the game. This year, now that my MA is over, I joined the London Blitz, and I am playing the BAFL Premier League. The first of 4 road games resulted in a 40-16 win over the home team, the Bristol Aztecs. We then played at Aldershot against the Farnham Knights, again winning away from home, this time the final score was 44-6 to the Blitz.

You can check out some pics from Farnham and Bristol over at Dan’s gallery.

We’ll get back to more frequent posting in the future, rest assured!

We told you we went to ShoreditchTwit a couple of weeks ago, suggesting you stayed tuned for some exciting news coming up. Well, it’s now gone official so we can tell you that Gioia and I, together with our friends Carmen, Julius, Niamh and Laura, are organising AperiTweat, on April 15.

But your question is, WTF is this AperiTweat?

AperiTweat is enjoing ourselves, first of all. Enjoying some drinks with a bunch of friends. So, what’s new I hear you asking. The new twist is given by the Aperitivo concept behind it. Aperitivo (ethimologically speaking, it’s something that “opens”, “starts”) is the Italian tradition of having some drinks after work, before going out/home for dinner. Mostly popular in the North of Italy, Aperitivo consists of drinks, often had outside bars, standing and chatting, accompained by free food. Yes, you read it right. Free food.

We are now bringing this to you, fellow Tweeps. The date is the 15th of April, the venue is Al Volo, in Ely’s Yard, just off Brick Lane.

View Larger Map

It’s in here, on the left. Shame on Streetview for not going in there.

In the very spirit of the Aperitivo, the event will start at 6.30, after work. This will also allow people willing to attend ShoreditchTwit (same day, roughly next door) to do so.

So, want to join us? Well you should be on Twitter, first of all. You can RSVP here, and see what’s going on at our website.

Oh, also don’t forget to check out @aperitweat, #aptw and #aperitweat on Twitter!

See you there!

We’re going to start some sort of series in the next days (take it loosely, it might be in the next weeks), about some of our favourite places in London.

The idea is to go through our views on pubs, restarants, clubs, markets, and so on, places we visited on purpose, or we just found ourselves in. It’s not going to be some random

Stay tuned for these updates, we’ll keep you posted!

Hey there,

This is the first post here on TwoExpats, thanks for reading us.

We are Gioia and Matteo, two Italians living in London since August 2007. We are both working full-time, Gioia is also going to complete an MA in September.

This blog is (going to be) about ourselves, but in a way that you might like even if you don’t know us. We don’t do anything special, really. We enjoy our time together, enjoy London, enjoy our life as much as we can. We’ll try to entertain you, and, possibly, be useful somehow. Just tell us if we’re boring you.

We hope this won’t happen.

Write you later!