Wednesday, January 20, 2010

"It all starts in Verona"


Photo by Kunstlerin N.V.

Here I am and I noticed that I haven’t said anything about truly yours. My name is Joy, I’m 25 and I come from some sort of natural paradise heaven. When you are born in your ideal holiday land, you have only two choices, one, you live quietly and happily under the sunshine and the trees, with no other care in the world than surfing and drinks with the friends, but poor, or you are ambitious and you decide to go out to the world and have the pains and the cracks of the human race. My homeland is amazing and so small that we are actually among the 20 happiest countries in the world. Common! Try to guess it.

Just Google it. http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/20-most-happy-countries-in-the-world/

So yet again, I have come to the conclusion that I needed some relief. I worked for 3 years in a call center, that destroyed my spirit, but it’s so comfortable to have a salary and be home where everything is safe, right? “Oh, the magic of a cubicle”.

Instead I left everything and jump on this crazy boat.

I have a college degree but I didn’t want to work. There was a part of me that wanted to wait, to explore a bit more of the world and here I am. I sold out everything I had and I left to Italy. Why Italy? Because I wanted to go to Australia and I couldn’t make it. USA? So predictable. South America? Save it for later? Germany? There is no way I’m learning german in 4 months.

Italy is a surreal world to me, it’s not the same to come as a turist during the summer. Try to fit in the coldest city during the coldest time of the year. Winter in Milan. Damn! And during the year of an economical crisis. Yeah, let’s live in the jungle for a while. I must admit the first months were hard, hard for the language, hard for a culture that I expected a little for opened and loneliness. I loneliness I can’t explain. Nothing here is even remotely the same, the food, the temper of the city, and the temperature as back home. This is hostile for those outsiders trying to make it, trying to fit in.

I have gone already though all the worst you can imagine, from fighting the Italian system to having fights with Italians over schoolwork, on the Tabachi, on the building where I live. This is a land of contradictions, but also of a lot of beauty. My Friend sent me this picture form Verona. But the Verona from Shakespeare is far from the real deal. Still amazing. It all starts in Verona. And wait mate, this is not a chicks sort of thing, it's all about changing out minds, get out of the "safety net".



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