Author: René Seindal
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Circumnavigation of Sicily
The circumnavigation of Sicily won’t be this time. Progress has been much too slow, and the time I have will not allow us to recover the delay. We’ve done about 125km in a week, and we’ve only just made it to the north side of the island. Another purpose of the journey, for me, was…
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Periplo della Sicilia
Il periplo della Sicilia non si fa questa volta. Il progresso è stato troppo lento, e il tempo disponibile non permette di ricuperare. In una settimana abbiamo fatto sui 125km, e siamo appena arrivati sulla costa nord dell’isola. Un altro scopo del viaggio, per me, era di rivedere tanti amici siciliani, soprattutto nel palermitano e…
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Sicily Circumnavigation 2010
In March, 2010, I intend to paddle around the Mediterranean island of Sicily, a trip of some 900 km along a stunningly beautiful coastline, where, besides the natural beauty of the coast and the sea, we’ll pass Greek temples, Phoenician settlements, Roman ruins, Arab architecture, Norman city fortresses, Spanish towers, baroque cities, active vulcanoes and…
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The Joys of Being a Foreigner – Paying Online
This is really nothing new, as it has bothered me for a couple of years now, but since I’ve ended up doing a series of Being a Foreigner posts, I can just as well toss in this grievance too. I have a Vodafone number on my phone, on a prepaid contract as they won’t make…
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The Joys of Being a Foreigner – Cittadinanza Digitale
The Cittadinanza Digitale – digital citizenship – is a very laudable project of the City of Venice with the scope of bringing fast wireless internet to all citizens for free. As far as I have understood, the project started when the city got the chance to buy a optic fiber network which covered most of…
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The Joys of Being a Foreigner – Opening a Bank Account
When I decided to stay here in Venice for good, one of the first things to do is to open a bank account. You can only have your money lying around in envelopes for about so long 🙂 I went to one of the local banks, the Banco San Marco, and they were very nice…
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The Joys of Being a Foreigner – Telecom Italia and Alice
Living in another country always causes problems of one kind or the other. Both public administration and private companies are geared towards the citizens, not foreigners, and justly so. Yet at times you run into problems so stupid its hard not to get a bit annoyed. Telecom Italia is the largest provides of telephony and…
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Lessico Veneto – Malamocco
I recently found some scanned books from Venice of times past. One of them is a kind of historical encyclopedia from the mid 19th century, and I must say it has its little oddities 🙂 The entry for Malamocco – a small hamlet on the Lido di Venezia with a glorious past – reads: Malamocco,…
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Skim Kayaks suspends production
I’ve just received a message, in Swedish, from Skim Kayaks stating that they’re suspending production and sales because they’re having problems making ends meet economically. Its sad because the boats are fantastic. I have paddled a Skim Distance around Sardinia, and will take it around Sicily in March, and I have recently bought a Skim…
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Female Gondoliere
Until recently all gondoliere in Venice were men. This summer a Venetian woman, the daughter of a gondoliere, decided to try the exam, and she passed it as the first woman ever. New gondoliere will start to work as substitutes for the older gondoliere, taking their turns when they’re unable to do so. They also…
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Acqua Alta
Yesterday we had one of the first acqua alta‘s of the winter. It wasn’t exceptionally high, reaching a level of 100cm above the historical average water level, but it was just enough to wet a few places around the city, and more than enough to ground all but a few of the gondolas of the…
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The Elagoonephant revealed
The elephant sculpture in the lagoon now has a father too – the sculpture is made by the Dutch artist Serge Van de Put. The Elagoonephant The Angry Elagoonephant