Surprise Attention

Even though I have been doing little posting lately, I am discovering more and more about my silent following of readers. They are starting to communicate with me. Some are people that I know and see but never really tell me that they read my blog, until now. Others, who perhaps followed for years, finally sent me a comment to a post that is quite old. Still others are contacting me with compliments and scholarly publishing opportunities.

It's ironic. All this after 3 years of virtually nothing.

I read other bloggers with long strings of comments after almost every post: 13, 25, 38. I am lucky if I get 1. (Thank you, my actual historic commenters!)

I know I haven't been doing the blogger-type to the best of my abilities by commenting on lots of other blogs to get new interest on my site or being listed in a million other blogs with links. settled for just a dozen. Honestly, I don't have time because I work full time in a different field other than Italian culture and tourism, perhaps a natural link to this blog's theme.

I also seem to have a different mission and tone to my blog posts. I am not always hailing the glory of the bel paese. I am not using this blog to prove to future publishers that I can write. I am not advertising another profit business, such as a B&B, or promoting a book I just published about Italy.

My blog must age to be appreciated, like wine and my favorite cheese, I guess.

I must admit that I do like getting more intelligent solicitations like the recent ones.

By the way,
Buon 2012!
Happy New Year!

My 7 (Sette) Links

Currently, there is a ripple effect of the 7 Links washing over the expat blog world. Now I am participating. If you want to learn more, go here for the rules and an explanation.

As for my own blog's classification, this has been a great excuse to review my own work over the last couple of years, my evolution on the blogosphere. Here they go:

1. Most popular post: The Oldest Botanical Garden in Europe

2. Post I am most proud of, for its heartfelt opinion: Far Far Away

3. Most surprise success: Promising Forever

4 Most controversial post: Amanda Knox Conviction

5. Most beautiful post: Trees Raining Olives on a Lovely Sunny Day

6. Didn't get the attention it deserved: WWI on the Lagazuoi

7. Most helpful weekly series of posts: Friday's False Friends (no specific link, but you can do a search an find all of them using the Google search bar in the right column of this website)

These are the bloggers I would like to nominate:

Living Venice a comprehensive guide to nearby Venice

Becoming Italian Word by Word an eloquent online encyclopedia of the meanings behind the words and culture of the Italian language

Zoomata very interesting tidbits about Italy, written by a journalist working in Milan

Eternallycool great news and imagery related to art, architecture and advertising with the bel paese, and often Rome, as the main protagonists

Venetian Cat in-depth posts about cultural events in Venice

Enjoy your exploration of my blog space and those of others I particularly enjoy.

Buona lettura!

Have a good read!

Pazienza amico mio

Patience my friend

I have so much I would like to write about but too little access to Internet to do so. Between the move to the new house which happened this past weekend, hundreds of odds and ends to attend to, a surprise freelance translation this week and no phone line (or ADSL) at the new house at the moment, I cannot write new posts.

Thank you for understanding.

If the phone service keeps their word, we should have Internet at the house next week, but who knows, considering this is Italy. In their favor, Idl did receive a text message 2 days ago saying I would be contacted by their technician for the phone line installation soon. I hope "soon" is in a few days.

By the way, it's starting to sink in that I am a house owner.