That's about it

Here we are. Last night in my apartment here in Portugal.
I feel miserably sad.
I had so many troubles with this apartment, the rain filtering inside the windows and flooding my kitchen, the bad landlord, the continuous reparations needed.
But I loved this place. The ocean view. The possibility to walk or run on the beach, next to the beach whenever I wanted.
And that's it. I am leaving. After tomorrow, very early in the morning.
I can't help but thinking of my mood and my hopes and all what was going on inside me when I arrived here two years ago. It seems yesterday, and instead it is not and so so many things happened in these two years.
When I arrived here, I was not even together with my husband. We had broken up since more than six months and I honestly didn't consider a reconciliation and getting back together a possibility, although we always stayed in touch.
When I arrived here, I thought that I would find a way to have at least a friendship with the olandesino. I couldn't have been wronger.
When I arrived here, I was terribly sad for having left my friend and the working group in Montpellier, but also full of hope for my life and my work here. I thought that I could make friends outside work and have a full life here. I sadly didn't make any close friends....I honestly didn't even try so hard, as it took me one year to figure out my life here and adapt and then I basically got engaged and knew I would move again. But I anyway met people I like a lot here and that in one or another way I will think about even from far.
Nothing went as I saw or imagined in my head, except for the fact that I already knew from the first time that I would have loved this little city where I decided to live.
I can't imagine myself starting over again, in another country, in another city. I don't know how many times I moved around from place to place and had to start over again. And every time, it takes me almost a year to just get settled in a place and even longer to start making friends and having a life...and then as in this case, it is time to leave again.

I feel that in the last months I am trying to block everything inside myself, the fear, the sadness, the anguishing of having to move again and start over in another place with another culture, other people, another life. I am tired of this. I was tired of this two years ago, when I came here in Portugal and I promised myself that I wouldn't move again unless was for something stable where I could settle for many years and have a life, with friends, routine, my things, where I could feel rooted.
Instead, two years after, all my stuff is in boxes again, spread between Italy, my husband's apartment, the future place where I will live, and somewhere in between these places, traveling.

I am fully aware that I didn't need this change again. I am also aware that it could never have worked between my husband and I if I would have stayed where I am. I guess that when I decided to marry him, I knew that I would have had to move again. Surely, I was hoping to move with him and not to move to be alone again in a new place, just closer to him. But I would never give up my work and I would never want him to give up what he has for me without something to do that he likes.
Someone told me that "I want it all" and this is just not possible in life.
I don't feel that I want it all. I don't have my family close to me and I don't have my friends near me.
I just have a job doing what I like (and I hope to like doing it in this new place and to find a pleasant working environment) and a husband closer by than now. I understand that it is a lot and much more that what other people have, but it is certainly not having it all and I made a lot of sacrifices for my work and my personal life.

I just know that I will miss here, this little village, the view I have from the windows of my apartment, running along the ocean, the wind and the waves...I will miss all this so so much.

Decision taken.....was that a good decision?

Months ago I took the decision to move again, back to the US.
Now it is about time to move and I am down here, where I will be moving, looking for a place.
I saw lizards, I saw birds, the weather is warm and I can go around just wearing a t-shirt, the trees are beautiful and the forests and nature look amazing.

But I can't find the way to be excited about moving. Every time I moved some place else, I always had mixed feeling about it, but I have always also been excited. This time, I do not seem to find a way to have one thing, at least just one thing, to look forward about this new change in life.

People tell me to look at this as at a new adventure.
Honestly? I don't need any adventure now.
People tell me to look at this as a moving forward in my career.
Honestly? how do I know that this will actually help me to move forward in my career?
People tell me that if it too bad, it can just be a temporary thing.
But honestly, why a temporary thing should not be enjoyable as well, especially at my age?

For sure work-wise I am not happy where I am right now and I have rain pouring in my apartment every time it rains, and I have my ex-boyfriend living next door and I have a lot of things for which I am not necessarily happy about and for sure a change was needed.

What bothers me is that I keep asking myself if this is really the change I needed......only time can answer to this.
I just wish I could find one thing to be excited about for this new life and to look forward to.

Heading South

So long, so long, so long since I wrote something here last time.....so many things happened.
Mostly, I got married and I am moving South.

Not South of here (Portugal), but South of the USA. Another move, another life, another adventure.

I should report from there. I should have written more from here and about here.....but when life gets crazy, it is not easy to find the time to sit down and write....I rather prefer to go outside running and relaxing.

I am going to miss running along the Ocean. I am going to miss this Ocean beach. I am going to miss Portuguese octopus and Portuguese bread. I am going to miss the farmer market with so many cool old people. I am going to miss the peace and the feeling of safety at whatever time of the day that I can enjoy here.

Despite this, I am ready to leave. Working here was a frustrating, unsuccessful experience and although life is not too bad, I have felt very lonely and disconnected. Plus, the olandesino living next door from me also doesn't help my peace of mind.

I should definitively take some pictures of the things/places I love here before leaving this place.....

I am scared and excited for this new change. Some days more scared, some days more excited.....

How much more difficult does it have to get?

I took this picture at sunset on the beach in front of where I live.

The beach and the ocean. This is where I live now. This is what I have in front of my apartment and I see every day.

It is hard to think that I will have to leave this for an unknown place where to start a new life. But hopefully it will be a place where I will be able to have a life, as I am tired of traveling all the time and having no stability, making friends to leave them again after a couple of years, just when I get close to them. I am tired of feeling home in a place to have to leave it again. Since I decided to get engaged, my life is not here nor where my boyfriend is, in the USA. I am also very distant from everyone here, as I don't want to get attached and then have to suffer as it happened when I had to leave France. So, although I do not look forward to leave the place where I live now, which represents one of my dreams (living in front of the Ocean and being able to take long walks on the beach whenever I want), I also hope finally at the age of 37 to be able to have a life, live in a place that I can feel it is my home, get a dog with whom to share my long walks, possibly make some friends with whom I can share my life without being afraid of leaving them any time soon, and be closer to my boyfriend.

I got a new job and a new place ahead of me and although I am currently terrified for all those huge changes in my life and although last time I lived in the USA I ended up with a huge depression (and not for a joke, but a serious depression that last about three years), I try to keep a positive attitude toward it, especially focusing on the good things.

But the truth is that if it was not because it is easier to find a job for two people in the USA than in Europe and the fact that my boyfriend has a job that could actually help us even if my salary will be quite low (for American standards), I would rather live with him here in Europe than going to the USA. I have nothing against the USA and there are things I like and dislike of every country where I lived so far... so it is not that. But my family and friends are in Europe and I am deeply European in my way of living....I am actually perfectly fit for a small European town, like where I am now.

This to say that the coming change does actually cost me some mental effort to get used to it, I get immensely sad when I think that communicating and seeing my family will be much harder than now (I keep wondering if they will visit me and how often we will see each other considering how much a flight ticket costs), and it costs me some work to stay focused on the positive things. But I manage. Some days are better some less good...but I manage. Until I get under a pile of difficulties like today.

To make a long story short. My boyfriend is American. I am Italian. I have much more flexibility in my job than him. He has very little holidays. He has a better job stability than me. It is easier to get a job for me in the USA than for him in Europe. I cannot stay in the USA on a tourist visa for more than 90 days over a year. It is much easier to get a permanent position there if I am either already in the USA on a working VISA or if we are married.

From all this, the decisions that followed thinking that our relationship would be easier.

September last year, my boyfriend and I contacted the consulate in Florence to ask information about green card, immigration procedure, etc. What we got told was that basically once we were married, getting a green card for a spouse would be easy and that while I could not live permanently in the USA without a green card or an immigrant visa, I could travel while waiting for the green card back and forth with my passport and on a tourist visa.

What instead we found out today was that if I apply for an immigration visa, I CANNOT travel to the USA. This to prevent that while people are waiting for the green card approval, they become illegal immigrants.This actually has nothing to do with immigration offices, it is something enforced by the border patrols....it doesn't matter if I can demonstrate that I am traveling to visit my husband but that I have a job somewhere else for now to which I want and I need to get back....no, no, no....I may be a potential illegal immigrant. I understand that they cannot make a special case for everyone, but how ridiculous is that I get married and then I cannot see my husband for how long it takes to get a green card (which may take more than 7 months), unless he comes to visit me?

Not only.....even more stupid....the place where I got offered the job would not request a working visa for me (which is much quicker to get and would make our lives much easier) because I previously told them that I would apply for a green card after the wedding....so, now they told me to apply for the green card and if I don't get it by the end of October, then and only then they will apply for a working visa for me, hoping that it will be done by the time I would need to start my job.....

Gosh, all this is so frustrating....how difficult does it have to be to just want to be in the same place as my boyfriend???? and plus...I am really sick of feeling rejected all the time because "I am not American or I am already a legal immigrant in the USA" ...first I had this for the numerous job applications I sent, then some of the members of my boyfriend family made me feel not good enough because not American (or not from a civilized enough place because it is not the USA), and now this immigration crap....................................

and a friend of mine just told me that her cousin got a green card for the USA through the green card lottery...............COME ON!!!!!!!!!!! are you kidding me? I have a job, I will have a husband there and I cannot even enter the country while applying for a green card.

gosh, gosh, gosh.....


 

I am an immigrant

I am living abroad, away from Italy since 10 years. It is a long time. I have been living in a lot of different countries and only in few of them I didn't feel that I was different, not belonging.

Here in Portugal, despite the cultural differences, none ever made me feel like I was "different" because non-Portuguese. People in general are doing a lot of efforts to understand me in my mixed mostly-spanish-a-bit-of-Portuguese spoken language...well of course, except for my landlord....but I can live with that. This until this morning.

I went to the farmers market as I do every 15 days on saturday. I love going to the farmers market here, it is one of the things I love more of living in this small Portuguese village. I like chatting with the people there, they all know me by now. They even remember my mom. They know what I like. It is a familiar environment. I really enjoy it and since there is only every 15 days on a saturday, I always look forward to this regular appointment.

However, this morning I had a not too pleasant conversation with one of the vendors. He was telling me that just a bit before me there was a Spanish girl who bought something and that he was surprised that there are so many foreigners, Spanish, Italian, etc living in this small village, because we are not here just for the holidays. I told him that we all work together in a research center nearby. He was surprised, but not pleasantly surprised. I like to state here that this guy is normally extremely nice and friendly, so it was not that he is rude or anything like this.

The first thing he said was:
- I hope that the money to pay your salary come from abroad or from the European community.

I stared at him......and only said "sorry?" I was not sure I understood well.

- I mean, why should Portugal pay someone who is not Portuguese? and even more, why should Portugal pay so many foreigners?

I understand that this may be a difficult concept for people who are not familiar with how the research world functions and that the foundations of our work are based on shared knowledge, independently of the nationality or race of the people doing research. I understand that with the current economic situation people are less tolerant. But the thing is....I have a salary, I live in Portugal, I pay my rent in Portugal, I do my shopping in Portugal, my life is in Portugal.....so, it is not that someone is paying me to bring the money to Italy and spend it there. I am part of this economy, I am part of this country until I work and I live here.

I don't understand this growing intolerance toward giving a job to a foreign person. I am not talking here about an illegal immigrant. I am talking about a person who is legally allowed to work in the country, who lives in the country, who may even pays the taxes in the country, etc. It is not that the money that the country invests on me are thrown away.....I just don't get it.....

The guy actually only chilled out when I confirmed to him that yes, a large part of our salaries come from the European community......

I am not very favorable in general to globalization, but local and narrowed thinking is a very dangerous thing, I feel.

Neither here nor there

......I wonder where is the place for me in the world......

One year I am in Portugal and I still don't get the way of doing things in this country. Procrastinating is a world that must not exist here, as it is such a common attitude that here it would lose its meaning....yeah, yeah, I know, I generalize too much.......The thing is. I am sure that there are exceptions to the general trend, but my experience living in this country for a year already shows me that I can't expect anything to happen in a reasonable time.

Three things I noticed in a year and that people who visited me got (all of them) noticed in a matter of just a couple of days.

- Service here generally sucks. Portuguese people are nice, no doubts about that. However, it seems that selling you something, serving you or whatever other interactions especially including food service could not happen in what I consider a normal service....no, instead either the person serving you does not even pay any attention to you for a randomly but generally quite long time span or if he/she does, you can bet that it will be a rather unfriendly exchange, like if they are doing a favor in serving you....no matter if I am actually paying for the service.
So, up to now this is an example of things that happened to me (and this is not a complete and extensive list, but just a few examples):

- At a restaurant, the waiter left me waiting until a soccer game action was over to get my order
- At a restaurant, my friend and me were left unattended because the waitress owner left and none else was in the restaurant except us and another customer.
- At a restaurant, the waiter shoveled the plate with the food to a friend of mine, so that most of the olives that were in the plate ended up on his pants, on the floor, or on the table.
- At a restaurant, the waiter kept smiling at us for long time before actually come to get out order, when it was clear that we were ready and she was not really busy.
- At a restaurant, the owner/waitress would not bring us the bill because she was too busy eating (and this not at the end of the service, but in the middle of opening hours).
- At a restaurant, the chef, waiters, and waitresses would sit at the table to eat when we were still there and would have liked to leave....but since everyone was eating at a table next to us, they couldn't stop to bring us the bill.
- At a cafe', we had to wait 15 minutes even if the cafe' was almost empty before someone would come to ask us what we wanted....and this after we got told 15 minutes before to sit that someone would have come (of course....they didn't specify when they would have come).
- In my apartment, I still have water on my kitchen floor every time it rains.....today I had to stay at home another day and work from home to wait someone who was supposed to come to look at the problem....only, as always none showed up and my landlord not only didn't call to tell me something, but he also didn't reply to my calls. I have no idea how many days of work I have already lost staying at home waiting for someone to show up.
- At work, my student has the philosophy that either something can be done quickly, no matter how badly it is done, otherwise we could do it together so that she could do something better with her time.

I feel that in this country, respect of other people time must be a very fuzzy concept.....
Now, considering my very organized mind and way of doing things and my kinda-of-German mentality, I can't stop struggling and being frustrated all the time.

And it seems that it doesn't matter what I can do....nothing change, nor if I try to solve things nicely, nor if I get angry. Nothing.

Too bad it is a lovely country and I love the place where I live, because otherwise I would have already had a break down.

On the other hand, I am applying for plenty of jobs in the USA, where my boyfriend is and where there are more job opportunities. Unfortunately, the fact of not being American and not having presently a working VISA in the USA, makes any of my application becoming a nightmare, as I have to keep sending email to ask if I can actually apply to the position and my application will be considered or as I am currently an "alien" I cannot even dream of getting a job in the USA.........

The older I get, the more I get the impression that I should just stop caring about things and try to abuse of any system I am in and not even bother trying to do things in a proper and efficient way, because most of the times the only one getting completely frustrated is just me.............................

The art of effectively protesting

I love my native country, Italy.....but there are things about Italy and Italians that I don't understand.

In this moment of deep economic crisis, in every European country facing more strongly the crisis, Portugal, Spain, Greece, there are massive protests, with an incredible amount of people of every age participating to it. In Spain and Greece the massive protests against the measures proposing large cut in public sectors like health or education were even violent. Maybe these protests will not help or change anything, but it is the only power that a normal citizen has to complain about decisions of the government that we didn't agree with.

And what about Italy?

Every single day, I get news from Italy about friends or family losing their jobs or having problems to get to the end of the month.....and yet, not longer than five-six days ago hundred of people waited in long cues in the major Italian cities to buy the new iPhone, l'iPhone 5 the price of which in Italy almost reaches 1000 euros!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1000 EUROS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and the most impressive thing is that the people waiting in line for hours to get this iPhone were young people, under the age of 30......how can they afford it??? I don't believe that all these people are either selling drugs or their bodies to make money to buy these gadgets......

It just doesn't make sense.....as it doesn't make sense that in my home town little family run shops are closing one after the other, because they cannot afford the expensive rents with the low income that they make now. And yet, beauty centers do not feel the effect of the crisis.....When I was in my home town this summer, I spoke to a friend of mine working in a beauty center and she told me that this last year they sold more beauty packages (expensive beauty packages) than any of the previous years....

my question is.....in a moment of economic crisis, I understand to keep the market running and flowing, but wouldn't you limit your expenses saving on things like going to a beauty center??? It is good keep spending money to not stall the market.....but still.....

maybe because for me these are not necessary things.....

In any case, today I read on the Italian news that high school students protested on the streets of Milano and Roma........high school students??? most of them will be under 18....I don't want to diminish their impact and the value of their protests, but I have been an high school student too and these protests were always at the beginning of the semester and at the end of the semester, when the desire to go to school was almost zero and any excuse to spend the time doing something else was good......

I would really suggest to Italians that if we really want to learn how to effectively protest and do a strike, we should attend a couple of protests and strikes in France and then maybe we will effectively manage to send a strong message of disappointment and disagreement to the govern.

Being bullied

If I should define myself in a couple of words, among the first ones coming to my mind there would be "determined", "responsible", and "just".

Now, not having worked in Italy or in countries where things work similarly to how they work in Italy (meaning that hierarchy is extremely important, much more important of what it is right or of working things out together), I am not used anymore to not be able to discuss things in a civil way with people who hierarchically are "above" my status. Not only I cannot discuss things in a researcher-to-researcher way with someone who is "above" me in the research center where I work, but I should just zip my mouth, as I have been invited to do.....

Basically the way things are currently working is to spend as less as possible, to invest as less as possible, to not care about safety and safety rules, and in general to do things "alla carlona" as we use to say where I came from.....It is not my way of working, especially when I am responsible of someone's else work and I have to set up the good example.

Because I asked to organize things in the lab so that everyone has some space to work and store things and because none of the people who should be in charge of this organization and cleaning got back to me or did anything and because together with other people after spending 5 months politely inviting the people in charge of this to do their jobs nothing happened, we decided to clean and organize things by ourselves......the result has been that instead of someone "high up" thanking us, one of the someone "high up" has been complaining openly about me stepping on other people feet and doing things that should not compete to me. The thing that disturbed me is that instead of telling me his complaints straight on my face, he went to tell this to students...so he didn't even have the gut of coming to me. And this was one.

Then, I tried to organize a space to do something with toxic reagent in a way that none could have to breath the toxic substances. Of course, someone else, still "high up" went straight to the responsible of the group where I am working here and complained about me wanting to change things....I just arrived and I am so arrogant to change everything.....well, for safety reasons, yes...especially considering that this guy sits at his desk and doesn't even know what he is talking about.....fortunately, the person with whom I am working and who is responsible for me working here, is an intelligent person and basically told this guy to shut his mouth since he had no clue of what we were talking about....again, none said anything directly to me.....only complains to others.

Today I got an email from the secretary of our research center saying that the second person in charge of the center wanted to see me. As I was not there at that moment, I contacted this person to know when we could meet and of course, he ignored me as he has always done when I tried to discuss with him the cleaning and the safety measures to do our work.

As if this was not enough....It is three months that I look at the fight between my landlord and the man in charge of the building where I live on who should pay the reparations to avoid that every time it rains, I have the kitchen full of water....it is obvious that because these are expensive reparations, none wants to pay for them. The end result is that my landlord who is a judge decided that he will file a legal complaint to the tribunal against the condominium for not doing the reparations....thing is that legally he could do whatever he wants and file a legal complaint etc., but as I am paying the rent to him every single month, even if this problem is going on since forever, he should send someone to do the reparations and then deal with the condominium on who will pay what....of course, at the end the one who is losing instead is me.....and if I leave, my landlord will keep the deposit.....

Lastly, they renewed my contract for another year and without saying anything they decided to cut 700 euros from what it was established on the original contract. Of course, this is also illegal, but they did it....not just to me, it is not just me being unlucky....

I feel that any of these things mentioned above is just ridiculous and I am bullied around because I am none at work and I am a foreigner here......I hate this.

Mazza che puzza!

I am definitively clumsy. This is not something new to me.
However, burning something and have the whole kitchen smelling so much that I still cannot close the windows even if this happened hours ago, it is something I would have warmly avoided.

I am not new to burning things either just because I forget about them.

Once I put a moka machine on the stove to make some coffee.........thing is that I totally forgot about it and I went to take a nap. When my sister got to my mom's place (where I was staying at that time), the kitchen was full of smoke, the smell of burned coffee and plastic was unbearable and the plastic parts of the moka machine were melted.

Another time, when I was living in Germany, I baked a cake and left the oven half open to cool down but forgot to switch it on. I went with the cake to stay at my boyfriend's place and then I left for Italy for a few days...when I got back to my apartment, the whole place was probably around 230 degrees C, the temperature at which the oven was set up. I don't want to mention the electricity bill I got that month, because it was not as important as the fact that I was lucky enough to not burn the entire place down.

After these episodes (and these are just examples of how forgetful I can be), I turned out to be little maniacal about checking to have switched things off million times before leaving my place. However, when I am relaxed, as my mom uses to say to me all the times when I am in Italy in vacation "I send my brain in holidays".....so these episodes of me being especially clumsy they mostly happen when I am relaxed.....

This evening I was in fact very relaxed watched a movie after dinner, when I realized that I was still hungry and I wanted to eat something more...so without paying any attention I put a pot on the stove, without realizing that there was something in wood under the pot, which of course, got placed in between the stove and the pot.....the result is that it is very smelly here.

Still about bad smells.....I am not a sherlock holmes, but on the first floor of where I am staying it is since 3-4 days that there is a smell of something rotten....something like a rotten dog.....it is so strong that we have to keep the windows of the building all open to be able to breath while on the stairs...the smell is so bad that we can smell it even from the outside......now, nobody seems to be at home. There were people during the winter, but not the whole place looks without anyone inside, windows closed, curtains down......ok, I read too many thriller books maybe...but what is someone got killed in there or just died in there??? it certainly smells like something rotten....

Now, of all the people living in this place, why does it have to be me who doesn't speak a single word of Portuguese to call the guardian of the building to ask him to just check that everything is ok in there??? I guess that if in some months we will see worms crawling out of that place, we will know that something is definitively wrong......

Love and hate

This is how I feel for my apartment in Portugal.

Most of the times, I love it.

Some other times, generally when it rains, I hate it.

It is a beautiful day today and I just spent my morning sitting in the part of my kitchen surrounded by windows and with an ocean view. Then I went for a walk on the beach, for which I need to just cross a road, and then I got back to my place to have lunch at the window while staring at the ocean and its big waves.

This is something I have been dreaming about since I can remember. Living in front of the sea...in this case it is the ocean. The same. I don't have too much choice in terms of choosing the country in which to live...generally, I have to go where I have some chances to get a job. But in this case, I feel pretty lucky. I don't necessarily like where I work, but I love where I live, and my apartment is just perfect.....

......actually, I should say ALMOST perfect.....

The pond that I have on my kitchen floor when it rains, it is now a lake....it was a pond, a manageable pond, until I realized that if I don't dry continuously the rain leaking in from the outside, I have water advancing and advancing. Yesterday, I had to wait for the person in charge of repairing things in the building to come over and look at the problem before drying the water from the floor. In about eight hours of rain, I had 1 square meter of the kitchen floor, if not more, completely covered by water, which was scarily enough continuing to advance.

Good thing that I was here and not in holidays.
Good thing that I was at home.

My frustration for this problem was not so unbearable, even if I have problems of rain leaking in the kitchen since I moved in, until the man of the building came, look at the problem and told me that a) repairing what needs to be repaired is going to be expensive, b) it is the responsibility of the building and not of my landlord, and c) IF THERE ARE NO MONEY ON THE ACCOUNT OF THE BUILDING WHO KNOWS WHEN AND IF THIS PROBLEM WILL BE TAKEN CARE OF.

Now, if the rain would come in and occupy just a spot on my kitchen floor, I wouldn't be that worried, because this apartment is so amazing for anything else, that I would never move out. However, thinking that if this would happen one of the times in which I am not here, since I travel so much, probably:
1) the furniture of the kitchen would get ruined (and this would be a problem for my landlord)
2) I would have to move my furniture away to another room any time I leave
3) and that there are electrical things in the kitchen which could be dangerous if they get in touch with a lot of water......

all these things made me thinking of what I should do in case they will really not repair it soon. If this would have been a place where it rains once in a while, I could live with the risk, but since it could rain without stop for weeks in a row.....well.....

Easy thing would be moving out. But moving is stressful and more than anything else, my apartment is very peaceful, I don't have noisy neighbors, I can sleep well, I have an ocean view, I cross the road and I am on the beach where I can do sport and relax, I have a bakery next door and the supermarket just in 5 minutes walk (important point since I don't have a car), it is big so that I can host anyone who wants to visit me without anyone feeling packed like sardines, it is not too expensive, I have a garage in case of need....I can keep going on and on with all the positive points of this place.....

so, how can I solve this problem of the rain coming in and invading my kitchen if they will not fix the problem in some way?

My little corner of paradise

I had a very bad, with a very down mood day today.
It would have been even worst for sure if it is not that I live in a fantastic place.

Yes, I still have a pond on my kitchen floor every time it rains hard.
Yes, I still have problems at work and no close friends.

Yet, I love being here. I love living here.

Yesterday I went to the farmers market, just near my place. And not to a fancy farmers market, where things are double the price than at the supermarket. This is a real farmers market. With people who actually clearly cultivate their products. People who sell only seasonal products. A farmers market where I could get tomatoes that still taste like tomatoes and not just like a water bomb, where I can get many many lemons for 25 cents, where I can get cucumbers that taste like something.......

I love it.

And then yesterday I went for a long walk on the beach. I saw the little birds playing with the waves, I saw all the seagrasses on the shore, and I enjoy the feeling of the sand under my feet....and today I went running. First I tried on the sand, and my heart was pounding like crazy and I was out of breath after two minutes, but then I continued running along the beach and then I did stretching in front of the sea, on the evening light....and my mood got much better and I felt in love for this place.

And at the end I also saw shooting stars from the beach!!! Isn't it great?

Se non son matti non li vogliamo

My mom always used to say this to my sister and I to highlight the amazing talent that we both have in attracting or meeting weirdos....

I already wrote a post about my recent encounter with a weird man.....but yesterday I met another weird person....a taxi driver/philosopher....I just got back to Portugal from Italy and since I was deadly tired, I decided to get a taxi to come back home from the airport.

I woke up at 4am yesterday morning, so when I got into the taxi I was definitively not in the mood for a chat...especially considering that after 6 weeks speaking Spanish, English or Italian, any little knowledge or understanding of Portuguese that I may have had is basically gone....

In any case, I get into the taxi and this guy proposes me to make a deal...paying a forfeit for the drive to my place but I would let him chose the road to take, as he didn't want to be stuck in traffic....when he told me how much the forfeit would have been, I immediately accepted the deal as I almost never pay so little for the same ride, except if done at 5am. However, just to understand that he was proposing me a deal, it took something like 15 minutes.....

After that, instead of being discouraged by my little understanding of Portuguese so early in the morning, he decided to share his philosophy of life with me...He started by telling me that the worldwide economic crisis is real, but for sure there is also a world-spread mafia who wants us to believe that the situation is worse than how it really is.... (?) ....something like a world conspiracy....and we shouldn't care about what people or the media tell us about the crisis, we should live only according to what makes us happy and works for us, and as much as we can, we should behave independently of what happens around us...

since I was not sure to follow his line of thoughts, he decided to explain his theory to me by using a fitting example.....his example was the following....

- Couples exchange, which is a really common thing in France.....

Ok, now, beside the fact that I have been living in France for three years without realizing that couples exchange is such a common thing there, my ignorance on the subject may be due to my being very naif....However, since I didn't want to encourage him to give me further details on how he got this knowledge about couples exchange being a common practice in France, I just nodded with my head, hoping to continue the rest of the trip in silence....

But he must have read in my eyes that nothing he was saying made any sense to me....

So, his further explanation was:

- According to the church and the religion, we shouldn't cheat on each other. However, let's say that I am married and you are married (you was me in this case) and that I like you and you like me and that my wife likes your husband and vice-versa and we are all happy in having an open relationship in which we swap partners from time to time, as it is very common in France (again....can please a French person tell me if this is so common in France??? I was a bit surprise to hear this...), then we should go for it as life is short and we will all end up dead anyway....

Ok, I may agree on this one, but I still couldn't get the relationship with the economic crisis....which he further explained like this....

- So, if the media or people tell us that there is an economic crisis, it doesn't make sense to try to have a wise behavior to help things getting better, as they suggest, because since there is a world-conspiracy, we will lose anyway....therefore, since life is short, we better enjoy it as much as we can, spending money if we feel like and doing whatever we want.....

Right....it may be right that the media exaggerate the situation of the economic crisis and that we should keep the market going without completely stopping buying things and living....but spending money that most people do not have, so that they get indebted to the banks to which they ask a loan, without being able to pay them back after, will only increase the loop and the crisis.....stopping the economy is not a solution in my view, but also not being wise and keep consuming without restrain is not a solution either.....

In any case, independently of the measures to fight the economic crisis, I loved the example he used to explain his theory to me........

Killing noise

My mom has a beautiful house that I love. I have always lived there until I left Italy to live and work abroad. It is still "home" for me, even if it is now about 11 years since I don't live there anymore.
I love it. It is cozy. It has a lot of light. It has a lot of space. It has a nice view on the hills. It has a lot of happy memories.

It is just impossible to sleep at night or during the day in my mom's house. Especially in the summer, when it is so hot that it would be nice to sleep with the windows open.
I am very sensitive to noise and since I started to live in a small village in Portugal, I am even more sensitive. I wake up at the minimum noise or I can't fall asleep if it is not very quite. Here, it is basically impossible to have anything close to something quite. The house is on a very transited road, so there are many cars passing by every single minute at every hour of night and day. And since we are in Italy, everything must be noisy, so people need to drive fast, speed up even on a town road and of course use the car honk any time they have a change. Plus, motorbikes and scooters are everywhere. And these can be even more noisy than the cars.

Basically, I got back from the Galapagos after two days of traveling. I spent two days completely jet-lagged in Portugal, during which I had so much work to catch up with that I couldn't really properly recover from the trip....I thought that, oh well, I will have plenty of time to sleep in Italy....and instead here it is so noisy that I am going around as a zombie all the time.....(I am not saying that people in Portugal do not shout or that they are quite....it is just very quite where I live most of the times...)

The thing is that I am really not used anymore to people speaking laud, laud noises, people shouting...I love living in a small, quite village in front of the Ocean right now. I love my mom's house, but I definitively miss the peace of my apartment, sitting in the kitchen and staring at the Ocean.

PS. I just read an article on the New Scientist today according to which women's brain may age faster than men's brain....the authors of the finding speculatively proposed that this could be correlated to the higher levels of stress observed in women.....  isn't that a lovely news??? I am sure that the lack of sleep and all this noise which I stand very badly will not help my brain's anti-aging process, unfortunately....

Dangers of being lost in translation

A small little misunderstood word can do some damages....some unexpected damage........

The fault is due to the fact that by speaking Italian and Spanish most of the times I think to also be able to understand Portuguese...and most of the times in fact I do....but some other times I don't.

I went for a bikini wax. It is summer season. I live right in front of the beach, so for me it is bikini time. And bikini time requires waxing. Up to here no problems. The problem started when for the first time since I am here and for the first time since I had other bikini wax here, the girl asked me a simple question, which was

"Tira"?

I don't know if in Spanish "tira" has any meaning, but in Italian has a meaning that would have perfectly fitted in the context....basically, I thought that since it was the first time I was taking a bikini wax there, the girl was asking me if I was feeling any uncomfortable....So, I replied with a "no"....which overall I think it was the right answer in any case, even if the meaning of the word "tira" in Portuguese was something else.

Anyway, she then said to me "no?" with a question mark at the end.....

I got that I gave her the wrong answer.....so, without having any clue of what actually she was asking me with "tira?", I replied "yes".

She said "yes?"

I mean, I felt that I couldn't give again the opposite answer....so, thinking that how much damage can you do by giving the wrong answer while doing a biking wax, I decided that "yes" sounded like a good answer.....

....she went for the yes.....

I am not going to write here what she really meant with that question....I just want to say that since she was not even happy with the first result of her work, she tried to improve it (she must have had a very artistic soul) and the end results was not only very painful, but also something totally unexpected and not what I had in mind when I entered the place...

oh, well....nothing to do about it now, except for waiting.


I just discovered a new music group now....The Traditionalist...I am listening to few songs now.....it doesn't seem bad...

Never ending

...et voila'....after only 7 months living in my apartment here in Portugal, I still have rain leaking inside on the kitchen floor.....

Before it was coming in from the windows (and not only in the kitchen). Now, after almost 6 months of dealing with this problem (which mostly meant me cleaning the floor in every single room many times a day every day we have rain with wind, which here is not uncommon), the rain doesn't leak in anymore from the windows, but passes inside from the floor...

Anyway, I can already see that it will take a minimum of a month for my landlord to find someone to come to see the problem, then he will send a couple of other people to get a second and third opinion and find out who could fix the problem at a cheaper price, then it will take another month before the selected person is available and then we will be in the fall, when it will start raining seriously and by when I would need this problem to seriously be fixed.

As I wrote in a previous post.....pole pole....

Hogwarts School is right here in Porto

I love the official outfit (uniform?) of the University of Porto students. Every time I see one of them, I wonder if I just popped up on the set of one of the Harry Potter' movies.

I was in Porto just yesterday morning and while I was waiting for the metro, there was a girl next to me dressed in such a way that for a moment I really thought that suddenly she may took out her wand and perform some magic (but of course, magic tricks are not allowed in the muggles' word)....

Anyway, the official outfit of the students of the University of Porto is fantastic. They are all in black, with a black long mantel. Skirt and black tights for girls, black trousers for men. White shirt. Some girls even wear a black tie. I tried to find a picture on the web, because no description can really replace the image in this case, but I couldn't find any (don't know why on google images I kept getting pictures of Asian students...I don't see the relationship...)

Honestly, when you see a lot of them dressed like that all together, it feels like being at Hogwarts and it is a pretty cool feeling, at least for the Harry Potter's addicted like me.

the nightmare of wanting/needing to make new friends

I just came back from France a few days ago. I have some very good friends there. I enjoyed being there and being myself around my friends so much, that I feel even more then desire and need to make new friends here where I live now. I understand that meeting the right people with whom to build a good friendship is not automatic. I am aware of the fact that it took me quite some time to feel comfortable and be myself with my friends in Montpellier...I was actually quite worried about bothering them since I stayed at their place for many days....so, I have been moving around from one place to another since longtime to know that meeting the right people with whom to feel a ease and become friends is not something that comes in a day.

I know this. I know it, I know it, I know it.

But still, knowing this doesn't necessarily make my life easier here. I miss the kind of relationship I built over the years with my close friends, in Italy or somewhere else and I miss having something similar in the place where I am now. Instead, I keep walking on eggs all the time. I feel like under exam, because when I meet someone I like and I like to spend time with, I strongly wish that this person would feel the same way about me, so that hopefully we could become something more than colleagues or acquaintances....unfortunately, it is not just because I like someone that this person will certainly like me back and will want to spend time and do things with me. On top of this. Portugal is another culture. Different from France, different from Germany, from Italy, from the USA. Something different again. And so, I have to start over. I find Portuguese people very polite, but at the same time also very direct to the limit that they may seem hurtful sometimes in the way they say things. As always, I assume that people are good and nice, so I try to not take things said in a direct and sharp way as hurtful, but still...it requires a lot of understanding, as I am not used to this. Plus, not all the people I interact with here are Portuguese....so, I feel that I have to use one measure with one person and another with another person coming from another country....it is so tiring....a lot of work!

Just an example. Meeting point to have a picnic on the beach with two girls: 8pm at the supermarket to buy something before going to the beach.

I am generally late, but since I am new here I try as much as I can to be respectful and show up on time. So, I did everything in a rush to be at the meeting place at 8pm. I did. I was alone. I waited until 8.15pm, then, not sure if I misunderstood something, I called one of these girl. She told me that she was leaving home right then and that she would be at the supermarket in less than 5min, since she lives next to it. End of the story is that this girl arrived at 8.30pm, because when she told me that she was leaving home, she actually just woke up from a nap (why not just say so???) and the other girl arrived at 8.20pm.

Yesterday, I had a meeting with these two girls plus a couple to do something together. The meeting was at 5pm. We were at a festival and it was very crowded. My mom (who is visiting me) and I were there at 5pm. At 5.10pm I sent a sms to these people saying where we were standing, thinking that maybe due to the crowd we were all there and not seeing each other. The couple called me saying that they couldn't find a parking spot and they were late. For the other two girls, they didn't reply to the sms, so I called them and they were late. We met half an hour after the planned time.

Since I am someone who is almost never on time and since I know this and I find this behavior quite disrespectful, when I realize that I am being late, I always always call or send a sms to say that I am late, how late I am and apologizing. I find extremely annoying this attitude of being late without even acknowledging the fact that someone was standing in a place doing nothing else than waiting. Of course, none of these people do it in a bad way or because they don't care about me, but it is still very annoying. The thing is that because I like all these people with whom I met yesterday, I have to force myself to be extremely tolerant, hoping that with time we will become friends enough to find a common ground that will make everyone happy. It is really not easy.

It is so much work to always try to understand how other people work and decipher their behavior....some years ago, when I was at the beginning of all this moving, I found discovering places and people very interesting and challenging and I highly enjoyed it. Now, I mostly find this same thing extremely frustrating and destabilizing....sometimes I wish people would come with a manual......at least sometimes....

Totally predictable

....it may be totally predictable to an average Portuguese man, but it was not totally predictable, nor expected to me.

Let's start from the beginning.

After waiting for two months for someone to come to repair the windows in my apartment from which I had water leaking inside in any room any time that it was raining, after missing many work days to be at home because some imaginary man should come to repair my windows, after getting very angry at my landlord, after a lot of frustration, finally last friday afternoon someone came to fix the problem.

I was working from home while he was doing what he had to do to solve the leaking problem. I have to state here, up front that I am very very naive.....but sometimes I think my being naive is very close to be stupid and unaware of things.....I don't know how someone could theoretically not trust anyone, but at the same time believe that every single human being is a good person.

Anyway, back to the story. I was working and this guy started to talk to me.
I thought that it was bored, so I politely replied. The conversation went more or less like this (in a mixture of Portuguese/Spanish language):

Him: since how long I lived in Portugal?
I replied.
Him: for how long will you stay in Portugal?
Me: none can say it, with this economy......
Him: do you live alone?
Me (starting to feel very nervous and politely smiling very nervously): mmmmmmm
Him: alone...I mean, no husband, no boyfriend....
Me: eh????
Him: do you like Portugal?
Me (feeling kind of relieved because I thought that we shifted the topic of conversation): Yes I do for most things.
Him: and Portuguese men?
Me (blushing from the toes to the top of my head): eh?

......it must be said that sometimes I thought that I misunderstood the Portuguese and that he really didn't mean what I thought he was asking me....but no....he was really hitting on me....

Me: I have to work, sorry.
Him: you are at home.
Me: yes, I am at home to let you in to finally repair the windows, but I have to work.
Him: You have very beautiful eyes.
Me: uh?
Him: so clean, like the eyes of a baby.
Me: ok enough.....I really have to work, sorry....
Him: are you on facebook?
Me (and I was actually telling the truth): no. I hate facebook.
Him: you should get on facebook.
Me: sure, after I am done with work, ok?

Finally I think he got the message....but I was feeling very very uncomfortable. I mean I don't like to be rude, but come on.....
I told this story to a couple of Portuguese people I know here and the guys who listened to the story told me that it was obvious and totally normal......Normal??? I mean, someone comes to repair something in the apartment and I should expect that he is going to hit on me? normal according to which planet???

But at least it looks like that while he was bullshitting with me, he also did what he was supposed to do and the windows are apparently (and I really hope so) fixed.

jumping contact lenses

My current week started in this way:

- Monday. After one month and a half we got the decision about a work we submitted.....more, much more work is still needed...considering that this specific work has been started some years ago...well, it is a never ending story.

- Tuesday. I received the response to a job I applied to and for which I strongly hoped to at least make it to the interview. I didn't. My previous boss wrote me to say that he cannot imagine what was wrong with my application that I didn't make it to the interview....neither can I.

- Wednesday. Today. I woke up to find water in the kitchen and a lot of water in the living room. The water in the kitchen was to be expected, as when it rains with wind, the rain leaks inside the windows and accumulates on the floor. I have this problem only since two months now....which I guess for Portuguese standards is too little time to deserve to be fixed. The water in the living room instead was a new entry. I was lucky enough to have a lot of water but which didn't got to touch the furniture, which are all in wood of course.....So, my morning started with drying the water here and there and moving the furniture in the only place with no windows where for now it seems to be the smaller risk to have rain also there.....The landlord came to my place, got angry at the person who did the work with the windows recently (15 years ago??? 20 years ago???), made many phone calls and solved nothing before leaving again.....

- Wednesday. Still today. Around 10.30am I got an email from a collaborator of mine. The subject of the email was "bad news". Just what I needed. Apparently the experiment that he was setting up for our work went very very bad...none fault. Actually, the poor guy was feeling very sorry. But it was not his fault....just bad luck....

I would say that so far the standard of bad news that one can get in a week is already pretty high.

To cheer myself up, I went for something that I want to do since very longtime, but I was actually too scared to try until now (and I am still too scared). Trying contact lenses. I don't mind wearing glasses, but I like my eyes and I wish I could show them more. But this is not enough of a reason to push me to try the contact lenses. No, it is the b-boying course I started. Even if I suck so far in b-boying, I enjoy it a lot and I want to continue it. And doing that with glasses is a nightmare. So, I forced myself and I went to try the contact lenses. I didn't succeed. I am just too scared of damaging my eyes and I can't stand having anything remotely close to my eyes....I tried to put them in for about 5-6 times and then I decided to take a break and try again another day. My approach to the contact lenses is to get them on my finger and close enough to my eye, but not too close and hope that something will happen (like my eye sucking the lens in???) to put them in place. After trying this strategy many times without actually any success, I decided that my stomach was already upset enough from the whole effort and to call it a day for now.....

Can someone invent some jumping lenses that op! can fit directly into the eye with the minimum effort and without nothing having to get too close to the eye and op! same thing for removing them???

running running biking biking

I am doing a lot of sport. Push ups, biking, walking long distances, push ups again, abs.......

and this is not because the summer season is getting closer.

I just need to get rid of my anger, frustrations, sadness, whatever negative feeling I have at the moment. Why? because here is beautiful. I love my apartment (still with problems of finding water on the kitchen floor...maybe one day they will manage to fix that). I love the ocean. I love walking along the ocean, on the sand or just staring at it. There are many many loving things. But I don't get the mentality. Every single day it takes me an incredible amount of energy (which I honestly feel wasted) just to manage to get things going. Anything I may need from someone else takes ages, with many meetings, many opinions exchanged, many meetings again to get nowhere and start again......some days I really feel it is the never ending story and it will go on like that forever.

How can people work here without feeling frustrated all the time is something that I still don't know. Maybe you have to be born with the right DNA to be able to deal with this system of doing (or better doing only after long long time) things.

As if this would not be already hard enough, I feel very lonely. I do like spending a lot of time alone. The week ends for example are just for me. I like to have them for me. But this doesn't mean that I wouldn't like to have friends to do things with when I would like to and especially to have people to whom I feel connected too.

My ex-boyfriend lives very close to me. He totally ignores me. He doesn't even try to keep it polite. He acts as if I would be invisible. Saying that this hurts me incredibly, especially considering how much I like and admire him still (as a person, not for his behavior toward me), is a very little expression of how I feel about it.

Then the working environment, the one in which I work most, is composed by a small group of people with some leaders. And I don't mean leaders in terms of bosses. I mean leaders in terms of some dominating characters. I unfortunately seem to have stepped on the wrong feet, as clearly one of these leaders, who is a girl, doesn't like me at all. I have no idea of what I did to her or what provoked her behavior, but it is like that. And when it comes to her to decide or to organize something, of course I am not going to be invited. Considering that unfortunately I still know a very limited group of people here and that most of these people belong to just one group to which this person belongs too.....well, it is not a nice feeling at all.

It is a new experience for me. I mean of course there have been people who didn't like me also in other places, but her aversion toward me is out there, very open, very hostile. Not when it happens that we are already all together in a group. In these occasions, she is instead extremely nice and acts totally normal. She just makes sharp comments or keeps me out of things when she has the occasion.

It wouldn't be a big deal at all if I would know other people, some right people, with whom I could talk to openly. Some close friends to talk openly. Instead everyone here is best friend of someone else and so I find myself all the time walking on eggs to avoid hurting someone's else sensitivity, to not say the wrong thing because since everyone talks a lot about other people business, I am always afraid that anything I say can be misunderstood and twisted.

I am a very sarcastic person. I don't think that Portuguese people in general are big fans of sarcasm. I am not sure that it is part of their culture. So, often, they just don't get me. This is definitively not the first time in which I move to a country and sense of humor is so different that I have to measure what I say and how I say it (which is a very difficult task for me).

I am a very enthusiast person. Translation: I am arrogant.

and so on and so on....Some days it can be so frustrating that I feel like just being by myself, not even going to work, because I feel lonelier there than at home alone. I hate this feeling. And it keeps happening, because I move all the time and I keep getting to places where there are already hierarchies, networks, groups, etc. And I am the outsider.

On top of this here I am a disturbing outsider. Because all the girls here have a boyfriend and I don't. Because a lot of them also have kids and I don't. Because despite all this, I am even older than them. I just often feel that I don't fit and I don't have so much in common with them.

Today is my feeling negative day. It is normal to meet people who don't like me. I just need to balance that with people who really like me and with whom I can just be myself!