EIVISSA

Tornata dalla mia prima vera vacanza di mare dopo 3 anni! Tornata da un posto che, adesso, aspetto un paio di righe a dire dov’è perchè al solito tutti fanno la stessa faccia e dicono: “Ah ecco, vai a drogarti, ubriacarti, impasticcarti…?!” Ma quanti luoghi comuni! Alla fine anche io mi aspettavo un posto di perdizione assoluta invaso da italianazzi con le catenine sopra i bicipiti al rimorchio brado (magari pure freschi ventenni) insomma non proprio il mio target al momento… Beh sono tornata da Ibiza premettendo che il soggiorno lo ho vinto -e con questo ho esaurito tutta la mia fortuna per i 10 anni prossimi- e che forse da sola non avrei scelto questa destinazione, ma sono stata piacevolmente sorpresa. Ci sono molte cose da fare e vedere al di là delle discoteche in cui si può fare un zapping umano di se stessi dall’alba al tramonto e dal tramonto all’alba -non stop all’infinito… Intanto sappiate che la città vecchia è patrimonio UNESCO ed è davvero bella tutta arroccata. Le spiagge sono davvero belle, con l’acqua trasparente che ti vedi i piedi. Come in Sicilia penso sempre io nella mia testa e alla fine quasi mi dispiace non stupirmi tanto più, ma sono abituata bene. Meno male che la mia Sicilia non la conoscono in tanti… Mangiato un sacco di pesce ovviamente. E gli spagnoli, i nostri cugini, sono adorabili e chiassosi.

Abbiamo girato con tutti i mezzi di trasporto in questi 4 giorni: treno, aereo, autobus, scooter, macchina e piedi (manca la bici)! Visitato calette in cerca di ombra, spiaggette, di rocce e di sabbia, mercatini e viuzze. Sì, confesso, siamo andate anche a ballare. All’ USHUAIA, ovvero un hotel 6 stelle che cambiera il futuro dell isola (cosi dice lo slogan) dove le stanze sorgono intorno a una pista enorme di discoteca, cioè non un posto per gli amanti del riposo. Mi sembra di poter ora tratteggiare dei profili: se sei alternativo e ti piace la goa e la techno vai in Thailandia, se sei fighetto e ti piace la house vai a Ibiza. Il problema è che a Ibiza è davvero così pieno di modelli fisicati da farti sentire una nullità. Ho pensato per 4 giorni che il mondo fosse un paradiso per gli occhi lì concentrato e se come me te ne sei fregata della prova costume e hai saltato a piè pari i 3 mesi di dieta che ti ci dovevano portare, allora, lasciati consigliare, non andare a Ibiza! Perché a Ibiza il mondo ti sembrerà ingiusto. Ibiza è un ammasso di addominali, bicipiti, tette e culi a non finire, fa a gara chi ha il costume più micro, ovviamente tutti super abbronzati. Inizio a odiare il concetto di spiaggia. Del resto in spiaggia ci si scopre e ci si espone al sole, unica attività primaria, perciò se non hai un gran corpo da scoprire sei già un portatore di handicap in un certo modo. Sono troppo cessa per ibiza ecco perché non ho rimorchiato. E vorrei precisare che traccio qui un confine netto tra spiaggia e mare. Se inizio a odiare la spiaggia, il mare resta la mia cosa in natura preferita in assoluto!!!

C’è un negozio sul corso che si chiama Dress less to impress. E dico tutto. Ovvio che poi se uno si fregia della maglietta F**k me, i am famous con lo slogan di David Guetta, allora siamo a cavallo. Scesa in stazione a Zurigo sono tornata con un senso di compiaciuta beatitudine alla vita reale, perché passando il mondo mi sembrava popolato di gente più o meno bella e brutta, assortita insomma, e un tipo si è pure girato a guardarmi, a me con la mia pancetta bella soffice.

L’ultima sera ho comprato un vestito lungo un po’ floreale: il must dell’estate, la signora –dopo che io e mia sorella le avevamo monopolizzato il metro quadrato di stand-bancarella, provando 7 vestiti- mi dice che devo lavarlo a mano e in acqua fredda; la guardo e annuisco perplessa. Arrivo a casa e in dieci minuti ho già avviato la prima lavatrice col vestito dentro ovviamente, ma secondo te, non ho più neanche il tempo di cucinare, mi metto a lavare a mano? La vita che conduciamo non ha spazi per casalinghitudini e attività da massaia, il che sia chiaro, mi rincresce anche. Comunque è tornato fuori intero.  E io, nonostante gli increduli, sono abbronzata lo garantisco!

the german weekend

4 days off. I jump on train at 7 AM when everyone else sleeps on the 2nd of June. A German train, seat reserved, comfortable, clean, fast. I arrive in Frankfurt and get assaulted by the amount of small food corners and sandwich shops, but the real shock is the euro. Not that I am in Germany for the first time, neither in Frankfurt actually, it’s just that I am getting used and absorbed by Switzerland and CHF. I change to a regional train direction Giessen, but comfort does not change. These new regional trains are even better than the IC! At 13.00 i am there and I remember everything of the first and last time I was here in June 2009. I look around in the station and I am already pretty satisfied from the view of quite handsome German boys. Seing my friend Marie is always very special. We met in Poland and have been like siamese twins for 6 months. She is more than a sister to me. the first time we said good bye years ago i was scared. Now i know that with some effort and a bit of geographical luck (since I moved to CH I am much closer) we can still be pretty close. She cooks for me even more italian style than myself could do! It’s maybe a clichè but in Germany we go to an italian icecream shop (Italians rein the business of pizza and icecream in the german speaking counries). Time for chat and stories and updates… and a walk in the botanic garden. We walk all around in a sort of bar hopping mood and end up sitting at the open air biergarten at the river: beer+sprite, aperol spritz, a weird greenish kind of beer called Berliner Kindl, sun and cigarettes, a perfect mix. Tomorrow is a big day because our tradition will be respected and celebrated: we always do something crazy together and go and get a new tattoo. What a coincidence that our guy is from Poland too! On friday Marie takes me to her parent’s house for her mum’s birthday. It’s good to see another side of Germay: life in a small village in the green Hessen countryside. Time for barbecue, kartoffelsalt, and family atmospheare. A smart sister who is about to choose and start her university. (I feel all the excitement and the doubts i also had, when the world is at your disposal, a real unique moment in life!) Young cousins, aunts, uncles, an active and talkative grandma and a grandpa smoking a vanilla tobacco pipe. What a nostalgic feeling of a big family reunion like this, of a grandpa who can teach you lessons you won’t learn anywhere else and a grandma who can tell you stories you won’t hear anymore nowadays. Such a good feeling. We go for a cabrio ride on Marie’s young brother’s new car. We tak talk talk. The weather make us change plans on saturday night after we have been inviting everyone to a nacht tanz demo which we don’t attend… we stay home instead and watch the movie about Ray Charles which triggers my urgent need of more soul music on my i-pod from this moment on! It rains outside, a true -and my frist for this year- summer thunderstorm, we are barefoot on the terrace, overlooking the courtyard, is quiet, the air is refreshing, just the sound of the water drops, the smoke of ur sigarettes and a peaceful feeling. The silence and peace of when you have a friend next to you and you perfectly know that you don’t need to say the unsaid, don’t need to explain the unspoken. As much for my German weekend with Marie.

Chillion, Montreaux and Lausanne

If you regret that you have spent all Easter sunday sitting and eating, then come with me! Today I take you again to the western part of Switzerland.

Chillon is the most visited historical site in Switzerland and nonetheless in these 2 years and half I had never heard about it before my friend Kamile told me about it!!! Around 1100 was even under our dear Savoy dinasty. In any case the castle is represented and narrated in many paintings and literary pieces (Turner and Courbet for the paintings and Shelly, Dumas, Rousseau for the writing)  one above all is the one of Lord Byron (1816, the Prisoner of Chillon) who also engraved his name himself in the doungeon. The castle is very well kept and fully accessible.

In Montreaux we strolled along the lake Leman till we found the statue of Freddy Mercury who decided to spend the last years of his life her (but then actually died in London). Also Lonely Planet tells me that an episode which took place in Montreaux inspired their masterpiece “smoke on the water” when during a concert of Frank Zappa in 1971 a fan set on fire the casino… Music is indeed the symbol of Montreux thanks to the famous jazz festival which takes place here every summer. (I took a picture with Aretha Franklin for the occasion)

Lausanne is a nice place first of all because it carries my name inside his name! Here even Dickens and Elliott and Voltaire spent some of their time… if I think of Lausanne I can’t avoid remembering the famous Ecole d’hotellerie which gave us many trainees at the time of my tourism job, besided that it also hosts the headquarter of the Olympic Center. A bit desolated today, but still I keep on loving this french touch and the fact that just in 2 hours you can breath  totally new air. At least Starbucks is always open.

At the moment, quite exhausted after this tour de force and already in my cosy trainers, I am drinking a Kriek a Belgian beer with aroma of cherry which i recommend you. Good night.

Henning’s theory

Money, Physical condition and Time are the three variables of this theory which really explains the course of the life of the modern human being. I am not going to waste time and will simply expalin the theory which speaks for itself:

  • When you have time and physical condition as a young individual, you have no money.
  • When you have money and physical condition as an adult, you have no time.
  • When you have money and time in your mature age, you have no more the best physical condition.

This axiom is so true for everyone who has a deep deisre to travel the world and go globetrotting from time to time… so what’s the sense of life then? Where are we all rushing to?

For me entering the worklife was a sort of release and i enjoyed not to study anymore. I enjoy in particular not to feel a constand underground pressure which accompanied my university years. I could do many things indeed but in the back of my mind I was always thinking about the exams to come. If i mange to exit the office at 5 pm nowadays, I just breath deeply and think: now it’s my time, what am I going to do now? I really leave all the worries behind, but I have to cope with the fact that this time is too short. On the other hand, it is also true that if you manage to go away even just from friday to sunday, the weekend magically has a flexion and appears to last sooooo much longer! I keep thinking about these things in these days: I look back and I am so happy I took the decision to quit Lucerne, I am so happy I had the courage to go travelling for 2 months. I defenetly will start planning my weekends ahead for this wonderful spring and go visit my friends scattered all over Europe.

WARNING this theory is unfotunately not universally valid, because for example, if you are a young italian you can find that at the end, at the time of your pension, you are still missing all the 3 variables at one time!!! So handle with care.

All rghts reserved to my friend Henning.

a swiss day, like today

Well, finally i managed to do today things i was postponing and delaying since months. When you need to start over from yourself I find it always a good thing to start with something you left pending for some time, is really like pushing a big rock finally down a hill… and after that there is more space for new things. So i got up and took half morning free to go to the bank, the post etc… But above all I did apply finally for a swiss driving license! In any case my italian one would expire in october and i had a shock when i saw that because i cannot think that 10 years have passed since i first drove a car! I mean 10 years 10! seriously? So i gave it away even if I am out of the limit basically every foreigner resident in switzerland should change it within one year and for me already 2 and half have passed! I go at the counter and decide to bribe the man. I see he has a sign on his desk that says: “please speak hochdeutsch”. I think: perfect he is my man! i have to tell all the time to the people to speak proper german with me… So in the end I discover he is a nice exchange worker from the west part and with some smiles and explanation he says I can get it without passing the test again. Then all proud I took a train and got to the office at 11.15, what a relax. Yeah right, then i was working till 18.50 anyway… but the point is the result i achieved today is great! I get to the station and decide to jump on the very random first train to Zurich and then I realize it is a super slow S train but also that this train goes in the opposite direction of my regular train home, which means is doing a super round to get to Zurich from nord instead of from south. well i think nevermind, I would never get to see wonderful places like: Knonau, Mettmenstetten, Affoltern am Albis and Bonstetten (just the names are amazing!) which are all so green and so deep in the swiss country spirit. In 40 min ride i basically get to see all the animals of the farms: sheeps, cows, horses… but also a nice naked man who is simply standing in his balcon which faces the railways, and he of course does not mind at all, but enjoys a lot instead! Everything is a bit weird today, there is a nice smell of cows and grass and nature, all so close by. this is why I like switzerland. Just this morning i got to do so many administrative things that everywhere else take ages… On the train there is Czeck woman (i can clearly say thanks to my eastern european know how) with a super sweet dog a bassett type with a bit curly fur… normally I don’t like bassetts but this one just has something while he looks straight into my eyes. Maybe it’s a sign, in that moment the controller comes and as if by magic -of course- by checking my abo discovers that I should not travel that route… “Miss it would be 80 CHF, but for this time…” You know what i noticed? In switzerland there is a general feeling of trust when you purchase something you can pay it afterwards… and I think in Italy it could never work. but on the other hand also the system is very strong and they can track you down because they collect all the information possible on you and the state is very close to the people in this sense. They love rules but above all they love to explain rules!!! It happends everyday to see that if someone (a foreigner most probably) is breaking a rule someone else (a swiss) will come and even if he’s totally not involved or affected by this, would just remind you that you should not and explain you that you are going against the beloved system! You can’t do the laundry or cut the grass on a sunday because the noise disturb the neighbours… but sundays are the perfect days, because are your damn free days to do all the things you have no time to do! Anyway in a day like this is all acceptable and I remember strongly why I like to be there. A day in which I have the feeling that nothing special happened, but a sequence of very particular things instead…

volvo commercial: a swiss edition car OR that is how powerful swiss cows are

Vietnam

FROM DIEGO’S DIARY- An exhausting flight to land in Ho Chi Minh city, the second leg with a narrow asian airline, too small for your legs. Thanx got you could board on the plane after the police control analyzed your passport picture and your face in details… they just did not believe it is the same you. You look pretty different now from the kid who went to Australia some time ago. At the airport you bull around a bit with those swiss excited chicks going to Australia, just like you did… The taxi driver punked you a bit and you pay him his monthly salary just to get to the hotel, at least 2 nights you restore in a nice place before the tour starts.  Saigon is loud, busy, noisy…

traffic in saigon

you meet a german dude and you go for a beer with him. The next day you visit the vietcong tunnels and you meet the group of 8 cool guys who will travel next to you for the next 12 days. It’s bloody hot and humid, you crawl around, you eat asian food (pretty different from what we eat in Europe eh?!)  you risk your life trying to cross the streets which are just overpacked by motorbikes and all kind of traffic and vehicles. Kids freaking out in the street when they see you, a giant blond swiss. night train direction north for some jetski and beach. You already love it, and is just the beginning… You got to celebrate your NON-birthday today with a month in advanced, for a nice misunderstanding, so you can have it twice! You even got a 60 min wonderful massage that brought you back to life.

A crazy trainride from Nah trang to Hue and from there a bus to Hoi An. The bed was way smaller than last time, at least this hotel is very nice.  Hoi An in general is just wonderful, its strongly influenced by chinese architecture so for every house you can freak out! You decided to buy a suite for your new career in tourism -when you will be back- : a dark grey one with white stripes. 100 bucks, made it overnight, and all the Vietnamese girls in the shop measuring you giant blond exotic guy.

roam vietnam -gap adv

You buy art for your new house while I buy furniture here in switzerland… Finally you enjoyed some food, but also the drinks since rhum is pretty cheap down there… Someone came and told you that there is a beachparty: full of backpacker boys and girls, crazy music (Faithless, prodigy, pendulum) all night long and a wonderful beach just in front of you..  At 4 o clock a night swim is what you need. You already have all of them in your heart: Johnny Tom, Hannah, Laura, Nikki…
Monsoon time, but still 35 degrees outside. You start somehow to believe in the destiny whan you think about your wonderful life and the path in front of you, while one of your good friends becomes father… and you have the first (and hope last) bad adventure in Hue. Things that marks your body but most of all your soul, and make you grow. You find peace and recovery in the beauty of the Halong bay. Another crazy evening partying with the crazy city of Hanoi in black out. You party so good and dance so well that apparently someone falls in love with you, and he is a he… but is time to say goodbye -for now- and fly to Laos.