[	Tags	|	calabria, italy, research, trips	]
[	Current Location	|	University of Calabria, Italy	]
[	mood	|	tired	]
[	music	|	Nautilus Pompilius	]

Maybe today is a good day to start writing again. Not that I ever wrote a lot before...

My life seems to have reached another turning point. At least I hope it has. It has been going into a dead end region, always finding some new small alleys seemingly getting me closer to the destination, but in the end just prolonging the senseless journey, sometimes sweetened up by cigarettes, alcohol, Star Trek, sitcoms, sports, porn, computer games, piano and women (in that order); a journey towards an illusion. The last two years were hands down the least productive of my entire life so far. The lack of ambition and motivation frightens me sometimes and makes me think of what I could have achieved, of what I should have achieved, but then my conflict avoiding personality fails to confront myself with the facts and I resort to one of my escapisms again..

G1m.'s decision a couple of weeks ago to send me to Calabria came as a surprise to me and my first inner reaction was fear of having to get out of comfortable Oxford even for one month; but instantly that spark of adventurousness, which used to make me spontaneously go on motorbike trips across Germany and Holland, or drive through little towns in Belgium for the scenery at high speeds in dual danger of being late for the ferry and getting a speeding ticket, or to make drunken decisions to agree to drive a friend all the way across England in a still untaxed car, just for him to surprise a girl with flowers and be instantly rejected (all that, while I nearly got arrested for stalking at the girl’s house which made the neighbours suspicious and had the policemen, the first armed ones I have ever seen on the streets in Britain, go ask my friend "Do you really love this girl?" in front of her to check out my story), that little spark pushed my brain to logically deduce, that this opportunity is the best thing that could have happened to me for the last two years.

I receive a message from K1f saying she is sorry she didn't hear me text her last night. But she didn't hear me banging the door for 2 minutes either. After taking a peek through the letter-slit I could only think of two explanations. Since I was in a hurry I threw in the CD and the earring and drove off not thinking about it any more. Apparently she presents the second explanation and hopes I am not too pissed off. She also wishes me a good time in Spain… At least she remembered that I’m not in England any more.

Forget all the conferences I went to, forget those three little talks I gave, and especially forget how I spent the rest of my time Paris, Oxford and Glasgow! THIS is the real thing! This is SERIOUS! I feel like I have been given one more chance to get things straight, and prove to myself that I can be a scientist, if only for a couple more years. All I have to do now is NOT TO FUCK IT UP. Easy...

I shall try to write about my stay in Italy as much as I can, partly to have a reference for myself, partly because I feel like doing something new. Partly maybe because of the talk I had last night over one and a half compact melons and tea with M1m, A1f and A2f, right before I finished packing and drove off, you know, about LJ and stuff.

I get a call from an English mobile which is not in my phonebook. A female voice asks "Is Sarah there?" I say "No, wrong number", hang up and think that those three seconds just cost me 75p. Time is (a hell of a lot of) money, especially on a mobile abroad. I need to get an Italian SIM-card.

I got off the M40 at Beaconsfield and then went in a circle for 10 minutes, just because that shortcut to my Dad's is still closed and I missed the right turn while on the diversion. Should have gone for the easy option with only two and a half hours left before the plane. I got home, but V2m, Dad's driver, still wasn't there. His phone wasn't answering. I panicked for a second estimating how much parking at Stansted would be for a month, really not wanting to leave a video camera and over a thousand quid worth of ice hockey equipment in the trunk. Luckily, he was on his way and answered the phone in five minutes. We made pretty good time on the motorway and I arrived a good 20 minutes before check-in closure. Even had time for a cigarette. I don't know, but when I'm really tired I start chaining cigarettes, even though I stop feeling the rush in my head, but instead a slight gagging sensation. Especially when my nose is blocked or even half-blocked, with the smoke irritating my palate.

I receive a call from some guy from Floors2Go, the one I received a call from a couple of days ago, who wanted to arrange an installation date, even before the floors are delivered. Even before I payed the whole sum. I wonder why these guys call me separately instead of the retail house calling A1m, once the floors get delivered. I so hoped I left all the worries about the flat and the redecoration in England. But apparently you cannot run away from your problems even several thousand miles away. That is, while your mobile is still working. Boy, how I loved Canada...

I try to get a replacement charger for my photo camera at the Duty Free, but they don’t keep it in stock – so the good-quality photographs will have to wait for a bit. The queue at the gate is gone by the time I get there, so I get on the airplane without any wait. Half an hour later, I get a meal for eight pounds forty - a cup of soup, a tiny caesar salad wrap and a small bottle of sparkling water. Well, at least Ryanair is the most punctual airline, and also looses the least baggage of all airlines. At least so they say, but today I was lucky. After a couple hours of Starcraft on the plane we land in Lamezia Terme. Quite a bouncy landing considering the smooth flight. I get up from my seat (isle as usual), exit the plane, and then it hits me straight in my face, so hard, that for a moment I thought I might pass out – the heat. I’ve been to the Mediterranean before, I even lived there for one and a half years, but this was just something else. As L1m later tells me, it was 43 degrees today – even too hot for Italians. I regret putting on my shirt and jacket and proceed to the shadow of the a/c-cooled terminal building as quickly as possible. It is at this point that I realise that I forgot to buy a shaver.

I just got back from dinner, tired and full. I really feel like going to sleep, but this is one thing I promised myself to finish today. Maybe I should shorten style a bit, or I won’t be doing much else apart from writing..

After an hour’s bus ride, L1m picks me up at Cosenza and drives me to the University. We pick up the key to the flat (university accommodation, fairly close to the university, I will be sharing the flat with two other students), I drop my stuff off and change quickly into shorts and sandals. There is a cleaning lady there that explains (in Italian) that one of the residents is an Italian, and the other, she pauses, “un negro..”, which L1m translates to me as “a foreigner”. I wonder what that makes me to. We drive to get some food in the mensa, and then L1m shows me around the department. I meet the head of department, S1m, some other professors, a PhD student of L1m, V1f, who gives me a very big smile, and my future officemate G2m. L1m drives me home, I meet the Italian housemate, T1m, a 1^st year high-energy Physics PhD student. I go to sleep for a couple hours, before dinner with G1m and other professors. When I wake up, I meet my other housemate, who turns out to be Indian, and, for a change from all the Italians, speaks pretty good English. I instantly forget his name, even though he tells it to me twice. He does Quantum Mechanics, so we have a brief chat about that. L1m picks me up to take me for dinner and we drive to the old village of Rende on top of the hill. And a very hilly countryside this is. A young Austrian professor, W1m, tells me, that one can go skiing in the winter around here. Apparently he is the top skier on the university team. Unfortunately they don’t have any ice rinks around here. The dinner is excellent, especially the fondue with truffles. The wine is pretty good, too, I especially like the Settechiese (seven churches). S1m drives me back home. I guess I will be struggling for a few days to sleep in this kind of heat, but I hope I will get used to it. I hope I will get used to many things here.