On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog

A New York City Guidiary. This is ildabu, I'm an idiot, a liar and a storyteller. Go back to the start to see why.  Subscribe in a reader Segui @ildabu !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs"); var _gaq = _gaq || []; _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-9409100-1']); _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']); (function() { var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true; ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s); })();

[ildabu]

33 - Viva Las Vegas

(Aka Betting on everything)

 No, I didn’t go to Las Vegas this weekend, I just tried to find a song that could be the right blend of retro style and give the idea of today’s topic: sport. You may say that Viva Las Vegas is nothing about sport, but wait to see where this is going before judging. Today I want to talk to my friends that play sports other than soccer, but still outside and in company. Although I recognize darts as a noble sport and I admire the perseverance of chess players, I will focus on real sport, not bar stuff.

In my long quest for the sport I was talented into when I was I kid I practiced almost every kind of activity involved movement and some kind of athletic preparation. As I writing on a blog about this, you can recognize how this didn’t go in the predicted direction. I was talented in nothing. I could barely walk on a straight line and I was just too lazy. I hated my father for bringing me to soccer games, for throwing me in the water, for making me wear a ridiculous karate outfit. I share a wall of my house with a tennis field inItaly, and I basically grew up between red clay and bouncing yellow balls that every day invade my garden. Kids hit balls too hard and they fly into my garden, I think I would have something like one million balls if I didn’t bring them back every day by now.

Anyway I couldn’t play tennis either, and finally my father gave up, he allowed me to go down my way. I regretted so much this decision, sometimes I think how good I could have become if I had trained hard when I was a kid. Probably I would have been no better than how I am now, and I do suck, believe me. Maybe not very much at soccer, but still one of the lowest levels. During a discussion in a bar with a dear friend of mine, where I was showing all my misogyny and my unmotivated willingness to start an argument not really meaning it, I have been challenged by this girl to play tennis. I bragged about the fact that when I was eight I had thirteen classes of tennis and, since I am a man, I clearly had the victory in my hands.

Later that day I found out she was something like an NCAA champion and I had difficulties to even move my arms. Not a good sign for the challenge. The bet was not just about the glory that would have come after the victory, not about the infinite glory and respect that the winner would have earned by slapping the opponent, but something extremely tangible. If I lose the bet, I will have to dress up like Super Mario (stereotypes at go-go) and run acting like him (so jumping, breaking bricks, sliding into pipes where possible) from central park to 42nd street and Broadway,Times Square. That is actually full of weirdos, so I don’t care so much, but the stain of the lost bet will remain forever. If I win, which everyday seems a less likely scenario, she would have to prepare lunch, clean, dinner, clean again the whole house for twenty-four hours. My house is hyper clean but I will figure out something.

InNew Yorkto play outdoor sports you basically need a permit. You can obtain permits in three ways: by visiting the website of NYC Parks and Recreation, and submit you request through their forms (fifteen bucks for an hour); in this way you can sit on your ass as most of New Yorkers like to do and wait around twenty days to receive it. I totally don’t recommend you this solution, you will wait forever to get it and probably you won’t be in the right mood after waiting more than three weeks. The second way is to go to their offices in Upper West and take the permit right away and the last one is order them by mail which in 2012 is the equivalent of sending the request through smoke signals or leave your message attached to a pigeon.

I give you a tip they don’t give you in the site: inCentral Parkfield they have a stand that sells the permits, just go there with your stuff and ask for a permit, this will save you time and you will probably have the chance to play right away. And another tip, if you live next to Chelsea neighbourhood go next to Pier 40, the tennis fields next to that are free of charge and don’t require a permit to play, they work on a first come first served basis. There are just three fields and they are unbelievably crowdie during the weekends, but it’s worth a try, especially if you go after work.

The bet was on in April, and yesterday it was the day. The appointment was at noon at the fields, and she got there with a half an hour delay on the schedule, clearly trying to make me nervous, she got scared of me, I am sure. When she came there was a long line and doing our calculation we saw we would have needed to stay more than two hours there before the first field, and we decided, sadly as I was ready to smash some feminists, to move the bet another day, probably tomorrow after work.

Ah check out the article a friend of mine wrote about the (apparently) existing permits business. I have seen how this is happening, and i don't appreciate it not even a bit. (click)

Anyway if you want to play tennis go here and you will find all the fields and the permits informations, same thing if you want to play soccer go here. I will keep you posted on my future and on the bet, which is disturbing my nights: what will I ask her to prepare me?

(Permits management it's too complicated, I want to go back to the origins, the old fashioned and traditional grass field with no borders)

[ildabu]

32 - Hot for Teacher

(Aka it's never too late for some culture)

I just sent an email to some friends of mine to summarize all my plans for 2012/2013, I am publishing them right here in order to help some of you that may have my same ideas about it. Tell me your opinion if you want.

I want to highlight here my plans for the summer 2012 / fall 2012 / spring 2013 I made.

 - Summer 2012 (Jun-Aug)

 To start I have been admitted and I will participate to the summer school program of  Harvard University in Cambridge, MA. The course works like this: you can attend two classes, for 4 credits each, or three classes, for 8 credits in total (like the two classes, but just two of these three are worth credits).

 It's easy to participate, they give you credits, a certification and transcripts. These transcripts will be asked by Harvard if in a future you will apply to ANY other Harvard school. At least in Harvard this is considered serious business. 

 click here for the summer school

 Price: 5400 USD, let's convert them to 6000 with all the hassle. My opinion: a lot, but may be a start to understand a bit how it works there. It's still two courses in two months, and it's Harvard with their real professor. Don't take their accomodation, it's 4800 USD for a SHARED room with no toilet.

 - Fall 2012 (Sep-Dec)

 From September to December I want to participate to the Business Certificate Post-baccalaureate in Columbia University, NY. My goal is to attend this post graduate course, and on the Columbia site they have these course other than this:  

Biotechnology Certificate Program

Business Certificate Program

Classics Certificate Program

Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology Certificate Program

Psychology Certificate Program

Quantitative Studies for Finance Certificate Program

Executive Education in Strategic Communications

You can click on that if you are interested. During the summer they offer 

Critical Issues in International Relations Certificate Program

Human Rights Certificate Program

United Nations Studies

Which are not bad in a UN optic. 

 The way they works it's easy. You can attend 4 course for a Certificate in 6 months, or 8 courses for an advanced certificate in 12 months. It's your choice, they give you a list of courses and you choose what you prefer. Piece of cake. 

 For this it's 8494 USD for 6 months, 16992 USD for one year. Imma take 6 months. My opinion: worth it, it's Columbia and it's heavy on the curriculum. If you say goodbye after 6 months you still have the certificate, even if you applied for the one year solution. Cool story bro.

 - Spring 2013 (Jan - May)

 The final monster, Harvard Special Student Status. It's hard, and you are respected for this, as there are a lot of people that want to enter Harvard without a GRE, WHICH YOU DON'T NEED FOR THIS STATUS. If you did all of the course I said before, you must be good, you just need 3 more recommendations and the job is yours. They enroll you in the University like a Graduate Freshman (I have no idea if it's the correct greek definition) and you attend the university like everyone else, a Master or a Phd student. In this case shit gets serious as they assume you know all their Phd know, so it's tough but extremely important.

 For one more reason it's important: after this six months, which can be extended for one year, you can take these exams and then if you want take the GRE that you need while there. If you have a good GRE, not even superawesome, you can apply for the course you are doing for the regular status without losing the credits for the exams you did while in the special status. It means that if you passed all the exams of the first semester or the first year, and you are admitted into the Master or Phd course, you start with the regular status from the second year. Easy, uh?

 Link here for the programs

 Check them and choose, the prices are 9394 USD for 6 months and 20334 for one year. My opinion? If you are admitted, then go. Straight, quickly. It's a very important occasion and you can also have their Placement services, the Alumni network, you know tons of people and you can rely on the campus presentation of many companies that fights to have Harvard students.

 So, what do you think?

  (I still don't know how much do this courses count, but if you have the money or your parents blessed you with some help, why don't you try?)

[ildabu]

31 - Stuck in the Middle with You

(Aka Midtown meal guide)

 It has also been a long time since the last time I contributed to spread into the net my personal reviews and food guides. And during this time I had many new places that I have tried and that I can’t wait you to go. First of all I want to split the city in three main parts, and today I will take care of the one I have, both because I work there and it offers the widest range of lunchtime restaurants, visited the most: MidtownNew York.

At lunch we always move in groups of like six or seven people, but in these days most of my friend already left (I am preparing an homage for them and some article about it) so we are becoming less and less but our hunger is not any lower than when we started. The midtown lunch world is a more than a world, it’s a universe of single cuisine galaxies, and I have no problems to say that maybe some of the best and tasty food the world may be found in this part of the city (speaking of lunch and meals below fifteen bucks, obviously).

Let’s start with my classification and review then; we can easily divide the lunchtime spots into some categories:

-         Street food

-         Food Truck

-         Fast food and Chains

-         Restaurants/Random spots

 It’s a lot of categories but I will go quickly on some of them and spend more time on some others. For example the smallest category is Street Food; these kind of spots can be found all around the city, with a percentage that increase even more next to the hot spots of the city like big offices, street corners and touristic attractions. In midtown there are just a few of touristic places where they are but you can still find them at basically every corner of the street. Street food (or Halal) is technically basic meals worth as low as five dollars, which most of the times is even too much. Although I would recommend them when you are coming back home after drinking with your friends or after clubbing, I sincerely have never eaten into one of those places at lunch, and I recommend you not to do it either.

Food Truck are my second category, and in midtown you can see a lot of them. You can find there some of the best food in the world, always on four wheels. To track their position the only valid instrument is Twitter, and you should follow their tweets aas they don’t have fixed positions for all the days of the week. The one I recommend are Urban Lobster, Luke’s Lobster (yeah, I know, I am so predictable), Taim Mobile for Felafel, the Jamaican Dutchy (you can guess the kind of place) and Bob and Joe for chicken. These are mostly in the East side but check on Twitter their location to be sure you can find them. Food Truck are a little bit expensive (especially for the lobster, can reach sixteen bucks just for the sandwich) but sometimes can be worth to try it.

Fast food and other food chain (which I mean all those who are maybe smaller than Mc Donalds but are still part of some franchise, like for example ShakeShack, JointBurger or FiveGuys) are the third category and they represent absolutely the tastiest choice for lunch. But as all the good things in life are illegal or they turn you into a beautiful fat swan, these restaurants can be enjoyed once a month, in my opinion. I fall asleep after I eat a lot, and even thou I love this thing after dinner, after lunch could represent some problems with the three o clock meeting. Another level is insteadDevonand Blackely as it is without any doubt the best deal to eat at lunch (a multigrain bagel with lox cream cheese, salmon for non English speakers, and a small chicken noodle soup for just six dollars).

Restaurants and other random spots includes all those restaurant with are not affiliated to a chain of restaurants, and sell basically any kind of food in the earth. Among these there are the “food by the pound” restaurants, which I don’t like very much but can be used wisely in case you are not very hungry or picky. Another restaurant is called 4food and permits you to perfectly calculate the amounts of all nutritional elements in food, you could have fun while you learn. Last kinds of restaurants are single food restaurants, like burger spots, Japanese places with bento boxes and sandwich places. These represent a good eighty percent of the total restaurant population.

After the lunch I recommend a coffee at Filicori Zecchini Caffe, next to Madison Avenue, with the kindest and friendly bartenders I have ever seen, and great coffee by the way. And now, why don’t you come back to work?

(Street or home food, no burger beats my home made ones)

[ildabu]

30 - Lose Yourself

(Aka A place where I don’t belong)

 After a month of complete inactivity, due to lack of soccer matches in the whole great New York Metro area, I decided that it was finally time to start again doing something and to remove the shape of my ass from my couch. I am not really an “individual” sports person, I like to talk and to team up with other people in order to bundle and share the success (or the failure). At first I was trying to convince a dear friend of mine to play tennis with me, and I am really poor at tennis, the last time I played I was eight years old and I made one of the biggest athlete in Italian tennis history cry.

It’s basically just to do something, whatever it is. Move, sweat, eat red clay in my case, but still doing something. My friend promised me she (yes, I challenge girls) (yes, I will probably lose with a girl) would have asked for a permit, thing that she didn’t do yet so we still have no possibility to show our skills on the field. So what now?

I decided to sign up for a gym. I am not really a gym guy, I am one of those who start working out just when he feels he ate too much on the weekend and make a couple of incomplete push ups to just have the “pump” effect and stop bothering for one day. But this time I was in theUS, the capital of protein diets, and around here it’s full ofJerseyShorepuppets that show abs off around the city with five Celsius degrees. I was thinking about something cheap, just to try, as I had my doubts about this kind of activity.

Through an Internet site I am using more and more in the latter days I bought an offer for thirty days of gym for thirty bucks at New York Sport Centre, the one close to my place in Upper West. The morning I prepared my bag like I had to go to war, with any kind of clothes suitable for any situation. As soon as I got there I asked for the manager as I subscribed that offer online and they had to give me a special card, like the one for the supermarket, to enter the gym; everybody seemed nice, from the manager to the reception girl to the trainers, I still don’t understand where is the scam.

They started talking me fast and in some kind of archaic English about how the exercises could make me become with twenty-two minutes the new Chuck Norris, beard included, and I felt sucked in a tunnel of subscription which was the exact thing I wanted to avoid. They proposed me spinning classes, yoga classes, abs classes, math classes, how to stand of my tongues and walk on the catwalk, tailor classes. I had started nothing yet and I already had the sensation that I was working out too much, I even though about stopping gym as I was afraid of becoming too big and don’t fit anymore in my clothes. I was trying to avoid all these convenient offers in order to just use my poor peasant thirty bucks basic gym subscription but thing went tough right after the first half an hour inside.

I realized just after the first look the machine that I had no idea about what to do. I had no gym routine with me except my phone which I used to look for a starting program involving all basic exercises in order to feel like a shit the morning after. A total mess, I swear, it was like seeing a donkey riding a Vespa. I asked a guy about some help and he told me that I could experience the circuit, which included a series of implausible exercises designed only to kill me. “And if you feel in shape you have to try the ultimate experience”. I still don’t know what the ultimate experience was, but I guess that in order to be worse than the regular exercise it could only be a male and straight kick in the nuts. That’s it.

At the end of the exercises I went back to the manager’s office and I asked for an important information I ignored until the end but that at a certain point I had to ask: “Why the hell don’t you use metric system??”. I had to sadly accept their offer to assign me a guy called David today to help me understanding what I have to do and give a meaning to my day at the gym, which lasted two and a half hour even if I am pretty sure I did nothing.

I also found out that American gyms have a series of comfort we can only dream about inItaly, like towels in the lockers, soap in the showers, tv on the treadmills and most of all girls in the leggings. InItalywe have rude sailors that never use machine (as real men use only weights) and avoid eye contact as the first one who stares is gay. It’s pretty funny to go to the gym in Italy as everybody prefer to bump into each other than watching in the eyes another man lifting a box of crackers.

Anyway today is the X day; I will keep you posted if David doesn’t kill me. Plase David, today just show me how does the sauna works.

(I was so ready for everything)

[ildabu]

29 - Mr. Cab Driver

(Aka Well, it’s actually a cabs post)

 From the vibrations of Lenny Kravitz today I am bringing you to the wonderful world of the most imitated, photographed, painted and yellow vehicles of the world: New York City yellow cabs. I want to destroy all the myths about cabs in the first paragraph of my post today, I am straight to the point oriented; cabs are not everywhere, cabs don’t usually stop when you wave at them, cabs run over you, cabs have a strange engine that reminds me of the wood fuelled 18 century trains and cabs are never driven by New Yorkers. That’s the juice.

New York City transportation represents for me the wheel for a caveman that has always been around with a square shaped wheels chariot. In Rome, back in my bellowed country, public transportation is a mirage, which foreigners like to ride as it reminds them of the Tower of Terror in Disneyland. It is so obsolete and inefficient people prefer to suffer getting stuck in their car under a forty-two degrees sun. And the price? They just set the price to one and a half euro, something around two dollars for two lines that goes across the same neighbourhoods.

In New York public transportation actually works, I mean the reason why we have only two lines is clear, but for the Americans reading my blog I will make it even clearer:  right under Rome there are millions, maybe billions of artefact that represent the historical heritage of the city and they deserve to be handled properly for the historical importance and the value that they have. Technically, if you dig somewhere in Rome you could have good chance to find a Roman house or any pieces of some kind of vase or clay artefact. The other side of the medal is that whenever you find something like this the authorities have to stop the construction to take all this stuff out of the ground and isolate the area, stopping subways constructions for years. The solution is easy, they don’t dig at all.

Coming back to NY, here cab drivers are less patient than what they show in the movies and in the sitcoms, they won’t wait for you to say goodbye to your lover. I am not saying that they are not polite but it’s the spirit of the city that touched them too, the damn rush that seems to involve all New Yorkers. Do I really need to explain you how to catch a cab? I guess not, but maybe I can give you some advice I observed with cab drivers:

- Speak extremely slowly, try to say the number in a way that makes you feel like one of those damn recorded voice that calls you on Saturday morning telling you that you should spare a moment for Jesus. This is the shortest definition that came into my mind.

- There’s no need to tip a cab driver, but I do it anyway. Usually I round the number to the upper one.

- You can’t throw up on the Brooklyn Bridge. They won’t stop, and if you do, they will beat you up as soon as the bridge will be over.

Nothing else comes into my mind right now so the argument is really simple. Cab drivers are a human and pleasant way to travel around New York; I can say that it’s my third favourite one. The first one is the flying jetpack, but I haven’t found any of that yet, the second one is the bus, that wins against the taxi just because I can listen to my earphones and stop caring about the world (and end up three stations after mine all the times). On a cab I feel like anytime the driver may ask you something and I won’t be paying attention so I have to ask him to repeat, he would think I am not from the US, I will feel ashamed to feel like a tourist, he will take a strange route to the destination, I would notice he takes a strange and long and expensive route, I could do nothing as actually I am some kind of tourist and I don’t know any street below the forty-second and arrive to destination with a heavier soul and a lighter wallet.

(This didn't stop)

[theidealintern]

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuuuuuck FUUUUUUUUUUUCK!!! How on earth did I get so unbelievably high?! There is no way that that was just weed.. Holy shit they must’ve given me something.. I need to get the fuck out of here! No.. wait.. I have no idea where we are… GODDAMNIT! Paranoid thoughts on...

[ildabu]

28 - Get up, Stand up

(Aka Trip to North Manhattan)

While on my family calm and relaxed trip, I decided to spend the most sacred of the weekdays in a place that I never had the chance to visit and know properly: Harlem. See Harlem is right above Central Park and not really far from my place, so it would have been easy for me to go but I did never have the chance to. While my happy family was here I used this opportunity to go with them to visit this particular area of New York; I won’t go on and speak about all the history of the neighbourhood as we all have Wikipedia, and if you are reading this post you can just switch tab (but please do it after reading the whole post).

During the days my family was here we had a topic the periodically came up over and over again during discussion, and it was the Knicks match against the Chicago Bulls. Actually the situation is this, Chicago is doing pretty well and it’s leading the conference while the Knicks after a bad start found in Lin and in the enormous merchandise behind him a source of inspiration to recover some point they lost during the way. It was a headline match and me and my father were really looking forward to go there.

If you come in the US for the first time I guess that if you have a spare evening you can go to an NBA match as, as I said before, here in the US sport is a show before being a healthy activity. I enjoyed the first match I saw and I will come back to see some sports, maybe baseball or soccer now that both the seasons started. By the way I received the bracelets to attend a meet and greet with the New York Red Bulls, but this is another story. Me and all the family were discussing the opportunity to go, but tickets reached a normal and sky high price in the two weeks before they came here due to the good results of the Knicks and the fever for the big match against the Bulls.

Tickets were extremely expensive, but actually my parents don’t go all the Sundays to NBA match so for once it could be done. On the other side, my inflexible schedule was focused on finally going to Harlem and visit this part of the city, attend a Gospel mass and have lunch in a typical soul food restaurant. The problem was both the mass and the match were at the same time so we had to choose. And women are women. So we went to the mass.

We got to the church around 9:45, the name of the church was Mount Neboh Baptist Church and unlike the most famous one, the Abyssinian Church, it was less crowdie and smaller. I wouldn’t recommend you to go to the Abyssinian, it’s always full of people, tourists are everywhere and there is a big chance you can’t get in. These churches works by a (forced) money contribution that you have to give them and they make you sit above the local people to see that mass like you were watching a fish bowl. I didn’t like it at all, and despite all the people you see online getting crazy and excited about masses, I don’t think this is the right way to participate to such a solemn moment.

Moreover, the pastor was asking more and more times for donations, which is basically understandable, but right in the middle of the mass I think it’s not so appropriate. Anyway the show, because it’s a show and not a mass, was nice and we got out of there hungry of soul food. We went north on Lenox Ave to the most famous Sylvia’s restaurant, an institution of soul food in Harlem and probably the most well known. Although I only saw tourists in there, I have to say that the sensation was pretty genuine; maybe there were few locals as it was Easter Sunday and tourist invaded the streets.

I had fried chicken with two sides, mashed potatoes and mac and cheese, and I have to say that they were delicious, tender and crispy at the same time. I am writing this post and I got hungry while I write and remember the food! I also tasted the ribs which were too sweet for me but still remarkably tender and juicy. The bread on the table was the typical “biscuit”, the sweet bread (in my opinion a little bit fried but I don’t know) that is just so good.

Finished the lunch we aimed south, leaving Harlem without visiting institutions as the Apollo, shame on us, but we were on the rush as my parents wanted to go to see the Brooklyn Bridge as it was a wonderful sunny and non windy day. They liked the Central Park part of the neighbourhood but didn’t have the chance to visit it fully and understanding, and I have to say that too many things that you hear around of this place are definitely not true, or at least bigger than what you find. You should go to visit it, maybe on Sunday as many people are around and you will breathe a fully multicultural air in a colourful and picturesque neighbourhood. 

(Me gusta)

[ildabu]

27 - My Father's Eyes

(Aka The reunion)

 Sorry if it has been such a long time since the last time I wrote on this blog, but many, really many things happened these days. The problem is that many things will still happens in the next ones so I pretty don’t know when I could start again writing periodically and with a certain stability. But I mean, I am not the New York Times so I don’t see who would get mad for this. As I was telling you before I have no idea of what I will be doing next and beside the Harvard stuff I told you these days tons of possibilities came out. Not all of them will bring me to a shiny offer but who knows.

Anyway coming back to my absence these days, I spent my time basically working slightly harder than usual and most important thing my parents and some friends came. My family and the family of a friend of my family came last week and I had the chance to see them after a period of three months I spent here. Seems yesterday that I came, but I can’t remember not even what I ate yesterday for dinner. (Actually I had sausages).

I am a planner, I am extremely rational and I am one of those like to have control on things. Even on object on tables, I panic if I don’t see that they are straight parallel to the edge of the table or the food I buy is not aligned when it comes close to supermarkets cash registers. That kind of paranoid. And I made a plan, a detailed useful plan I used to take my family around New York and make them see and taste every single attraction and interesting place the city has to offer, obviously with my New Yorkers eyes (I beg you pardon New Yorkers, but my family has never been in the States nor they speak English, so I look like the Queen of England to them) (not that I speak English so good as you can see).

My family came here on the fifth of April and stayed for six days, I had to prepare a plan that could split the city into different areas that could be visited by walking or at least by cab, as my family doesn’t like particularly to walk around, and New York is extremely windy these days, making outdoor excursion less enjoyable. I tried to put everything could be interesting inside, but as I told you and as I repeat you, it’s almost impossible even think to see the whole city in six days. I did my best, they enjoyed my efforts and left the city with that little bit of sadness that hits everyone that has to leave a friend you make during summer, or a bar with a two dollars happy hours.

I am posting my precious program to this post, hoping that someone of you reading this post could use my program to greet your family when they come to visit you, when they offer you the last money you need to survive or propose to buy you groceries at Trader Joe’s. The friend of my father coming to NY is tall and big, and loves to eat even more than I do so I had to focus my attention on places that could attract him and make him try the American and foreign cuisine that stole my heart when I came here. I am aware that maybe the best way to try everything and taste the best food in NY is street food and food trucks, but my parents wanted to sit in a comfortable place at least to eat.

We went from east to west, fromHarlemto South Ferry and I tried to show them everything, from Gospel to the superclassic Statue of Liberty. Check it below and if you like it or you want a pdf copy of it let me know so I can send it to you. I started to write again finally, I promise I will keep up a regular job from next week!

Click here!

(The first evening, how could you not like it?)

[ildabu]

26 - Sunday Bloody Sunday

(Aka Sunday brunch and Bloody Mary)

 Around the city of New York, or at least in Manhattan as far as I know, there are billboards everywhere. They advertise events, clothes, alcohol and most of all asses. Yes, asses, asses everywhere. Not that I mind particularly about it, but these are not the only one you see. Some of them are smart and even brilliant sometimes, and except the ones in Times Square (which a real New Yorker doesn’t visit too often) you can even smile looking at them. For example, some days ago I saw some of them advertising the Knicks and the Madison Square Garden.

I already spoke about it but I like NBA so I just paid attention to them while I was in the subway; this is the catch phrase: “The MSG is the house of the Knicks like…” and typical New York stereotypes, some of them really funny. Like “New York is the house of the two hundred square meters apartments” or “The High Line is the house of New Yorkers with friends in town”. I can see myself in most of those, both because I live in a shoebox and I have friends that I plan to take to the High Line when they’ll come.

Among the other catch phrases today I want to discuss one in particular: “MSG is the house of the Knicks as Chelsea is the house of the brunch”. The brunch, a typical New York institution, that American look with envy and European cannot understand properly. The correct definition of brunch is: “a meal halfway between breakfast and lunch” (I lied, I didn’t check for the definition anywhere, this is the only definition I know and I am too lazy to go on Wikipedia).

Well here in New York it’s kind of different, as most of my friends believe the brunch is a meal that can be carried on from two pm to five, which have the role of turning you into sober after the weekend. Which is not wrong at all but here there is a different conception. Here they use this moment of the day to drink as many Bloody Marys and Mimosas (orange juice and sparkling wine) as they can, which technically bring you back to hangover mode.

I went to a place last week, it’s called Veselka Bowery (it’s famous among “brunchers”, it’s at 9 East 1st street). Very nice place, clean, big windows so the sun can come in and take you out from the solitude and the inner darkness that the rum and coke brought into you. And funny and nice waiters, which is one thing that basically make me choose if to come back or not in a place, sometimes more than food. Which was great by the way. I had corned beef on top of a certain kind of whole wheat bread and with poached egg on top, toasted bread aside and a separate dish with bacon. To drink I didn’t feel brave enough to the alcohol so I just took orange juice and coffee. All of this at three pm.

Which could even be considered as a brunch, but basically collide with the idea and the definition usually provided. I regret nothing by the way, I really loved the place and I think I will come back again. I like these places where the atmosphere is relaxed and you don’t have to scream to bartenders to obtain some sort of drink with more ice then ethanol in it. Sometimes I go in places where the waiter doesn’t even look you in the eyes and throw things at you with no love. They are not New Yorkers I guess, all the New Yorkers I met are nice people, starting from my landlord who was born in the Bronx, and he is a cool guy. Maybe a hippy and I hope he is not reading this otherwise he would raise the rent.

Coming back to the brunch stuff I would recommend Veselka for today, it’s my favourite Sunday pick so far and I hope to see you there not this Sunday (my family is visiting the US for the first time, yayyyyy) and I will be too busy carrying them around the High Line, over and over again all day.

(Sometimes you just wanna eat and sleep. And repeat)

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25 - Goodbye Philadelphia

(Aka Philly Cheese Steak Lovers on tour)

 It is actually the first time we all travel together, my and my friends, as we planned to go to Boston for Saint Patrick’s Day but in the end we just stayed in NY and had fun anyway. I like this trips, I hope we’ll have more occasions to travel more and visit some other cities around NY, like Boston for example which apparently will be my home for like two months. In the beginning we were not sure that our final destination was Philadelphia itself, as the schedule and the program of the visit was really unclear just days before the departure.

At first we decided to go to Pennsylvania in order to help a friend of our who was going to be busy in some kind of political task, and we offered our mental support to his cause by taking the free bus he was offering to us in order to reach Philadelphia and then leave him. A few days later we found out that the bus was free, but we agreed in an implicit way to campaign for Obama for like five or six hours on Saturday. Almost all of us didn’t want to campaign for Obama, and not because it was Obama, mainly because it was pointless to go to Pennsylvania, work all day and then don’t have the chance to see the town (other than campaigning for someone who is running as president in another country, and I just don’t care).

 A couple of days before leaving we all met in order to take a decision about the trip, and we all agreed that it should be up to every single person to decide if campaigning or not, but all of us was going to take the Megabus instead of the Obamabus, paying like 24 dollars round trip to Philly. It is convenient, the bus is nice and there is (according to them as I didn’t have the chance to really connect) free wifi and the seats are comfortable. We are planning to take it again to go to Boston, and some of us is going to DC this weekend.

So we are on the bus, a quarter to ten on the clock, and in two hours we reach the rainy and windy Philly (I hate to see cities for the first time with rain as I always have a bad impression on them even if they are nice).We all meet in the biggest food court I have ever seen and I don’t remember its name and we eat something light (me and theidealintern had some kind of middle eastern food cooked by a guy that looked like greek, but it was good in the end) as we are planning to eat a tremendous size cheese steak for dinner. I think that we started travelling to eat; it’s definitely the end for us if it’s so.

After lunch we decided to go around Philly, even if the bad weather was really challenging. We went from the food court to the Museum of Art (for the non Phillies the Museum that has the statue of Rocky nearby) and took awesome pictures of us posing like a raging bull (not same movie, but related and awesome). Then we climbed the stairs to the top and went on the back of the museum to take the bus that would have taken us to the Independence Mall, right next to the river that crosses Philly.

Two dollars, affordable and convenient, we took twenty minutes to the Liberty Bell and we also took pictures with it. It’s free and fast so it’s worth seeing even if you shouldn’t expect so much entertainment by it. After the cultural day (which lasted no more than half an hour) we decided it was time to go to Mc Gillin’s Pub, the fifth oldest bar in the US; we visited in New York Mc Sorleys Bar that is the third, if I’ll ever go to New Orleans I will definitely go to the oldest ever in the US.

The pub is really big and nice; we found spots in a second and started enjoying our time with a six beers choice for nine bucks, in order to try local beers (then we took PBR, to enjoy the drunkness). We took also the cheese steak there (instead of going to the most famous Geno’s that is world famous for the cheese steak) because we were tired and we were enjoying our time there. At the end of the evening we were noisy, we sang the songs in the jukebox and came back to the bus a little bit overexcited. Nice day, I appreciated.

We came back home around midnight but we slept on the way home so we didn’t feel like going around more, we were already tired enough. Anyway let’s sum up the article today: take buses, are the easiest way to travel and the cheapest, like Megabus or Boltbus, avoid the Chinatown buses as they may even be cheaper but you are risking overbooked trips and no space to breath. Then visit as much as you can, the US are awesome and probably I will go again around, I hope to visit my new home in Boston too.

(Mother of steak...)

[ildabu]

24 - I'll Be There For You

(Aka Cheap beer and free hot dogs)

 Keep your notepads ready because you may need this information in a future. I am about to tell you one of those things that everybody knows here in New York but tourists may not know, and as I assume mostly tourists would be interested into this and are actually reading this blog, keep your ears open: Rudy’s Bar and Grill, Ninth Avenue and forty-four street. Yes, now you can close this article and move over if you are a New Yorker. And I wonder why you are here; this is a guide you may already know.

Anyway if you are still reading this let me tell you something; are you an unpaid intern seeking for luck abroad? Are you a twenty one to thirty years old thirsty of glory? Did you come to New York to study art or theatre or movies or other hippy craps? Well then what you need are two things: beer and hot dogs. Trust me there is no better medicine to face a tough day at work, a bad grade at University or just a rainy day. And that’s why we had to find a place that could be our shelter.

See until last Wednesday we were used to go to the Empire Rooftop to have fun after work, fun that in most of the times meant just cheap booze and tons of people. This Wednesday the Empire was reserved for a private party and we felt lost. We had nowhere to go, like ten souls looking for peace, a stool and some friends. So they asked me, as everybody knows I am the one inside of the group that proposes new places (everybody admitted my superiority in this field and I feel like the king of the lonely planet). I, with the collaboration of a dear friend of mine, theidealintern, chose Rudy’s place as it was listed into the darkest spots of the New York Magazine rankings as a cheap and iconic place. Damn New York Mag, it just can’t appreciate nice things.

Well everybody followed my choice, even if at first they were trying not to as I picked a place called Mars where the bar is built like a space station, and I swear I will visit it someday. Anyway we arrived into Rudy’s and it didn’t seem so full, a couple of guys with ebooks, one outside the little patio and the two grannies as bartenders. We took our sit outside and hesitating a bit we went to take our cheap beer and free hotdogs as reported on Yelp. The beer was three dollars a pint, seven dollars a pitcher and free hot dogs for real.

It was a highway to hell, we ate and drink like there was no tomorrow. Our number continued to grow until like fifteen or sixteen people, at the end of the evening (for me) we were like twenty. A success. Very nice place and very nice music, everyone appreciated and decided to elect this bar as our new place, our place, wher we could find relax any ay of the week eating a hot dog and drinking good beer. I recommend it. But now, let me tell you what happened after the cheap beer and hot dogs. I will just tell you that three friends of mine started to travel around the Tri State area because fell asleep in the subway.

One got to Coney Island, going out of the bar at twelve thirty and arriving home at the end at a quarter to four. A quarter an hour later the second one got home after visiting the cute station of Jamaica at the end of the E line. The third, the champion of the evening, got absolutely lost and no news of him have been found until lunchtime the day after, when we discovered he got home “late”, as he said, and he lost his phone after staying at the bar until it closed. Luckily for him New York is a city were even cab drivers are more kind than what you think and his cab driver called another friend of our in order to bring the phone back. A very nice person that really deserves to be mentioned here, even if it’s just a blog post.

In the end, we chose the place as our new super spot, our new house and our shelf for a devastating after work. I even came back there yesterday before going to another happy hour, in order not to leave my place alone for the evening. Who knows probably later we’ll go again. Anyway follow my advice and get lost. Get lost with cheap beer and free hot dogs and enjoy the life after work, don’t be oppressed by it and continue facing the challenge. Obviously, ask a friend to come with you, can give you the stimulus you need to relax, reset and restart. But I warn you, this is our spot now, find your own bar.  

(Pic unrelated, just a beer a found in some friend's house)

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23 - You Spin Me Right Round

(Aka MTA Realm)

 New York is without any doubt a big city, but there will be part of it that you will never see. No matter how much time you spend, no matter how deep you can go and reach in your journey, I just doubt you could see it all. And even if abroad New York is associated with Manhattan, everybody here knows that there is more than that. Much more, like four more boroughs much bigger than Manhattan. I personally think that Manhattan could fit into Rome inside of the traffic ring and if you have enough time you could walk it all in a day.

When I came here for the first time I used to walk a lot. A lot, I swear. I live next to the Lincoln Center and I an afternoon I walked down to South Ferry, acting like a tourist and taking pictures everywhere. When I came back home from very far places instead I just took the cab, and most of the time it was less than ten bucks if you travel from East Village to Upper West. Let’s say that to cross all Manhattan it’s difficult that you pay more than twenty dollars. I was taking the cab mainly for one reason: subway is damn expensive.

If you think that one Euro that you pay in Italy is too much think again. Here a single travel ticket could cost you even two and a half dollars, two twenty five if you buy two. The instrument is called the Metrocard, available everywhere and easy to refill at the booths and the automatic distributors. You can even buy a normal Metrocard and then refill it with the amount you prefer, they will take you two dollars twenty five everytime you swipe it in a subway station. That yes, it may be easy and comfortable but it really sucks your soul away.

It’s like ATM for me, with a debit card I go crazy and don’t realize how much money I spend before I go online to check it. Or phone with contracts. Basically I am not a guy that can behave properly with a credit or contract offer. So that’s why I always choose unlimited offers, in order to pay and not care anymore. There are also unlimited monthly and weekly Metrocards, but I only know that the price of the monthly is one hundred and four dollars. Not even if the card was made of gold it would be so pricy. But, but, but it still may be convenient for you.

See I take the subway or the bus if there is good weather twice a day for five days a week to go work. I also go out on the weekend, let’s say twice a day on Saturday and Sunday. And let’s add Friday unpredictable adventures (two trips). Usually we go out on Wednesday to Empire, so another trip. And I play soccer on Sunday, add two. This makes like twenty trips a week. Doing the math would be around fifty dollars a week; around two hundred a month. In this case, if you have a similar situation you should buy a Metrocard.

Let’s come back for a second to Manhattan subway map: I think that if you spend at least a week in Manhattan you could easily get used to the system, and learn what is enough for you to come back home from almost every zone. Manhattan is pretty damn easy, trust me I am not Columbus or Magellan. Almost all the lines in New York run in vertical on the peninsula, the one, two three (Red) and the four, five, six (Green). Then we have the diagonal ones, which are the A, C, E, on the west, the N, Q, R in the center and the M, F, B, D on the east side (Blue, Yellow and Orange). They run across Broadway or Seventh Avenue, exiting Manhattan on the right side to Brooklyn and Queens. Then in the end we have the horizontal lines, which are the L, the S and the Seven line. If you want to go to Brooklyn you can also use the J and the Z, and the legend says that these two lines were made to please king Jay-Z, but I don’t know much about this. And in the end the G to go around Brooklyn and Queens. Piece of cake.

Trust me, these are tons of words and letters, but you will learn them quickly, and use them even if you are drunk. Ah there is also a Trambus that flights in the sky above East River to Raccoon City and the ferries to the islands (I recommend to take the South Ferry to Staten Island just for the view, it’s beautiful and it last half an hour.

And I forgot to say that most of the trains run 24/7, a dream for who like me lives in Rome and has two lines, which most of the time are so awful you prefer to take a Roman chariot and use horses to go around the city. And safe, I got surprised that nobody killed me even coming back home drunk from Queens at four in the morning. Wonderful.

   (Travelling like a boss)

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22 - Gin and Juice

(Aka I actually survived)

 Sorry if I took so long to write you about my weekend but I just woke up now from the long, long and exciting two days adventure that me and my friends had during Saint Patrick’s Day holidays. It was greener than ever and I perfectly acted as an indigenous to uniform to the behaviour required in these situations: I got drunk.

I said two days of holiday for a reason: we didn’t just take a devastating Saturday but also a Friday, that we spent in a pub in Midtown called Mc Faddens. We chose the spot as it is close to DC1 building and to all the missions to the United Nations, so that all the intern could have the chance to relax and discuss about resolutions and point of order while getting wasted of cheap beer. Cheap beer indeed, almost free for someone but not for me. Let me explain; in New York it’s common for bars to held raffles, and who has been chosen can drink for free for a certain amount of time all what the bar has to offer (beer, mixed drinks, wine). It is practically an invite to die.

We went into Mc Faddens last week and we entered our names into the raffle and we won. Like four out of nine people. And, as all good unpaid interns, we shared our victory with our friends. See for the winners it was all free from nine to eleven and for their friends it would have been fifteen dollars for the same offer. Obviously as you can imagine nobody paid but we just shared our drinks with quickly and smart moves in order to hide from the bartenders.

So The night ended when we were drunk, Johntravolting around the pub screaming “Tangoooo!” to girls and flipping people around. A very interesting Friday, if you consider that we wanted just to chill in order to face Saturday with more power. We were drunk the night before; we were ready like Irish at midnight. The appointment was clear, noon at a girl’s place that was close to forty-second street, right next to the parade and to midtown alcoholics, all dressed in green and all ready to party hard.

I was wearing a green shirt with the body of a leprechaun on it, a wonderful green hat and a red long beard. At the end of the evening, I just looked like a drunk ZZ Top. It was an awesome day, before getting to the party I saw everybody dressing in green, kids and old people together running around the city, even green trash bins with green bags. And a beautiful twenty Celsius degrees Saturday. While coming I could barely walk down the streets because there were literally tons of people walking and drinking and making noise around, I don’t know where they were going but I can suppose they all were heading to bars in East Village and Greenwich. We left the house around three pm and we started running like idiots shouting on the streets, we even broke into the Cipriani restaurant to steal a flower that looked cool from outside.

We also went to East Village (I suppose) and we went into a big bar which I don’t remember to drink some green beer (which we couldn’t find apparently). Even that was cool, we even had pictures with a bunch of marines that were off duty and partying there. I actually wasn’t expecting to find all this people getting crazy for this holiday, which is not a holiday, and I am really positively impressed by the guys. I will probably tell you more next time as now I have to come back to a even harder work but trust me in the meantime, if you have the opportunity to come here for Saint Patrick just do it, it’s awesome. And don’t forget to dress up in green, I spent more to buy Saint Patrick stuff than all my clothes since I got here.

(Awesome view from the building on 42nd)

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21 - Good Vibrations

(Aka trip to Caribbean New York)

 It’s really important to understand that New York is a patchwork of cultures, all melted together and affecting each other with the influences of their cultural background and creating a sort of continuum among them. That’s you can find many boroughs or districts or barrios close to each other and very different but still some kind of similar. The cuisine is worldwide recognized as one of the first evidence to state the place you come from, and you can trust me because, as an Italian, I can assure you that this is the truth.

See not all the stereotypes are bad and aim to make a culture appear weak abroad, and some of them are real and healthy as never. For example this week we have an Italian night in my shoebox, which I will describe later on, and we had “pasta alla carbonara”, a particular kind of pasta with pancetta, eggs and pecorino, all genuine Italian ingrediants. Pasta is just one of the stereotypes that reflect Italian culture, and I don’t mind when people say that we just eat pasta all year long because basically it’s true.

It’s even true that we talk waving hands and that we are late at appointments, and I don’t see why or how this could offend an Italian. It’s part of a culture, and I am proud of it as everyone should be proud of their culture. I mean I don’t play mandolino and I am not a mobster but I guess it’s clear that this is just some kind of movies leftover. Anyway as I was telling you the cuisine is one of the first things that comes into your mind when you think about a country and yesterday we went to a couple of traditional looking Caribbean places in New York.

Just next to the East Village and close to University place you can find a colourful community of Caribbean countries people that turned this particular couple of blocks in a vibrant community, just in the heart of Nolita (North of Little Italy). With the beginning of spring air became warmer and the flavour and tastes of this barrio enriched my experience there. Sunday for me it’s the traditional soccer day, and I planned to play until 3 pm and then reach my friends that went to visit Coney Island; the match ended at a quarter past four, and I also took a shower so it was too late to reach them there. Too bad because I saw the pictures and the place was really awesome, I want to come back there and also in Brighton Beach.

Anyway we met later at a quarter to eight in this place called Oficina Latina, in Prince Street next to Mulberry, a Cuban place specialized in traditional Cuban dishes (obviously) and most of all in drinks. The menu offered Capirinhas, Pina Coladas and Mojito among the others, and I have to say that they really tasted delicious. The traditional white tiles on the bar and the wooden details, together with the wide choice of wines gave the place a fancy look. The drinks were a little bit expensive but I think that may be a good place to bring a girl.

Since it was around nine thirty and I still hadn’t eaten anything from the morning I was a little bit hungry and convinced the group to move somewhere to eat. Nothing fancy or big because I still had a pastrami sandwich I ate the day before in my stomach. We chose a taco place next to the bar, its name is Fonda Nolita, in Elizabeth Street, and as soon as you walk in you realize why this place will steal your heart. The guy that prepares the tacos is inside of a Volkswagen van converted into a kitchen with the open rooftop. It’s wonderful, I want one of those inside of my living room.

You can order your tacos or tortas in Spanish at the cash and receive your order directly from the van chef. I had a short rib barbacoa taco with rice and beans aside, a pineapple drink and I felt really satisfied by my choice. I saw also pictures of this place on Street View and it shows four guys playing cards with eating a taco and the van guy cooking with all the big repair shop windows opened, check it as it’s very funny.

I will definitely come back here, maybe more in the taco place than in the Cuban drinks place, but in the meantime I will try everything else this city has to offer in terms of food, drinks and else. Someday I will also go to an Italian place, I am planning to visit Le Cirque on Easter, as yes I am hungry and I love to eat in many different places, but I am still an unpaid intern so I will wait my parents to come to pay for trying that.

(I fell in love with a Volkswagen van. Again)

[ildabu]

20 - Never Gonna Give You Up

(Aka You just got Rickroll’d)

The main variable here that influences a wide range of subjects such as the technological gadget world, the groceries and the work is basically the integration of the human being with the World Wide Web. As I explained before in my posts you can technically do everything on the internet, and I am one of those that except meeting girls and play soccer loves to use internet for anything. Sometimes people do even those two things on the internet, but let’s say it’s not my style.

See in Italy there is no chance to use such a wide range of services, basically because in some areas of Italy we still have the dial up connection, and in other areas we don’t have even that one. And that’s just one of the problems. Most of all we are not mentally used to think about the the internet when we need something, we don’t have big stores and big chains of shops that offer products delivery. Shipping is expensive, you can only buy things on eBay, that is the biggest source of products for the average Italian, that is really, really scared about the idea to insert his credit card number on the internet.

Like in case they clone the card you will be immediately poor and alone, instantly after inserting the verification code. People in Italy buy just one, simple prepaid card from the same selle, the Poste (which is basically the US Postal Service here) because the voice of a simple, free and easy credit card spread among all Italy. Think about a country all with the same card. Why? Because they are afraid of everything, you always wait for the scam in Italy and the internet is an evil machine made to such your money and your social life. In fact it takes your social life, but if you are wise you can keep the money.

Here the things are different, and I will suggest you some internet sites you should visit that may seem basic for an American, but may result in something interesting for a future intern in New York, if you are reading this to obtain some information (or maybe they’ll make a book out of this, or a movie. In that case I would like Timothy Olyphant to play my role, he’s funny and looks alike me in some situations).

First of all the masterpiece, King Amazon: you can find everything, and I really mean everything, from food to clothing to gardening to sex toys. Everything. It is a search engine on recommended website that affiliates to Amazon in order to let it take the orders for them and manage them taking a commission on the order money. I recommend it for clothing, gadgets and technology stuff, be sure that all the items you buy are included in the Super Saving shipment because otherwise it would be something like five dollars for seller (you buy three objects from three shops you will have to pay three shipping fees). And this is the worst part, they send you tons of shipments even if you want them to reduce them to as few as possible.

Another internet site that will ease you things is FreshDirect. There are advertisements everywhere in Manhattan trains, I tried it and it works, they are fast, friendly and they deliver exactly in a two hours spot you choose. The delivery boy was so kind not to complain for the four floors of stairs to my apartment and was so kind I gave him 5 bucks. They told me to try Peapot too for food, but I think that this is the best site I used and I will continue like this.

Then I suggest you to subscribe to Netflix if you have a good internet connection and a strong Wifi. The site will permit you to stream contents from the internet right on your pc, Playstation, Xbox and similar, the quality is very good and the programs are decent. A service like this for example for me is necessary after the fall of the God Megavideo, which by the way I paid 30 Euros to in order to subscribe to the site on January.

If you need business cards (they are basically useful to spread them around to girls) you can buy the at Vistaprint, they are fast, cheap and they have a wonderful customer support: the post offices couldn’t find my shipment after two days and the customer support offered me for free a new shipment and if the post offices could find my business cards I could have kept them.

Now I can’t remember any other internet site, if I will in a future I will rickroll you again and suggest something else to visit. And by the way I always end up into Youtube videos that rickrolls you and hope that you rage. Too bad I love that song.

.

(Check out Brian Griffin on Family Guy version of the song, it's awesome)

[ildabu]

In the meantime, pastrami, pastrami everywhere

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19 - When You Were Young

(Aka Everyone else’s dreams)

 In this town I met lots of people since I landed for the first time in my new shining home, and I liked most of them. I consider myself very lucky from this point of view and I think that not many people in the world had the chance to do something they like in a place they like. Beside me today I want to focus on everyone else’s dreams, as I am not the first and for sure I will not be the last that is using this opportunity to change my life.

Like me most of my friends came here with tons of reason, and I don’t know even all of them, but I can tell you that really the scope of the goals is wide and different. The more I live abroad and meet new people the more I think that I am not the only one in the world; have you ever read on the internet some posts, pictures, Facebook status or image that says: “Am I the only one who thinks…” or “it’s only me who…”? No. I can ensure you that no, you are not the only one that though about something for the first time or realized some kind of hidden link. Get over it.

The fact is that when I think that I live my life without paying too much attention on what I do, or at least I give this impression to my friends, the truth is that I am scared about my future. I am not one of those that live the vida loca, and live every day as it would be the last one. I plan, I think and I calculate, I am even one of the last one in the world that writes the groceries list on a post it and attach it to the phone (not attach it to a mail, physically attach it to the back cover).

And when I think that it could be only me that am scared about the future, scared of what I will do after this internship and after the following internship, or work, or stage, or join the circus, then I find out that most of my friends have my same concerns, my same anxieties, my same fears. It’s not easy to be always the best and prepared person on the world, that can face all the challenges as they are nothing. And I’ve heard them say they will be unemployed, they did all this for nothing, this experience was nice but useless, they are not skilled enough or that their degree was worthless. I don’t think so.

I think that we are the best in the class, everywhere. I think we are not the 1%, we are the 99%. I think we are the few, the brave, the lucky guys that are all aiming for the same goal, being happy and safe (that in my case would be on a beach in Panama). Everyone is following is path to the fame and we are all afraid of taking the long way to reach the top, but as we are all in the same boat, we row together.

I even met some guys yesterday that strongly disagreed with me. Some Italians, imagine this, blaming me for looking for luck abroad. They told me that I was like betraying my country (and I am not an evil scientist or the guy that found a cure for HIV, I am an unpaid intern). They told me that it was my fault if we can’t get through the crisis; it was my fault if people don’t study and work in Italy. That I was crazy to go away while Italy was struggling. He also said that he hates this town and he is waiting with all himself to come back to Italy and never leave it anymore.

What do you think about it? What would have replied him? I said I understand his point and I told him that I will come back in Italy. Not now, but I will come back. See I do love my country; I am proud of what it is and am proud of what it does. I love my streets, my family, God helps me I love even Berlusconi. But how can you say you really understand what you have if you have never been abroad, if you have never opened your mind to other people, if you have never ate a cheeseburger in Times Square or a bowl of rice in Timor East? I love to travel, to see the world, to absorb the culture and the soul of all the people of the world like a sponge. And then I would like to pour all that culture back to my place, in Italy. It’s not just me, I am not alone. Each and every one inside my office, my organization, my city, my country and my world is a sponge. Even my co-workers that are doing the same things and thinking the same stuff as I do.  Because I told you, we are seven billion people on the world, do you really think you are alone anymore?

  (Wonderful sentence, this will be my motto from now on)