On my way to South Africa I stopped in Italy, for one last session of goobyes, from north to south, and back.

Chapters

Yesterday

I was a Londoner weeks ago. I knew my place in the city, I knew the best (or cheap) restaurants in Fulham, and I had enough sport going on to keep me happy for a while. Football, kickboxing, cycling ... just name it.
When you're young you think you will never get comfortable in any daily or weekly routine, but I discovered that, in order to try to push yourself and do something else, you need one.
You need to know how your week is going to be, so you know that you have a certain amount of time you can use to dedicate to yourself. I spent 6 years using that time, and, in 2007, I said goodbye.

It's hard to say goodbye to everyone you met in such an intense city such London. I'm sure I forgot to say it to many people, and I hope they didn't get offended if in the various parties I had I forgot to invite them.

But London is now a closed chapter of my life.

Today

Today I'm an Italian, soon to move to South Africa. I look at the pictures taken in the past weeks, and I look at the way I settled down again in my small room, working remotely with London, and for some reason I feel good.
Three weeks have passed since I moved. Three weeks where I almost managed to see everyone I wanted to see, or at least get in touch again with them.
Yes, I invented some funny excuses to avoid some meetings. Unfortunately, due to recurring scheduling conflicts, I had to give priority to my family and my closes friends.

I traveled in these Italian weeks. Oh yeah. I went to the Deep South with my good friend and old school mate Gianba, visiting the beautiful Sicily after years of denial kept me away from the island. You can read the whole story here .

I spent some time in Canegrate, surrounded by my dearest friends (the usual bunch: Beppe, Max and Mera + partners and the Texas Town crowd) drinking the alcohol provided on an evening basis from the Texas Town pub .
Drinks always help. And food too, Beppe took me to the local association of hunters' summer party and I had so much free food that I almost exploded. It was like the good old days when we would eat and fart as there was no tomorrow.

I finally spent some time with Paolo and his wife, Very, after many promises in the past years, and we went on an adventure trip in the Jungle Park not far from Como.
Obviously in the adventure park we chose the most difficult track and we spent a good three hours (or more?) flying and climbing from tree to tree. Thanks to my previous experience in the Magaliesberg Mountains , I showed no pain or surprise in overcoming the tricky obstacles. Some of my team mates (Very, and Paolo's sister with her husband) had some troubles, but we finish it in style. You just can't beat Olaf and Paolo.

It was a great day, with perfect weather, perfect company and fantastic food (food seems much better everywhere now that I left London for good...).

After my sister's birthday (happy birthday again, Olga), I visited the north east of Italy, around Bassano Del Grappa , to enjoy another day out eating and drinking with my friends from a time never forgotten. Alessia, Mauro and Gualtiero. The occasion for the reunion was Alessia's birthday, and in true local style, we drunk many cups of memories mixed with wine.

My travels didn't end up there, since the next morning, still a bit hangover, I took the train to the Andalo, Trentino (up north, in a land where German is the second official language) to visit my cousin Simona and her husband Marco, and to see Tommaso, their just born son.
I'm not that great around kids (they usually smell bed and behave like drunken midgets) but the visit was something I promised (again) many years ago, and I finally could keep it.
Surrounded by my uncle, auntie and cousins (the guys of the family were all there: me, Davide and Renato) I spent another evening adding kilos to my weight and subtracting years from my live, drinking even more alcoholic juice.

Tomorrow

For all these weeks I didn't really have time to realize that everyone will soon be far, far away, 10.000km or so from me, on a different continent. London seems so damn close to Milan, compared to South Africa (AFRICA!).
Even in my last hours I didn't really have time thinking about it. With my dad, eating with the family in my garden, with Max and Nicola on my last night out...I just didn't think about it.
Only the sad face of my sister driving me to the airport made me realize how big this step was, and still is.

I'm in South Africa folks, finally together with Lindsey.

Life is so fucking weird sometimes, who would have expected only some years ago?