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L NDON

pila in the ski!!!

I've always held that in Lucca mentality was closed and narrow-minded, but this is going beyond any imagination.....

http://www.repubblica.it/2009/01/sezioni/cronaca/lucca-etnico/lucca-etnico/lucca-etnico.html

only to protect someone's economical interest, they are making a law for excluding ethinc food from downtown!!! for the sake of tradition protection......

I want to post a picture from Sesto under the snow!!

The new year has begun and I want to post some two extraordinary clips which I ended the 2008 with. One is unforgetable for the song, and the message it delivers. the other one is simply fantastic for the humour! Grande Checco Zalone!!



the best way for beginning the new year: laughing!!!



My Xmas holidays were wonderful, despite I was sick for 3 days and I spent new year evening at home. But what matters is not where you celebrate the new year, but with whom, and I was with the right person.
I left Sesto on th 19th and I spent two days in Arezzo, including a hiking on Pratomagno with L. and the dog, and then I moved to Lucca for Christmas day.Then I came back to Arezzo for one day and on 27th we left for Veravo, in Liguria, where we met our friends. We had two nice days there, but unfortunately I came back with fever. I had a lot of time for reading, and in two days I almost finished my new book, by David Grossman. I really evjoyed it. Finally, before startign the long trip towards Sesto, again, we had a nice day at L.'s father home, and L. and his son made the "Vin Santo" by squeezing the grape that was left drying since september. It's a very good taste, and it's important going on with the tradition of making it. It'll be ready for drinking at least in 4 years. Meanwhile it'll stay in small barrels, and then it'll be put into bottles.
Then, after a stop in Lucca, on the 5th I was again at work. It was quite hard to come back to my life here, but then a one-day snowfall invested us, and the landscape became so beautiful that I was really happy to be here. It's my fate, all my life has been divided in two parts, two places, two hearts. Now they are three of them, one here, another in Lucca and the most important in Arezzo. I bless internet and skype for making it easy to stay connected with people I love!!
On saturday I attended the first class of the ski course, and I really enjoyed it, although I felt down many times. But I'm looking forward to be on piste again next saturday. The weather was perfect, sunny and not too cold, the view incredible!! I hope I learn quickly so that I can make the best of the huge amount of snow that felt this winter!!

Buon Natale e Felice 2009!!!

Merry Xmas and Happy New Year!!!

sunday crazy sunday.......... in Milan...

As when I came back from Val Verzasca my voice was gone and I felt a bit sick, the day after, on sunday, I decided to go to Milan for doing some shopping. and I decided to go by car, thinking that at lunch time there was not too much people around. In fact I arrived in Milan in half an hour, but then it took one hour and half to park!!! I mean, not to search for parking, but to drive the 3 km to the parking site!! It was incredible, but I was there and it was too late to turn back. Then of course everybody parking there had to get to downtwon by the underground: the train were already full of people and then at each stop the new people coming kept on pushing to enter.! and it was impossible to leave because the doors couldn't be closed, the driver had to advise people of getting off and wait for the next train..not so difficult to understand even without the advice.

That was S.Ambrogio in Milan! a stream of people in the roads, the "oh bej oh bej" market, the shops invaded by clients. Impossible to buy anything for me..I went into some clothing and shoes shops, but it seemed like there had just been an hurricane and I need order and calm to decide what I'd like to buy. I hardly managed to change two shirts in Decathlon and then buy a book in Feltrinelli. Uff! How hard it is to do shopping!!!..

The last was a long week end, and people use to go back home or leave it for a trip somewhere during these long week ends, but I decided to stay here, at my new home, as I was just arrived. I was not with my family, nor with my boyfriend. I was alone and I had to organize my time in order to feel not too bad for this. But it wasn't easy. I realize that now most of my life is here and here I'm alone, even if I'm making new friends. My life with Luca is such a small part of my life, but most of all it makes me feel so happy that I can't stand thinking about it when I'm not with him. It's like I should forget about it in order to not go crazy, and let me live this life here at least a little bit.

Anyway, after some pain and tears I managed to survive and I had a really nice weekend.

On saturday I went to Val Verzasca with a friend of mine, working at JRC, with whom I sometimes go running or drinking a beer. I wanted to check some information about wolf presence, I hoped to find some signs, but we did not. Instead I discovered a wonderful place, very cold, but amazing..

this place will be perfect for swimming in summer. BUT WARNING!!! As we are in Switzerland, warning signs are very precise and are meant to terrify people by excessive realism. The sign we saw was warning people of dangerous currents at a certain point of the river, so that swimming was not allowed there. The interesting thing was the skull on the background, not the common symbol you can come across on any bleach container, but a picture of a real skull, like they were showing Lucy's remains..and the text: that is really perfect to avoid panic. "If you feel the current, it is already too late". It's a pity I didn't take a photo of it. The only explanation for this excentric sign is that we were on the "artistic path", as you can see below.

No wolf, but we met a lot of chamois! The first one was a juvenile, and we got very close to him, so I thought it was used to people, but then we observed a lot of them along the river, and finally I concluded that probably the valley is so clam, and there was so much snow everywhere, that they were used to come down to the river and closer to the houses to seek for something to eat.

On the way back we stopped at the Vogorno's dam, closing an artificial water basin. We were struck by two facts there. First, in the middle of the dam's wall there was a camping van and two palms on its sides..very strange. and then we saw a kind of a bridge bending out of the parapet, over more than 200 m of emptiness..bungy-jumping!! Is there someone ready to pay more than 150 € for jumping from there??? Gosh!! I felt sick only watching down from the parapet!!

Secondly, while we were walking back to the car we saw a telephone box, not a normal one, unfortunately, but the one of "Telefono amico"!!!!

Bungy-jumping vs Desperate-jumping............................

..to be continued..

coming soon.... crazy sunday in Milan: is there a financial crisis in act, really ??