A very nice evening

Yesterday's evening turned to be one of the nicest in quite a long while, considering the times when Susanne is not with me. Having finished at the pool (another 50 legs, but this time my shoulders are crying so much that I shall skip today's round) I headed home, changed quickly and headed to pick up Liesbeth. Then, we headed towards Piazza Trilussa, arriving a few minutes late and finding Dalma already waiting for us.

Now, Dalma is one of my half dozen hungarian friends I've met over the years thro ELSA (one of the exceptional sides of that association is the kind of people you can meet and lasting relationships you can build). She was studying as an Erasmus student in Naples a few years ago and we met at one of the ELSA National Council Meetings, sometimes in 2001 I think. We sort of lost track of each other until I met her again in Budapest, in 2004, and since then we have more kept in touch, even because, in the meanwhile, for one of those intricate chain reactions of life, she ended up becoming the girlfriend of one of my best ELSA friends, Valerio.

Anyway, she was waiting for us, together with her parents, and I had already booked at my favourite restaurant, so after a quick exchange of pleasantries and update on the people missing, we headed for dinner. The usual warm welcome from the restaurants' owners and waiters (after all, I end up there about a dozen times a year) and we sat in this table that, not knowing what kind of temperature we would had found, I had asked to be prepared inside, but close to the window.

At the moment of placing the order, I finally could hear again fluent, uninterrupted hungarian as Dalma translated the various dishes to her parents and they exchanged comments back and forth. Now, I must say, hungarian is very special to my ear, for a number of reasons dating back five years. Ok, one reason, really. Anyway, it might be harsh and at time the typical intonation makes it sound as chant, but nevertheless whenever I hear it my heart grows warmer.

Order placed, everything followed with flawless precision. Drinks arrived within 2 minutes, mixed bruschettas arrived within 5 and the main courses, despite being of three different kinds (pasta, flesh and fish) arrived within 2 minutes one from the other. As the dinner was moving towards the desserts, I turned myself in a taxi driver, a not so unusual thing. Valerio had finally arrived at the train station, late obviously, and I jumped on my scooter to pick him up and deliver it to the group. As I got back, less than 45 minutes later, I made the acquaintance of an hungarian friend of Dalma and her italian boyfriend, we had dessert and then it was time to take a tired Liesbeth home. Half a hour later, I was back again to the restaurant, in time for a round of drinks offered by the restaurant's owner and chef-in-chief.

As we finally decided to leave, definitely overfed and possibly slightly overdrunk, we headed for a long walk encompassing Trastevere, Campo dei Fiori and Sant'Andrea della Valle, all the time reminiscing episodes of our ELSA life, things I had totally forgotten and that once upon a time had became little myths, like when Valerio and me disappeared from a meeting to be found hours later in the company of 6 estonian girls. Things I hadn't thought about for years and definitely made me smile.

At Largo Argentina we finally parted ways and it was a wise thing, given I ended up in bed at 2.30 am, which means I'm today with less than 5 hours of sleep with a very very long day to face. But the end of it, if everything will go well, will surely make me forget my total tiredness. Next stop, Mainz.

The week of broken plans

"Mortals plan and the Gods laugh" is a recurring sentence in my blog, but it's something that I firmly believe into and this week was made to make me an even firmer believer into one of the basic lines of any classical tragedy.

Not that my own case was so tragic, anyway. On wednesday, the plan was to meet with a new VCNer and go to see a Movie, "The Lake House" after months that I do not enter a cinema. It didn't come to happen due a series of incidents and eventually I joined the IFN's happy hour in Campo dei Fiori, ending up leaving at about eleven. Oh, IFN stands for International Friends' Network, which is something similar, on a smaller scale and a higher average age, than VCN.

Yesterday, the plan was a quick blitz on Florence to meet a friend coming from abroad for a night. The plan called for getting out of office early, take a train, spend the evening there, sleep a few hours at a little hotel near the station, take the first train back in the morning in order to be at work today. Train tickets taken, hotel room booked, 20 minutes before departure everything was called off due a technical problem. Money of bookings was mostly lost, which is annoying but not a tragedy, and in rebellion against fate I decided that I wouldn't had stayed home and went to the happy hour of the french sub-group of VCN, "pasdeblabla", where I tried to put to use my scarce french.

Then, I had the very unhappy idea of going to the board meeting of my students association, ELSA, and went away nauseous noticing how badly and deep it has fallen over the last two years, with people quarreling about who to assign the position in the next year's board rather than on what to practically do. The spirit is gone, definitely.

Today another friend from Romania should arrive in Rome and I pledged myself to the customary hosting/touring duties, but if the trend keeps like this, her coach will probably be hijacked or something...

Badges of Honor

There is nothing like moving for having a full immersion in your past. I already knew it, obviously, as it is now three weeks that I'm living among boxes (even if, admittedly, they are starting to disappear), but I had yet one more confirmation.

A couple of days ago, I started to hang stuff at my room's walls. The first thing I put on the wall was a poster (on the left, click to enlarge it) donated to me in Novi Sad, Serbia, when I made sort of a tour of the country years ago, right after Slobodan Milosevic had been overthrown. I had stored it away for 6 years and just last year, while in Malta, I had got to know that the one who donated it to me, a guy named Slobodan, had recently died in a car accident, which only strengthened my intention of finally finding it a place in my room.

Then, I had to rearrange my own creation: a frame containing my ELSA Badges (the name tags you are usually given when you go to an ELSA event) and postcards coming from all around the world neatly placed in a circular pattern (on the bottom right, click to enlarge it). Only, I had made it when I thought my ELSA life was finally over, at the beginning of 2002, while suddenly in 2004 I started going around Europe again and more and more badges had accumulated, somehow arranged in a quite awful fashion around and over the original frame.

Now, while I was re-arranging them, my mind started to wander to the distant, both in terms of kilometers and, often, in time, places where I had been given those badges, to the people who I had met, and almost always lost, over the years, in that process of losing myself in the past to dig out faces, anecdotes and feelings that is so typical of me and that still surprises some of my friends.

And so it was that with a smile I placed the very first one, received in Heidelberg, Germany, when for the first time I had to confront with the fact that beyond the border of my country there was a huge world inhabited by a number of people with their own languages, traditions and distinctive behaviour in the serious things and at parties. Obviously I always knew, but the practical knowledge has quite a different taste than a purely academic one. Speaking of taste, was also the first time I encountered, and was knocked down (but not out) by, the icelandic brennivin (which means "fire water").

And then the one I made myself when organizing the ICM in Rome (which actually started a fashion.. even now, most of the ELSA badges are based on the ones I made for that event, with flags, names, positions and everything...) and so on and so forth, remembering the first time I saw the Baltic in 2000, going from Copenaghen to Lund, and the open Atlantic Ocean in 2001 in Coimbra.

I got back to the first time I saw the Danube in Vienna, when it's called Donau, and then again the bridges crossing it in Budapest and when it has changed it's name in Duna and became a much wider river as it meets the Sava in Beograd, when I looked upon it by the Kalemegdan, and then the massive thing that it becomes in Romania, flying over it on my way to Bucharest.

And then, and then... the days when I found myself on the Baltic again, in Copenaghen once more and in Malmoe, and when I moved further East, in Vilnius, and even more eastwards, in Saint Petersburg.

The day I saw the Skulls Tower in Nis and Vlad's Castle in Bran, the little Mermaid in Copenaghen and the Giant Finn if Lund, the imperial buildings of Vienna, Saint Petersburg and London, the orthodox cathedrals of the eastern cities and the arab-looking churches of Portugal and so many, many more things recalled by the memory in an instant and would take hours to write down.

And all the time, while thinking about those places, a number of faces, some never forgotten and clear as a picture in front of my eyes, other faded and almost gone, visited me... Hrund, the one who offered me the accursed brennivin in Heidelberg, Diana K., Guido, Jelena B. (oh, Jelena...) in Beograd, Mario, Mina, Massimo, Marina, Michele, Anna in Warsaw and Bea in Vienna, Valerio, Karina, Marko, Katcka, Anda... and so many more whose names I remember or lay in some closed room in my head locked by a lost key, which I hope I shall find again one day. People I did share, at times, incredible experiences and always a deep feeling of being part of something, and sometimes even more, with some walking a good and important part of my life and who I know have contributed, in a way or the other, to make me the one I am.

Should you, my reader, ever be a student of law in Europe, join ELSA and live it actively. You might lose a bit of time in your studies, but you shall never regret it, as you will make experiences and you will meet people worth one hundred times more.

And some more madness

So, where did I leave yesterday? Oh yes, the world had gone crazy.

Not like it got any saner in the last hours, anyway, as one opens the newspapers and what does he find? That in the newly formed UN Human Right Council, which takes the place of the UN Commission on Human Rights which lately had as president no less than the famous Human Rights supporter , and Lybia president, Muammar Qaddafi, sees among its 47 elected members countries which have always been on the front-line of the fight for human rights. Only, on the wrong side.

And in fact, those countries, elected by the Council, are China, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and a handful of african and asian countries which have, at best, dubious records on human rights.

So let's see. The administrative reform of the UN, which is becoming one of the greatest example of international corruption, has been practically scrapped. The Security Council reform is going nowhere. A couple of days ago news of sexual favors asked in exchange of food by employees of various UN Agencies (among other organizations) in Africa were, again, around to be heard. We all know, I suppose, of the Oil for Food scandal. The institution is totally unable to intervene even when genocides are evidently going on as in Rwuanda back then and Darfur right now and now China and Cuba spearheading the efforts for Human Rights. Could we please close the UN and possibly demolish the building?

Oh, I got a call today from Romania. Why? Because a Romenian radio station apparently wants to interview me (after suggestion of the president of ELSA Bucharest, Arabela Trifoi) about my involvement in ELSA. Yes, right. Now, that wouldn't even be the first time as I first went on air in Serbia, more precisely in Novi Sad, a few years ago, again about ELSA, but at least I was physically there. I do not know this time how they do intend to proceed, we'll see if anything will come out of it.

Roman Swedish Days - Part IV

As it always happens, this international parenthesis is over. As I write, in fact, the last ones of the little swedish group that has been going around Rome in the last days should be home.

Yesterday the last night celebrations was much less intense than it usually is in such circumstances, and the fact that most of the italians who took care of the guests were all workers (hence people who had slept an average of 4 hours a day for the last week dealing with staying up as late as possible and than waking up early enough to be on time at work) might have something to do with it. That could actually have me starting a whole line of thoughts about the state of my poor association in Rome, made mostly by graduated student and workers and totally deprived of fresh blood, but that's too depressing and I will skip it.

Also the guests looked fatigued after 4 days of forced marches in the city. Kristine, even being only half swedish, and the others apparently are the perfect example of how those people could wage war against Russia and march all the way to Ukraine in the XVIII century during the Great Northern War.

Anyway, we gathered at Maria Rosaria's house and enjoyed a few hours of dining, drinking (even if not as much as it had been 2 days before at Francesca's) and chatting along, even if it was pretty evident the two groups, the italian and the swedish, had not really mixed up much, and that was indeed a pity. If that happened because the italians were unable to join them for most of the days due work, of the incident Kristine had with her host had influenced the whole group, if indeed there was too little time, I do not know, but indeed this time the relations between the two ELSA groups were civil (with some exceptions), but nothing more. As I said, a pity. Who knows, maybe during teh rturn visit in Stockholm, yet to be planned. I'm reallytempted about bein gpart o fit, if possible, the city being one of those missing in my barely failed "capitals to visit within my 30th birthday" plan.

As part of the people moved on to go dancing, half the swedish and myself opted out and I found myself, in the impossibility of driving them, walking Catherine and Kristine to their home (the distance of I admit of having underestimated... turned out that to walk both ways it was almost 3 kms) with the added few more feminist punches by the latter on the way... I seriously regret not having had time to discuss a bit more with her: most probably it would had ended in blood, but maybe not... and in any case it would had been interesting. Incidentally, now I know why both Michael and Erik at this or that time expressed their hidden desire to migrate south...

Roman Swedish Days - Part III

There is always a moment where you are in charge, or take upon yourself, of hosting duties that the people you are hosting stop being an undefined blob labelled like "the people I'm hosting" and turn into different, distinct, persons you can even remember the name of. It's when you start to know who you are facing and being able to predict their reactions about this or that thing you might do or organize so that you are no longer worried about a possible catastrophes coming out of one bad choice of yours.

That happened yesterday, when I also started to really appreciate them and realize the strikingly differences between them. Unfortunately, yesterday was also the last time I would had seen half of the swedish delegation here, as three out of seven of them are taking off to get back home just about now. So while "Italian" Tarsa, "Russian" Lena and "Cool" Erik (ok, I am still unsure about the spelling of the names) are going, "Beautiful" Kathrine, "Leader" Kristina, "Sporty" Julia and "Tall" Michael are staying.

Anyway, yesterday we were reminded how badly one can be treated in a roman restaurant if you do not know the other (which, on the other side, explains why most of the romans always go to the same three or four places if they want to dine out). After a pleasant and easygoing happy hour at Campo dei Fiori, we headed to this Pizzeria called "Montecarlo", which has quite a given name in Rome for being a "cool" place (even if I seriously don't know why, considering the only good thing they have is the position). In the order, we had a table so squeezed in a corner that even they had to admit it was unfeasible and ended up splitting the long table in two. Paper tablecloth and "place it yourself" glasses cutlery, a few and greasy fried stuff, an ignominious bruschetta (and, let me tell you, it really takes something to make a BAD bruschetta, considering it's just bread, olive oil, tomato and salt) and a barely edible pizza. Dulcis in fundo, and possibly worse than it all, a quite rude "now that you have got the last bite get out of here fast" attitude. All this paying 15 € each, not exactly a symbolic sum.

Now, considering that last time I had been at the same place, years ago, the night had ended with me calling names the waiters and owner for the exact same reasons, I wasn't surprised. The poor girl who had organized it, tho, Francesca (whom I had warned about the place, but honestly without being able to provide an alternative) instead started a short-lived argument with the owner.

The swedish, tho, didn't seem too disconcerted (or maybe they were just being polite, seeing our distress, and decided not to add to it) and their evening continued into this kind of a disco, while I parted and headed home. I haven't heard yet what happened afterwards, but I hope things were good enough to recover for the first half of the night. I doubt it tho, considering the guys who were hanging out in front of the disco with the classic "vulture circling over prospective preys" look.

Speaking of which, poor Kristina, who turned out to be definitely the most interesting of the swedish group (and with whom I had a quite frustrating discussion about multiculturalism, but anyway) has been facing exactly what gives all of us italians a bad name: a guy who falls in every single stereotype about girls and who has a single objective about them. Problem is, he's her host. When she reported the moments of discomfort (and with a smile, at that, where many others would had been much less a sport about it) to the point that she asked another of the swedish girls to move in with her not to stay alone, we couldn't but feel quite ashamed. Unfortunately, even if understandably, I noticed how at some point her focus had turned from "my host" to "italian guys". One more to add to the wonderful fame we have in the world...

On a totally unrelated matter (or maybe not, given that also this subject came up yesterday night at some point while the "italian boys" were being cut to pieces), CNN today published an article that is astonishingly precise on the situation young people have to get by in Italy. It's *here*.

Roman Swedish Days - Part II

How a perfectly disorganized evening can turn out to be extremely fun.

Take 7 Swedish people distributed in 4 different houses, add a half dozen italians who are told to "bring something" for a dinner, without being specified what, and give to both groups the same hour to be at the same place which is between 10 and 25 minutes from everyone's houses. Stay and look what follows.

8.35 I arrive at the house thinking "Well, ok, I'm 5 minutes late, hope they will not mind". Obviously, in fact, I'm the first to arrive and I find the 4 inhabitants of the house (1 italian, one new zeelander, 2 swedish guys) pleasantly chatting. I offered my 4 bottles of red wine welcomed with a "Oh, great, we definitely needed some red wine! I was worried we wouldn't have enough".

Even more obviously after such a comment, one hour, seven people and 7 more bottles of wine (6 red, 1 white) later, the table had started to look like the branch office of the wine shop at the end of the street. And we were still missing two swedish girls and their host, but at that point, after having thoroughly examined the matters of manners and etiquette, the social conventions related to waiting for the guests and considering that the majority of them had arrived and were voraciously eyeing the pans, we graciously decided it was time to start.

10 minutes later the most delicious vegetarian lasagna I have ever had had already gone, with little or no regret, to the heaven of pasta when the last missing guests made their appearance... escorting three more bottles of wine (and a pretty nice chianti, at that) and presenting the mother of all excuses for a 75 minutes delay "We couldn't find any parking". Feeling slightly guilty for the lasagna's disappearance we silently agreed to not press them and pretend to buy that from someone staying at 10 minutes of walking distance.

So, whoever says that northern people are more timely than italian is now warned that's pure myth and legend. Or, maybe, in the most roman of the traditions, we are just absorbing them very quickly and turning their strict manners in more... relaxed one. We blame it on the climate tho: while it's perfectly understandable being very strict on time in a place where, when you wait 5 minutes out of a building for someone, you end up frozen, in Italy the worst that can happen to you is getting a coffee at the closest bar or start talking with the casual passer by.

Anyway, the evening was a resounding (literally, as helped with generous quantities of wine we were surely not quiet at all, poor neighbors) success which for most of us ended at around midnight, while some more fortunate beings for whom the word "work" has only an arcane and vague meaning still, headed for some club.

And so here I am, just about starting to work, and in the last three days I barely had time to sleep, not to mention writing emails and get back in touch with friends after I got back from London. Ah, busy life...

Roman Swedish Days - Part I

Yesterday I ended up being so busy that I skipped my daily entry. Had to happen sooner or later, I suppose.

Anyway, after a busy and not particularly pleasant morning, I got out from office early to meet 7 people from ELSA Stockholm in visit for an exchange (technically speaking, a Bilateral Study Visit) with ELSA Rome. I got to know about it late (ELSA Rome is not particularly well organized lately), but as soon as I did, i offered myself to give them an introductory tour of the city, something I grew pretty apt to doing it over and over again in the last year.

The tour is always, more or less, the same. Starting from Piazza del Popolo, taking Via del Babbuino, Piazza di Spagna, Via del Corso, Piazza Colonna, Piazza della Rotonda (where th ePantheon is), Piazza Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Piazza Navona, Campo dei Fiori e Piazza Farnese. All in all, around 3 kms of marching that gives the chance of saying a lot of things about roman history, curiosities and legends.

So there I was, not even vaguely knowing who to look for once in Piazza del Popolo, when I accidentally bumped, almost literally, with my guests, 5 girls and 2 guys, who, apparently were shown a picture of me (I do not even want to think about it). Now, if I were expecting a group of tall, platinum blond, blue eyed people, I was definitely wrong. Tall they, mostly, were, but to confirm a recent study that predict the blonds extinction within 2100, only one was light haired. Fact is, Sweden successfully integrated a lot of people over the last years (but they totally failed, or so was my impression when I was in Malmoe, with northern african and arabs) and that was shown by the fact that 3 of them only were "swedish-swedish", while one of the girl was Ukrainan, another had both parents from Poland, another was half Swedish half Romanian, and I wouldn't be surprised if the fourth girl had russian ancestors.

So, 2 and a half hours later, under an almost summer-time sun (we were reaching 30 degrees yesterday, and it wasn't easy going around with my usual, scooter, heavy jacket) we ended our tour, where I admittedly cut out much of the explanations seen their tired expressions, and headed for this new, very posh, place to have an happy hour, supposedly before heading to real dinner. Only, dinner had not been organized at all. I should had suspected as most of the italian girls presume that some snacks with a glass of wine can take place of a real dinner, without considering that people who have been up for more than 18 hours and walked probably around a dozen kms during the day might want something more when it comes to eating. And so I was, making calls to find a place for them to eat, which luckily, being a tuesday evening, didn't prove to be so hard. Eventually, I took the ones of them starving to my favourite restaurant, called l'Hosteria del Moro (if you happen to be in Rome, try their "filetto al pepe verde", it's delicious, buthave it just barely cooked or as we say "al sangue", or you'll ruin it), left them there recommending the owner to "treat them well for me" ("trattameli bene!", kind of typical) and back I walked where the other had stayed for another drink.

Later that evening, we managed to join again the two groups and we were even blesses by having two cars and a scooter (mine) so to being able to take the by now exhausted nordics to their respective hosts's houses. The one who came with me was more or less terrorized by having to drive on a scooter in the middle of "traffic" (when in fact there was almost no one in the streets... ah, the relativity of human perception). And finally, at midnight, I managed to drag myself home, fully knowing that what I expected to be a light involvement in this little adventure was going to be turned out in a major one. Tomorrow, tour of the roman markets (the forum) and dinner all together at someone's house...

Question of the day: "Is it being a cardinal a kind of a job? How do they earn their living? Do they get a salary for being one?". I admit I didn't have a reply to the second and third question, I shall have to investigate the matter.

Impressive: This girl of the swedish group, Kristine (the one panicking about the scooter), who arrived on sunday and must have walked at least 40 kms by herself in the last two days to "look around the city". Not only, she also knew why it doesn't usually rain thro the Pantheon's ceiling's hole (no, I ain't telling).

Cultural discovery of the day: Swedish don't kiss on the cheeks as a welcome and parting greeting, they think it's too intimate, and they prefer hugging. As a full body contact can be considered less intimate than a single kiss on the cheek is somewhat a mystery, unless we consider that at their temperatures most of the times they are covered with furs or bulky jackets so thick they wouldn't had noticed if they were hugging a human being or a bear. I suppose.

Clerici Vagantes and the week-end

Gaudeamus Igitur...

...juvenes dum sumus. "Let's rejoice therefore while we are still young". It's one of the anthems of the students around Europe and possibly in the States, and applies wonderfully to ELSA, the student association that has been a great part of my life at the end of the 90s and in the first years of this century and that still is part of it, even if in a much lesser way.

Case in point, this week-end I shall take part in the social programme related to the Mediterranean Regional Round of the EMC2, which includes a "fraschetta ai Castelli" tomorrow and a whole disco night on saturday. Of the two things, the most typical roman one, and the one I will probably enjoy the mostm is the "fraschetta" (which mean, litterally, little branch from a bush), meaning going to one of the many little towns on the hills surrounding Rome (the whole area being called "Castelli" because almost every town has it's own middle age little castle) and there enjoy greatly the local red wine and slices of "porchetta", which is a whole pork, filled with many spices, roasted on the fire.

I can't wait. There are indeed a few pleasures in life that can compare with sitting at a table with people coming from different places (in this case, it seems, Spain, Portugal, Malta, France, Romania, Switzerland, Netherlands and, most notably, Russia), speaking different languages, having different cultures and yet enjoying the same wine, food and sharing a common... shall we call it spirit?

It was the concept of the Clerici Vagantes of the XII century, the forerunners of the humanistic reinessance of two centuries later. As Universities started being created, they were few and far apart and students zeroed there from all Europe, often moving from one place to the other. They used to bring their own traditions, cultures, languages and yet all speaking latin and sharing a sense of being part of something greater than themselves and an unstoppable wish of learning new things, seeing new places, confronting with the others and in the meanwhile enjoying life as much and fully as possible.

Even too much sometimes, as they were known to be prone to heavy drinking, illicit "romantic" adventures and create incredible scandals in the cities where they were staying. In Oxford, at some point, the township reacted in what would had been kown as S. Scholastica day's riot, a students-hunt that left 63 students and over 30 citizens dead in the streets (untill 1835, the mayor of Oxford had to pay homage and a symbolic sum as damage compensation every year to the Dean of the University).

Translate it to modern time, have english rather than latin (sadly), and slightly less gruesome , but quite probably not less loud, events and you have ELSA (and many other international students association, i assume, but ELSA is ELSA!).

Incidentally, since we are speaking of middle age, also the term "fraschetta" has that origin. As it seems more probable, it originated from the men of a given place near Rome, famous for using "frasche" (branches) to make large huts. That originated the city called Frascati. In the meanwhile, the frasca turned from being the main construction material to a symbol and was held over the door of the places were you could go drinking wine, usually bringing your own food (which was a tradition still in use in Rome in the late 60s, were you would go to a "hostaria" sometimes with your family, more often with your friends, to drink the wine while taking your own food from home.).