a night in the stadium

When someone asks me what i miss most from Italy, I always reply: apart my dear people, 1)my car; 2) the real italian pizza; 3) the football (or soccer, like they call it here) matches .

For as concerns the car, i have no other choice than waiting for driving it again when i come back! I couldn’t come to Australia with it like i did during the Erasmus in Spain!

For the pizza, here in Sydney there’s a little Italian quarter. It isn’t very close to where i live (actually every place in Sydney is far from where i live!), but anyway when i really want something similar to a real pizza, i go there and i find a passable pizza! I’d have never thought i could miss my Egyptian pizzaiolo near house in Rome!

For the soccer, well, it isn’t the most popular sport in Australia. Here the most loved sports are : 1)rugby; 2) australian football (something very similar to rugby); 3) cricket (one of the most boring sport i’ve ever seen! Just think that a match usually lasts 7/8 hours!!!).
Anyway they told me here the soccer has become more popular after the last World Cup, so every now and then you see people playing it and even some matches on TV. In fact i.e. they broadcasted the most important matches of the Champions League and I could even see the final Manchester-Chelsea. The big problem in that case is the difference of time zone: to watch a soccer match live from Europe means to wake up at 4.30 in the morning! You can understand it’s quite uncomfortable!

So my lack of soccer pushed me to go to the stadium to watch a real soccer match the last Thursday. It was a friendly match, Australia vs Ghana. I was quite surprised for the audience, almost 30000 people is a considerable number for a friendly match. Let me to say the Australians have still to learn how to see a soccer match!! They get to the stadium even many minutes later after the match has started and some people seem more interested in chatting and eating snacks than in seeing what happens in the field! Actually the match wasn’t so spectacular and it will not remain in the history of football!! 1-0 for Australia, if you care...
And no doubt, it wasn’t the same thing than when in Spain i could enjoy a match in the Santiago Bernabeu!!

primi appuntamenti italiani

"Portami dove mi devi portare Venere,Marte o altri locali

fammi vedere che cosa succede a viaggiare davvero

Sei sempre così il centro del mondo

il primo bengala sparato nel cielo quando mi perdo

sei sempre così il centro del mondo

ti prendi il mio tempo ti prendi il mio spazio ti prendi il mio meglio"

Beato te, Liga, che l'hai trovato il "centro del mondo"!

In attesa di capire quale sia il mio,

per ora l'appuntamento è x il 18 luglio, stadio Olimpico, Roma:

io ci sarò!

Queensland

Lets leave the politics for a more pleasant topic: to tell you about the beauties of Australia.

So, i was saying you that after having visited New Zealand I flyed directly to Brisbane.

Brisbane is the third largest Australian city and the capital of the state of Queensland. The first thing I appreciated in Brisbane was the warm weather: in New Zealand it was a bit chilly sometimes, but in Brisbane we found a very warm and sunny weather. In Brisbane I spent only one day, but I had a nice feeling about that city! I know that only few hours is nothing to understand a city, but anyway i got the impression it’s a nice place where to live!

Well, the day after we moved towards the north and the Sunshine Coast.
But first we stopped at the Australia Zoo. Actually it isn’t a normal zoo, as you feel amost in touch with the animals. We saw all the “typical” australian animals and so finally I saw the kangaroos and could touch them! And the koalas as well!

After that, we spent the remaining time along the Sunshine Coast. Do you know because that part is called “Sunshine coast”? Because there are more than 300 days of sunshine in a year! In our little staying there, we tested that’s true: sunshine all the time long!

Before coming back to Sydney, we had a one-day guided tour in Fraser Island. This is a unique island, it is the largest sandy island in the world! There aren’t regular roads there, only sandy tracks! And in fact you can’t drive with a normal car, you need a 4x4. There aren’t houses or villages in the island, only a couple of hotels, one camping and almost the whole island is covered by forests! A paradise for the nature lovers! And long, long beaches! The beaches are used like normal motorways, and it was so strange and funny to see, on a beach, people walking, buses and 4x4 cars passing and even airplanes landing!!!! We took a flight with one of these little airplanes to have a view of the island from the high: it was really breathtaking! You can see the photo!
The only shame is you can’t swim in the sea, there are very strong currents and mainly it’s common to meet the sharks! We just saw one from the airplane!
But there are several lakes in the island where you can swim! The water is really crystal-clear! The photo i put is a proof!

Much more than Sydney, Queensland gave me the idea of being in Australia, or better according to the image i had of Australia! A very relaxed atmosphere, sunshine, warm weather, huge beaches...that’s really living the life, my friends!!
I just found the place where i want to go to spend my days when i’ll be retired!!

Iniziamo bene!

Quella che vedete è la prima pagina del quotidiano tedesco “Bild” che titola: “Mamma mia, il ministro più bello del mondo!”. Il ministro in questione è ovviamente Mara Carfagna!

Queste sì che so’ soddisfazioni! In Italia abbiamo, a detta dei tedeschi, “la ministra” + bella al mondo!
Non c’è che dire, si vede subito che il governo Berlusconi è tutta un’altra storia! Il governo Prodi annoverava tra le sue fila gente come Livia Turco e Rosy Bindi… il governo Berlusconi schiera gente come la Prestigiacomo e appunto la Carfagna! Mi viene in mente il film “Il mostro” di Benigni, e il suo celebre “e facci vedere il tuo ministero!”… vabbè, in attesa di vederle alla prova, come ministri intendo, per lo meno abbiamo qualcosa di + bello da vedere rispetto a Schifani e Bondi!


P.S. Alle ragazze che leggono questo blog e che sanno di essere carine, almeno un po’… siete ancora alle prese con i libri e l’università? Lasciate stare! Siete alla ricerca di un lavoro, anche da 1000€ al mese? Tempo perso! Iscrivetevi invece al PDL, unitevi anche voi ai giovani del partito delle libertà e fatevi vedere da sua santità…mmm,troppo presto… da sua altezza… no, non mi pare opportuno…insomma dal Presidente del Consiglio, e chissà che anche voi un giorno potrete diventare Ministro della Repubblica Italiana!

New Zealand - part II

NZ has less than 5 millions residents all together. So you can understand you can drive for kms and kms without meeting any car or any town.
For our second night we stopped in a very little town called Gore and following the suggestion of the “lonelyplanet” guide, we went to a hostel that was an ex fire station. I’ll spend few lines to tell about that. The hostel was actually like a house, with a great kitchen with all the utensils, a great dining room with TV, sofas, a piano, books, CDs, DVDs, the bedrooms and 2 big bathrooms. The atmosphere was so familiar! And it was so clean! We were the only guest at the beginning. There was no reception, but a girl (the owner or the manager), living in the close flat, came to open and explained us about it. They didn’t have a credit card reader, so we had to pay cash. But as we didn’t have it enough, we went to withdraw and to have a dinner first. When we came back, the girl wasn’t there anymore, we had the key to enter. We found on the table in the gate an envelope with our names, asking us to leave there the money!! It was shocking for me! The girl had not asked us any document or our personal details, only our names... so she didn’t know anything about us... but she trusted us and that we left the money there before going away the following morning!
I wanted to tell you this because so much the simplicity of those people impressed me!! My travel mates kidded me that i liked that hostel a lot because I fell in love with the girl there! That’s not true, of course. Moreover, in all the hostels where we were in NZ we paid in advance like normal, but nobody asked us the ID or the passport. You know that isn’t usual in the rest of the world, where they just take all your personal datas, just in case... therefore, it was so beautiful to see that there are places in the world where the people still trust the others.

After this long digression, i really have to run to tell you the rest of my trip!

Well, our next stop was the Fjordland National Park. There we drove across green valleys, through high mountains, along lakes, rivers and streams, we walked along tracks in the forest. And many times we had the impression to be “inside” the “lord of the rings” movie. In the evening we arrived in a place called Milford Sound, where actually the road just finished. “Sound” in this case in NZ stands for fjord, that’s the main feature of that part of NZ and Milford Sound was supposed to be one of the most beautiful!
The following morning, a beautiful sunny day, we had a short cruise in this fjord. I can simply say you this place is surely in my top-three list of the most impressive, amazing places where i have ever been!

After that, we moved towards Queenstown. Queenstown has only 10000 residents, but it’s a very popular spot among the tourists. It is just on a lake and it’s in a valley with high mountains all around. More, it’s the capital town of the extreme sports, something quite popular in NZ. Bungee-jumping was just born there, more there you can find all the kinds of crazy sports: rafting, gliding, skydiving, etc... you need to be brave to do that, more you need money! That’s the only thing a bit expensive in NZ!

A couple of days in Queenstown, then we moved towards the north. While driving, we admired other beautiful landscapes: lakes, valleys, mountains, creeks, forests... I really felt so good being in such a paradise! I’d just have wanted to catch all these views and keep in my memory forever! I took a lot of photos, i want to remember that such beautiful places exist in this earth!

So, the next step was at the glaciers. There are 2 glaciers in NZ, the Franz Josef and the Fox. They’re unique in their kind as they are only few kms from the sea and they aren’t in a very big height: both of them just “start” before the 1000m. With the luck of another beautiful sunny day, i did another new experience: i just walked for the first time on a glacier. I did it with a guided tour, i’m a man from a sea place, not so used to the mountains and the glaciers! Anyway, it was funny!
The glaciers were our last stop before coming back to Christchurch. There we found some time to go to a Maori heritage centre and to see a Maori performance... and to learn something about the Maori culture and language. Just if you’re interested, “Kia ora” means hello and welcome!

After 9 days, the time to leave arrived... I was a bit sad to leave NZ, but at the same time so happy to have had the luck to visit such a beautiful country!
To all of you, my suggestion is to go there once in your life! It’s far and it’s expensive to go there, i know... but if you have the chance one day, do that! You won’t regret!!

I’m posting only few of the photos i took. But believe me, the reality is even better!

New Zealand - part I

Are you looking for a piece of heaven in this earth?? Well, then go to New Zealand!
But lets start from the beginning...

After 3 hours of flying from Sydney we got to Christchurch, the biggest city in the Southern island of NZ. Let me to say it was a particular emotion to land and to put my feet on the ground of that country! I just remember when sometimes in the past, until the last year, i was glancing through an atlas and i saw this far country, New Zealand... the land of Maoris, the land where the Lord of the Rings was set, and mainly the country at the antipodes...and i thought “Will i ever be able to see this so far country one day?”. Instead, sooner than expected, on the 13rd of April 2008, i was there, i reached the antipodes!!

The first thing we noticed was that our mobile phones didn’t work...ehi, we are really in a remote part of the world, we thought! Later we discovered it was only a fault of our australian Vodafone cards, while my italian card worked regularly...

But, no more nonsense... the day after we took our rent car and we left for our tour of the southern island of NZ!
(Ops, just a digression: NZ is so cheap for many things!! Just to give you an example, we paid 13€ a day for the car and we slept in hostel for an average of 14 € a night! And most of the times, we got a private room only for us and many hostel were really clean and nice!).

Anyway, our first stop was on the east coast, in a place called Oamaru. There we saw a colony of penguins! A new experience: seeing live penguins for the 1st time! Even if that was the smallest species and we couldn’t take photos of them! It wasn’t allowed as the flash troubles them!
Anyway, going on our first night was in the town of Dunedin. We got there around 10 p.m. and we discovered it was too late to have dinner in any kind of place! You know, british times! Btw, we slept in a old manorhouse transformed in a hostel. Really cute!

The day after we had a look in the town centre and then we saw the Otago peninsula, when we started appreciating the wonderful landscapes of NZ! The road just run next to a bay and climbed on a promontory, with a great view. The “funny” thing was that the road was quite narrow and without any kind of guardrail! We also found some large and nice beaches...it was a pity it was a bit cold and not very sunny to have a bath!

Later, we drove towards the west coast. There are no motorways in NZ, but there is no traffic at all, so it was ok! Driving in this part, our more frequent view was about the sheep! No surprise, that’s New Zealand! Even if it’s called the land of the kiwis, sometimes i thought there were more sheep than people in that country!