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Postman or marathon running ‘machine’?
Spring is coming, and our heroes (Flavio&Cinzia) do look so much forward to the summer time in the beautiful, still wet and windy, Edinburgh.
This week Flavio starts his new job, as a postman with the Royal Mail. He is very exited, ...oh yes, he will have to walk 8 miles a day to deliver letters!
Well nothing wrong with that, he wanted to run the Edinburgh marathon.... That’s right! from “couch potato” life style now he decided to become a running ‘machine’… He was even training for that, mind you…, unfortunately he got sick 2 weeks which ruined his training consistency… (indeed there is a training schedule to follow www.edinburgh-marathon.com/?training-programmes) …well, he still hopes to get on track for next year… To run a marathon is one of his dreams in life, he got it after seeing some of his old fellow ex-douloids running the same marathon 3 years ago when the Doulos visited Edinburgh.

Coffee tasting
Cinzia every day is becoming more and more expert in coffee making, every week she comes home with a new pack of Starbucks coffee. Well, perhaps I must tell you that in Starbucks they have a sort of coffee freak ritual every now and again: the staff in circle is presented with an espresso cup sample by the Coffee “Wizard” (the coffee-master), first with closed eyes, they deeply smell it , in silence…uhm, not really, there is a jazzy song in the background, but that doesn’t disturb the ceremony. (exageration by the author). After the smelling, comes the slurping, (can you picture a Chinese having his midnight sup?), then they taste it and eventually they must describe what it tastes like. Now, I know what you are thinking at this moment…: what can a coffee taste like? easy: coffee!!!!! But in Starbucks they say that it is just as with wine… have you ever seen these guys testing wine and describing it…? well, they have to do the same… and I don’t know how, but they do manage to smell citric fruits, berries, chocolate, banana etc…
Well, another day Cinzia made Flavio an espresso. She wanted to introduce him to the coffee-rite at home… but for her disillusionment Flavio couldn’t smell or taste any citrus or berry, neither chocolate in the coffee, actually when he was allowed to put sugar in it, it tasted much better, he said.