 Business trip to Oceania- [19/20th May 2011]
 
And so it's really finished, the longest trip of my life, in terms of flight time, is finished and I am writing sitting quite uncomfortably at 10000 meters above the Northern Coast of Australia on a Thai Airways (mental note to myself: never book Thai Airways Business Class anymore, on this flight it has been quite shite).
the trip is over, as usual it seems yesterday that I landed in Auckland, all jet lagged but curious to see what the fifth continents had to offer.
Well I must say that it was a great experience, especially Australia was a place that I really liked thanks also to the clients that are all a bunch of young people so it was great to hang around with them not just for the business side of things.
What has this trip left me? More experience I guess, more consciousness of what I did in these 36 years and how much it's worth it. I do realize that in order to relate to my country fellow-man I have been playing down a lot the things I did. It's crazy, getting other people that never met before getting surprised at "the amount of things that you did, but how old are you?". Actually it's not crazy, it's actually a very good thing, it has been a long time since I felt like that.
People look at me as a threat sometimes, I can understand it, at least in Italy it's a feeling that I get, abroad it seems that the mind is a little bit more open, although I might be mistaken. In any case I do not care, the trip was great, I feel different and I do not know yet in what, I have seen the 'roos (kangaroos), I have watched AFL matches, I have seen Melbourne and Sydney, the Hunters Valley all great places that I will bring for all my life in my heart.
At the moment only in MY heart, but I am working on the other one to share life and experiences with!
In any case, here are the pictures, they speak better than me rambling around.
Enjoy
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- On Australia
- [Sunday 15th May 2011]
So you might wonder how Australia really is.
Well to be honest I couldn't tell you as I know this place very little, but I certainly can give you my opinions.
Australians are rather friendly and laid back people, I like the fact that there seems to be a lot of politeness going around and lots of people smiling, it makes things a lot smoother and nicer even if you are having a bad day.
Melbourne has some "spirit" to it, I like it better than Sydney, although Sydney gets incredible views and panorama. Don't get me wrong also Sydney is great, but Melbourne is the place where I would live.
The guys here say that "Melbourne is the woman you marry, while Sydney is the one you have an affair with", I have to say that it's quite close to how I see these two cities.
Weather in the winter, which is when I visited, is quite crap, but it's winter after all. The fact that gets me is this image that I have of Australia, always sunny and hot. Well that's a total misleading image, certainly it doesn't get terribly cold like in Europe but they get a cold winter here too, I even had to buy a hat!
Food has been great, under that point of view it reminds me of New York, there's a lot of selection, Ozzie wines are great and the several restaurants/bars are really well presented and there are a lot of places with great atmosphere. I'd have to say that the latest bit is more consistent in Melbourne rather than Sydney, but I have only explored the CBD of these two cities.
So far that's all, needless to say that I like it here, it could be a country where I could happily live...
[5 comments]
- Leaving New Zealand
- [Tuesday 10th May 2011]
So it is the final day of my stay here in New Zealand, I will post pictures later of course, but all in all it was a very positive trip, both for work and to get a glimpse at how this place is.
I cannot say that I have seen a lot, there is a lot that I was not able to check out, but that's quite normal, after all business takes you to the biggest cities and not in the countryside that apparently is the very jewel here in New Zealand.
The fact that it's Autumn here doesn't help, I found it very hard to adjust to the weather having left Italy that was bordering between Spring and Summer, so I made a point that if I ever come back here it's going to be around October/November so that I can see what this country has to offer when the weather is nice!
Food-wise it's pretty much like England, so nothing special really, but there are a lot of foreign restaurants and the quality of the prime materials is very high so even if I ended up having French, Indian or Italian (yes I had to...) it was rather nice.
All in all a place where I'd like to come back to with a bit more time for myself, but for the first time this is more than sufficient!! :)
Farewell New Zealand, see you soon!
[409 comments]
- Greve in Chianti
- [Monday 25th April 2011]
 Easter Monday it's a national holiday so today we went with the usual bunch of friends to Greve, a place very well known for it's wine (Chianti was technically born here), but also for the best butcher in the Florence area called Falorni.
The day was really pleasant, we ate a lot of great food, saw bits and pieces of Greve and surrounding areas, and generally had fun being together, blessed by a quite summery day (finally I'd say it has been raining at the weekends constantly!!)...
I even bought a lot of processed meat (salame, prosciutto and so on) which I am going to eat when I come back from Australia and New Zealand...
[3 comments]
- Easter in Urbino
- [Sunday 24th April 2011]
 There is a tradition in Italy, basically Christmas is a sort of day that you must spend with the family, but Easter you can choose to do whatever you want.
In order not to upset the God of Italian traditions, this year I set off to Urbino, a very nice and small medieval city, together with Fabiana and Francesca.
Fabiana was with me during the Japanese trip last summer, Francesca is a new addition to my circle of acquaintances, and I have to say a very welcomed one!
We set off pretty early as there are more than 2 hours drive to Urbino and eventually got there in the late morning just in time to go grab some lunch in a restaurant that we picked solely upon a recommendation of an old lady that we stopped. Well the food was nice, but not great, still our spirit did not falter and after the mandatory tour of all the attractions of the city we headed back to Florence late in the night.
It was a really good day, went by real quick, as normally good days go by!
Must do again!
[4 comments]
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- Lox, Lorenzo... ME!!
- A little introduction about the author and the blog itself. Plus contacts and CVs... You never know!
- Pictures
- A Selection of the best pictures that I have taken all over the world during the years, all nicely indexed by year and geographical area. Jolly good!
- History of this Blog
- A collection of all the articles that I have wrote so far, divided by month/year.
I have had the bad idea of writing my e-mail address on the board before, so this time I'll try to prevent some spam to get to me by putting this little image.. Let's hope it does the trick!
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A reminder to Myself
Left and right
Like day and night
That's what makes the world go round
In and out
Thin and stout
That's what makes the world go round
For every up there is a down
For every square there is a round
For every high there is a low
For every to there is a fro
To and fro
Stop and go
That's what makes the world go round
You must set your sights upon the heights
Don't be a mediocrity
Don't just wait and trust to fate
And say, that's how it's meant to be
It's up to you how far you go
If you don't try you'll never know
And so my lad as I've explained
Nothing ventured, nothing gained
You see my boy it's nature's way
Upon the weak the strong ones prey
The human life it's also true
The strong will try to conquer you
That is what you must expect
Unless you use your intellect
Brains and brawn, weak and strong
That's what makes the world go round
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