LIBERA 21.03.15 - Against Mafia

Good morning everyone !

On Saturday I woke up at 4.30 am, and at 5.15 am I left with a bus for Bologna. I traveled with my my scout group and with some students from the high school I used to go to.

The 21st of March was the day of Memory and Commitment in memory of the Mafia's victims.

When we arrived in Bologna, we took part of a 3h march in the city's streets, and we all ended up in a giant square where there was an amazing speech by Don Luigi Ciotti. Walking the last big streets, you could hear all the names of the people killed by this system, names that were read by people on the main stage, located on the square where we were heading to.

I think that it's not necessary to talk about the Mafia as wrong system, as you may and should already know much about it. If not, if you'll ever get the chance, try to inform you as much as you can.

Italy is often called the country of ''Pizza, Pasta and Mafia'' as stereotype, but, for how cool it may seems in ''The Padrino'' movie, believe me that this system is ruining our country, creating strange circulation of money and dividing even more the South from the North.

Libera is the association  that organized this event and many others. It works against every kind of Mafia (Camorra etc.) and that try to reuse territories and buildings taken from these systems in the society. It also does different events to help people think about this situation, that seems so far away from our routine, but in truth it is not.

If you wanna learn more, click HERE, it's Libera's official website. It should be easy to understand, although it is in Italian because, if you are using Google, it should ask you, at the beginning, if you want the entire page to be translated.

The following are some of the very few pics I took. I tried to live the experience, instead of just portraying it: like talking as much as I could with the new people I met there, such as a really nice girl who was over-hearing a conversation I was having with a friend of mine. I recently sent out to the secretarial of my Uni a request for Erasmus, for next year obviously. This girl turned around and asked me what my choices where, and she described me very kindly her experience, giving me tips and advises.

''Mafia fears culture more than justice. Let's invest in culture''

 I hope this blog post, which was different from the others, will intrigue you and that inspired you to try to learn as much as you can about this topic, and maybe take part in a movement like Libera, if they exist in your area. Have a nice weekend :)

Fede

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Turning 20 !

Good evening everyone !

After (almost) a month from my birthday I decided to write down a proper blog post on how I spent the 17th of February and what I've received as presents.

On Monday 16th I had an important exam. It went really well, so the following day was going to be really relaxing and perfect anyway! 

When I woke up I decided to take a bath, thing that I rarely do. For this special occasion I decided to use for the first time ever...a bath bomb. 

I've never really use one of them before and, in fact, I was so excited when I received one for Christmas. This one is called ''Granny takes a dip'', and it turns your water in dark pink, almost burgundy in my opinion. It smells delicious, a mix of ginger, pepper and lemon (as it says on the description of the product).

Than I decided to treat myself...again. Although I'm terrible when it comes to cook, I tried to make myself some pancakes, and they turned out pretty good. I honestly don't think that the recipe  I used was the original one, in fact I found it on GialloZafferano.com, an Italian cook website. If you have any suggestion, please comment below and let me know. 

The rest of the day I was busy doing different things, it was Tuesday after all.
I properly decided to celebrate my birthday on Thursday the 19th, inviting over in my country house few friends. It was a really pleasant evening ! I was wearing a simple plain blue dress (although in the pictures it seems purple), with long sleeves and that turned out to be a little bit too short for me, after taking it to the seamstress.

In order: Andrea, Giacomo, Federico, Davide, Gioele, Mario, Andrea, Giulio, AnnaMarta, Ilaria, Sara, Sofia, Valentina, Giorgia, Lucrezia, Chiara, Lorenza, Elia e Guido.

As I previously wrote, I'd like to show you the presents I received. I'm not doing this to show you what I've got and brag about these things, I'm only trying to give you some ideas if you'll want to make a gift to someone.
I have no idea about the prices because, as I sad, they were presents. I also apologize for the multiple location used to shoot the pictures, I took them in different days, whenever and wherever I could, so that's why.

Stockings and socks from Calzedonia. 

I'm obsessed with Adidas' classical model. I've been buying a pair of this since when I was 8, and luckily this year they released that old model I love, and I was so happy to finally find my number ! - Adidas Stan Smith

Bracelets from DonnaPiù

Plain basic grey and black tshirt - Fortini Sport 

Henri Cartier-Bresson - Clémént Chéroux (Contrasto Editore) - Grazie Leo :)

Lighters with letters on - Diddi was the surname I used to introduce myself when I was a child, because it seems like Federica was quite a long word for me to pronounce !

Hope you enjoyed this blog post, I wish you all an amazing week end! 

Fede

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Skiing in Madonna di Campiglio .

Good evening everyone !

I wasn't around for a couple of week. Last time I posted something was few days before an important exam, and I'm glad to announce you that it went really good.

That same week was my birthday, I turned 20, yay ! Next week I'll try to write a blog post, in order to show you my birthday presents, so that maybe you'll find an inspirantion for when you'll have an occasion in which you would like to buy something special for someone. 

On Saturday 21st I left with my parents and brother and the four of us went skiing in Madonna di Campiglio. I came back on Saturday afternoon and since Monday I restarted having lessons at Uni. Basically that's why I've been doing lately !

Today I'd like to show you some pictures I took while I was in the North skiing. Since when I was 4 years old, my parents taught me to ski, as it was a huge passion for both.

As I previously mentioned, I went in Madonna di Campiglio, a really nice place located on the North of Italy, that has several skiing areas around it, being on the Alps. We booked an apartment that was so close to the sky slope that once I almost arrived at my house's door still on my ski, because there was a lot of snow and they hadn't yet removed  from the roads. 

I'll leave you to the pictures that can describe that week better than my words. 

This is Madonna di Campiglio, lovely ! 

This is the starting point used for skiing races. In fact, the 3-Tre is an amazing ski slope where they often have huge ski competitions, even world championships. 

 And I think that these two are the only one pictures I have of myself ! In both I had to face a sort of  storm; it was snowing, cold and windy !

These are some goods I bought to take back home. The infusions have vanilla, cinnamon, ginger, orange and other thousand spices that I adore ! I probably picked the worst bretzel of the 4 I bought, but I can assure you that it was delicious! The beverage on the right, that is the same contained in the small bottle, is the Bombardino. It needs to be drink while still warm, I had mine with a little bit of cocoa powder on top, although usually it's served with whipped cream on top. It tastes amazing and is a mix of Vov (an egg-based liquor, or ''egg flip'') with rum (pirata), coffee (calimero) or whisky (scozzese - scottish).

I hope you liked these pictures and that one day you'll have the amazing opportunity to taste the Bombardino ! Have a nice weekend !

Fede

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Reviewing #2 - The Theory of Everything (2014)

Goodmorning everyone !

On Monday morning I'll have my first oral exam, and it's Latin, one of the most disgusting subjects (in my opinion). I'm already so so nervous and I found few minutes to write down this post. Hopefully there won't be too many grammar mistakes, considering that I'm in rush !

* Another really quick news: On Sunday 15th the Please Diana (the group I once wrote about) is releasing a new song. Check it out on their website ! *

Today I would like to write about a movie that is currently at the cinema, but that will probably will removed soon, not because of something bad in it, it has only been in the movies programming for weeks and weeks. The movie was released on 2014, but in Italy we have the bad habit to dub everything (tv series, tv programs etc.). Although, compared to the ones in other countries, our voice actors are good, I'm saying ''bad habit'' because I personally enjoy a lot more the real voice of every actor, and when it comes to translate, there are certain elements of a language (such as jokes, idiomatic expressions...) that cannot be translated literally ! They will lose their meaning, so we need to use sentences and words that may express the same concept but that won't preserve the original version. Plus, I think that, if I can understand different accents and other languages it's mainly because I always try to watch movies and series in their original languages, I may add subtitles to comprehend in a better way, but I rarely do. It's a way to improve my knowledge. 

* From this point: SPOILER ALERT *

Back to the movie. ''The theory of everything'' is about Stephen and Jane Hawking's story.

Not being a huge lover of physic, I don't know that much about the life of this famous scientist, but I definitely want to discover more about him and his theory now that I've seen more about him. The plot contains the development of the love between these two young people, a story parallel to the worsening of Stephen's health, due to this rare disease that, they say at the beginning, won't allow him to live longer that 2 years. Despite this first verdict, Hawking is still alive nowadays!

The colors are quite cold and pastel, and I love them like this ! The main actors are magnificent, the dresses are perfect and the photography is amazing. There's the scene in which Stephen discovers about his disease and, despite this, he tries to open up his fingers while he's taking a bath...there's the perfect composition of a scene ! Everything's so symmetrical....just perfect !

I need to say that I was sad when I discovered that Jane ended up marrying another man, when Stephen decided to leave for the USA, to keep developing his theory. Although it was perfectly fine for both of them...I really hoped they were going to represent the perfect couple for the ''and they lived happily ever after''.

I can't think about anything else at the moment, luckily I'll be able to re-edit this post in the future. 

I leave you with this is the quote, the one I liked the most in the whole movie, and I wish you all a good weekend. 

''The should be no boundaries to human endeavor. 

However bad life may seem, while there is life, there is hope'' 

Fede

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Walking under rain and snow

Hello everyone !

Yesterday was quite an awesome evening ! Although it only was Wednesday, I went to bed at almost 5am (things that I obviously don't usually do). This happened because, every week, there's an event in Perugia, at the 110 café, which is the central café for the biggest part of the universities here. It is called the ''Wednesday Rock'' and half of the evening there's a band playing on the main stage, followed by the DJ set with different kind of music. I went there for the first time, and I can't wait for next week to be back again !

Anyway, today I want to share with you some pictures I took last Saturday and Sunday. Differently from my average weekend routine, on the 31st I left at 3pm with my scout group, and we went by train to Spoleto, a city in my region, not too far from where I live but that I've never really visited. When I was a gymnast I used to have a couple of competitions every year in the local sports hall, but that was it. Half day in the gym and than back to Assisi. 

When we arrived it immediately started raining. Covering ourselves and our backpacks as much as we could, we started walking on the Spoleto - Norcia. It's a really nice path because it is an old railroad who connected the two cities above. I had the occasion to walk half of it a couple of time, but on Saturday we decided to leave the path because we thought it was time to, in order to change path and take the one that was going to lead us to Campello, the small and lovely city where we already called and ''booked'' a room. When I say a room, a literally mean a room, not a proper bedroom. We only need a roof and, if it's possible, something that will warm us up during winter time. 

Truth is that we didn't have to leave the Spoleto-Norcia railroad, or at least not on the point in which we did. At 6.30pm was still raining, was dark and we arrived in Eggi (another lovely small village). We luckily found another room there and we decided to have dinner and sleep there, and to arrive in Campello the day after, although this meant that we were going to do +7km the day after. And so we did, waking up at 5.30am.

On sunday morning it was raining again, but around 8am it started snowing. Although to walk with snow it's quite complex and it's colder...it was totally worth it. 

We arrived in Campello, had lunch and the possibility to dry our clothes and warm up a little bit. Than we left again and walked without pause, and at 7pm we reached Trevi, our final destination.

Sorry for the poor quality of the picture, but I forgot my Canon at home, so I could only use my phone to take. pictures. Hope you liked this blog post and, for those of you who like walking and who may have the possibility to come around my area, I highly recommend you the ''Sentiero degli Ulivi'' (The path of olives - literally) and the Spoleto-Norcia old railroad. Have a nice weekend !

Fede

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Reviewing #1 - Anna Karenina (2012)

Hello !

This is my 50th post! wow !...just saying ! 

From January to February there's the winter session of exams. This means that I do not have lesson in order to focus and study for my tests. Being home this often, even in the morning when no one's around, means that I have the possibility to organize my days as I please. I started going to the gym, I restarted taking acting classes and, the rest of the time, I'm supposed to be studying. 

Truth is that, if I focus really hard, I won't leave my desk for 4h or more, but the rest of the time, is not like I can spend my day out with friends, in every moment. I rediscovered the pleasure to be home, reorder my bedroom, try to learn how to play the guitar...and watch movies. 

Recently I've seen so many movies, and the ones that I liked the most, I decided, are going to be the main topic of my next 2 or 3 blog posts. This ''reviewing'' of movies, may be something that I'll keep doing occasionally, or that maybe will end after this first post. 

I'll talk about recent movies, if I'll go to the cinema and watch them, or old movies that I've never seen before, or maybe that I've recently re-watched. 

I'd like to start with a movie released on 2012, but that I've seen only yesterday for the first time. Anna Karenina. 

* From this point: SPOILER ALERT !  *

I'd like to start admitting that I had no idea what the movie was going to talk about. Although it naturally was mentioned many times in high school, call me ignorant but I've never really known and studied the plot of the original ''Anna Karenina'' novel, written by Lev Tolstoj (original title: Aнна Каренина).

From the beginning until the end, in exception for few scenes, the whole story is settled in an old theater. The background changes on the stage, as well as the objects on the dovecote and the place where the audience sits. The scenes sets in environments for high society members are all built on these parts of the theater. Differently, the places where to find the poor population of Moscow or other Russian cities where the novel is set, are the backstage, the dressing rooms, the ''bridges'' where the technicians changes lights etc. The change of scene are incredibly fast and, although the place is always the same, they recreate very easily every room and situations by adding few essential but specific objects. 

The costumes are fabulous. Every dress that Anna Karenina ( Keira Knightley) wears is perfect ! In every details everyone's clothes are magnificent and I have absolutely nothing to say against them ! I can only wish that one day, maybe for a masquerade, I'll be able to wear one of those dreamlike-superclassyandrich dresses.

The story itself it's really interesting, you like the main character at the beginning, hating others. But than, after few but important twists of the story, you end up (or, at least, I did) hating Anna for what she does and for her behavior. 

Parallel to the main love story, there's another interesting character that, I have to say, was my favorite one. Kostantin Levin. Differently from the others, He's the one who lives and sees the relationship with a woman as something based on love, true love. And, in fact, at the end he's the only one who marries the woman of his dream, Kitty, and ends up living with her a wonderful life. 

The best scene, in my opinion, is the one in which Kostantin proposes to Kitty, for the second time, The first one he's bypassed by Aleksej Vronskij, but than, when he ends up with Anna Karenina, who cheats on her husband, Kitty remains alone, and that's when Kostantin tries again. They're both at Dolly's place (Kitty's sister) and they start talking using those wooden cubes with letters written on them, the ones that children play with. And they have a conversation like this, using the initial letters and slowly composing the whole sentences. With few words she apologizes and he proposes to her confessing her his love. 

The photography is amazing, every scene follows the basic rules of composition, also in terms of colors, I enjoyed the contrast created at the ball where Kitty and Aleksej dance together, both wearing white, and, on the other side, we have Anna with a black dress.

I highly recommend this movie ! Hope you liked this new kind of post, and I wish you all a pleasant weekend !

Fede

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Please Diana and random notes .

Good afternoon everyone !

Obviously I wish good morning or evening to all of you who are reading this post later or who live in time zones different from mine. 

As you may or may not have noticed,  I finally discovered how to change a couple of songs on the music bar on top of the blog, and that I found a background that I like more than roses. It wasn't flowers fault, it's just that they're the background on my phone and laptop as well. 

Than, I'd like to inform you that, with enormous surprise, this morning I saw that this blog reached 2K visualizations AND that this week I passed, with a pretty good mark, the language test I had in Uni to see if I was level C1 in English :)  

Now let's move to the main topic of this post. 

On Sunday morning, a friend of mine told me that, on Google+, he noticed all the links I posted about my blog. He was curious and he came into this page, read something and liked it ! It may seems quite normal for you, but it wasn't for me. Fact is, if I write in English and I don't post anything about this blog on Facebook, is mainly because I don't want people who live around me or that know me, to read it. There's nothing that I'm ashamed of or that is so particular that no one knows about it, I'm just both afraid and annoyed of their judgments.

BUT, knowing that there are Italian readers or people that may know what I'm talking about, without too many descriptions...I can think about new topics that I previously considered useless to share.

Today, for example, I'm going to write about a music band. 

Thanks to a friend, I started reconsidering Italian music in October, discovering groups as the Gazebo Penguins, I Ministri and the ''FASK'' (Fast Animals and Slow Kids).

Randomly I saw that a group of guys, few years older than me and who live in my area, were in a band, won a competition and had the opportunity to make a CD, to record their own songs. When I heard a couple of them, I already knew that I really liked them ! The whole album, although it was their first one, turned out to be one of my favorites. They are known as ''Please Diana''. Some of the musicians are friends of mine, and I knew the others because, as I said, we all live in the same area. 

I don't know much about their history, but I bet you can discover more on their website, where you will also be able to find their Twitter and Instagram accounts, Facebook page, YouTube channel etc. 

You can download their songs and you'll ''pay with a tweet''. This means that, promoting their albums on both Facebook and Twitter, you ''pay'', and you can download the album (for free, basically). 

Although you may or may not understand the lyrics, I highly recommend you to listen to their songs, they're really great. I had the opportunity to shoot some backstage pictures, when they were recording their new music videos, and I had sooo much fun. 

I hope that you enjoyed reading, I wish you all a good weekend and have a nice day !

ℱede

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