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.

montalbano, sono

Io mi sono fatta persuasa che Montalbano è l’uomo della mia vita. Del resto la mia nonnina Giuseppina ci teneva tanto che me ne trovassi uono del loco così secondo lei in sicilia ci sarei tornata sempre. Mi ricordo che un po’ ci era rimasta male infatti quando le ho presentato il mio primo vero moroso all’età di 16 anni, il friulanissimo M., lei giustamente non poteva sapere che ne sarebbero passati molti altri di mezzo e per giunta sempre più nordici! Tanto per cominciare con il mio fidanzato storico tedesco B. ho fatto un bel tour della sicilia sud orientale con tanto di guida alla mano “i luoghi di Montalbano” (Sellerio, Palermo 2006). Abbiamo visto la sua casa, il barocco siciliano e tanti altri preziosi angolini in cui sono state girate le scene della fiction. In particolare, è interessante in questa guida lo sdoppiamento di itinerari tra i luoghi letterari e i luoghi della serie tv.

Insomma, Salvo incarna il mio amore per la sicilia e lo rispecchia per intero. Cene di pesce e vino siculo, la casa con la terrazza sul mare, le strade un po scassate coi muretti bassi di pietre, la vegatezione “accalorata”. Nell’episodio di stasera poi c’ha una mezza tresca con una certa Laura, cioè secondo voi, come faccio a non immedesimarmi???

In ogni caso il mio orgoglio viene da una delle prime puntate girate “la forma dell’acqua” perchè è ambientata nelle zone di casa mia: si vede la piazzetta di Marzamemi e il curvone sulla strada per Portopalo… poi ci ritorna recentemente nella puntata “la danza del gabbiano”; e per me che sono migrante sentire parlare il dialetto è pura aria di casa.

Mi sembra di sentire infatti un certo odore di pasta al forno proprio mentre vi scrivo…

ELENA IN ALGERIA

Dopo Praga e Varsavia ecco come una promettente italiana finisce a lavorare ad Algeri. Approda con un tirocinio e per ammmore, infatti con la fortuna che si ritrova finisce per mettersi con un algerino che però lavora in Italia! In Algeria lavora nel dipartimento tecnico di esecuzione contratti per una ditta che segue appalti per l’installazione di materiale nelle scuole; di tornare in Italia non ci pensa proprio, almeno per i prossimi cinque anni, nonostante le sommosse cittadine. Oggi 15 febbraio non lavora perché è il compleanno di Maometto. Recentemente doveva andare a un corso di formazione su alcune attrezzature in una zona a circa 25 km da Algeri, nella provincia di Boumerdes, zona al momento un po’ calda per la presenza di terroristi, le comunicazioni telefoniche sono interrotte e si sentono solo messaggi disturbati della polizia. Alle 5 del mattino Elena parte con la sua macchina di rappresentanza della ditta (una uno rossa anni ’80, tutta scassata, con un finestrino che si chiude solo se lo tiri su a mano) per andare a prendere il tecnico suo collega sotto casa, vicino alla gendarmeria del paesetto di Hamis (cioè una strada sterrata con sopra negozi all’ingrosso di elettrodomestici). Considerando che in arabo la differenza di pronuncia tra K e H è indecifrabile dall’orecchio umano, Elena dopo un po’ di vagabondare in autostrada, all’avvistamento del cartello “Khamiz 2 km” prende la prima uscita. Subito capisce di trovarsi ancor più vagabonda di prima, questa volta nella campagna algerina, al buio, al telefono col tecnico algerino in un misto di francese e arabo. Giunge ad un blocco stradale con tanto di sacchi di sabbia, blocco dell’esercito e mitra spianati. Tira giù il finestrino con le mani e chiede indicazioni in algerino maccheronico per Hamiz/Khamis/Khamis/Hamis. Le dicono di proseguire dritto –è sempre la risposta migliore. Alla fine giunge a un cartello con scritto Khamiz e trova una gendarmeria: perfetto! Telefona: “sono ad Hamis, alla gendarmeria, e tu? Anche io. Ma non ti vedo: Aspetta, no non ti vedo. Faccio il giro, non ti trovo… ti Passo il gendarme.” Ma neanche loro si capiscono tra loro stessi algerini. Insomma alla fine lei s trova a Khamiz e lui ad Hamis. Riprende l’autostrada e cerca, si ferma al deposito della Coca-Cola (questo almeno sarà un punto di indicazione abbastanza preciso, no?!) dove c’è la motorizzazione e le auto fanno la revisione. Revisione però si dice in arabo-francese controllo tecnico, perciò il tecnico sempre al telefono capisce che Elena ha perso il controllo della macchina! –“No, sto bene, ho anche tirato il freno a mano. Sono ferma, aspetta ti passo il parcheggiatore abusivo che te lo spiega lui.”- Alle ore 8 Elena incontra finalmente il tecnico, nonostante una sosta infinita, il parcheggiatore abusivo, che anche lui ha un cuore, mosso a pietà non le chiede neanche il pizzo. Elena col suo caschetto di capelli alla Caterina Caselli, ma coperta di tatuaggi old school, non è il tipo ideale di donna degli algerini, per questo la lasciano abbastanza tranquilla. Del resto ti fischiano sempre anche in Italia quando cammini… Elena è una che sperimenta e certamente non si barrica nei locali occidentali, costosi e posticci. Si butta, studia l’arabo, ed assiste spesso a scene in cui un tecnico si rivolge in napoletano stretto al corrispondente algerino… Secondo voi si capiscono?!

GINEVRA E ALTRI PENSIERI

Molti dicono che la svizzera francese non sia che altro che un pezzo distaccato di Francia. Effettivamente nei cantoni francesi c’è una atmosfera totalmente diversa, l’architettura è diversa, la gente è diversa, e pensano anche diverso! I cantoni francesi con l’aggiunta di Basilea (che per la posizione di contatto con le vicine Francia e Germania, nonostante sia un presidio tedesco, si affianca di più all’ apertura mentale di Berna) sono politicamente i più progressisti di tutta la svizzera e vi si concentra un cospicuo gruppo di movimenti di giovani europeisti, tanto che qui nel 2001 con il sostegno dei partiti democratici e verdi furono raccolte le 100.000 firme sufficienti per il referendum sull’ingresso nell’UE. Purtroppo il referendum venne in ogni caso respinto da tutti i cantoni con più del 70% dei NO. Si dice il voto fosse stato troppo prematuro.

Comunque sia, a Ginevra più del 40% della popolazione è composta da stranieri (tra cui spiccano curiosamente i portoghesi ancor prima dei francesi e altre 180 nazionalità). Gli mmigrati e i quartieri etnici donano un deciso tratto multiculturale a Ginevra. Nel quartiere Paquis sembra un po’ di essere in una banlieu parigina invasa da un certo odore di spezie e cous cous. Esploro la città. Come al solito faccio per entrare in una chiesa a caso. Entrare nelle chiese delle città che non conosco per me è un po’ come aprire finestre nascoste dell’animo umano: le chiese ti dicono parecchio al di là della religione praticata. Beh, nella prima chiesa in cui entro trovo invece un centro di ritrovo cittadino, una specie di centro sociale, della chiesa aveva solo la forma. Anche questa è una scoperta. Le persone sono molto gentili, quasi mi rincorrono per vedere se mi serve qualcosa. Fa freddo, perchè qui c’è un certo vento pungente che sale dal lago.

Ma che sfortuna il museo della Croce Rossa è proprio chiuso il giorno che ci vado io. In questa breve trasferta sto raccogliendo un sacco di idee che mi rimandano all’Italia, alla fine in ogni viaggio va così, uno fa kilometri e kilometri per poi ricongiungersi con ciò che gli è familiare! La CR è stata infatti fondata a Ginevra dallo svizzero Dunant nel 1862, dopo che egli aveva assistito ai tremendi esiti delle battaglie di San Martino e Solferino sul territorio italiano durante la Guerra di indipendenza. Insieme le truppe austriache e quelle franco-sarde persero un totale di circa 30.000 uomini che furono abbandonati sui campi di battaglia, allora Dunant cercò di radunare uomini e infermiere per portare assistenza come poteva. Il mio caro professor De Stefani all’epoca ci aveva pure portato a San Martino in gita, a vedere il museo della Croce Rossa Italiana… ed ora eccomi qui.

Lì di fronte c’e la sede delle Nazioni Unite. Sento un brivido che fa riaffiorare in me all’improvviso 2 lauree e 5 anni di studio universitario alla facoltà di Scienze Politiche dell’Università di Padova che giacevano al momento sotto 1 anno e mezzo di intenso lavoro nel turismo! Oddio, ho un attacco di febbre politica. In dieci minuti spendo 50 franchi in libri per rituffarmi nelle mie passioni nostalgiche. Un po’’ di emozione a percorrere i corridoi e immaginare se solo se avessi preso una strada diversa… del resto a Ginevra hanno sede 200 tra le più importanti organizzazioni governative e non del mondo.

Un altro segno: a Ginevra è nato nel 1712 Jan Jacque Rousseau, uno dei miei filosofi preferiti! Ginevra è anche una delle città più costose del mondo, infatti ogni due edifici c’è una galleria d’arte, e chi ha i soldi per comprarsi questi soprammobili?

Nei film o nella letteratura le donne che si chiamano Ginevra sono tutte signore di ferro, si veda una per tutte (la prima che mi viene in mente) quella di Re Artù.

Infine questa bella città è la seconda culla svizzera della riforma protestante, dove le idee di Calvino si sono diffuse facendo eco al collega zurighese Zwingli.

Per chiudere tappa ristoro rigorosamente consigliata da Lonely Planet: entrecote con burro ed erbette al Cafè de Paris. Questo viaggetto mi ha dato proprio una boccata d’aria in tutti i sensi; concordo, questa è tutta un’altra Svizzera.

Budapest

Budapest- 3 days. the alarm rings at 5AM, the lake is beautiful and shines in the rising sunlight. I go with my small trolley polly. I am an advanced traveller already: check in on line and miles on more in my wallet. I sit next to a rich Pakistan man who lives in Dubai (here i think is already the destiny who is calling me, this is a certain sign of my future plans coming to life) and a swiss-hungarian woman. As it happened regularly on the train, he starts spying in the papers I am reading: my negotiation notes. I feel good, a bit excited for my first business trip totally alone. in the end he obviously wants to talk: he tells me about his daughter who lives in switzerland, he asks me about my life and he invites me to Dubai. Can this be a coincidence? Well just two months later this episode I will go to Dubai for real… He also offers me ajob saying that with my master my first salary in Dubai will be around 5000 USD a month. Should I send him my resume?! I eat fornetti in the subway station, I discovered fornetti for the first time in Croatia, summer 2007. I ask always a mix of them and I love picking them up and discover what’s inside, one by one, sweet and salted. i get lost and I am late for my second meeting: I take a cab.

a view of the danube and the parliament

In these moments I always feel exactly like Carrie in sex and the city! The funny thing is that when I ask for directions in a bar where no one speaks english, i find my self in the street instead of in the square with the same name. Anyway this old man, could be my grandpa, says he wants to drive me there. For one second i start thinking that actually also

when i get on taxi there is no real way i can assume i am gonna be safer, and that the driver won’t take me soemwhere unknown… but anyway I decide to be careful even if my heart always shakes a bit whenever I see a grandpa. I miss mine too much. In fact I want to adopt one sooner or later. I visit 4 hotels in a row and I feel so good for my longest business performance ever! Then it rains, suddenly. I go to a laser show in the evening, sounds cool, but is actually pretty poor, I kind of fal asleep, but enjoy also the things that go wrong.

Part of the journey -I say. Finally at 22.00 I sit in a super nice restaurant outside on a small table. I am alone. and waiter gives me this short look of compassion. The food is gourgeous, there is a spiced indian carrot and corn soup just delicious, with some fried carrots in julienne on top. Tenderlion beef with vegetables as main course. Eastern EU is so cheap. I think about going to the hairdresser and maybe do some esthetic treatments.

Since I have to stay here all alone, at least i try to make the best out of it. This morning on my flight I thought that if I would be a hostess -which was one of my childhood dreams, besides becoming an english teacher-  I would give to my first passenger of the day a big responsability in influencing my working mood. So I decide to smile convincly to mine, since this is the first morning flight and i am her first passenger. She smiles back, just a second more than necessary: maybe we understand each other. On the second day I end up in a strange area of the city eating at the restaurant chain Thanks God it’s Friday: fried mac and cheese I could not believe something like that existed.

My alfredo noodles are just too much after my visit to the oldest thermal bath of town. My local agent takes me to the marvellous strudel factory, no need to tell you how gourgeous the strudel is. But what is curious is actually the sour cherry soup that I order as main dish!

the thermal baths

The Hungarian parliament is the third biggest parliament in the world, because of course it was meant to serve the whole Austro-Hungarian Empire at the time. It was build super modern with a system of heating and air conditioning. There St. Stephen stands in the form of a statue in the central hall, embracing the krown, as the very first King of Hungary. Trattoria Venezia cuddles me a bit with some nice italian food before flying back home. It is the end of july 2010. And I do a little step forward in direction of me as a woman (business woman).

Attraversiamo – eat pray love

Maybe just because i am in this mood, and I just quit my job for real, and for real I am going travelling to Asia, I simply loved this movie. Maybe, yes, but also because besides the romance and the pictoresque images of this american movie, I recognized myself, and all the time that a story is able to open a door in my head I can’t avoid to love it.

“To find the balance you want, this is what you must become. You must keep your feet grounded so firmly on the earth that it’s like you have 4 legs instead of 2. That way, you can stay in the world. But you must stop looking at the world through your head. You must look through your heart, instead. That way, you will know God.”

At the beginnng of the movie Liz opens up her box with all her dreams and wishes about travelling and journeys and she takes the courage to go, leave, break everything she had known before. She wrote a piece about her past (unhappy) love experience called “permeable membrane” and i got immediately touched by it:
“If I love you, I will carry for you all your pain, I will assume for you all your debts (in every definition of the word), I will protect you from your own insecurity, I will protect upon you all sorts of good qualities that you have never actually cultivated in yourself and I will buy Christmas presents for your entire family. I will give you the sun and the rain, and if they are not available, I will give you a sun check and a rain check. I will give you all this and more, until I get so exhausted and depleted that the only way I can recover my energy is by becoming infatuated with someone else.”

the movie

This is the journey we have in front, all of us, nowadays. When love is not imposed by our parents in our consumists societies (pretty different from the destiny of the indian friend of Liz, who has to get married at 17 with someone she does not know at all, and she just can figure out after how to live with it and find happiness)  and we pass from one boyfriend to another like changing pair of jeans. If it doesn’t work we just go for a new one, commitment lost his real sense, maybe is just too difficult, maybe is just not possible anymore with the lives we live now in the western world. We are surrounded and overwhealmed by opportunities and freedom, so we are paralized. And is not like we do not love, or we do not feel. We do throw ourselves into these stories, but we do it so much, so eager to believe that romance and happy ending still exist, that we just consume and burn them all, too fast. So we turn to the next one, and so we grow. We go underneath new layers of our personalities. And so the real journey begins.

“The only thing more unthinkable than leaving was staying; the only thing more impossible than staying was leaving.”

Eat is fot IT= ITALY. I see the movie and I am proud of my country, like I have never been anymore since quite some time… I like the way she -purely New Yorker woman-  digs into our typical italian stereoptypes: pasta e salsiccia, cute little streets, non verbal communication (the italians can tell stories just with gestures and no single words!) and big monuments, pieces of art and pieces of our imponent roman past. The Augustinean Mausoleo in Rome is the twist in the tale: Elizabeth understands that ruin is precious, because only after fall we can build up again, we can change ourselves and adapt; decadence is the basis for development, adaptation, discovery. I totally feel like this, I enjoy every single moment I suffered in my life, i put my both hands into the mud to shape a new me again, every time I needed to. And I am a warrior, because the key is: no matter how much you suffer, you have to keep going and you will born new, sooner or later. Nothing is everlasting in life. neither love, neither pain.

In India Elizabeth explores her spiritual dimension, when she does not know how to meditate, she starts dedicating her prayers to her friend, she starts to imagine her happy… and then she suddenly realizes that praying and meditating is exactly just about that, rather than a pure contemplative exercise. Each of us has to find his own temple in his own life, in his own simple house, among his simple everyday gestures, just within himself. “God dwells within you, as you.”

“You need to learn how to select your thoughts just the same way you select your clothes every day. This is a power you can cultivate. If you want to control things in your life so bad, work on the mind. That’s the only thing you should be trying to control.”

And finally she finds peace and balance: “not too much God – not too much selfishness”. But as the guru says: “To lose balance sometimes for love is part of living a balanced life.”.  I say: Oh MY God, seriously, am I just too much in this cheesy mood?! But i do seriously think that is exactly what i have been through in the last year and a half, since i moved to Switzerland. I came here to collect pieces of myself and forgive myself, forgive him- most of all- too, because he left me-us without giving me the chance to fix our love. And so I finally did: i recovered, but i was always so cinical towards men for long time. Then a new HE finally came into my life, and of course we were both freaking scared. He just took my hand and convinced me, that to be happy again there is no other way than trying again, no other possibility than trust again, in order to love. I opened up like a blossom in spring in his delicate embrace. And now I am finally so deeply happy. I discovered new things about myself just because I gave him the chance to look them up inside me. I lost bad habits and change some attitudes I did not like, because I observed my image reflected in the other person. I just accepted our love like something indeniably present and consistent between the two of us, day after day, and it happened than it grew, we fed it. Because i just did let things go, finally, and this made new things possible again, this made good things real. (Thanks Diego. I’ll be for ever grateful to you for teaching me again how to open my heart and let love flow through it.)

“This is a good sign, having a broken heart. It means we have tried for something. “

the book

Of course this movie made me cry. I just could not help it anymore, when Elizabeth thinks about her past love and the pain she caused him, but also the happiness they shared. It has been real for a while. And they dance together: dance as a form of reconciliation before final separation…

Now I look back and I look forward. I can’t wait now to leave for my 52-days-journey by your side. I can’t wait to see you and wonder about things with you and be curious, and feel that we are making something good out of our small lives.

Besides all of this being emotional, I got seriously hungry now. I got nostalgic for my country when i saw her eating all those spaghetti, pizza margerita, gelato and antipasti pored with some good red wine. This movie is also a celebration of my culture and of my proud roots. She says she is having a relationship with her pizza, well if I could I would cheat on you with one of those real napolitan gorgeous pizzas right now… and I know you would do the same! What is also cool is that she talks about all this food and the acceptance of her body that comes with the pleasure of it. She just wants to enjoy it in a healthy way and forget about diets! Apparently americans can’t enjoy, even when they go on holidays they do not know how to relax. So Liz she defenetly learns the dolce far niente in my country.

When they are in Italy they all play a game, trying to find susbstutive words to describe and call things: like New York = ambitious, Stockholm = conformist, Rome= yeah well… sex! And so on. Liz she is still searching for her own word, she is a writer, just like the one i want to be! And at the end of the movie she finally finds it: the word is ATTRAVERSIAMO = let’s cross over. A word that -she says- embeds all the beautiful charachteristics of the italian language: the open sound A, the rolling R, the sweetening S. And well, I am exactly going to cross over soon, I will cross the ocean to meet you. Andiamo, together, attraversiamo.

good night

(original quotes from the book of Elizabeth Gilbert, 2006)