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!

The best job in the world

I think that I have the best job in the world.
Not only I think that. I am fully convinced about that.

I am a scientist and I am proud of it. There is nothing more powerful, more wonderful, more challenging, more heart-shaking that feeling part of the ones who discover things. I imagine Leonardo, Darwin, Einstein, and all those people who moved our understanding of things a step forward and even if I am not like them and I will never be, just feeling allowed to be part of the same community to which they belong too, it is a fulfillment.

I was watching a talk on Ted. Not a great talk I have to say. But it still gave me a lot of emotions. I love this world. Not what we are doing to this world, but the world itself. I love the nature that is around us. I love the diversity. I love to understand the factors that promote the diversity that we observe. What it is outside there is magnificent. And I am always feel short of world when I see a documentary or just when I walk around in nature or when I scuba dive.

I am having a hard life in my work. What I am doing is not economically valuable. My kind of science is for understanding, to discover things that maybe one day could benefit the human kind, but not now. And now economically. Some days are just so hard that I feel that I am too idealist and that my passion will not be something I will be able to live off. Some days I hear in my head the voice of my uncle telling me to get "a real job, and stop to just play around".

It is true. Us, the scientists, we play around. We don't do anything important. We build knowledge. But knowledge is not something you can eat, nor something that makes you feel warm when it snows outside. But I love it, with all myself. When I have a bad day, when my motivation is down, when I feel that I should quite, what keeps me going is the thought of myself in Venezuela, working for a marine park. The image of myself floating underwater somewhere, the image of myself in the jungle, covered in mud, the image of myself looking at a mom scorpion with its babies on the back. And I know that in all these moments I feel part of nature, and I feel in peace, and I feel I am in the right place. I feel full.

I know that all this sounds very boring to most of the people. But to be in peace, I need to feel in the nature, to be part of it. My job for me is more than a job and this is what keeps me going in the days in which I feel that what I am doing is not valuable.

What I am doing is not valuable for most of the people.
But it has no price to me. I wouldn't be the person I am without it. I am a scientist and being a scientist is not a job for me. It is a way too look at the entire world.

I wish I could do something to show to people how much beauty there is in it, in this world, in nature, before we destroy most of it.

Dairy-free pancakes

I just made these pancakes!!! The first one I made didn't turn out too well (it was my first attempt), but the others are very nicely pancakes looking and good to eat!!!

I used a recipe I found on a website and I copy it here with a modification:

Makes 8 large pancakes
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 10 minutes
Total Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1 ½ cup all-purpose flour
• 3 T. sugar
• 2 t. baking powder
• ½ t. salt
• 1 cup unsweetened plain almond milk or other non-dairy milk
• 1 large whole egg, lightly beaten
• 1 large egg yolk, lightly beaten
• 1 ½ t. canola oil

Preparation:

1. In a medium-sized mixing bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt, making a well in the center.

2. In a separate bowl, whisk together the almond milk, whole egg, egg yolk and canola oil until well combined. Add to the well in the dry ingredients and mix until just combined. (Batter should still have some lumps.)

3. Lightly oil a heavy-bottomed skillet or griddle and heat over medium heat. Once hot, add the batter to the pan, about ¼ cup at a time, flipping when bubbles begin to form on the surface of the pancakes and the edges begin to rise. Cook the other side of the pancakes for about 1-2 minutes more, or until golden brown. Repeat until all of the batter is used, keeping the pancakes warm either on a plate beneath a towel or in a 200 F. oven. Serve with toppings of choice.

Au bon roman

I got this book from my mom. I read the theme of the book and it sounded new. It intrigued me.

Even if it quite a thick book, I finished very quickly last night, not being able to put it away. I don't know if it is already available in English or if it will be translate. In any case, if you come across this book, I suggest you to read it. The story is completely new. It is well developed, it is complex, it is well written. The characters are beautiful idealistic people. I got attached to them. I needed to get to the end of the book to know what it would happen to them and to the book store they created.

I have to thank my mom for picking this book out for me!

I also recently read "The handmaid's tail" from Margaret Atwood for the book club that I attend here.

It is the second depressing book I read for the book club :-(

For sure, this book makes you think. But it also made me scared, and feeling in pain while I was reading it. There is this idea of getting through the day in the best possible way, because tomorrow could be better. But for someone who praises freedom as one of the most important values in the world, this story was very, very difficult to digest. I don't want to give away the story, if someone wants to read it, but the idea of a place in which everything would depend on the capacity of giving birth to a healthy child, honestly freaks me out. I think that the power of this book for me is exactly in this contrast: on one side, the book is so well written and developed that I wanted to keep reading and I was kind of glued to it. On the other side, the story was making me depressed and feeling I had to puke.

looking like a cage

I love my little balconies here. I have flowers and plants on them. I can't really eat outside or put a large chair on any of them, but I still like every morning to just step on the balcony, check my flower, take a pick outside and then start my day.

Here, I saw again something that I saw for the first time in Caracas, and then in Cape Town. House windows with bars. It surprised me when I was in Caracas, but then after spending there quite some time, I also realized than better safe than sorry. Same goes, I guess, for Cape Town. But here......it seems that there are a lot of thieves. And this is why so many windows have bars. All the apartment located at what they call here "rez de chausse", so the bottom floor, have them.

I found them sad. Especially in the summer. It makes me feel like inside a jail cell. In punishment. Even when you open the window, there is always something that stops the view. It would make me feel less free (and in these days I am even more for freedom and independence than I was before). I couldn't stand to live in an apartment with bars at the windows. I had a tough time when I stayed for a few days in a place like that in Caracas.

Are these windows with bars so common around the world?

I don't do well

If there is something that makes me very uncomfortable is when people compliment to me for something.

I am not used to compliments, especially if they are honest, said without a second reason. I am not used to niceness. It makes me feel I don't deserve it. It makes me feel I have to perform well to not disappoint someone who has so much faith in me or thinks highly of me.

So, today I got two open reference letters for a fellowship I am applying to. The letters were wonderful. They were more than I could ask or hope. They were both just too much from my point of me. They left me speechless, they left me uncomfortable, they left me happy, they left me nervous, they left me as if I would have steel something from someone, they left me like I tricked the people who wrote them, because I don't feel all the nice things they wrote about me.

I mean. I make a lot of mistakes in my work and there are so many things I don't know and I should know. And I am intelligent, but not incredibly intelligent. My strong points are for sure that I am very good in organizing my time and the things I have to do (which is I guess an incredible skill for an Italian), that I am trustworthy, and that I am almost always in a good mood at work. But what they wrote was not just limited to this, which I could accept and feel I deserve. There were many more nice things about my abilities and my skills at work. Things that I honestly wish they were true, but I am not convinced they are.........

Isn't silly to feel so uncomfortable and guilty because someone wrote something nice about me????

It is good that there is the week end, and I don't have to go to work....because now I just feel like hiding......

What are you wearing?

I saw two t-shirts that I could never wear, not even if they would pay me to do so.

A few days ago, I saw a guy walking toward me with a t-shirt with written: Suck my dick!

I am not sure if he knows what he was proudly walking around with. If he was angry. Or if he was just trying to look cool (does it look cool such a t-shirt?).

If I wasn't shy, I would have asked him about it.

Another day, another guy.
This one had a t-shirt with written: And what about all the good things that Hitler did?

This t-shirt left me speechless. Who would wear such a t-shirt? Let me point out that the guy, except for this t-shirt, was looking totally normal. I checked the back of the t-shirt when he passed me, just to see if there was some following to the front line that could in any way make some sense. Nop. Nothing. Again....who would wear something like that and walk around in it????

A moment of pride

I guess that everyone has heard, at least once in their life, many marvelous things about French food.

I live in France. I can't have any product containing cow milk, and I am not a bit fan of mayonnaise or other sauces.

And I am not a big fan of French food either.

After living in the South of France for more than two years now, I still can't be impressed by the quality of French food. First, I find the choice of French foods quite boring. Second, they use butter or cream everywhere, even with dishes that I don't think go well with any milk products.

All this makes me feel very proud of being Italian.

I have been accused of generalizing my experiences around the world to the few places I visited in each country. True, I didn't travel very much in France, but I did travel a bit. And it doesn't matter if you are in Montpellier, in the South-West (where I have to admit they have a bit of Spanish influence on their food), or somewhere else, you still find similar things to eat.

Where is all the fantastic French food I heard so much about?
Is it only in 5 stars restaurants?

I just got back from traveling with my mom here and there in France. And my mom was surprised too about the lack of variety that you could find when eating in a French restaurant or in a Brasserie. Sure, in France they have great wines (which I don't drink) and great cheeses (most of which I can't eat). But what about the rest? What about regional typical recipes? Of course they exist....but why is it so hard to find something characteristic here and there for a reasonable price, without having to go to one of these restaurants where they serve you a portion that makes not enough even for a single bite?

And if you are vegan, forget of traveling around France. Big cities, such as Bordeaux and Paris have vegan and vegetarian restaurants, but with these exceptions, somewhere else vegan and vegetarian options (except for a salad) are difficult to find.

Italian food is amazingly popular here! We are in France! The kingdom of French cuisine!!!! and what do you see? plenty of quite expensive Italian restaurants always full of people. It doesn't make sense, does it?

And a last thought.
Young people here eat quite badly. I am always amazed when I hear comments about how badly Americans eat. Go to a supermarket in France and check out what people buy, especially young people. Pre-made food, lot of junk food, lot of fatty food. Go near an University place, and check out what students get for lunch............huge sandwiches filled with sauces and various things and then a layer of French fries.....

I think that by coming from Tuscany, I am just very very spoiled in terms of quality of life!

You better never need to see a doctor

November 2009. I had a pain in my chest, near the diaphragm. First thought: may that be a symptom of an angina attack? heart attack? this latter runs in the family, so it wasn't a very weird thought.

But no, fortunately.

I went to see my general doctor, which sent me home with a list of medication against gastritis and a request to get a check for a hiatus hernia. I got an ecography and it turned out to not be a hiatus hernia. Could it be a gastritis? the medication only made me more sick, but it was worth checking. Thus, I got sent to see a gastroenterologist, who suggested me taking an endoscopy to check things more accurately. Smart idea: get the endoscopy without anesthetic. Painful, terrible experience! Fortunately, nothing was found.

General conclusion: you have a nervous gastritis, which causes a lot of problems, among which this pain in the chest. Take these other medication for the gastritis and these plant medications to help you chill out.

The pain didn't disappear, but I did sleep better.......an average of 10 hours minimum instead of the normal 8.

July 2010. The pain in my chest is still there. I got a check with the gastroenterologist who told me that whatever nervous gastritis I had is gone for now and that no, for sure the pain I feel is not and it was not induced by a gastritis. He had mistaken the source of my pain and thus his idea of what I have. He suggested me to see my general doctor again to ask her to address me to a reumatologist, so that I could get checked for inflammation around the xiphoid area.

I pay a visit to my general doctor who comes up with a few test to run and a few possible hypothesis:

1) you may have a broken rib or a broken piece of xiphoid, but I don't believe so. But let's take an x-ray to check.

2) you may have an inflammation of the area, maybe a cyst there which causes the pain.

3) you may have a bone growth there, which does not necessarily have to be cancerous, but better to check for it and take a scintigraphy (a very very invasive test to take).

I left the doctor, got home and cried a lot for how scared I got after talking to her.

I feel ok. I can't run or do hard core sport because of this pain in my chest, which impede a nice, smooth rib cage expansion. But beside this, I am ok. Every morning I wake up and do some exercise for the arms and some for the abdominal. And everything feels ok.

It didn't make sense.

So, I got the x-ray and the response was that I didn't have anything broken and no need for a scintigraphy because I had an inflammation of the area probably due to a very small and extremely rare kind of hernia from which fat passes trough. If you look on internet for this kind of hernia, it is so rare that there is almost nothing written about it.

Next step, a CT scan analysis was necessary to confirm the existence of this hernia.
I got the CT scan this morning. Beside the fact that it took half an hour to the nurse to find at least one vein in which to inject the nasty compound (they, two people, checked my hands, arms, wrists in search of at least one vein that they could use), beside the fact that the compound burns like hell when it gets into the body and that I felt the need to pee, beside all this, it turned out that no, I don't even have an hernia, that most likely is just a nasty inflammation, but....................since they were checking things, they found something else and they suggested me taking an MRI to confirm the diagnosis.

Ok, so since November last year I got an endoscopy without anesthesia. Two ecographies. An x-ray. A CT scan. Not bad...and all this to tell me what? that basically they have no clue of what gives me the pain, that most likely is a simple inflammation or xiphoid syndrome (if you check on internet it seems that doctors think about this hypothesis as one of the last resources), that I should see another doctor and then get an MRI to check for something which has nothing to do with this pain I feel.......

Definitively better to always feel well!

Dangers of being a nice friendly person

I remember a colleague of mine in Germany complaining about the men not looking at her there, in Germany. As a French, she always told me about how French men show their appreciation for women, how French men are able to make you feel attractive, pretty, noticeable, sexy, how French men.........................................................

.............The only French man working with us at that time was someone so pushy, someone who wouldn't know what a boundary of decency is, someone so convinced to be the best in the world in everything (especially when it would come to seduce women, according to him), that I thought that he was an exception. French men couldn't all be like that.

After 2 years of living in the South of France I can say that even if not all the French men I met here are like him, French men can be very pushy, and very insistent when it comes to flirting, showing you their attention and wanting to get yours.

Lately, a trip to the laundry place become also an adventure. An adventure of me playing the reserved, very polite, but also shy person and of the two guys there trying to flirt with me in any possible way. It doesn't matter whatever excuse you could tell them, I have a boyfriend, I am lesbian, I want to become a nun, I only date men who would jump out of a 10mt high bridge for me, nothing. They would keep going, feeling challenged by my refuse. None of them has been pushy or lacked or respect, but they do anything as possible to make clear to me that if I would like, they would be available to go out on a date with me. They have been offering me help transporting the laundry back to my place, going to shop with me, showing me the area a bit. Anything I could say, would give them an idea about a place they could invite me or something we could do together. I honestly don't even know if it is a role men have to play here, the macho flirting French romantic guy, or if they are actually interested. Not that it would make a difference to me.

Then I go food shopping. The guy standing in line behind me had just a bottle of coke. I asked him if he wanted to pass before me, as I had many things. He answered that no, he was not in a rush and I said "ok, you can still change mind, there are a few people before me". A few minutes go by and what does he do? he tells me that he changed his mind...................

...................but not about passing in front of me in line, not. About wanting to have a drink with me. So, again in a very polite way, we started the game of him inviting me for a drink (out, to his place, to my place, anywhere I would feel comfortable) and me politely refusing any of his offers. All this while standing in line and with people staring at us.

On top of this, today a guy on the street offered me to help transporting my laundry.

I am not a model. Physically I am a very normal looking person. It is true that sun and hot weather make hormones go crazy. But still, my hormones don't make me flirting with any man I meet on the street. Not even with every second one. They do not make me be any different of how I am in winter.

........two questions now.....
Is this a cultural French thing? that when there is a woman around you need to flirt and show that you are a man with needs?

Is it so much better to always receive attentions and comments like here in France than just feeling invisible as in Germany?

I for sure don't want to feel invisible for the person I like/love/I am with.....but I absolutely don't mind to be totally invisible for the other men....

Nothing green left in Italy?

To save money, it seems that the Italian policy is to cut here and there from the least important areas in which the money were going: science and nature.

The recent proposal concerning Italian protected areas, is to cut them down to 50%. Here below I attached the press release of the Italian National Association of staff members of protected areas.

Instead that progressing, I feel that in Italy we are more and more going backward. Italy is an amazing beautiful country, why not try to protect it?

Press release of the Italian National Association of staff members of protected areas (394), denouncing the Italian government measures approved by the Italian Senate some days ago and now under examination by the Italian House of Representatives which will cut down by 50% the budgets of all Italian National Parks, de facto causing their total paralysis or even shutdown  for  some of them.


NO to the shutdown of ITALIAN NATIONAL PARKS
On 23rd July 2010: SIT-IN IN ROME

People of parks are going down in the street  in Rome on the  23rd of July  to protest against the government measures, approved by the Italian Senate some days ago and now under examination by the Italian House of Representatives  which imply a  50% reduction of financial resources for  the National Protected Areas.
It is a heavy hit for the  fragile system of Italian  Parks  that will cause their total paralysis  or even  the shutdown  for  some of them. .
Aserious blow for nature and tourism in Italy: wildlife, habitats, rivers,  forests and coasts in the last 24 Italian natural paradises (Gran Paradiso, Stelvio, Dolomiti Bellunesi,  Foreste Casentinesi, Arcipelago Toscano,  Sibillini, Gran Sasso,  Abruzzo, Circeo, Cilento, Vesuvio, Gargano and many others)  will be once again subject to  speculation  and indiscriminate exploitation.
Every environmental policy required by the European Union  will be canceled, and this just during  the International Year of Biodiversity that recognizes,  as the National Biodiversity Strategy,  the strategic  role of  Parks and the need to strengthen them.
Altogether the National Protected Areas, which include about  5% of the national territory,  cost to the Italian Government 50 millions Euro, which is equivalent  to the price of one coffee a year for each Italian resident.  But, for the Italian government, environment, biodiversity, sustainable development and  EU policy strategies,  do not deserve even this coffee!

On  the 23rd of July, the associations which represent the parks world (guides, employees, managing directors, park wardens, environmental educators) and the environment NGOs   have organized a sit-in in Rome in front of the Italian Ministry of the Environment   to say NO  to an  irrational reduction of financial resources for National parks, a real shame for a civil country, a serious violation to international, European  and constitutional rights.
It is time to say NO to the continuous attacks that weaken  and discredit  parks and  their  institution.

The casket of the Italian natural treasures, that parks cannot defend any more for future generation, will be symbolically given back to the Italian Minister Stefania Prestigiacomo, asking for:

1) a concrete and definitive recognition of the national parks' role  as  important and strategic instruments  for environmental policy;
2) the exclusion of the protected areas from the reduction of financial  resources (item 7 paragraph 24 Law by Decree 78/2010) and the commitment to provide parks the necessary means  to comply to strategic international and national aims.

Everybody is asked to participate to defend the Italian parks and environment.

The following associations and NGOs will participate to the sit-in:

UNIONE per i parchi e la natura d'Italia
394 Associazione nazionale personale aree protette
AIDAP Associazione italiana direttore e funzionari aree protette
AIGAE Associazione italiana guide ambientali
AIGAP associazione italiana guardie dei parchi e delle aree protette
WWF Italia Onlus
LIPU Lega Italiana Protezione Uccelli
ISTITUTO PANGEA  -  MOUNTAIN WILDERNESS
PRO NATURA - ITALIA NOSTRA
COMITATO NAZIONALE DEL PAESAGGIO
VAS Verdi Ambiente Societa'
ALTURA Associazione Tutela Rapaci Italiani e loro Ambienti

for further informations,
please contact Andrea Gennai:
Tel. +39.320.4270842 

Book club

I have never been part of a group club. I have never participate to any meeting of a book club before, but I have always liked the idea.

I love books.

And I love to discover new things, including new writers, new book.

And I like the idea of sharing thoughts about a book with a few other people.

I don't know why I have never managed to participate to at least to one book club meeting. In any case, today I walked in to the English book store as I wanted to sell some books and I got hooked with this thing of the book club. They meet once a month, so it is not a big commitment for someone who travels all the time like me. I think I can make it once a month (except if I am traveling exactly at the time of the meeting). So, I got the book to read for the next book club meeting. I have never heard of this author (who apparently instead is quite well known), but the story sounded very interesting to me.....

The book to read is from C. McCann and the title of the book is "Let the great world spin"

I hope that the book club will be a nice experience and that I will meet some nice people there.

Ah, plus point. The book club discussion will be in English!!! so refreshing!