Every morning

Once I heard a story the sounded like this one:

“Every morning in Africa a gazelle wakes up. She knows that she needs to be able to outrun the fastest lion or she will be killed.
Every morning in Africa a lion wakes up. She knows that she needs to outrun the slowest gazelle or she will starve to death. Every morning in Africa, it doesn't matter if you are the lion or the gazelle. When that sun comes up, you had better be running.”

If there were lions and gazelles in Samoa, this same story would be sounds a bit different:

“Every morning in Samoa a gazelle wakes up. She knows that she does not really need to run, as lions do not run here.

Every morning in Samoa a lion wakes up. She knows that she does not need to run, as gazelles do not run here.

Every morning in Samoa, it doesn't matter if you are the lion or the gazelle. When that sun comes up, relax, and relax and things will eventually get done”.

In Italy, lions and gazelle would be very confused, as life here is an unpredictable mixture of fast and slow. It is slow when the bus is late and you are afraid you won’t make it in time to the train station. It is fast when, after you finally get on the bus, the bus brakes after only 3 minutes and you have to run for 2 km across Florence (but luckily it is 6 in the morning, and even Ponte Vecchio is quite empty from tourists). It is again slow when you jump on the train and you sink in the couch, panting like an African lion in the savannah after she catches the slowest gazelle. It is fast again when you realize that you are on the slow train to Rome (the regional train, it take 3 hours) instead than the fast one (the Eurostar, takes 1.5 hours). So you jump out the regional train, run across the station, this time more like a gazelle chased by a lion. You finally jump on the right train, just as the wheels start whistling. Then you realized you did not had any time to buy the ticket, and there is a surcharge of euro 50 for tickets bought on board. But luckily you are wearing the cute top, slightly revealing, and the ticket-officer is a nice old man that saw you ran across the station and that will not charge you any extra money for buying the ticket on board.

That was my Monday morning, after I went to Florence for a day to visit my friend Claudia and her 1.5 years old twins. One day was enough to totally shut down my biological clock. From “I really would love to have a baby” to “Maybe I am already too old for that!!”.

It is Wednesday now and I am taking is easy on the UA flight from Frankfort to San Francisco. It will take a while anyway and there is not much to do on board. And again, once in San Francisco I will have to run to catch my next connection to Portland. I could have flown directly to Portland, true, but for few days, about 4 weeks ago, just before leaving the island (it has been that long already!?!?), I could not make my mind if I wanted to spend the 4^th of July weekend kayaking in San Francisco or barbecuing in Portland. Guess Portland won this time… 2 very special persons are going to be there, I am so looking forward to see them!

About me and Rome, last week has been very flat, boring and depressing. Rome is an awesome place to be, but I just had to do so much organizing (that, naturally, is quite forcefully against my nature) the next half-year away from Italy that I had no much time for much fun.

Plus, how can people think that the island is hot??? Any Polynesian would appreciate that perfect climate they get on their island after spending a summer in Rome (probably any big city anyway. This is way we have the siesta in Italy. Not because we are lazy, but because it is HOT! And you just want to be in a fresh place digesting the wonderful lunch you just had. Only brave tourists walk around during siesta time.

Well, something great I really wanted to comment is the power of Facebook.

Facebook is a good example of cyber-communities. A place in Internet where you can meet friends (that you already know, or new one), hug them, poke, through octopus, kiss, send messages, play scrabble with, or just secretly spy (see if they are in relationships, seeing somebody, etc…). I recently got into it, and built my own small group of friends. And as my profile was created, somebody found me. More precisely, a high school mate of mine, Cristiana, which I haven’t heard from for the past 10 years.

We went out for dinner, with two more old mates, Chiara and Laura. It is amazing how they did not change a bit, even after 10 years. Even when I asked what are they doing in life, the answers seemed so obvious “of course, what else could you be, an architect!!!” I think it was quite obvious I would have become a scientist even since elementary, only that, even if it obvious that I would at least try to fled the country, I still cannot believe myself I actually made it this far. (maturity trip to Positano)

(Carnival 1998? I am Peter Pan, Chiara is next to me, Valeria behind CHiara, Cristiana is the boyscout and Laura is the pirat behind her)

Last night we went out again, and we had a dinner of ice-cream only (ok, also add some typical sweets from Naples too!) ;) I am definitely going to miss this aspect in my life but, oh well, you can’t really get everything was life, right?