From Astoria to Cannon Beach on the Goonies’ steps

Clicca qui per la versione italiana

Rome, 1988. 
It’s a hot, mid-Summer afternoon in the southern outskirts of town. Children are playing in the streets; sweaty t-shirts, grazed knees and sticky gelato fingers. Three floors above, a 9-year old boy sits on the couch staring at the TV, legs crossed and rounded eyes. A VHS tape is whirling in the player and on the screen a gang of four ill-assorted kids are laying their eyes on an old pirate map. They’re up to no good and it’s the beginning of an adventure. Continue reading

Wake Up Italy

Click here for the Italian version

It’s 3pm on January the 23rd, 2016: the alarm clocks go off altogether across Italy. Not only there, but in London, Frankfurt, Dublin, Copenhagen as well and in many other European cities the alarm clocks went off at the same time (or almost). The reason was the same everywhere: to wake Italy and Italian citizens up. To tell them to open their eyes and that IT’S TIME to let everyone have equal rights; not only for those who don’t have such rights yet, but for all Italian citizens’ dignity as well. Continue reading

It is 30 degrees and it’s freezing cold. Learning how to use feet in America

Italian version here

Right, because 30 degrees Fahrenheit equal -1 degree Celsius; quite chilly, isn’t it? As I’ll probably be on this side of the Pond for a while yet, I’d better find an easy and fast way to survive the various inches, feet, cups and any other limb or tool that gets used in this measurement system which, let’s face it, doesn’t make much sense. Continue reading

I ditched everything… and I went back to school

Italian version here

One day I wasn’t happy. Actually, it had been a while since I had been happy; one day I decided to do something about it: I quit my “secure” job at the company where I had been working for the previous seven years, I left my nice flat in the south-west suburbs of London, I boxed my life up and I bought a ticket. Continue reading