James & Vilija

A very quick post to tell you about some very random things that have happened recently:
1. It snowed in the outskirts of Genova last week - yes in March - Spring!!!! Ahhh, global warming!!

2. Last night, close to midnight, we’d just come home from the cinema, and all of a sudden we heard these huge explosions! We looked outside and were treated to the most spectacular fireworks display on the Port that we’ve seen in years. We have no explanation as to why we were treated to this display, its not a national or local holiday, so ??? But here are a few pics.

We’re off to Florence this weekend so that should be GREAT

We’ve been pretty busy over the last few weekends trying to get more sightseeing in before our time is up. Two weekends ago we finally made it up north to Brescia where a friend of ours (also from Melbourne) is living. Marco (who we spent New Years with) moved to Brescia about 3 weeks before I came to Italy so it was high time we visited. (more…)

Here is the next tip in our “Don’t be an Eel with Energy” challenge.

Leading on from the last post regarding your personal environmental footprint I have recently come across a few articles that try to establish the total cost of everyday objects.

The first is a quick analysis of the “true cost” of imported bottled water performed by a Sustainability Engineer and MBA Pablo Päster. The analysis calculates the total amount of water used and green house gases emitted to import bottle to the United States. Whilst the numbers won’t be the same for other geographical areas they do go to show you how much impact little things can make. From the article

The total amount of water used to produce and deliver one bottle of imported water is 6.74kg (5kg + 20g + 1kg + 720g)! And the amount of GHGs released amount to 250g (93g + 4.3g + 153g), or 0.25kg, or 0.00025 tons.

(more…)

Life has been busy recently so it has been a while since we have updated the blog with what we have been up to.

Starting with the weekend before last we had a dinner with about 8 of us in the name of learning to cook “Italino”. A few weeks before this we had been talking with Chiara and Ottavio about a Risotto that we had made. The recipe we followed was a little strange, for example you added the cheese at the beginning. It turned out the Chiara had seen the same recipe and agreed that it was unusual. As such she kindly offered to teach us how to make a “TRUE” Italian risotto and hence the purpose of the evening. (more…)

Here is the next tip in our “Don’t be an Eel with Energy” challenge.

The interesting thing that I have observed recently is the HUGE increase in media exposure environmental issuse have received. The new awareness of human activity is brillant but it does not actually change anything. Actions do make a difference, even the smallest change multiplied by 3 billion becomes huge.

One thing to understand is actually how many resources each and everyone of us uses. Our environmental footprint so to speak. There are many different ways to estimate your footprint. Amongst the easiest are the following websites. (more…)