Tolerance?

Yesterday I found some flyers on the stairs. They said, more or less: "Do you suspect that there is a cultivation of hemp in the neighbourhood? Then call the police". The alleged reasons were that home growing of hemp is illegal, it causes danger of fire and it makes neighbourhoods less safe.

Yes, this is the same country where coffeeshops sell hemp. Where the hell do they get it, then?

By the way, the landlady of my previous house had asked me not to grow plants which require constant illumination. But I suspect she was only worried about the electricity bill.

I kissed a celebrity

Last Monday I came back from Italy, where I went to celebrate the fact that Elisa has become a national celebrity. She won one of the 5 L'Oreal scholarships for women in science for Italy in 2007, and therefore she (and the other winners) appeared on the 14th May edition of many national newspapers: La Repubblica on page 28, Corriere della Sera on page 20, La Stampa on page 38 and Il Sole 24 Ore on page 8. That day she even appeared on the national TV news programme, TG1, 20.00 edition (and nobody recorded that. And the archive only archives 24 hours. Anybody has a copy?). At the ceremony, Umberto Veronesi, former Minister of Health and scientific director of the European Institute of Oncology, shook her hand.

To prove that I'm not lying, here are two photos for you to compare.

A promising young scientist, as she appeared on all the main newspapers last Monday

The beauty and the beast last summer in Utrecht

Italy is a nice place, but too many people there think that a Middle Age morale is a good thing. So they struggle in order to deny basic rights to many people, and try to oppose the current law proposal about the agreement between unmarried couples, both hetero and gay. They say that this law would destroy families. In Holland, and even in other Catholic countries such as France or Spain, such agreements exist and they don't destroy families. The Church is really becoming too powerful. That's why I feel so comfortable away from Italy. Then, if Italy eventually progresses, I would be happy, and consider about coming back.

OK, time to stop blogging. I have to cook for two colleagues of mine and their partners, who come here tonight for dinner. One of them is a man married to a man.

Spring, again

It's spring! Since a few days, the weather is far better, there is more light... OK, you can go directly to last year's post, everything is the same.

To celebrate spring, I and some friends went to Keukenhof. The day was wonderful, sunny, and, at certain hours, even warm. And the park had simply gorgeous colours. We left late because I bought one ticket too much, so I had to queue to have it refunded (successfully). The rest was fun. I also took some photos.

Flowers seen from the train

Entrance of the Keukenhof

Cherry trees (maybe)

Windmill inside the park

An Ikea sofa in the middle of the park. Power of sponsorship


An award-winning anthurium (or whatever the name is)

You think I took too many photos? Think that someone else took more than 200!

New home

Eventually, I moved to the new home. This time, with a regular rental contract, and a landlord who does not plan to phone and tell me to leave in one week.

And I discovered that the home where I lived for more than one year was in a problematic neighbourhood. Funny. Nothing bad happened to me. Well, once I saw a person getting off a taxi and starting fighting with another one who was walking on the street. And someone broke in my friends' motorhome. But I really loved the neighbourhood. I would come back any day. Actually, I would like to come back as soon as possible: I miss the friends, the lovely neighbours, I still go to the old swimming pool despite having to do a long bike ride to get there.

My present neighbourhood is not problematic, according to that list. But it borders with two problematic ones. So I feel less homesick.

I am getting some satisfactions at work. Apparently, my bosses started noticing that I am doing something. They claim that my contract was renewed for one year only because I was not doing well enough (well, they could tell me that before. How can I do better if I don't even know I am not doing well?). But they say that I improved, and one sign of it is that many people come to me and ask me questions, help and consultancy. My take is: people outside my group knew what I did, what I knew and what I was capable to do, so they came to me asking me questions, help and consultancy. Because of this, my bosses got to know what I did, what I knew and what I was capable to do. But I am happy, better late than never.

My piece of heaven

I had to change house much quicker than expected. My landlady wanted it with no delay, and the fact that I hadn't found a new house yet did nothing to change her mind.

Luckily, my saviour came in the person of my neighbour downstairs. I was looking for some temporary accommodation, and asked her if she could let me stay in the meantime. The other temporary accommodations did not materialise, so my stay, which was supposed at first to last one week, will end up being one month.

Our relationship during this period was, in small scale, the same as in the previous period of neighbourhood. She studies and works, so she is always very busy. Yet, when she does have free time, she is exceptionally kind and friendly. So, her spare room with my computer, her Internet connection, my Ikea foldable bed and many object which did not fit anywhere else in her house are currently my piece of heaven. And I'm thoroughly enjoying it. I really, really don't know how I can be grateful to her, everything seems not enough.

Next week, I will move to my real new house. It is in the opposite side of the city, and smaller than the old one. But it is nice and cheap (for Amsterdam standards). I'm sure I'll love it. As they say, a door closes, a gate opens.

Farewell

The news has arrived: I will have to leave my present house. My landlady is coming back soon, and to stay.

What a pity. She loved India. Probably, she came of the opinion that India is a place to visit, but not a place to live. And, apparently, the love of one of the greatest body artists in the world was not enough to convince her.

I will stay here at least until mid-February, hopefully I will have found something else by that date. The date of the actual moving will probably not be sad, since I will be happy about the new place. But today, it is. I look around, see the walls, the furniture, the sight from the window. I came here almost 15 months ago, and already on the first day I said "This is my new house. This is my house".
And now, the same walls, the same furniture, mean something different. They are telling to me: "Forget us. In a few days, you won't see us anymore". Why?

In those times, I only think about good things. The space. The light. The neighbours asking me if I liked the place and the country, and always being kind to me. Not everything was good. But I cannot think about what was bad right now. Only good things come to my mind. I will lose everything related to this house forever. And I can only think about the good things I will lose forever.

When I left Italy to come here, I missed nothing. I was just happy. I only thought about how beautiful the future would be. Now, I'm just sad. I only think about how beautiful the past was.

And a particular mention goes to the bike. This is also not mine, but my landlady's. It is old. It is rusty. The saddle has a hole exposing the inner sponge, so, when it rains, the sponge soaks and when I sit my bum gets wet. It makes all sorts of strange noises when pedalling. It forced me to plug leaks 10 times. And, yet, I grew so fond of it. It is freedom of movement. It is rewarding. It gives me power, strength. I can reach faraway places (well, never more than 30 km) with my own legs, thanks to this little old rusty piece of iron.

I am still here, but it is already time for farewell, a few days in advance. Farewell, my beautiful house in Amsterdam East. Farewell, rusty old Gazelle bike. I will miss you, sorely. You entered my life, deeply. And now you are parting, and your place inside me will be empty. And it hurts.

If I feel so much sorrow for such unimportant details, it means that there are no bigger worries.
It's the only positive thing I can think about now.

Weather storm

It's a beautiful song by Massive Attack. But it's also what everyone in Amsterdam (and in the whole Northern Europe) experienced exactly one week ago, last Thursday.

In the morning it rained, so I left my bike and took the tram. It would turn out to be one of the wisest decisions in my life. I noticed that something was wrong: Dutch people were using umbrellas. Dutch people are waterproof, they normally walk and bike under the rain as if nothing was happening. And my umbrella flipped 5 or 6 times because of the wind in the short time from exiting from home to entering the tram.

But the worst had yet to come. The wind got stronger and stronger, rain didn't stop, the noise coming from the (closed) windows was scarier and scarier. Luckily I brought something for lunch, so I didn't have to go out to get it, and that was also very wise.

Later in the afternoon, we had the first news that some Christmas light decorations fell on the tram's aerial cables, very close to the office. It was dangerous to use that street, and the trams were detoured.

Train traffic was severely disrupted, bad news from commuters. Web sites kept saying that there were some trains running, maybe leaving from stations further away. Then, police ordered that all trains stopped. It was the hell for commuters and travelling people in general. A colleague, desperate because there was no way for him to come home near The Hague, begged me for a place to spend the night. So I ended up letting him sleep in my living room. And he can consider himself lucky: in Amsterdam and Utrecht, exhibition centers were turned into refugee camps, in order to let stranded people sleep under a roof. The media said that about 200.000 people in Holland could not spend the night at their home.

The day after was extraordinarily clear and sunny.

Eat, eat, eat

I came back from Italy to Holland with a suitcase full of food. Specialties, liquours, cakes... everything lekker that Italy has to offer. I didn't think I was this nationalist before coming here.

So, what does one do with food? You've guessed it!

On the first day at work, panettone and pandoro day again, just like last year.

Then, I invited my Italian colleagues at home, to eat zampone (pig's leg, typical for New Year's Day) and lentils. Only, Elisa told me that she needed all the zamponi, because she invited seventeen people for dinner. The situation was solved by having a zampone sent by mail in a parcel. So I, my colleagues and some friends of friends gathered at my house and enjoyed. Despite being the first time with a lot of messy organization, the zampone turned out to be good.

Last Monday, it was the turn of Elisa's 17 friends, and the neighbour downstairs, who also lent many chairs which made the thing possible. Incredible but true, it worked! Two friends of Elisa's, both Italian, helped a lot (I didn't), and all the Dutch and not Dutch people who were present appreciated. Some even said it was the best dinner of their lives. The menu was staggering: crostini (small pieces of roasted bread) with tomato and garlic, with liver paté, with olives paté; raw ham, mortadella, finocchiona (a special salami aromatized with fennel seeds); bucatini all'amatriciana; linguine al pesto; zampone (again) with lentils; panettone, panforte, mascarpone cream, brutti ma buoni (a meringue candy); Lavazza coffee; liquour as "coffee killer"; lots and lots of wine. It's amazing we survived. I ate left-overs of that dinner for all the following lunches and dinners until today (except yesterday's dinner). And there's still something left.

And yesterday, there was a dinner with a selected group of colleagues, all working on the same product, but on different sides: development, testing, product management. And it was great fun. At work, people often talk about work, because it's the only common ground. During lunch breaks, in front of the coffee machine, on the Fridays at De Heeren Van Aemstel or Coco's, at the company-organized parties, you really make friends, and contact with people is always an enriching experience. And, often, you get to discover hidden sides of people, which is always a surprise. Shy, silent people, who do not look interested to anything else but work, open up and show others their world, their experiences, their life. As they say, If I give you an idea and you give me an idea, we'll both have two ideas. Among the discoveries, the most amazing was that one of the product managers, born in India, lived most of his life in England, was part of the RAF, was in the Falklands during the war, and he lived 2 years at just 10 kilometers from where I was born! The world is really small.

Holidays

Long time between the end of the Christmas holidays and the relevant post. Nothing special, apart that they were long. Slept a lot. Visited a lot of friends in little time. Including Nicola, who some weeks earlier had come to Amsterdam for a meeting of the Phosphorus project, and, at 19 years, is the longest-time friend I have (relatives not included). New Year's Day celebration was boring, and the way I was convinced to take part to it is better left untold.


Highlights: a visit to Sant'Anna (famous for a very sad event occurred during World War II, and at the same time a very nice and quiet place among woods and mountains) and Colonnata, a small town surrounded by mountains and marble quarries, and famous for its lard.

I also scratched my father's new, big, fast car. But, strangely, he didn't kill me for that.

Funny signs 2

An example of polderpoëzie (a word coined by my Dutch language teacher) on a traffic light pole in Nassauplein.

When I look into your eyes
something starts burning in my heart
I find you so beautiful
But I don't know how I can say that
So now I have sorrow

An electoral sign of the Party for the Animals. They won 2 seats in the recent elections. It says Shake The Hague awake now!

Dog lover
If you just leave your visiting card in the letter box, our dog is happy to come by you and crap once in front of your door

Read the Bible, the book for you (Jordaan district)

God does not exist (right next to St. Nicholas church, one of the biggest Catholic churches in town, in the heart of the city)

Unknown canal

One way, except for horses (Bovenkerk)

Who I am, who I should be

A harsh discussion ensued between me and Elisa, triggered by comparisons to other people and the situation described in another post. Her argument was that I could achieve more, but I didn't because I didn't behave optimally, so I should change the way I behave. And I should plan a solid future.

Everything can be viewed from optimistic and pessimistic points of view, just like a half-full half-empty glass. And I am not completely unsatisfied of myself, and I don't completely lack self-esteem. So, if I look back to my life, I see that I achieved something, I can be proud of something, I have enough money to afford to eat every day. And, about planning of lack thereof, I don't see it as disastrous, many friends of mine do even less and are happy, maybe happier than me.

All this leads to a choice.
1. I should not care if Elisa looks at the half-empty glass. I should enjoy my half-full glass. Elisa must not tell that I would be the right person if only... Either I am the right person, or I am the wrong person. Stop. Then you decide.
2. I should re-consider my everyday behaviour, starting from tomorrow.

Looking back to my previous jobs, I actually applied policy 1, with satisfaction. So the natural choice is 1. But there is something which makes me think about 2:
- things to lose. This may sound conservative, but when faced with the choice of breaking up, one is naturally inclined to think about what there is to lose. Only when you have nothing to lose, are you really free to decide. Evaluate what there is to lose is difficult, and so is choosing if losing it is worth it
- many pleasant things that happened in my life (yes, there have been many) happened because at certain points I could break the mould, do something unthinkable one month before
- what Elisa says actually touches me, even if I don't want to show that.

I absolutely need a copy of the book Life: A User's Manual. Why is everything so complicated?

Luck

The company organized a party last Friday. Nice. Lots of people, that was the best part. Also the band playing 70s and 80s disco music was nice. The dinner was OK. Not better than OK, the food was not much, the meat was dry with little salt.

At the party, I lost my umbrella. Not a big loss: it was very broken. So I had the chance to buy a new one. Since the weather here and now is very rainy and windy, a good and strong umbrella is a must. So I indulged and bought an original Knirps. Hey, a self-admitting geek who buys an incredibly expensive gadget which is not electronic!!! Unbelievable! It is waterproof and very resistant to the wind. Unfortunately, it is not resistant to one thing: absent-minded people who keep forgetting their umbrellas anywhere, just like me.

And I lost my camera. But someone at work came to me and gave it back to me. I don't know who told him I lost it (but the office managers knew, I wrote them the morning after, telling them the model of the camera, maybe they did). I discovered that, in the meantime, someone else took photos with it. I don't know if I am angry, because people used someone else's camera without permission, or happy, because I had my camera back eventually.

Happy. Not completely, but happy

I will still work for my present company. This is good. I like my job, and this means that they recognized me as a good employee (they also that in the renewal statement). Yet, it is for one more year. I was hoping for a permanent contract.

Anniversary

Today, I am living in Holland for exactly one year.

Time for reconsidering what happened. Did I regret leaving my job in Italy. No, not at all. Home sickness? Sometimes, especially with bad weather, but not a lot. Feeling like a stranger? Probably a ittle, but, believe it or not, not a lot more than in Italy. Money? Money is never enough, but, in comparison to Italy, I cannot but be satisfied. language? I don't know if I should be satisfied, because I can read it decently, or unsatisfied, because I speak badly and I undertand spoken language even worse. Let's try to see the positive side: I've improved a lot. But the opposite would have been impossible, considering the starting point.

Would I move to Holland again? Yes, definitely.

Regrets? The same I had before: sometimes I feel like I'm not exploiting the opportunity to the maximum. I think I should make more friends, go out more... My eternal shyness stops me. But anyway, looking from the positive side, I'm slowly becoming more social. Or maybe I should eventually become an adult and stop thinking about that.

80s

A new Italian colleague has come recently to the company. Yesterday he invited me and some friends to his home, for an evening together and a dish of pasta.

His history is different from mine. I always tried not to behave as an Italian abroad, therefore I never sought for Italian friendships, rather I tried to mix with the international atmosphere of the company and the city. He, instead, came two years ago and almost immediately signed up in the site Italians in Olanda. This is where most of the people present yesterday came from. Yes, there was the odd Dutch engaged to an Italian partner, but the absolute majority was made of Italians. So, I could really breathe that air of a community, a set of people who share language and culture, but live surrounded by a different language and a different culture, and find their own identities in the culture. Funny, before now I always try to assimilate and mingle with the surrounding culture (with various degrees of sucess).

We watched Notte prima degli esami, an Italian movie which tries to appeal to two types of people: teenagers (being a movie about teenagers) and people who were young in the 80s
(being set in 1989). Despite having a fair share of stereotypes, and showing young age and high school in a way sometimes too idylliac and unrealistic, it is anyway a funny and interesting comedy. And all the 80s music and fashions (the boys played with a Commdoore 64! Fantastic) made everyone feel nostalgic. Many fashions, fads, singers etc. were common then, and gradually faded out unnoticed afterwards. Now, when reminded, they become something special, triggering surprise and emotion. "Look at how Madonna looked like when she was singing Like A Virgin!", "Look at those telephone tokens!", "look at that Citroën Dyane!".

I realised something about myself: I am an 80s person. It is part of me, of my being, just like my name and the colour of my eyes. I am in 2006, but I realise that 2006 is not my home. I just bought a Transavia ticket to the year 2006, and that's why I am here. I haven't bought the return ticket to the second half of the 80s, yet.

Our host also had a copy of an Italian mag called Max, some glossy-paper mag with lots of half-naked models, something about the trend du jour, and a lot of ads of overpriced luxury goods. But one of the titles on the cover was actually interesting. "Goa, the hippies do not live there anymore". Somebody tell that to my landlady, please.

Fine weekend

On Friday evening, I didn't go as usual at the Heeren Van Aemstel. Instead, I went to the Open Air Theatre with the neighbour, her close friend and Elisa, to assist to a Bertolt Brecht play. Nice, well acted, nice scenes. No curtain, so you could see everything behind the scenes. Or, in a sense, nothing was behind the scenes, everything was part of the show, including the actors changing clothes and changing the set. The language was Dutch, and that didn't help a lot.

Sunday was the turn of a visit to the NEMO science museum. Although most of it caters for a children's audience, it was great fun. It was possible to put hands on a lot of stuff, and experiment oneself. And there was an interesting :) section about sex, which was aimed at young people. There was a video which was forbidden to people older than 18. Imagine doing that in Italy. Not as good as the Deutsches Museum in Munich, but very good.

And today, after a long pause, back to the swimming pool.

I don't understand myself

Sometimes I really, sincerely, utterly admire Elisa. She is good at everything, everything she does she does well, it is a pleasure to conversate with her.
Other times I wonder how I can be attracted by someone who cares so little about how she looks and dresses.
Sometimes I would like to tell her that she should take a little more care in how she looks and dresses (only a little. I hate girls who only care about looks).
Other times I feel that, if I told her so, I would be an insensitive sod who does not really love her and forces her to be someone else.
Sometimes I think that I and Elisa go so well together because we are very much like each other.
Other times I think that we are too much alike, we do not complement.
Sometimes I need more freedom.
Other times I think that, if I had more freedom, I would have more freedom to take wrong decisions and ruin my own life.
Sometimes I am very self-confident. I have qualities, I have some interests, I reached some point of maturity.
Sometimes I feel that I am an annoyance to others, everything I say could harm others or simply bore them, and, anyway, the world can go on if I would not be here, and if I would not be here nobody would care. So I stay silent and tend to avoid human relationships.
Sometimes I take life as it comes, and enjoy the moment.
Other times I think that I should find a determined goal, and live for it. Which is what Elisa does.
Sometimes I like to be alone, independent, and in full control of my life.
Other times I feel that my life is empty without others to take care of, and who take care of me.
Sometimes I am unaffected by bad things that happen, I just bear with them and go on.
Other times I whine about how bad things happen.
Sometimes I complain that nobody understands me.
Other times I think that it is normal. I don't understand myself, so why should others do?

Why am I sleeping so little these days?
Amd, most important, why am I blogging at 7AM?
(BTW, 7AM is very early, not very late)

"I hate my life! I hate everything! I wish I was dead! ...Well, no, I don't, not really. I wish everyone else was dead" (from a Calvin and Hobbes strip)

House

Not so good news about the house.

Some months ago, my landlady, back from India, seemed so enthusiastic about coming back to India, and looking forward to finding some sort of long-term way to live there.

More recently, she expressed the desire to resume her old job in Holland. And she did not want to renew the contract for a whole year. And she told something about coming back to her own home, of course with a sufficient advance notice bla bla. It is not the most reassuring condition I've ever been. Better look for something else. Pity, I love this house (I love her house?).

And, in the meantime, I hope that my employment contract is renewed. Because, despite a crap August with rain virtually every day, I still love this country.

Plans for the future

Tomorrow I will be alive. And the day after tomorrow too. But I don't like to make such detailed plans such a long time in advance

Something new

I did something I never did before: I repaired a hole in the front wheel of my bicycle.

What do you mean, it is not new, and you don't write about anything else? The past times it was the rear wheel!

The eternal struggle continues.