....On a melancholic note

Tonight I was walking back home. It was late, around 9 and so already dark and a bit chilly. The kind of weather and hour that leads you to nostalgic thoughts. I started thinking about all the people that I left behind during my life. It seems like I always have to close a page and turn a new one. It is good; I have started so many pages but I had also closed as many. I reckon many little things this week have brought me to this melancholic mood. First I found my old student card from Voronezh and I started thinking about the time I spent in Russia and how I have never realised that I love that country. Then I received an e-mail from a friend far away. We have always been so close and for four years we were used to see each other every day and suddenly it hit me how much I miss her. In the e-mail she sounds happy and I am too for her. I am also very proud of her, she has always been very brave but I still miss her and wish to see her soon.

Then I thought about my closest friend back in Italy, she seems to be going through an important moment in her life and I wish  I were there to share it with her.

But then I think about all the opportunities ahead and the doors I have been able to open for myself and all the amazing people that I keep meeting along the way; to do something worth doing you also need sacrifices. 

Today I was at a conference about freedom of speech in Azerbaijan at the European Parliament. Two activists were having a debate with two Azeri MPs and I thought about how brave these people are. Speaking up knowing that there might be retaliation takes a lot of courage. The difficult decisions they have to make that could put themselves in danger and sometimes having to distance themselves from their families to protect them made me realise that you always have to leave something or someone behind to gain something or someone else. People like the Azeri activists make a difference every day and me? I'm trying to make a difference for myself, I'm trying to create a better life and better opportunities for myself. This should makes happy enough but sometimes I do feel like something very important is missing, something that would make all this worthy. Sometimes I feel like doing all of this just for myself is not enough, it's selfish and egoistic!

When I went to The Hague two weeks ago to meet up with my 'aunt', I stayed at her friends' and they were such a nice and happy family that I thought this could be what I really miss: a family, coming home at night to a place you can really call your home. Even though, I feel pretty at home where I live now, I know this feeling will always be with me no matter what until I will be able to built a real home with people I can really call my family. 

This feeling has never stopped me to leave, mover around and explore because curiosity and restlessness always overcome my fears and doubts. My real problem is that I get bored too easily making impossible for me to call one place my home, maybe I am just someone with many homes...

On this melancholic note I leave hoping to come back to you with more exciting and fun stuff (especially good news on the house front!).

 Good night!

Weird Things Happening in Brussels

 A couple of days  ago I  celebrated my first two months here in Brussels. I don't think 'celebrate' is the right word, I would rather use something like 'commemorate' or 'mark'.

Many people have asked me about the Belgium and the Belgians, about their culture, habits and national identity. I found myself unable to give proper answers to all the doubts and questions people have on this rather small but so diverse country. Therefore, I have decided to dedicate this post to whatever I have been able to grasp about this tiny (yet great) nation. 

I want to start with Magritte. Exactly, Magritte, the great and much celebrated Belgian artist (to whom a very interesting museum here in Brussels is dedicated. I highly recommend it), whose work is sometimes difficult to comprehend entirely. So often I have found myself in front of one of his painting wondering how someone could ever think of such an absurd subject, until I have arrived in Belgium. Then I realised that ONLY a Belgian could have ever possibly produced such works of art! Don't get wrong, it's definitely great art but sometimes a bit too difficult to grasp!

Magritte was a product of a rather 'absurd' country where everything is left to chaos. The first that really struck me was the way all the signs were arranged! If you follow the signs in the street you can be sure you'll get absolutely lost! 

To give an example of what I mean I will tell you exactly what happened to me this weekend when I was trying to catch the bus for The Hague. First thing I do, I check Google maps for the itinerary; it looks like that if I take the metro I get directly to the bus station in 15 minutes. So I leave my house around 12.10 to make sure I could catch the bus at 12.45. I get to the station and I find out that the sign for the line and direction I have to take. It looks like I have to go upstairs and that I have two options: stairs or escalator. I decide to take the stairs but once I am up I find myself on the street! I was so angry and I immediately thought: Belgians!! I turn and I see the stairs going down with the directions for the metro, I go down and I find myself in the same place where I started!! So frustrating! Suddenly I realise that I didn't notice a small note indicating that the platform was downstairs! I get onto the metro but I have already lost 10 minutes in a goosechase!! Finally I get to my stop where I have to change for  the train going directly to the bus station. 5 minutes to find the right direction. It turns out I have two options: one is getting out of the station and then back in again or take a deep and dark tunnel towards the platform. When I finally reach the platform I can't understand which line i have to take because three different lines leave from the same platform! Eventually I understood that my train was the last to leave and that I would have had to wait another 15 minutes meaning that I was going to miss my bus!!!!

This is not the end of the story though. When I finally got to the bus station and ran to get to the bus I still had to go through an absurd sequence of events. I did the check-in, they gave me a ticket that said I was supposed to get on bus no 3. I walked to the deck and I couldn't see the bus number until someone stopped me, took my ticket and told me to get on a bus. I got on, despite the fact that the destination indicated on the front of the bus was Milano Malpensa! I was sitting on the bus wondering why someone wanted to go to Milano Malpensa with a bus from Brussels just to catch a plane. The only explanation I could give myself was that the bus was probably old and that no one wanted to go through the hassle of changing the sign on front of it!!

Another really weird thing is the new 'public toilet' they installed on my way to work, just outside Gare Central. The thing (no other way to describe it) is standing in the middle of the street and it is like a cone with four 'toilets' attached to it and men stop, have a go and then keep walking! Could you imagine the smell and the disgust? Everything is basically 'en plein air'! I think it is the council brilliant idea to counteract the common habit of peeing against any standing wall! This is a common practice in Belgium and that is probably the reason why the city mascotte is a peeing child!!

There are many funny things that have happened to me since I came two months ago and the list will be too long. Just to name a few: it's difficult to pay with a credit card, almost impossible to find a cash machine and the trash is collected only twice a month... I could go on for ages!

I just want to share with you one last and probably the weirdest thing I have ever witnessed to. It is something that explains the picture above. One rainy evening, around 7pm, I was walking up the street that from my place leads to Le Sablon.  The purpose of my wandering at such a late (!) hour was the irresistible need for chocolate mousse. I came to the crossing and I noticed something very peculiar: an umbrella was attached to the handrail that separates the road from the pavement and a nice big loaf of bread was lying underneath it as someone cared so much about that loaf that wanted to keep it sheltered from the rain. At first I was absolutely puzzled and I stopped at the crossing staring at the umbrella when I realised a sock on top of the umbrella as well! I couldn't believe my eyes and so I gingerly took another quick looked at it. People next to me didn't seem that interested in this peculiar arrangement and I was asking myself if it was supposed to be a work of art or that was just a normal way of keeping the bread dry in Brussels. Anyway when the road was clear I crossed, went to the shop and bought my chocolate mousse. But when I reached the crossing with the mousse safely in my bag and a big smile on my face there it was a again the umbrella, the sock and the bread. I stopped to look at it carefully and suddenly a man all dressed up in a nice suit, tie and raincoat appeared standing next to me. I looked up into his eyes and I could see he thought I was going to steal his bread, so I decided to walk away. Immediately I thought about Surrealism; Magritte or Dali and so I got convinced that I had found the answer to why this artistic movement was born in Belgium. The Belgians are so absurd and creative in their absurdity that paintings like the ones by Magritte probably just represent their normal everyday life!

Seventh week...Brussels has its beautiful spots

My seventh week was all  about discovering that Brussels has some nice spots where you can take beautiful pictures. The weather has been absolutely gorgeous (except for some occasional rain) and I think that helped me see the city, its buildings and colours with the photographer (or painter!) eye! Actually my plan for the day is to paint a view of the city. We'll see what I manage to do. Every single time I sit down at the table with all my colours and brushes and the result is never like I wanted it to be!

I guess it's just part of being an artist (!); you always push yourself to do better and you're never happy with you finish product!

Here you just have some pictures that I have taken in the past few days. I am really happy with these. I think they look very nice considering that I took them with a really old iphone!

Apart from this epiphany about Brussels, my week was nice. We have a new colleague in our department. She is from the States and it is nice to have a full office with the three of us chatting and probably working less. During the week we went for a drink the three of us together. It was an impulsive decision but a great opportunity to welcome her into the team. It is a bit of a long story and definitely not a happy one. Last week a friend and neighbour with whom I am almost related (but how we became almost relatives would be too long and complicated to explain) asked me if I could take care of her cat while she was on holiday. I accepted enthusiastically because I love cats and I really miss having one. The only  problem was that the poor kitty was a bit unwell. I went the first day and he seemed to cope well with the fact that he was on his own but the second night I received a call from the other friend who was taking turns with me to feed him saying that the cat was really ill and that she had to call an 'emergency' vet. We decided to take him to his vet's the following day. So here's when my colleagues come into the story, they were really curious to see how a Belgian vet looks like that they came with us as well. I was a bit concerned about the cat because he was unwell and without his owners and seeing all these stranger could have scared him even more. He was so unwell and weak that I don't think he even realised that there were two new more people. Anyway we had to leave him at the vet's because he needed loads of fluids and antibiotics, now it looks like he is slowly recovering.

After the vet my colleagues and I decided to go for a pizza and beer. We found this cute italian restaurant on my street and we had a nice real italian pizza (a bit overpriced for a pizza but not for Brussels I guess) and we have a lovely time together.

On Thursday we had a picnic with everyone from the office. We have a nice park just across the street. It is a huge park built under King Leopold II. It's called Parc de Cinquantenaire and with its monumental atmosphere, it reminds me a bit of the parks you could find in Paris maybe. 

On Saturday we all (the office group plus a couple of other friends, flatmates etc) went out for tapas in this Galician Cultural Centre. As you step in you find yourself in Spain! It is amazing, it really reminded of the time I was in Asturias where there were all these tavernas serving cider, so noisy and simple. The place is huge and very basic; long and massive table and loads of Spanish drinking and eating what is really traditional food. We had tapas and cerveza and then we moved onto a bar/club that I didn't enjoy. By 2am I was home already, glad to be in my bed! I find really hard to keep up with this working life schedule: I can't wake up in the mornings and I struggle to get through the day. Also I don't know if my biological clock is broken or my blood pressure is REALLY low but I am basically in a coma until 4pm and then gradually I wake up and by the time I have to go back home I am really active! It might be good for social activities but not if you have to wake up 8am the following morning and facing 8 hours of sitting in front of a computer. Maybe the bottomline is just that I don't like my job. I don't think so, I have really good time at the office!! 

Another thing that I realised is my lack of concentration.  I am always doing two things at the same time. Usually I have 10 windows open on my desktop: one is our database, then my gmail, then something I am researching on, then the news (usually 5 different newspapers from 5 different countries) etc and in this way I am doing so many things at the same time and something always goes wrong! 

I am now thinking of buying myself a bike so I can cycle around the city. Now I  take the metro everywhere but it is absolutely crazy! There is always a problem! Last week there were two accidents two days in a row. One of them was so serious that they had to shut down the all line and replace the metro service with buses. Unfortunately there were just two buses from 250 thousands people that were standing on top of each other on the pavement. Everyone was angry and frustrated (French people sounds so funny when they are angry) that it was quite amusing in a way. Also what I found really funny it is how they put all these poor men to deal with the passengers and because everyone is so angry they get insulted and shouted at! I don't know why it was such a great cultural experience but after that I began to consider getting my own bike. I waste so much money in metro tickets and the service is not even that good!

I think this is all for this week. I just put here some pictures I have taken from my window. This has been going on all weekend now and if at the beginning was funny now I am getting a bit annoyed. I don't have anything against the Scottish but now I really would like to shoot these kilted men that are playing pipes under my window!!!

I will get back in touch next week! Have a good Sunday!!

My Fifth and Sixth week...in the land of the Soviets

Hello everyone,

I know it took a long to write this post but I had the most busiest two weeks since I came back from England! It was great fun but I hope it slows down a little because I honestly cannot keep up with this pace! Basically I have been eating and drinking for 10 days in a row. Now I feel like my body is starting to been affected by this 'unhealthy' style and so today I am on a mission to buy healthy food. I have found a nice and cheap bio market not far from where I live and I am planning to go there and buy LOADS of vegetables and TONS of fruit!

You probably want to know what happened, right? 

I think there isn't much to tell apart from the fact that I'm just having lots of fun! I have always something to do: theatre festival, music festival, sushi, barbecue etc. So just loads of 'social events' like my mom likes to call them. 

On the personal level, everything is going great, even though, when I am tired I have a sense of discouragement that leaves a sort of bitterness in my mouth. It is a feeling that I am wasting my life, pursuing a career that lots of other people are pursuing without success and that I should have more priorities, which in the long term are more durable and rewarding. I don't know what to think of the adventure I am living now. It is definitely something I don't want to do for the rest of my life, so is really it worth it then? Sometimes I think it is, because I have already met loads of interesting people and I think I am growing up. Other times I think that all these people are like all the other people before them, they come and go. Then, when I come to the conclusion of this long inner debate, I like to think that people don't come and then  go unless you make them go and if you make them go it is because they weren't important enough. I sometimes wonder if my life will ever be stable enough and if I will ever have a place I can call my home. I guess it's only by living that you find out. 

The job is proceeding with a very slow and not fun pace. Sometimes I sit at my desk, writing e-mails in italian, reading italian newspapers (which are only a bunch of crap, sorry!!) and I think that I escape Italy, I ran away from that language, that culture only to find myself sitting in an office in Brussels doing what I tried to avoid all my life. Sometimes I feel like I am wasting my time, or even worse like I have thrown away all my dreams. I know, I am a bit tragic. I guess it is my nature!!

While I am doing all this stuff with Italy, I am also slowly realising that I miss Russia and Russian a lot. I love the sound of that language, the people and the adventurous feeling you get by living there. I have asked my boss if you could let me work with Russia a bit more but apparently he doesn't trust my language skills. I reckon it is fair, considering that he has never seen a paper or a certificate that can prove my level. I insisted so much that he decided to give me a chance but instead of giving an easy task, he asked me to get an article published on a Russian newspaper. This is the most difficult thing you could ever do and having to do it in Russian is even more difficult especially because in that particular case you have always to call.  So at the end I gathered all my courage and I called Russia to realise that I know more than I think, thank God! I have managed to make three calls and speak with journalists. Unfortunately, due to the fact that Russia is a bit in a mess at the moment with the Olympics and the elections of the new Moscow mayor, they explained that it would have been very difficult to get one of our stories into a newspaper but that they would love to hear from us once things cool off a bit. My colleagues were really impressed of the fact that the Russians were so nice. Everyone has this stereotype that they are always arrogant and aggressive. I don't know if it is my attitude or the fact that they appreciate foreigners who make an effort to speak Russian but they were super nice with me and I really enjoyed talking with them on the phone.

Other news concern my future plans. I don't know what I am going to do after I finish here, expect probably do a master's in London in September, but I have applied for the traineeship at the European Commission. That is one of the reasons why my week was so busy; I had less than a week to prepare the all application but with the help of everyone I know I was able to get to the bottom of it and submit it on the last day of the deadline! We'll see what happens but I would not be too hopeful, though. I lack some of the requirements, I am supposed to speak three European languages and I only speak two because my third is Russian.

Since I needed a letter of recommendation I emailed my personal tutor at Bath and he replied saying that there is an opportunity to work as an Italian or English teacher in one of the Russian universities he works with. Now he has put the idea in my head, I would not be surprise if I end up teaching Italian in Magnitogorsk for a summer!! For the joy of my mom, at least. For this as well, we'll see what happens.

On a very tragic note I have another of my sad reflections. On Friday I was getting out of the metro on my way home from work. I was hungry, tired and frustrated. I was about to cry for all the stress and disappointment I had to faced this week and I heard two italians chatting. Tears immediately filled my eyes, I was furious. Immediately I thought that it is because of Italy and the Italians that I am here, all alone and frustrated. It is because Italy is a fucked up and corrupted country with no opportunities that I am here. I left when I was 18 and I always thought the main reason was curiosity, curiosity of exploring the world and see what is outside my comfort zone. The more time I spend in Brussels the more I realise that was not the main reason for going but quite the contrary. The main reason was necessity, survival. Most of the non-italian people I meet here are here because they wanted to explore, venture and try new things. The Italians, which are definitely much more in number, are here because of desperation hoping for a better life, better opportunities.

Today I am leaving my room to move to another room across the landing. Nothing traumatic since the new room is as nice as the other but it means that I have just one month left in this house and I have to go through the annoying process of finding another suitable place to live. Today I went to see this flat but they want loads of money for a room that is worth definitely less and also the area is very run down. I was waiting for the girl to come down and open the door and a man just randomly came up to the building and pea against the wall!! I was just standing there and I could see everything...I don't think I am going to live there in the near future.

I am now finally in the new room and it is very nice: big and full of light. I have a less nice view but it is compensated by the fact that I have a shower and not a bathtub so no more shower sitting down for me!!

On Saturday I had a friend visiting from England. She came just for the day because she was in Luxembourg visiting a friend. We had loads of fun just making fun of Belgium and the Belgians.  Also she brought me an amazing box of macarons. They are all gone! Apart from the macarons, we did a tour of the city and we had a great time chatting and catching up. It made me think about how difficult it can be to live so far from the people you really love. Sometimes I realise that I really enjoy making my life more difficult that it really is.

For now these are all the news. Just think that if I go to Russia after this you could read posts directly from the land of the Soviets, how cool is that?

Good night  (now I go to watch a Russian film, of course!)