Images from the Past

I Stop Here

A Look Upward

I'm not disregarding this pages. I'm only in the middle of the relocation process and I can't move my focus away from the main goal for this summer. My family has just arrived in town and it's time for me to drive them around to discover the opportunities it is able to offer. As soon as every single thing will be in its own place, there will be time to raise the eyes above and be more distracted than now.

And What Now, Europa?

As I went out of my residence main door, today, I picked up a new copy of the local newspapers from the stack that I found every morning on the hall table. I'm getting used to read few sentences, titles and captions at least, while I walk to the parking lot to take my car and get to work. A homeopathic training: few words per day. You never know, my German could improve a bit.

So I got the picture of the happy "prime" couple coming out of the polling station and made all my best to understand what had happened in UK the day before. I was actually wishing a new last-minute miracle could have taken place during the night. Just like the one occurred two weeks before here in Austria. And I actually mistook the message and went to office relieved.

I discovered only after lunch, when an English colleague came to say "Hallo" on his way back to Cambridge, that I really understood what had happened.

I don't know what to think. The Old Continent is putting so many question marks on its future, that mine would be totally insignificant. Still, I have my list of open and unresolved action points to take care.

Landmarks

The door to door distance between Graz and Milan is exactly 700 Km. The first time I drove it appeared to me as never ending. I had never been up here and everything was new. The uncertainty, the unknown behind the bend, beyond the tunnel were at highest levels. 

With time, I have learned to split the track in several fractions, each distinguished by some kind of recognizable landmark: a refueling station, a route change, a long tunnel, a lake, the billboard of a selling point, etc. I concentrate on these to make the trip seem a bit shorter.

On the Road

In the hall of the students' residence where I'm staying in this beginning of this experience of mine in Austria, there's a large bookcase where people passing by are invited to drop something from their latest readings. The shelves have just begun to populate, as the building was only built one year ago. Yet, there are already some good things to pick and read, provided you had time and you were able to read from German as well.

I'm not used to stop by, as I'm always on the run or because the hall it's always crowded with so many young exuberant students that stares at you from the moment you get out of the lift, as you were a freak or a martian. Still, there are times that I have to go downstairs and wait for the laundry to finish its job. Then, in the attempt to show indifference, I stop in front of this new born library and begin listing one title after another, till I find something interesting.

So I came across this German edition of Kerouac's "On the Road" and started reading the well known opening ... and taking notes.

(Made and sent from my mobile)

Under the Bridge

You would expect to see something else. Instead I found the local Art Academy training ground, as well as thousands of padlocks and the face of an astonished Beethoven. Can you spot it?

Better to wait

On the way back from my first "visit" to Saronno, after my recent relocation in Graz, I pulled down the backseat of my car, turned to pieces my mountain bike, gathered in a box all the accessories required for long and safe bike tours and took everything with me in Austria, where I put the pieces together again, far from indiscreet eyes, in my residence apartment.

Unfortunately, the first week after my return was so cold that there were even snowfalls for two days and all the hills around turned to white. I could not imagine something like that when making my packs. April days were so hot. All my winter equipment had been left in Saronno and I couldn't afford to go out and take a cold. So my MTB stood on the corner in front of the window, like a patient dog, waiting for better times to go out.

Museo Alfa Romeo - II

More than one month ago, before I left for my "Mission to Graz", I took my children (as well as myself) to the Alfa Romeo Museum in Arese, the place where the Mechanical Myth was born. Quite understandably, my arrival in Austria made me forget all the "work in progress" and only now that I'm back in Saronno for few days, I was able to look into what I was doing before the departure (or should I say ... the "migration"?) and I found some pictures, ready to be published, taken at the museum that morning.

Those who are used to read this blog well know that I'm not used to publish color pictures. Honestly I think that turning these into black and white wouldn't yield the same results. For cars like these color is an essential component of the whole design.

What happened?

Here I am again. I did not disappear. I just had to cope with the beginning of a new course of my life. Beginning of April, exactly one month ago, I moved to Graz, in the Austrian region of Styria, where I took a position in a new company, a world market leader of the semiconductors industry, after almost eighteen years spent in the telecoms industry.

I arrived in Graz in a sunny and warm holiday with my old car full of bags, cardboard boxes and lots of doubts and fears: a new country, a new job, a new language to learn.

The first days were not so nice. Italy is just 200 km far from here. Yet everything is so different and I couldn't say if I would had ever been able to "get used to it". Now, after four weeks, things are beginning to look better than before but the greatest challenge is far to come. Later this year my family will join me and then we'll see if all will be as I've wished so far.

I made my first tour on my mountain-bike today: hanging from my neck my old camera. I don't have tools for post-processing. All my pictures that I'm going to display from now on will look a bit different from my previous one. A new tool requires time to get used and get the same results I've always wanted. Let's wait and see.

Man gewöhnt sich daran.