And Then God Said... Let There Be Sweden

This summer, I was a nanny for three girls (two sisters, Carolina and Benedetta and one of their friends, Viola) who were as fascinated as me by fashion and pink. One day, Carolina, noticed a barette in my hair, that was pink, shiny, and basically gorgeous, and she fell in love with it. Needless to say, I wasn’t going to give it up for so little. Cinzia, Viola’s mother, was a pretty big fashionista too, and she asked me where I got it.
“H&M”.

She smiled, of the smile of those who know that you can find everything you want in H&M.
Carolina, who wasn’t ready to give up so fast, and who had never been in an H&M before (can you believe this? Poor girl), asked me what kind of store H&M was.

That was a pretty hard question. How could I possibly convey in my answer the marvel that H&M is? They, I knew.

“H&M,” I said, “Is exactly like IKEA, just for clothes.”

And that was it.

Because, really, when you think about it, they’re both Swedish, sell excellent design for very little money, they’re all over the world, and when you look closely at the price tag, they’re all Made In China.

I don’t know how I would live without Sweden, really. My house is furnished by them, and I’m almost fully clothed by them. Just wait till they make food and electronics, and I’ll start waving a blue and yellow flag (hang on… they already make electronics… Nokia is Swedish, isn’t it?)

Anyway, I’m telling you this for a purpose (this is where I start talking about clothes, if that bores you, stop reading).

Today, I was desperately looking for a pair of plain, normal, flat white shoes. I was really looking for the simplest thing in the world, to replace my boots that recently died (just when I was getting my favourite pair fixed. Talk about timing). OK, not really replace, since what I was looking for is more a pair of spring shoes, but the death of my boots was a perfect excuse.

It turns out, the simpler what you’re looking for, the harder it is to find.

I went through half the shoe stores in town (and this is Italy: most of the stores are shoe stores), and couldn’t find a decent pair under 50 euros - I was definitely not ready to give that much money to anyone, at least not until I marry this guy or that guy.

And then, I went in H&M.
And I found them.
The perfect shoes.
I’m not kidding, they’re EXACTLY what I was looking for, they cost 15 euros, they had my shoe size, I saw them, I bought them.

They’re not high quality, which means they’re going to last till the end of the summer, which is perfect, I’ll be able to change shoes by next year, to follow the fashion.

Another great thing happened while I was in town.
I’ve found out that the best ice-cream counter in the whole world in going to open in Bologna. It’s called Grom, there was one in Padova, and I think that this summer, they received almost half my wages.
How can I explain Grom?
Ice-cream from Grom isn’t about the ice, it’s about the cream. You can feel, while it melts in your mouth, how much time they spent whipping it.
There are quite a few ice-cream counters in Bologna, but nothing, NOTHING had come close to what I ate in Grom.

And they’re going to open in less than a month!

I can’t wait.

Gosh, I’m going to spend all my time and money there, I just know it.

Aaaaaaaaaaaanyway, all this put me in a great mood, which is quite something, because that bitch last night got me quite depressed, and even though I skyped Lola, which was awesome (she’s going to come in Bologna next month! Yeah! We’ll go get ice cream in Grom together!), I was feeling pretty down.

They call it retail therapy.