So Finland it is...

Cosa è possibile fare oggi... so già perfettamente quale sarà il mio autobus la mattina, e quanta strada dovrò fare tra casa e la fermata, a che ora arriverò al palazzo del TKK di Helsinki.

So anche com'è fatto il mio appartamento da fuori, la stradina e i dintorni. Lo posso vedere da Google Street View.

Tuttavia mi mancano ancora le informazioni essenziali su questa mia "avventura di ricerca" (ricerca intesa a tutti i livelli): come sarà? Come starò? Che impronta lascierà su di me?

Niente, di questo non posso sapere niente. Ed in fondo non lo saprò neanche dopo. Ancora rifletto sulla mia Germania e cerco di affrontare la mole di esperienze e sconvolgimenti accadutimi e non riesco con facilità a tirarci fuori le gambe.

So solo che amo smodatamente la Germania, ma non è quella la mia terra.

Poco male, accadeva lo stesso con la Norvegia, poi è arrivata Ulm, le campagne e il centrocittà raccolto. Magari domani la Finlandia mi farà lo stesso effetto...

At last, some spare time!

I'd like to write something regarding Europe.

By now I'm reading some of these very useful books, sorta "a very short and brief and remarkably easy history of ??? for dumb dummies" with "Europe" and "Germany" replacing ???.

For precisions' sake it's "A concise history of Germany" by Mary Fullbrook and "A very short introduction on the European Union" by J.Pinder & S.USherwood.

They come from the Cambridge and Oxford university press, respectively, so despite being "simplified soups" for those without teeth, they are authoritative enough.

What I'm reading so far about EU is amazing. I've never known France had such an influential role over the other countries. But I'll give you later more insight on the topic, by now my time is nearly over and the book is just at its beginnings.

The Germany book is interesting too, spanning over a thousand years of Mitteleuropean people history (it is, in fact, difficult to talk about Germany as a whole, since its borders and people moved and changed over the centuries). Germans are a very complex pot of peoples and dialects and traditions, and I love them the way they are... Ah, Germany... I'd love to be there again. Sneaking a glance over the roofs from my 20 squared meters "attic" (though attic sounds too nice... it was more of a loft... though it sounds still too good... anyways whatever you might call that pit, I loved it) and giving a glance to the tall Münster. That was life. No anxiety, no Berlusconi on front page anymore, your city major is not a thief, working on a world famous company and your career just at its beginnings, with free tea in the afternoon, a metal guy as a peer and a bear-ish Italian as a boss.

I smell some fresh air from the north, my way is going north again, I know that.

Possibly bringing some more colours to this blog again.

Ok, dreams fade away. I'm gonna read my Germany history for a while, trying to better understand that crazy people once again.

Bye everyone

Downstairs I hear...

Sotto di me, una coppia litiga. Si sentono le urla, gli oggetti urtati, ed infine, la porta che si sbatte. Le mani che violentano l'ascensore, chiedendogli la pietà di un viaggio veloce vero il basso...

Gli inferi? No, solo il portone d'uscita.

Litigano e litigano ancora, quei dolic coniugi, che un giorno pensarono di fare cosa buona e giusta nell'unire le loro vite.

Ed io mi chiedo: dovrei forse invidiarli? La mia musica copre le urla...

C'è solo una linea sottile tra una vita ben realizzata e soddisfacente e una vita sprecata. Chiamatela provvidenza, se avete affiliazioni cristiane, oppure opportunità, se vi interessa più la politica; virtù, se credete nell'homo faber.

Difatti, ci fanno credere che possiamo realizzare al meglio le nostre vite, con gli acri ed il mulo che ci viene consegnato equamente dal capitalismo....

Stronzate.

Facciamo i conti della nostra vita e alla fine non abbiamo veramente combinato un cazzo. E non ci sentiamo neanche orgogliosi di non aver fatto nessun danno almeno.

Basta cambiare punto di vista, e tutto si ribalta, una vita che sembrava perfetta poi diventa una perdita di tempo.

Io? In questo enorme gioco di ruolo, sento che sto guadagnando esperienza. Prima o poi passerò di livello!

Hospital

I hope Huggin forgives me if I use this blog for my personal worthless scribblings.

From a way too real experience.

HOSPITAL

I had a disease
So I became a disease
Something to be studied, eliminated.
I became a machine
a glass jar with a virus within.
They pierce me with needles
they take away my blood
the blood of my kin
the blood of my life.
They put in me a new liquid
slowly, drop by drop.
The neon light in the ceiling hurts my eyes
I wonder if there is a sun anymore
I wonder if I'll see it again.
I'm pierced again and left without knowing
I don't know myself.
I'm a machine. I have cables.
Nothing is human, not even the disease.
I'm carried on a chair. Machines have to be guided.
My gaze is fixed in front of me. I stare at the ceiling.
No thoughts in my brain. Liquids and pills make me work.
For a moment I want myself back.
But I forgot what it means.

The empire strikes back

There is violence again in Northern Ireland.

Violence that wants to be named "Real IRA".

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7938663.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/7933990.stm

People asked me - as if I were an expert - why now? Why after a relatively long time without "political manslaughter" men start shooting policemen again? Especially in the peaceful city of Craigavon.  I don't know.

Perhaps hunger and violence are linked. Or maybe it's just the last bloody breath of an army that is dying out.

Munin

Irenic or Irenical: adjective, intended to create peace.

Wissenlust

I am experiencing something not completely new and yet uncommon.

Desidre for greater knowledge; for every possible piece of knowledge man can have. Especially if it doesn't belong to my specific field.

There is a sick joy in suggesting a better word for a translation about chemistry, and a sick displeasure in noticing that after all, I don't know exactly how brain works.

For five years of high school I've been pampered with the idea of the "absolute man" who could master every knowledge. Now, I want more.

Therefore, I am going to study some more right now.

Munin

Phlogiston: noun, a substance believed in earlier times to exist in all xombustible matter and to be released in combustion; the observed effects were subsequently found to be due to oxygen.

From Foyle's Philavery, a treasury of unusual words

As always in life, "soon" comes much later than the worst expectations.

Things changed again, a new semester started and eventually I found it was time to write.

Part 1 - Verschiedenheit

Vaasa is a nice city - at least it appear

s so when covered with snow. It is much more heimlich than Lahti to me, I like the happier accent they have, rather different from the dull etelä suomi accent. I loved the casheer that greets you with a "hej då".

Same goes with the university; a very small university as student number, though with the services and location of a prestigeous university (for italian standards). Freed

om of subjects and lots of entertaining activities for students. And how much is the fee? 0.00€

Now some trivia that non-finnish reader may find interesting - if there are any!

Cold related trivia:

- your nose: when temperature sinks below -10, you will feel it. Or actually you won't feel at all. With such temperatures, I experienced l

oss of sensitivity and, after longer exposition, a little pain in the exposed parts. Moreover, the steam naturally produced by breathing needs shorter time to get liquid. Actually, after some time outside, I found water coming down my nose all the time.

 

- The ghosts: smog produced my vehicles, for some reason, doesn't fly away, but remains for quite some time close to the ground, between 0 and 30 cm approx. These small cl

ouds move close to the ground, and move as other cars approach; they stirred my immagination and to me they look like smoke ghosts.

- The day when the snow melted in Vaasa I f

elt as if everything had changed. Roads looked different, and people felt "closer".

- There is an entire road in Vaasa city centre which is warmed, so that snow never covers it. 

Non-cold-related trivia:

- Not only Finnish students love to drink and

 sing ominous songs while they do it: they also wear overalls in such occasions. I know that students are sometimes called "the workers of knowledge", but isn't this a too lit

eral interpretation?

Part 2 - Ma maison c'est la meilleur, car elle a une porte e des fenetres...

A new semester has come. Study again, lectures, and some of them are even pleasant. My last semester it appears to be... for the time being; of the future I do not know!

I started writing a short essay called "Pride is Prejudice" which by the way has nothing to do with Jane Austin. We had another D&D session and we are waiting everybody to be back, for the "incredibly funny thing" the master has promised us weeks ago.

The world is sinking down at hyper-speed; world economy is crumbling as a dead golem.

I don't like to boast, but I said it. Who has

 known me for some time knows that since when I was 14 I am expecting a world catastrophe, showing the crazyness of the whole system we built. Social Darwinism is the exc

use european (and therefore also american) race* has used for a long time to justify aggression and violence towards other people, and now it seems we europans have totally failed with this economic system. Schade. Perhaps people will learn how to "feed on dry tubers" or perhaps not. Nothing in the universe is stubborn as a human being.

Myself, I find much pleasure in books, lectures and games. Useless things are the greatest creation of human mind. Nobody but us could create the Beowulf or Blackgammon.

And now, to pamper your eyes, a random picture.

Destination -20

Finland, again.

As a zealot pilgrim I reach the airport very early. 3AM.

Airports feel like home. Tired people, farewells, hopes. Check-in, security controls. I am not afraid of security controls, when I am not violating rules: on the contrary, I almost feel proud of being searched personally, of being looked at, asked to take off my belt, and checked. After all, they are caring for our safety, right?

Finnish people start queuing already 45 minutes before the gate opens, and scared italians follow, at safe distance, the pale tall people.

A flight like many others. I know that every single flight has a little wonder, be it for good or bad: a particular landscape, a fire dawn, or just a peculiar hostess. This one had its own.

And Finland again. The refreshing snow, the -3 degrees, the white. Italians on a bus, totally bewildered, with a finnish girl acting as a guide: this is my first company.

The bus eventually leaves me at the usual destination: Tampere. The bridge, the square.

Good old people for a totally new Silvester. It is my first time that I spend my second most hated holiday (the first being carnival) abroad. What does "abroad" mean anyway...

Languages give our characters consistency, depth. A man who speak Danish must then be Danish, so that Denmark is the only place where he can be. If we would all speak the same language, our identities would melt much more easily.

Back to Finland. More weird finnish food - I love it! - and more experiences.

A- The cold. How many pakkasta (below zero) degrees can a foreigner survive? With decent gear - which means, I didn't go shopping at "North Pole TM", just wise winter clothes - I  pushed my way through -11 totally fine. I can't breathe deeply though: the air causes me to cough. Humidity created by the breathing process quickly turn into real water inside your nose. At extremes temperatures, exposed body part don't feel cold; they only loose sensitivity.

B- Skiing. Not downhill skiing, but hiihtää, on borrowed sukset. I never tried before, and of course, I sucked; I never fell though, and this made me decently proud.

C- Ice Skating. What could be more crazy for an outlander than sliding on two long bars with the help of stick? Sliding on the ice on two thin blades without any other help. Ice skating for me is as safe as a holiday in Iraq. Nonetheless I bravely managed to circle several times the track. And it was total fun!

That came before moving. Before taking a whole room and life possession, pile them in a truck, wake up at 5AM, travel 6 hrs on the said truck and bring out the worldy possessions inside a second floor apartment.

And that came before surviving, only for a couple of minutes, the -20.

Now I am in Vaasa, and of this, I shall write more soon...

Munnin.

a trip to UK - Entropy

I've been to the UK to visit a friend. Very fancy trip! I've been to Nottingham and Birmingham. While the former gave me the right input to a true british city, with a story behind and a future ahead (represented by these nuclear plants I photographed? hope not!), the latter, a 2-millions citizens city, resembles very much an american city.

Birmingham impressed me, not completely in a good way. It has skyscrapers, but not very nice or tall, though very grey. The core of the city is not a church or a square, but a Mall, the Bullring. To reach the main night-entertainment street, Broad str., you have to pass through a shopping center instead of an arch or a loggia or an old palace and there's no other way to bypass it on foot.

What then? Ah, yep, weekend evenings: in broad street, there's a lot of discos, and disco-pubs, anyway a lot of places for in-people, for cool-people, for good-looking people, no way you can find a "sincere" pub and take a pint of ale in peace. Along that street, there are crowds of young people in fancy dresses, nearly naked, even with the worst weather ever (for which, they don't give a shit, never) screaming, laughing, waiting in long cues to get into their place to spend the night with loud music, several drinks and maybe a fuck. To control all that tide of human bodies and drunken people, tens of guards work there at night, at the entrance of the places, or along the street, or facilitating the cue for taxis. People are crazy there!

Another thing I must say about England is that you never feel secure along the streets, not only at night. I heard many episodes which happened recently, therefore you should always keep an eye around yourself. 

People from Asia, Africa and near-east are everywhere and they almost speak in a fluent british accent, meaning they're UK citizens since generations. They anyway live often in ghettos.

Let me take Small Heath as an example: Small Heath is a Birmingham district, populated by muslims, africans and asians. There you shouldn't dare making eye contact along the streets, people says.

This is strange to me, as England is a country that has experienced immigrations for centuries.

England is a very awkward country to my eyes. Much similar to the US, in fact, than I believed. A crazy country, whose sights and smells I'll never forget.