I do miss Italy a lot

I watched a movie yesterday, Eat Pray Love. Beside that I don't get how the book (which I didn't read) and the movie could have had so much success, since the story doesn't seem very interesting to me, beside that, there was one scene in the movie in which I couldn't help but crying.

It is when Julie Roberts is in Italy and cooks for everyone, her friends and the family of one of this friends. This reminded me a lot of my mom, my mom's place in Italy, how she can make everyone feeling welcome at her place and how happy and familiar and so precious to me all the moments spent at the table eating together or in the kitchen talking. I grew up in my mom's kitchen. Or at least I recall a lot of happy, family moments always to be linked to her kitchen.

I do miss Italy a lot, because I am very proud of all the beautiful things we have (even if we are not very good at preserving and praising them), but I especially miss my family incredibly a lot, and every time I have to move again for work, I think if the new place where I will be will be easy enough to reach to allow me to spend a lot of time with my family. It is so difficult to be far from them and not being part of their daily normal life.

This city is a public bathroom

That the walls next to every Irish pub in Ireland are covered by human pee is well known and established. What it came to surprise to me was to find out that if you are a man living in Montpellier, it is totally normal that you pee where you feel like when you feel like.

In the last months I saw men peeing:

- Next to a car, directing the pee toward the tire of a car. It happened in the late afternoon, on a very busy street. I saw him (and I actually even looked well at what he was doing because I couldn't believe it) while I was coming back to work. There were people walking around, and he didn't look neither ashamed or worried that people could see him. He looked like if it was the most normal thing to do.

- Next to a trash bin, on the road. At least this one was trying to hide from the main road, as he was facing the wall partially covered by the trash bin.

- At the corner between two roads, during the day, on a sunday morning. I saw him while I was bringing the laundry to wash.

In any case, if these seem only a few example, I can ensure you that the streets of this town smell like pee sometimes, especially in the summer, when it is hot.

But this is nothing considering that human pee is not the only thing that you can find on the streets in Montpellier..........and I don't continue further with more disgusting descriptions.....

A solo trip postponed

My coming month off is not going to be a month off.....
it always happens.
This time for good...I hope...

I very recently received the news that I got a 3 years grants to work in Portugal. It is a great news, even if currently my mood shifts from being worried about starting over again in a new place with a new language, and being totally excited for a new place to live, a new language ect. This past friday I was so worried and in a such a bad mood that my company was certainly very unpleasant.

Anyway. This is the biggest news of this month so far. I didn't accept the grant yet, as I am waiting for the results of other two things I applied to....but of course now I have to organize myself like if Portugal will be my next home. So, there is a grant deadline in February to which I have to apply to ask the money for my project (the grant I got is for my salary). This means that I can spend some much time traveling in February and that I will have to work......but it is for good anyway...

How do I feel now about the news? still scared and excited at the same time.....

kids yes, kids no

I guess that it is normal when a girl reaches the age of 35 to ask herself such a question.
The girl it's me. I have been asking myself this question since last winter. I got to think about that because of my surgery.
Would I like to have kids?
Kids? plural? I would say no.
A kid, one, probably, maybe, I think so.
Why?
Because I love life. I think that living is an amazing experience. And since I am not religious, nor I believe in reincarnation or anything like that, I think that the only chance for someone to experience what life is all about, it is just by being conceived and then be born.
True, the world is not moving in a good direction.
True, we are too many and if everyone selfishly will have a kid there will not be enough space on this earth for everyone.
True, from a purely ecological point of view, having a kid is a very bad idea.

As a scientist and as a person in favor of the environment I can support all these arguments (and many more) on why having a kid would be the wrong decision. Plus, I love my time. I am very bad in adjusting my time and space for someone else. I am very independent and I like to be so.
I also see a lot of friends having a kid and their life, what they liked and what they liked to do, is mostly disappeared now due to the kids. Finally, the giving birth action is disgusting me, I can't deny it. I feel like trowing up as soon as I see a bit of human blood.....imaging how that would feel.

However, ideally, so, yes, I would like to have a kid, because giving the gift of life to someone must be amazing. As a scientist, I find this fascinating. Even if talking about this with the olandesino, he told me that giving birth is the most run experiment on earth. True, so what? it is still pretty cool. But I am not settled with the pros and contros. I would like to be able to decide this with the person I am with.

Instead, the last two relationships I had have been with people who do not want kids. Point. Neither of them want kids. No discussion there. Having a kid is certainly not something you would do for the other person, no matter how much you love that person. I wouldn't do it for someone else, nor I would want the person who is with me to do it to make me happy. It wouldn't work...especially when the kid would wake you up at night crying for no reasons.

Still. I would like to be able to talk about it. I would like my opposite positions to be taken into consideration. Not just a conversation that it is take it or leave it.

I don't want a kid now. On this, I am sure about it. As I said, I am not even 100% convinced that I would like to have a kid. For sure I wouldn't like to have it alone. But it scares me to think that if I am with someone who for sure doesn't want a kid and one day I feel that I would like one, I will have to seriously think if this person would be enough for me to not hold against him the fact that he was not open to discuss with me an issue like this. I know myself and I know that even if it is a very miserable thing to do, when I am angry at the person I am with and unhappy, I can make him feel highly responsible of my unhappiness. And it is a terrible thing to do....and generally doesn't bring any good, just more misunderstanding and resentment. So, for sure I want to avoid to go along that path.

I made the mistake of making someone feeling responsible for my entire happiness, and it didn't bring any good. So, I learned and now I would like to be with someone with whom I feel I can talk about big, important life issues. One, because I am not sure of what my position is. And two, because none should feel forced into a situation or a condition, no matter how much he/she loves the other person....

Feeling tall and a new addiction

I just got back from a short trip to Portugal.
I found a country where I feel tall. At least taller than the average.
It must feel weird to look at people from the top.
I have never experienced that before. I am 1.63 m tall....or short...dunno....I consider myself of an average size in Italy, average in France, very small in Holland and Germany, and surprise!!! I am above average in size in Portugal. Not only I realize that I am taller than a lot of women there, but I am also the same size of a lot of men. Isn't that weird? It felt very weird to me.

Anyway, beside this pleasant surprise (pleasant? I guess....at least this is the first word that came to my mind thinking of how I felt when I realized that), and having got a good news while there, I also discovered a new addiction.

The big bang theory show.

I can't stop laughing. It is the best pick up mood I have found in years. It is very hilarious and the dialogs are brilliant. I have to thank the olandesino for this discovery.

Only negative point of this. I can't stop watching it...and so I am getting very little sleep....but it is so funny!

Book club

We had the monthly book club meeting yesterday. It was about the book "Yellow Blue Tibia". I really enjoy the meetings of the book club. It gives me the chance to read books that I would never buy and read. This one for example was a science fiction book. I would never buy a science fiction book, as it is not the kind of stories I enjoy to read.
But I am glad I read this one. Even if the end of the book is totally confusing and quite disappointing, if we would remove the last let's say 60-80 pages of the book (I don't remember from where exactly I started to not like it), then it is a very enjoyable book to read.

The next book chose for the book club of January is "The girl who fell from the sky". I still didn't start it, as I am already reading other two books. Fortunately, I have a long train ride ahead of me (to go to Italy for Christmas), so it will be the perfect occasion to read a bit more.

Wanting to travel

I am not going to have a work contract in February.
I actually asked to my boss to start my new contract from March.
Why?
I work too much and this year that is coming to an end didn't bring me anything good in terms of work, despite the time I dedicate to it, the passion, and all the rest. At the same time, months and years pass by and if I don't take the chance to do what I always postpone, I may never have that chance.
I need a trip.
I don't need a holidays.
I need a trip and for a trip I mean traveling the way I like.

I am not sure on where to go.
I will have about a month. I would like to spend some days in the Netherlands. Why? Because the Netherlands is always good and I love being there.
Same goes for San Francisco.

Let's say that out of a month, I would have two weeks to myself for traveling (which may mean just going to a place I have never been before and exploring the place without moving around too much). I was looking on internet for some tips of places where a woman can travel alone without problems.

The thing is, I am a traveler. I have been to many places in the world. I got to this book called: "Fly Solo: The 50 Best Places on Earth for a Girl to Travel Alone".... I read the reviews of it. It is not for me. My idea of traveling has nothing to do with finding a party, or what to wear, or where it is fashionable to go. Furthermore, I wouldn't buy such a book to travel through Europe. What I am more thinking about is either going somewhere to scuba dive for an entire week or to go hiking somewhere, maybe in Costa Rica.

Here the characteristics that the place where I would like to go should have:

- Nature. Underwater, forest, mountain. It doesn't matter, as long as I am not going to spend two weeks in a city.
- I need a place which can be safe for a woman to travel and be alone.
- Not too expensive, otherwise I could not afford it.
- Not stressful. A place where people are helpful in case of need.
- I don't want to have to drive a car to go somewhere. I want a place where by public transportation I can get to the places I want to see.

I was thinking of going to Oregon and then from there down to San Francisco. There is plenty of nature in Oregon, but February may not be the best month to enjoy it and in the USA without a car you basically get nowhere...so it may not be a good choice.... :-(

I though of going scuba diving in the Cayman Islands....but it may be a bit too expensive....

I thought of going in some park in Costa Rica.........but if I am going to walk in the forest and see a lot of animals and get totally excited for it and happy, it would suck to not share that with someone whom I know would love that as well.

It is very very longtime that I want to walk in Patagonia.....but I am not sure this would be the right time and two weeks are not enough to do that.

Hard decision.....any suggestion, shared experience, warning, etc is more than welcomed!!!!

Season of presents thinking/shopping

We are getting close to Christmas again. I have to admit not only that I love Christmas, the Christmas atmosphere, the family getting together (even if often my family getting together ends up in some kind of minor drama), etc, etc, but I also love the materialistic aspect of Christmas.

I am not at all a materialistic person, but I love to find small gift for the ones I love. The presents I chose are never too expensive or pretentious, but I love to walk around looking for inspiration thinking of what the recipients of my present may like and of what could make them happy.

However, there is one person for which getting a present is always a major source of stress, which resolved in the last years in never getting anything for him. My father. I remember when my sister and I were little and we were going with my mom to search for presents for him (when my parents were still together). There was never a way to make him happy. First, he likes expensive things and dislike the un-expensive ones. So, a sweater which was not from Armani or especially Missoni generally ended up hidden somewhere to be given some year later to my sister or I (still completely new) with the excuse that it was too tight for him.
Clothing was to avoid as a present to him.
Anything too expensive was to avoid due to my sister and mine financial limitations.
Anything we could think of that he may like, either he already has it (in the last model, the best type, the coolest one, etc, etc) or he actually doesn't like it so much.
Anything handmade is not appreciated at all.

So considering the last development of my tormented non-relationship with my father, this Christmas I felt I would have liked to try to find a small present for him again. I thought of getting him a CD of a group that he may like and he doesn't know yet. I thought of the Editors. The risk is that our present is going to be a flop again.

How can you find a present for someone who already has everything he may want or like?
Any smart idea???

A poetry- Zucchero Chocabeck

My father came to visit me after my surgery.
Unexpectedly, I had a very good time talking to him. I can't allow myself to believe that people may change and that he may have started to care about me. The disappointment if this wouldn't be the case would hurt me too much. I have learned something about him in my life till now. But I have to admit that I was happy to have him here, that he was nice to me, and that he behaved like a "normal" caring father I guess should behave. So, it was nice.

Yesterday, I went out in the car with him and he was playing the new CD of Zucchero, an Italian singer that I really like. I read that this last album of Zucchero was really good and different in comparison to the previous ones. I read that it was a very intimate album.

At the first track of the album, I got goose bumps on my arms. The music was so melodic and the song so intense, that I felt like I was reading a wonderful poetry, and even more. My father this morning, before to leave to come back to Italy, left me the CD, so that I could listen to it all. I am listening to it now. I don't like all the songs in the same way (e.g., I am not crazy about "E' un peccato morir", even if it is more Zucchero old style), but I suggest the CD anyway or at least to get some of the songs, because they are marvelous. I am amazed that Zucchero is not better known outside Italy. He is one the contemporary Italian singers that I like most. Of this album, "Oltre le rive" touches me to the core.

Another important thing. I saw on the CD that Zucchero supports the Associazione Italiana Sclerosi Multipla, another good reason to get this CD: enjoy the good music and also do something good for others (in this case people with sclerosis).

Let me know if you like Chocabeck too.

pause...stop...restart

I just had a surgery. Out of nowhere this summer, getting checked for something else, the doctor found a cyst badly placed that needed to be removed.
In a couple of month the cyst went from invisible and undetectable, to annoying, kind of painful and anyway always in my mind. As one of my philosophies is to get rid of things that have to be done, I tried to schedule this surgery for as sooner I could.
The sooner was this past monday.
I got to monday totally scared. I can face dangerous situation well, but when it comes to my health (or to the health of someone I love), I feel like I am a big baby. But everything well. The surgery went well, I am still alive, the people at the hospital were all nice and helpful, the doctor who performed the surgery seemed competent and nice (and according to my mom also very handsome), the pain now is bearable, and I am already at home.

I am not good in resting. Not good in pausing my life for whatever reason that it is not dependent on my personal choice. But this was something I had to do, and even if I didn't decide to go for it (and I would have honestly happily avoided it), I am happy the surgery is past. Now I have to "behave" and be able to pause my life and rest.
I left the hospital yesterday around lunch time and today I thought that I could already work, since I was at home feeling slightly better. I quickly got punished. After about an hour behaving like nothing happened, my head started turning, I felt very dizzy and I had to hide in bed for some hours. Did I learn my lesson? To be able to pause and stop my life when necessary, like when my body is sending me messages to slow down......

we will see.....for now I am looking forward to a healthy re-start.....and this so much for living in the present :-(

But I guess that now I have plenty of times to read the books that I have never time to read.

and with this...I am screwed

I just listened to a scientific podcast. Apparently a research showed how daydreaming diminishes happiness................basically, I am screwed......

I love daydreaming and I am a big daydreamer for sure....so what??? now I discovered that because of that, I am actually less happy in my real life....

I have to admit that I always thought that I should live a bit more in the present and less in my dreams and now even a scientific research confirmed my suspect.....ah...........I will have to seriously cut my daydreaming activity for a more "stay and live in the present" life......

hard work......

Too young to be old

You can be young, in terms of effective age, and look and feel very old. I know many of these people. People who lost interest in who they really are and in what the world has to offer. And then you can be old, and feel very young. Beside the typical crisis that many men face when they start to get old, making them acting out of fear of aging, which often ends up with a divorce from their current wife and a new girlfriend with half of their age (my father is a typical example of this), beside this case I was saying, there are also healthy people who are just so enthusiastic of what life has to offer, that they are very young in spirit despite their actual age.

Myself. I can't consider myself neither young or old. Not even middle age. I mean, as a actual age, the one corresponding to my birth certificate. In any case, it doesn't really matter to which age category I fit in, because in my mind, I am still young. I feel young. I feel as a young person wrapped up in a world made of a lot of responsibilities, till the day, which I know it will come sooner or later, I will feel saturated of them and break free. There are too many things I want to do and that I keep postponing because it is never the right moment to do them. And what if there will never be a right moment?

I dream to travel across Patagonia. I had this dream since probably at least 12 years old. I had this dream after reading books about Patagonia. About the strong wind, the wild environment, the km and km of nothing. And I always feel that it would be the right place to find some peace with myself. I need empty spaces. I think that this is one of the reasons why I love Holland so much. Holland is densely populated, and so it wouldn't probably come up to my mind as a place with many empty spaces. But there are. And they are just next door to big cities. They are just at a bike distance from crowded cities. This is what I love of living in Holland. Getting lost by bike in places with empty fields, water, birds, nothing. Anyway, I am digressing.

I can't say that I don't like here, or that I am not happy here. None of these things would be true. But it is not my place. It is not a place where I feel totally in peace. Maybe I should move again, work is not all. True. But work is what made me move in the first place and leave Italy. My work is my passion and large part of my life. But it is not enough. And the more I only focus on my work, the more I get the feeling that I am missing out a lot of things, and that I am growing old.

I miss sleeping on the beach to survey the nest of the turtles, as I did many years ago. I miss acting on instinct and do something totally unplanned. I miss the adrenalin shocks that make me feel alive. My life lately is quite flat and the people I know here are quite flat too. Nothing bad about that, they are happy with their life. I am just not. Not fully. I am not flat and I am too young, or I feel too young, to have a life that moves around work, eat, sleep, pay the bills, have dinners/lunch together. I need something more. I need the unknown and I need adrenaline, undoubtedly. How can I go from totally flat to less flat? have a bit more excitement???

Let me make clear an important point. I don't want to give up my work and start to travel around the world. That is not my call. I just wish my life was less flat.

I tried to hang out with younger people and even if I had some fun, they do look at me like the old one and we do really have little in common. When you go out with people that are 10 years younger than you, it is just weird.
First, they have a lot more time in their hands generally than I have. I have a job, which I want to continue to have and it is one of my priorities.
Second, the generation gap is difficult to ignore. Third, these people are exciting or they do exciting things as I did 10 years ago, but then they will grow older and they will be like most of the people of my age with whom I don't feel comfortable now. It is just a process.
It didn't work well for me. I just felt even more out of place.

People of my age, are either married to their work or married to someone, sometimes with kids. Thus, except in a few cases, they have very little in common with me. Plus, I have many interests which I want to keep alive and it is difficult to find someone to share them with. I don't know how to get out of this out of place situation in which I am since many years.

Yesterday, I had planned a meeting with a weird person who traveled a lot and contacted me sometime ago. I thought that we could have a nice chat, so I accepted to meet him.
He didn't show up.
I stood at the meeting point for half an hour waiting for him and he didn't show up. Great! There it went my attempt to meet someone that I thought he could have been interesting (please notice: he contacted me on couchsurf, not the other way around).

Finally, this morning I got an email from one of these younger people I know here. She just got back from a bike tour in Norway and Finland. I saw a few pictures. It looks like they had a lot of fun. It looks like something I would have enjoyed a lot. Of course, I wouldn't have taken two months off (one of the girls who just came back from the bike tour, left again for another two month tour in India.....).... but I would have loved to do something like that.

Here, I can't even manage to organize a bike tour of a few hours with someone of my age!!!!!

New - old addiction

I love it, I love it, I love it!

I have a new addiction.....my old addiction was to watch the episodes of the Avatar. Not the movie, the cartoon. It is so good. Good, funny, relaxing, with a good message, nice characters. I heard that the movie based on the cartoon, the last airbender, it is not minimally as good as the cartoon.

I just started to watch it from the beginning again. It is very relaxing. But the new addiction is....I am watching it in Dutch!!! and it is even nicer, because I love to listen speaking Dutch!!! I really wish I would know the language....For now, I just enjoy listening to it and understanding something here and there.

If you have never seen it, watch the episodes of the Avatar.

very bored

I just saw this movie of Woody Allen, another woman. I liked it. And the reason why I liked it is because it was about things I fear about. I fear of waking up one day to realize that I didn't live the life I wanted and I am full of regrets and it is too late.

I already have one regret in my life. Something I wish I would have done differently. Something I still can't forgive myself for. Something that still torments me. But at the same time, I also think that I am 35 and so far I have been living fully. And I am happy about that.

But there is a part of me that it is feeling like I am slowing down. Like I am not exactly doing the things I like and I enjoy doing. Part of me feels very, incredibly bored. The thing is, I think that my life have been very full and very exciting so far and it is difficult to keep up. I did many things which I consider wonderful and extra-ordinary at the same time, I have met very challenging and interesting people, I have traveled to many places and I have learned a lot of things. Lately, everything is slowing down. I pay too much attention to people telling me that I am getting old to get the job I want (thus I have to work more, harder, full time) and since last year I got into the status of mind of "I will do this once I will get this job done/position obtained/whatever along these lines".

I am too active and too energetic to live my life only about work. I need many more things. I have friends here, I can't complain about that, but I don't share any of my strong interests or passions with any of them. I miss scuba diving. I miss traveling to explore a place and get in touch with the culture of the place (I travel a lot, but I can't manage to travel the way I would like to). I seem to not find the time for any of the things I really like to do. Partly, it is also because I have to do these things always alone, and it is not the same. I am fine alone. I like to spend time alone, but I am also a social person and sometimes I would like to share the things I like to do with people I feel closed to.

I belong to a non-existing category. I am not a student, I have a full time job, and I am not a mom. I am not living with someone, nor I have someone to account for in planning my days/evenings/week ends. And I like my work and I like to dedicate time to it. Plus, even if once I am comfortable with people I am very sociable, in general I am shy, which plays against me in just jumping into something hoping to meet people with similar interests to mine.

Two years that I am here and I can't say I have met someone (and I am not talking about a man, I am talking about friends, people with common interests) with whom I clicked. I actually met someone with whom I got along very well at the beginning. A girl from Germany. Unfortunately, she left to go back to Germany a few months after we met.

I just feel that I have too much energy and I wish I could invest it in something more than just work.

...and I know that time is passing by and sometimes I feel very dark about all this....
I just want to have fun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dairy-free pancakes and yogurt-lemon cake again

Being very bored this morning, I experimented some changes to the dairy-free pancake recipe that I posted some weeks ago.
It turned out that the modifications I made improved the pancakes a lot!!!

So, from the original recipe, I used 100 gr of almond flour and 50 gr of normal flour instead of 150 gr of normal flour. I also added half tea-spoon of cinnamon to the dough, used half brown sugar and half white sugar and I didn't add the oil to the mixture. So good!!!!

I also managed to find a recipe to make a good yogurt-lemon cakes, instead of this one that didn't turn out well at all!

150 gr of margarine
100 gr sugar
3 eggs
150 gr Greek yogurt (I used the sheep one, 0% fat)
juice of two big lemons (it supposed to be good also with oranges, but I didn't try it yet)
300 gr flour
2 teaspoon of baking powder

Mix everything, adding the flour and the baking powder at the end. Grease a cake pot, pour the mixture in it and cook in the oven for about 45 min at 180 C.

Enjoy it!