Mostly about me, too boring?

Hi all.

These days, on the BBC, I can see the new advertisement for Italia (did you know Italy spent 45 millions Euro to relaunch Italy's image of which 10 millions were used for the new web portal http://www.italia.it?).

I have to say, I really like it. I couldn't find the video online.

A voice reads some Italian poems and sentences from novels.

I really like one poem by Vincenzo Cardarelli that I've never heard before:

Non so dove i gabbiani abbiano il nido, ove trovino pace.
Io son come loro, in perpetuo volo.

I don't know where seagulls have their nest, where they rest.
I'm like them, perpetually flying.

So I changed the old description of the blog which was:

Sono un emigrante, ma del XXI secolo. Così invece delle cartoline e della valigia di cartone, ecco il mio blog... Spero mi aiuterà a rimanere in contatto con gli amici!

Also, regarding poems, there was one poem I wanted to share with you. This is by Cecco Angiolieri a poet who lived in Siena in the XIII and XIV centuries:

S' i' fosse foco, arderei 'l mondo;
s' i' fosse vento, lo tempesterei;
s' i' fosse acqua, i' l'annegherei,
s' i' fosse Dio, mandereil' en profondo;
s' i' fosse papa, sare' allor giocondo,
ché tutt' i cristiani imbrigherei;
s' i' fosse 'mperator, sa' che farei?
a tutti mozzerei lo capo a tondo.
S' i' fosse morte, andarei da mio padre;
s' i' fosse vita, fuggirei da lui:
similmente farìa da mi' madre.
S' i' fosse Cecco, com' i' sono e fui,
torrei le donne giovani e leggiadre,
e vecchie e laide lasserei altrui.

Translation:

If I was fire I would burn up the world;
If I was wind, I would blow it apart;
If I was water, I would drown it,
If I was God I would throw it into the pit,
If I was the pope I would be doing fine
And cut off all the Christians’ nuts;
If I was Empereor, what would I do?
I would cut off everyone’s heads with one blow.
If I was death, I would embrace my father;
If I was life, I would run away from him:
Likewise with my mother.
If I was Cecco, as I am and always have been,
I would take all the young and good-looking women
And leave the ugly ones for everyone else.

Au revoir,

alfonso

Hi all.

THIS IS FUNNY or at least it is for me... :-)

Yesterday I went to have dinner at a friend's place here in Paris. She did food shopping and then we went home and chat while she was cooking. At some point she started freaking out saying something like: "Oh my God, how could I forget that?". I didn't know what she was talking about but after she calmed down I realized she forgot buying cabbage. Since it was already 8:30pm and we were not in the centre of the city, she was sure we couldn't get a cabbage, but I told her I was sure we could find one.

So we went out and tried all the groceries shops around her place but they where all closed. So I tried to ask in a restaurant (mind you: I don't speak a word of French and English is not so common here, but I managed to find always nice people willing to try to comunicate with me) and they told us about an other groceries shop nearby. That was open, but he didn't have any cabbage. I said: "You see: this is already good news, now you know an other shop near your place which is open long hours!".

But then the real fun started: I started to go into each and every restaurant trying to buy a "chou" (the name in French). In general people were reacting in a nice way. In the first restaurant they tried to ask in the kitchen but there was no cabbage. I learnt that cabbage is not a common food ingredient in French cuisine. :-)

But then I saw a Japanese restaurant and since my friend was cooking Japanese food, I thought that I found my solution! I went in but unfortunately the people inside the restaurant didn't speak neither English nor Japanese (my friend is Japanese). So I started to ask about "chou" and they said they had it. Great! When I was about to pay, I read on the check "chou salade", so cabbage salad. I started to explain them I needed the full cabbage, but it was not so easy without a common language between us! Finally the younger waitress said: "home cooking?" and the magic was done. Few mintues later I walked away with a plastic bag and a cabbage, and a big smile.

Ciao,

alfonso

More than two weeks silence... I'm really a lazy guy!

This post is about last week. Actually I will change the date to last week so that there will be no record of my laziness... ;-)

I spent the last two days of May in Oulu, which is a town (130.000 people) around 500km north of Helsinki. Something that you learn flying north from Helsinki is that it's very hard to say who lives north. This should be a lesson for the "North League", an Italian political party whose main political idea is to distinguish Italy in who lives North and who lives South...

As you might easily imagine, the city is very quite.

Unfortunately there is not much that I can tell you about it, since I was there only one night and I didn't really go around. I had dinner in a Turkish restaurant called Istanbul and it was very good!

The only story I have is from my previous trip to Oulu. Since the weather was cold (500km north of Helsinki, just to remind you) I decided to go to the cinema. During the movie I moved my jacket and my mobile phone that was in a pocket fell on the floor. When the movie ended I found the mobile phone and walked away. During dinner I realized that I lost also my GPS receiver in the cinema. When I went back an other movie was already started in the room, so I couldn't go and check. I told what happened to the people working in the cinema and I left my number.

No I know it's not easy to believe it if, for example, you live in Italy. But at the end of the second show I got a phone call and they even brought the GPS back to my hotel. Welcome to Finland.

Ciao,

alfonso