I'm home sick again.  Sore throat.  Half the school is ill with something.  I think we're all rotting as hasn't stopped raining in weeks.  This is winter in Central Europe.  Last year's beautiful, sunny season was all an illusion to keep me from packing my bags and escaping while I still could.  Now I'm trapped and mouldering.  Sooooooo, as I needed to get a slip from the doctor, which makes me feel like a naughty schoolgirl, I used this occasion to show him the results of my recent blood tests.  It would seem that I've been misbehaving.  Oh retrieveth your minds from the gutter.  Not like that!  (It was the naughty schoolgirl comment wasn't it?)   No, alas, my cholesterol is a wee bit high.  (Note that in Italy the ceiling is 240 not 200).  And though I'm sure it has nothing at all to do with the incredible Italian chocolate that I barely nibble or the 200 types of local cheeses that almost never pass my lips, he's cut me off and told me to retake the test in 3 months.  Son of a bitch.  Of course now all I can think about is chocolate and cheese.
My doctor is actually a lovely man though I only understand half of what he says.  I don't know if it's the vocabulary he uses, MEDICAL words and such, or the fact that he bites off the ends of his words and speaks really quickly.  I always have to lean forward and watch his lips while he's talking, and ask a lot of questions to clarify.  I'm sure he thinks I'm strange but he wouldn't be the first.  Every time I go in I get a lecture on some discourse.  Today it was beef.  Locally raised, free range beef is good.  German beef raised in "lagers", or concentration camps, and shot up with hormones and antibiotics, is bad.  There are two things to be said here.  First of all, lots of Italians still dislike the Germans, as seen by the use of the word "lagers" when describing the factory raised beef imported from the neighbors in the north.  Secondly, as I pointed out, the raising of animals in this industrial, inhumane way, probably came from the U.S..  He ignored me and continued his rant.  It's not the first time I've heard Italians blame all that's evil on the Germans.  There is a lot of resentment left over from the war, especially in the North where it was occupied for so long.  I think they'll still need another generation before the slate is wiped clean.  GP's parents were children during the occupation and have vivid memories of executions and disappearances of neighbors, of brothers being beaten and of having to run and hide in the wine cellars.  As long as their generation is alive so are all those memories.  Strange but most of the Germans I know are vegetarians.  xxoo me