One Year On

Next week we are going to celebrate one year since our flight from Buenos Aires to Sydney took us here on 16th December 2010.

Whilst the flight's path took us through the fringes of Antarctica I remember looking outside the window and thinking that my life felt a bit like that alien world: it looked so peaceful from the outside, but the terrain ahead was going to be possibly treacherous and unexplored. That feeling was both exhilarating and terrifying.

I was wondering the other day how our lives have changed over the last year - what are the biggest takeaways from the beginning of this new chapter.

One of the first feelings that came to me was on the same line of that time I jumped off a plane during my travels: the pleasant surprise when you accomplish something outside of our comfort zone. It turns out the path was not treacherous - just very unexplored.

I am chuffed about the life we have managed to create for ourselves: it is fabulous. Australia feels like the right place at the right time. And not just personally - with the world's epicenters slowly shifting towards Australasia being here really feels exciting. Strangely one of the most remote places now feels like it is in the middle of the action. When I was growing up Australia was a fabled land people like me never visited - having built a life here with Tatz and being in the process of buying our first home over here makes me feel proud.

The other feeling that came to me was the realisation that this year has been strange in many ways - there has been a lot of sorting things out. It was like going to the supermarket and shop for a intricate recipe.

Someone has recently pointed out to me how life is made of small segments - a concatenation of things and stuff that we do, we think, we plan. This year has largely felt that way.

These things included finding jobs (and once found getting comfortable in them), hunting for flats, building a new life, discovering a healthier side of us, etc etc.

It turns out that buying a flat is a job by itself! Seriously, could anyone make the process any more complicated to the naive and unaware First Time Buyer?

Perhaps for the first time I have not thrown myself into a new million things and I just allowed myself to slow down.

Perhaps this is the first time that I have allowed myself to stop since I applied for that government scholarship 14 years ago and I embarked on that weird and wonderful journey that has taken me from a small town in Sardinia all the way to the fringes of Antarctica. It has been great, but so exhausting. I gave all of myself to this during my 20s.  It was quite fitting how the circle closed when I turned 30, and in the same year another cycle started off.

So I reckon this is the biggest takeaway: Sydney has given me space. Space to stop rushing for a while. Space for The Rat to buy all those ingredients with his tuberous companion. This period was necessary and now I feel a bit like I am coming out of hibernation.

As I come into a new year I feel my soul is more peaceful. I feel ready for the new year and pretty excited because there is a lot I want to do.

I am happy here doing the things and stuff that I am doing.

Down Our Bay

You saw the submarine down our bay?
I thought it was an island, but it's just iron,
the moon light on its surface seems too bright,
the sea under its weight just seems to struggle -
like hopes that linger silent on the smooth waves.

It's not the first deceit that this sky brings us,
it's not the first time things sound strange tonight -
whilst life reveals its plans and its next chapters
it all feels kind of peaceful, kind of right.

One year has passed and those familiar shores
have started to feel exotic, almost unreal,
the final night - the rain drops at the Chapel,
are only half exposed under the haze.
Like something which you fear might just go and fade.

And whilst the two of us walk down the Exchange,
and Darlinghurst outside doesn't know us,
I think this year may feel like a surprise,
just like this submarine down our the bay.

Fair Go

Over the last few months I have started picking up glimpses of revelations around the Australia's psyche - some of the key building blocks that make up this society. Australia is such a fascinating place, and I don't think that people like me really get how incredible and interesting this place is until we stop a second and think about it.

The country as we know it was 'discovered' (I am not going into the whole aboriginal issue here) in the later XVIII century. Now, let's face it: once you take out all the time that it took to start colonizing the place properly and turning it into a developing Western- style society we could probably argue that things really kicked off in the late 1800s.  This makes this place seem even more recent to European standards than it really is.

Whilst lots of people see this almost as a fault and the reason behind an alleged lack of culture and all that rhetorical blah blah blah, I see it as a big opportunity. Whilst our legacy helps us describe who we are, it also represents societies' weakest point. Just like a company that has to deal with old IT systems, that determines to some extent what can and cannot be done, societies can be crippled by their history and their legacies.

As I see it Australians' psyche reflects this position. One of the key things that I have picked up is that Australians are very keen about the concept of 'Fair Go'. This is actually more intricate than it sounds, so I'll have to simplify. Fair Go is giving an opportunity to honest people to make a good life for themselves. When I went to the museum of immigration in Melbourne it was pretty interesting to see how a lot of the campaigns aimed at getting the English over revolved about 'giving their children a better future'. A Fair Go. That concept has evolved, but not died.

If you couple this with the constant reinforcement of the 'hard working Australian' image, a country where farming and 'the land' are still predominant, the feeling that since you are so remote you need to put in twice the effort,  you get a place that is the closet I have seen to the romantic New World image and that has given birth to great intellectuals, scientists, actors, travelers and athletes.

I will give you an example. Whenever an Australian actor makes it into Hollywood without fail the interview by Australian press will contain the question :'So how are Australian seen in Hollywood?' and the actor will say 'They like us because we are down to earth and hard working'. I kid you know, Australians love this.

The concept of 'Fair Go'  also means that modern Australia value meritocracy and simplicity. Also it means that the concept of class in Australia is somehow loose, and there seem to be a massive middle class and the upper class keeps somewhat a low profile (more on this in a future log).  

What can I say? There are my impressions, so Terms & Conditions do apply.

Growing up with Berlusconi

I was 13 when Berlusconi came to power in Italy, after a colorful campaign revolving around the promise that his party Forza Italia would create one million jobs. There were a lot of blue banners and catchy jingles.

Back then people wanted to believe that one million jobs could be created, as well as we wanted to believe that Italy was in fact the 6th largest economy in the world.

Berlusconi was already one of the most powerful people in Italy, as he owned significant part of the media and a number of lucrative businesses. During his campaign Berlusconi traveled a lot of the country - a bit of a poor's man American president election campaign. I guess people liked him. One of the reasons must have been the fact that he was a business man who had actually accomplished a lot, rather than just talking about it. There was fluff - there always is in Italian politics, but behind the fluff there were results. Even if these results he had been achieved for himself, they were still results. That appealed to the Baby Boomer society.

What we might have failed to see is that Berlusconi was indeed a great achiever, however like many great achievers his desire and drive was more rooted in the selfish pursuit of self validation than a genuine care for the country he was supposed to lead. Someone who tries to change the law in preposterous ways to escape persecution himself is certainly not driven by selfless principles.

That is no news: Italian politicians have carved a delightful little niche for themselves over the decades...They come to power and there they stay, until like defeated geriatrics dinosaurs cannot do it any longer.  They seldom resign, never mind how insane the scandals they get involved into - or how detached from modern life they become because of their reverend age. There they stay. Whilst their international counter parties step down over what to Italians seem to be minutia, there they stay.

In Italian we say that they are glued to their armchairs.

They don't care. Inside their bubble they are powerful, untouchable, they are beautiful, they frolic with attractive young girls, they are politically incorrect, they are above the law, they are rich....In a word the own the country. The reason why they are so powerful and the normal people are so powerless is simple: there is no such a thing as meritocracy in the country.

I remember being more than shocked when I won my government scholarship for boarding school. In fact, everyone I knew was shocked that a nobody like me could have such a lucky break, beyond the corruption, the favours and the crap that go with anything that has to do with the government. It was like a small miracle, a Deus Ex Machina moment that allowed me to transcend my own destiny.

Meritocracy is a foreign word in Italy, where merit is carved through obscure networks and where power is like some sort of golden inheritance which is passed among a finite number of families and names.
So the dinosaurs stay up there, while the rest of the people wine Nietzsche's retaliation theory- style, alas they do nothing to drive change. The don't do anything partly because the dinosaurs don't care - there is hardly a scandal which is big enough to overthrow them.

Hard to agree that this is a First World country - more like a Third World Country which has been pretending to be evolved. The legacy of a great past has become a crippling baggage of self destruction. If you go to countries like Argentina, beyond the beauty of the country you recognize the same underlying issues that have taken Italy to the place it is now - well Argentina is full of Italians after all.

Berlusconi represents all the reasons why I have left my own country and why I would not live there again. In Italy I feel like a cripple, I feel like half the man I can be. I feel the weight of the dinosaurs, the weight of that baggage of self destruction. I feel powerless.

Italy was a disaster when Berlusconi took it over. I was 13. Now I am 31 and things seem to be pretty much the same, which makes things worse.  So whose fault is it? Is it Berlusconi, for making the most out of it, or is it the Italians' for doing nothing about it for the last 18 years? I do not know. What I do know is that the country is so entrenched on this journey that 'more of the same' is not the answer.

I wonder why the EU countries do not police each other more intensively - why don't premiers provide independent oversight to what happens in other countries? Each premier could be allocated a country to monitor. And by independent oversight I mean real scrutiny of policies and progress against them, not just summits. Independence is the only thing that can cut through the bullshit, through legacy, through the 'we have always done it this way'. If you don't get a person that is not part of that roundabout of crap to see through the crap and identify and address the real issues in a timely manner, you will only end up with yet another horror story.

I was 13 when Berlusconi came to power in Italy, after a colorful campaign revolving around the promise that his party Forza Italia would create one million jobs. There were a lot of blue banners and catchy jingles.

That's why I only smiled

[Feb '09]


I wanted Revolution but I got Silence.
Perhaps my penitence was blatantly insufficient.
I reached out to the memories
of tense-less strident verbs
and perfectly round rocks on a free fall;
I did it to recall
the elusive consistence
of long lost strange philosophies,
of my anarchy.

You thought I would have made it,
you thought I'd do the things I promised to you that day
on a cliff path.
You see, I could have made it,
I guess it was too tough to play that part.
Perhaps I could do nothing,
that's why I only smiled:
I knew I'd drift apart.
And hence my Revolution became Silence,
and hence I am left here wondering if I have lost.

The next phase is slowly nearing.
I fear the cost to pay
to honour such a role.
These things demand a miracle, and strength beyond my own,like excellence requires a restless soul.

 

Familiar Shores

My trip to London/Italy/Singapore has come to an end, and I am about to jump on a plane back to Sydney. I am feeling as I hoped I would feel: excited about going home, after what have been an incredible and fantastic 4 weeks. London was a lot of fun. Meeting everyone again, Laura and Baz's wedding in York, a couple of big nights out at Brewers, a flat date at the Sanderson's, a lunch in Regent's Park, a bad rendition of Bad Romance at a Karaoke Bar, too much pasta in a basement trattoria, a Cheeky Tuesday, a toasted sandwich at Starbucks, a jet lagged drink by a rooftop pool, rude waitresses at Paul's, a trip on the 607 (Express), a few day long sessions at the pub or just hanging in the flat of dreams (the place where I spent my last 3 and half years in London) have been just amazing. I haven't eaten and drunk so much in such a long time!

Going back has reinforced my love for London, for the city, but most of all the people that mean so much to us there. It all felt so comfortable, natural, like I did not dare to hope it would.

At the same time it's like being back closed a circle. It was always going to be the validation on whether the move to Sydney had been the right thing to do, and I would lie if I said knowing this did not make me nervous.  I knew I would love being back, as I did, but I also wondered whether part of me would have felt like there was more for me to do in London before moving on. Now that would have been troublesome.

I felt very happy in discovering that London feels to me like family: a place I love and I will go back to, but that I do not need to be around all the time.

As for the people, I just realised what I already knew: it doesn't matter where you are or how often you see each other, good friends will always be good friends. Good friends always meet and recognise each other.

The truth is that one is never really ready to leave London. One takes the plunge hoping it was indeed the right time. It is easy to get it wrong.

The other day I was thinking of when I came back to London after a year travelling, in 2007. I went back to no job and hardly any money and certainties. The same day I arrived I went to a BBQ at my friends Emma and Damon's.  Over a roasting leg of lamb Damon had provocatively asked me: 'so why are you back?'. My answer was "I haven't done with London yet". I was right: I had not.  Now I feel I have.

So here I am, waiting for my 20:10 to Sydney, looking forward to seeing Patata and feeling like now I am fully ready for my life Down Under.

Returning

I am writing these first lines from the airport in Sydney. Destination London, via Singapore. The day: 2nd September 2011, about 1pm.

Over the last few days the excitement of our upcoming trip has gained momentum, manifesting itself in a myriad of emotions, ranging from stress (to get everything done at work etc before leaving), excitement to see all the people and the places that we love so much, apprehension (for not knowing how we will feel about being back), delight at the thought of all the fun things that we have planned, a twinge of fear (of not feeling 'at home' in a city that was very much our home for a long time) and just pure plain holiday happiness.

I have always believed that London is a city that forgets, and now I am about to see how it has forgotten me.

It feels like the right time to go back. Building a new life in Sydney was not a walk in the park, and I would be laying if I said that the beginning wasn't tough. Starting again felt like a mammoth task, and we just missed our friends, our city. At the beginning it just felt like I could not be arsed.

However, in many ways that was a process that we had to go through. In many ways now Sydney feels like London did back in the early 00's: new, puzzling, full of possibilities, exciting and just right for the stage we are in our lives.

I recall very clearly that it took me 3 years to feel part of London. I remember a day when I was walking down Glocester Road towards Hyde Park and I suddenly thought that I felt like I knew this city, like it had let me into her secret. It was like an epiphany.I was walking by a little church on Gloucester Rd that will always remind me of that moment, the spring breeze on my face, the brightness of an early summer sun, the traffic noise almost disappearing for a microsecond. It was one of the most important instants of my life, that specific instant, because that feeling of 'belonging' served as the basis to defining myself over the coming years.

In moments that I did not know where to go, or when I felt lost, in the many moments I would doubt myself,  I still felt London protecting me, accepting me for my flows and insecurities. I felt like I knew the rules of the game and I could play pretty well. 

I am no fool and I know that that feeling towards Sydney is yet to fully manifest itself. In many ways, after 8 months, we have just began. God knows I can hardly pronounce many of the suburbs' names.

However, if I look back at the Piero and David that landed here last December and the people we are now, and our lives, the difference is astounding, We have definitely embarked on a life's great adventure, started a new story that we are excited about and want to see through. We have been given the gift of reinvention and discovery. Personally I feel like I have also started a process of 'consolidation'. By this I mean that I have never felt so comfortable in my own skin, and calm inside.

I have recently stopped to think how fortunate our generation is, for (compared to many of our parents) we can lead completely inorganic lives. Rather than being born and organically grow within the same environment/conditions, we have been able to start new chapters, new destinies, in our case on the opposite sides of the world. And what is life as a great exercise of exploration (both internal and external), of challenging ourselves on what we can be, what we can become.

So yes, it feels like the right time to go back to London.  To go back and discover how London has forgotten me.