I know the World Cup ended quite a long time ago, but I did not want to bother you with my pictures when everyone was speaking just about football… I’d better be original and show them now!
(Does sound as a credible excuse for my laziness…?  but I also got the pictures late! Is not 100% my fault…)

Anyway, given the HIGH performances of the Italian team, and given I am living in Munich and wanted to have parties in the city… I rooted for Deutschland!
And for the first time in my life, I actually watched a football game (wait till I’m done writing! It wasn’t my first football game at all… maybe the third or the fourth..) I actually watched a football game in a stadium
As you can see, there was an impressive numbers of people, cheerful (Germany won THAT game) and friendly and passionate.. it was a lot of fun!

You can try to guess the craziest supporter…I event went to Leopoldstrasse – the Munich central avenue -  where everyone flows after a successful game (see upper right picture).

Apparently, my effort wasn’t enough to bring Germany till the final, but still… i gave every energy I had, you see…. ;P

Waiting to discover which team will deserve my support for the next World Cup…GO SCHLAND!

For these reasons, mainly , we have started to take care of our future.
Here are Massimo and I practicing our skills:

Silvia Fabello
Born in Milan, Italy
……
ACQUIRED SKILLS: Idl programming, Observation with Arecibo, PingPong, Juggler

So, four girls who were born between April the 20th and May the 7th, started more than a month in advance to plan the most amazing Munich party ever (!). A barbecue along the river. Interesting idea, uh? `

Unfortunately the weather turns to be crap as soon as they planned the event, nevertheless they kept organizing, inviting people (final list of invited friends: 80! We thought to call the police the day before, just to let them know we were not having a rave party!), cooking and praying all the possible scientific and not gods for having  nice day.

It is not easy to converge on a common idea of fun, but finally we managed to set the date, and succeeded! We have to admit, not  all the thanks go to us, but we played well.
And we had the only almost-sunny-with-a-lot-of-clouds (but-who-cares-given-the-weather-in-the-last-week) day in weeks, a LOT of nice friends coming  along, frisbee, cards, food…

At the end it was an all-day barbecue, almost a celebration of the new season (for which we are actually still looking). Some of us were a bit confused, maybe (like Francesco who brought the Texas hat I stole ), but sausages and beer always make us feeling at home… And now, nothing to do than wait for a real summer, to have more and more barbecues and fun.

Oh, sorry, that was the wrong movie! My work is not so romantic, maybe… Still pretty fun, though. In the meanwhile,  while a weekend has half gone (but that week was interesting and not still done; gonna tell you more…) I just tell you about I visit I received few days ago.
A friend arrived from far far away to see me. He was actually the first Italian friend to come and visit my new place in Munich, so.. Congratulation! He won another trip here
This time I am not going to tell you what we did and how much fun we had.. I’ll let (his) pictures speak.

Hint: maybe you really want to  sit and let the pictures tell you a story…

And new friends, new ideas, new desires…to be reconciled with the old.
Have a nice new start,
to all.

In my journey, I have an old friend playing along with me, showing me  the path. To the most careful readers, that could sound as a quote of Alice in the (US) Wonderland following the white rabbit; I had already met him in my previous visit to Cornell, remember?  But I am afraid I will disappoint you. I am not so poetic today. Rather, this looks to me more like a crossover in a tv series! you know, when just to increase the audience the scriptwriters make a character from one show going to play in another one. So, here I am in Cornell, playing (well, for sure ) inside Ale’s show.

Being him a good real ingredient, I have added a bit of everything.
I went to watch the Superbowl match, in an American house, bothering people by asking explanation about the game. We had tacos and Doritos, apparently the perfect chips given that they were one of the game sponsors. You may not know, but actually the favourite activity is not  really following the game, but having fun watching the tons of crazy ads they transmit. Astrophysicist friends, you should enjoy this one, btw.
And I tried the Apple-Pie, and the stuffed-with-everything-you-can-ice-cream. And of course a couple of time we had dinner with big Big burgers (forget McDonald’s and co, those are for children).

And I went to a tropical house party. Where the landlords put their heating to the maximum value, and the guests dress as if they were on a beach; and all together they have to play beer-pong; one of the classic drinking games so popular in colleges, of course!
The college life involves also having meals in the canteens surrounded by undergrads, walking in front of the brotherhoods mansions; pretend to study till late in one of the libraries to see which kind of population is there. And tries to reach the top of the list “106 things to do before graduating in Cornell”.

Now that I’m back, my show must go on. Pictures are left behind as “the best of”, and what else can I say…I know I do not leave you with a cliffhanger, but still… the plot is open, remember…

and  then, that you have appreciated how much is snowing –  it is still snowing right now! – you can enjoy this last cool picture:

Late evening, after laundry and a bit of work. Outside is snowing a lot, but because of that the temperature is surprisingly warm. I have worked the whole week, I had to prepare a talk in the evenings. So when the idea of walking toward Collegetown just to take a tea comes out, it’s actually welcome! Let’s get out from these rooms!

So, we step outside. It’s snowing cats and dogs right now (I do not see why I cannot extend this idiom to the snow, if I am leaving in a place where the snow it’s the only things that comes down from the sky). It’s nice, after few minutes my scarf and hair are encrusted. And with my snow boots nothing and no-one can stop me! I am finally enjoying the TrueIthaca™ experience I was prepared for… ;P

We even take a (long) shortcut trough the wood…during the night…scary…if it wasn’t just a path parallel to the main road, a couple of meters below. But I have to admit, was pretty impressive…
So we arrive at “the Old Tea House”, a small small shop where you can choose among tens of different kind of black teas, green teas, milk teas… with taste of almond, peppermint, chocolate, lychees (Ema! a moved thought went to you in Paris..)… there is only one feature they have in common: they are extremely sweet! Or at least, most of them are, but when we tried to ask the (probably) normal one, we were discouraged by the seller “I’d rather suggest you to choose something else, this is a bit salty”… Americans love sugar. So much.

And the surprises are not ended. The tea is  actually known as “bubble tea”, you know why? An hint: read the title…a second hint: they give you LARGE straws..I mean, more than 1 cm of diameter…
ok, I bet you cannot guess, especially if you are Europeans. They put TAPIOCA bubbles inside the tea, that you suck up while drinking. So imagine. First sip, it’s quite sweet, maybe not your favorite but you still think you can handle it until the end. Second sip, here it is, unexpected, a jelly slimy dark bubble stop right at the beginning of your throat. I know it’s dark because I couldn’t resist to check what it was [see picture 1, among my tooth ]
And after that every sip just adds a sweet taste to your mouth, and tapioca bubbles in your stomach, and you cannot do anything else than start laughing and continue to drink, and laugh.. you start to be disgusted but you cannot stop, because it’s fun in a weird way.. that why I sad I would do again, if I had to go back… but not again now that I actually know.

But it’s not all. The end is still far; when you think you’ve reached the bottom, when you believe your tasting sense cannot be tested anymore, they offer you a Japanese cookie. The texture is like foam, the taste like.. I do not know, I am not even able to explain..and inside there is a sesame black thick sticky paste… oh, gosh! Look at my face to try to imagine how it was [last picture, I am holding the cookie]… the tea seemed suddenly desirable!

And that why I took another huge sip…Unfortunately because of the hurry – I wanted to delete the awful taste from my mouth with a less worse one – I drank from the straw  but the cup hole was directed toward me, not on the opposite site.. So, here is the deserving ending for that evening…tapioca tea straining over my scarf and sweater and shirt… Enjoy, Silvia!

Like that one for example! Something I was pleasantly surprised to find out. Once a week, in one of the campus canteens, few Italians meet few people who want to speak Italian. They sit and chat and eat…for free! So, what is better for a student to have a meal with nice new people? And meet young and not-so-young fellows who think about your country with the same mixture of excitement and misunderstanding you feel for their homeland. The retired Opera singer who has travelled all around Italy, the law student who went to Rome for an exchange. The young Italian couple whit their baby which everyone likes.
Here we are again, ready for another melting-pot of people and ideas!

So, still another damn week (is that a “sailor spoken”, right?), and we’ll be ready to weigh the anchor. A new trip, crossing old friends and facing new challenges.
If next saturday you will see a small ship becoming even smaller far away, that’s will be us…

(C’mon, you are not really thinking that I am going to US by ship, aren’t you!?!? )

Images: Hugo Pratt