Italian vs english language.

I consider myself happy. Yeah, I do. A lot of nice things are happening to me here: meeting people, going to the parties, new experiences. But, mostly, I’m familiarizing with a language which put at the beginning what mine put at the end.

Let me give you some example.

If you look at the street and see a fat, young, blond, American girl, you would to say “a fat, young, blond, American girl”, according to grammar rules. In Italian you have a lot of combinations, instead: “un’americana bionda, giovane e grassa”, which is literally translated “an American girl, blond, young and fat”. Then you continue: “a blond girl, young, fat and American”, “a fat girl, American, blond and young”, and so on. That Anglosaxon notices first of all that the girl is fat, doesn’t regard politeness; it sounds more like a discipline in the way of viewing, which might responds to the beauty of the natural flux of the life, the Born, the Middle Age, the Death; spring, summer, autumn and winter, then.

In Italian, the aproach is pretty different. It responds to a sort of law of gravity: words at the beginning or at the end of a period are heavier than those in the middle. It’s also important how words are joined. Thus, if I say “an American fat girl, young and blond”, you can ascertain that the American fat girl is an healty blond girl or a naive blond girl. And in case the order was inverted, you could pleasantly discover that she’s blond and young, maybe because the blondity is a kind of habit while the youth a status.

Another peculiarity is the neutral gender of words. The most cruel is friend.

«Honey, where did you go last nigh?»

«Last night? I went out with a friend.»

«Does your friend name sound more like Barbara or Paul?»

Gender is very important in Italian. Specially in terms of friends.

«Are you jealous?»

I asked then to English and Australians more explanations about this topic and all agree that you have to look at the context, which, in few words, means that it’s not a matter who you go out with. Bitch.

The same I love you. You could love me like a sister or a friend (yet). We all agree that when you fall in love with me things changes. And if you are not clear, I’ll never, never kiss your lips.

It will happen then, in a raining afternoon, I write a message to Giuliano where I say I think I fell in love with you. But this is another story, and there’s a plenty of time before it came.

Couchsurfing.org is not a dating website.

Collingwood is the hippie quarter in Melbourne not only for the Abbotsford Convent but also for the Sophia Mundi Steiner School, the Yarra Bend Park and the events organized inside. Who shows me the quarter is a fellow named Holly Dance. I known him through Couchsurfing.org. I suppose Holly Dance was his nom de plume, anyway, I’ve never discovered his true name because, after that afternoon toghether, we’ve never seen each other again.

At Lounge Bar I get teased by my collegues when I tell them I’m going to meet this lad known through Couchsurfing.org.

«Com’on, there’re all ingredients for making cake: a girl, a guy, a dating website!»

«It’s not a dating website!»

Well, actually I know someone who uses the website for sexual adventures; but the most part of people makes a correct use of it, that is meeting travelers and backpakers, so as to being hosted for some night, or to make acquaintance with someone who is living in the place you’d like to visit, and so on. However, my collegues seem don’t apreciate my explanation, even though after a little time they reply cool.

Holly Dance is 45 year-old and his fairly name is because his profession. He says he’s being a teacher of Creative Dance at the Convent. He looks weird. For the whole afternoon, he has never dismounted his bicycle (because a pain at one leg) and his own means of transport seems equipped for a hypothethical desert crossing, with its light as big as a lighthouse, its reflecting stickers spread everywhere, and its plastic box functioning as luggage rack. When I’m talking he doesn’t understand me very well. That makes him teased. Nevertheless, he’s a kind man and takes me to walk at Yarra Bend Park.

The Yarra River is still a snake before to swell into the belly of Melbourne, and flow into Hobson Bay. We keep walking long the river and lovely trails, where we are passed by runner of all ages. Finally, when we reach the Convent, Holly Dance gets off and parks his armed bicycle.

Here, there’s a canteen managed by volunteers where you can have lunch just living a free offering. It’s almost sunset time, so we decide to sit on lawn in front the Convent. Getting a glimpse around me, it seems we have travelled in time to the 70s. There are long hair and rasta guys, girls with flower crown on their heads and second-hand dresses coming from India or recycled. Also in this case, Holly and me are the ugliest of the lawn. When the sun is by now behind the roofs, Holly take me inside the Convent. No monks, no nuns, just artists. The old rooms has been turned into ateliers where painters, illustrators, musicians, writers and joung teachers whose can have laboratory, exibhitions and classes of students. At the Convent there’s also the Illustrator Australia seat. I applied for become a member but I sould pay $200 at year (they selected me as Gold Member, the expensivest, for professionists) and I can’t afford it. Moreover, the association doesn’t count a lot of members and on Facebook it has only 500 I Like, against 5,800 of the Associazione Illustratori Italiana. For once, maybe, it’s better to stay in Italy.

Getting back to exploration tour, we crosses a courtyard which turns in cinema on plain air in the night and a park for concerts. It’s summer now, and it’d be great to be there, but unfortunatly I can’t because my job, and given that I’m horribly tired when I’m off, I prefer don’t move beyond Brunswick or CBD.

That which looks as an English cottage of the late seventeenth century is the Sophia Mundi Steiner School. Steiner’s schools are based on educational phylosophy of Rudolf Steiner, the founder of anthroposophy. The pedagogic principles of his philosophy aspire to an all-round education, to the purpouse of developing a high degree of social competence in the child.

In the teaching programs you can find not just only maths, science, english, but also carpentry, theatre, singing, art, and all that activities which give to the student a strenght experience with the life and himself. Thinks that during the firsts years of school (which lasting until 18 year-old) marks aren’t even assigned, teachers write up a description of student’s attitudes and personality.

Great day with Holly Dance, thanks Couchsurfing.org. I keep on saying it’s the perfect way to know pretty well new places; if you surrond yourself of backpakers only, they are other disperates like you, they think like you and bla bla bla. So, a local is still a local, however weird he might be.

Bogans.

At Lounge Bar, all the waiters are hot fashion guys, girls and boys I mean. Look at Zoe, or Roy. She embodies either the Shirley Temple’s innocence and the nazi cruelty; her long dark brown hair faded at the end – in memory of an old blue hair color, now gone – join gracefully the top of her body with her never ending legs, only interrupted by super shorts and heavy black boots. He boasts polished tattoos, beard pruned with millimetrical attention, chequed shirt and blue jeans turned up. Melbourne guys seem to have a peculiar aesthetic culture which makes them different from the rest of the continent.

«Have you ever heard of the bogans?»

This is what Dan asks me in one of my days-off, in front two cold beers. He’s one of my colleagues at Lounge, 19 year-old, rocker features. No, I have no clue what bogans are.

«Have you ever seen those strapping guys with horrible tattoos, colored sun glasses, stupid caps and Stubbies shorts? Well, those are bogans.»

«What does bogan exactly mean?»

«Well, bogan is the Australian worker class stereotype; they firmly believe in values like the honesty, the family, the national proud (actually, they are quite obsessed with that stuff); they are also used to listen to country music and they are not very clean. In the past, probably, it was the term for people living in the outer suburb of big cities.»

Before Dan could finish to pronounce the last three syllabs, Giuliano, Matteo and Domenico magically appear in front of us. I have a quick glance at them, then at myself, observing how far we are from the Lounge’s customers. We wear cheap and tasteless things. Giuliano’s t-shirt is of a strange blue-police, too large for him, while Matteo’s one is too short. My dress, actually, it wouldn’t be so bad. The problem are the strappy sandals, payied just $ 9,00 in a franchise second-hand store, which have started to unstick before reaching the guy’s house. They litteraly dissembled, until the point of getting a screw to pin the sandal strip to the wedge cork heel. Who are the bogans, now?

My friends sit with me and Dan at the table and we order other beers. Between smoke lines and the bitter taste of Ale, Dan tells us his story. That is the first time I talk properly with him. Usually we have such a little time for talking. He says, then, his father has a Drinking monkey on his back, and him too, but he prefers Smoking.

«In Australia everyone smokes weed; it’s quite impossible to find someone who doesn’t like it.»

There’s a campaigne spot to rise awareness about alcohol problems – that I’ve never seen because I’ve never had a television since I’m in Australia – where you can see, in a typical barbecue set, a father asking his son for a beer. The camera follows the child going to the fridge then, as soon as he grabbed a beer, the little guy turns into an adult so he can repeat in turn the same scenery with his son, and so on:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4nXwtXu4Ik

«We are different from Aussies: they drink just to get drunk, we drink because of the pleasure to drink», says Giuliano.

«If you complain until now because you’re being hard getting drunk!»

Aimlessly, we cruise across the night. We would like to go in any bar but for the best we need to get a taxi. But taxi costs too much. So then, after having dinner in a Chinese restaurant for only $10 each, we all go to Mc Donald for a piss. And, like an Italian motto says, who doesn’t piss in company is either a thief or a spy. Wait, where’s the ladies’ toilet? We’re all quite drunk, so we don’t stay on ceremony.

The Prince Charming, called plus 1 by Giuliano.

Beautiful. Like the sun, like Ewan McGregor. Amazing face, amazing body.

Yes, it is, I slept with him and now I’ll tell you how is gone.

Well, everything starts when I discover that my neighbour was Italian. This it would be ok if that girl wouldn’t became my future housemate. Yes, she would, because her house will be sold soon. Shit, I say to myself, I’ve just left my previous apartment so not to stay with Italians. But at the same time, I know, I desperately need a girl friend. I’ve had just boys around me recently. That means no gossips, no infusions, no “hey love” or “hey beautiful”, but Playstations, drugs, football, “hey dude”, “hey bitch”.

So, one day, Tamish invites the Italian neighbour girl to see our house. Her name is Nicoletta, she’s Sicilian, 23 year-old, pretty and clever. Love at first sight, we exchange our mobile numbers and she calls me to take a coffee together the day after. Our home are very close, we share the same gate, so I leap over it. She really lives in a amazing house, the kitchen is nice like those in the magazines, three leather couches, huge telly. A little dark maybe, not because the windows aren’t big enough, but because Brad, Roy and Peter are three metal boys that love living in the darkness. One day Brad and Nicoletta have a terrible argument over Christmas’s decorations, but about this I’ll tell you in the future. Who had had the idea of buying a Chrismas’s tree with a Santa Claus on the top and to put it in the dining room in your opinion?

Anyway, coffees and chats, the hours fly away like birds. Ours throats are dry although we have a lot things to say to each other yet, so we decided to go out and to catch a tram directed to CBD. We meet a little group of Italians that a week back Nicoletta had met. They’re from Sardegna, and speak zero english.

We move toward a bar for a beer. The place only sat afew others, it was just us and five men sipping hard liquors. I say something to them or they say something to me, I don’t remember now who started talking. Talking with people in the bars is a skill of my own, it’s written in my blood. So after a few tries,  I discover that they are in Melbourne for job.

The girls reach me quickly. They make me notice that one of that guys is terrifically hot. I look at them. Their average age is 35 year-old. The 27 year-old that looks like a 40 year-old guy comes from New York, he’s an advertaiser and wears a horrible pink-salmon shirt; the other one of the same age is graceless, regardless the way he likes to dress, then there’s Ewan McGregor. To be honest, I didn’t give to him a lot of attention, he gave me plenty. The girls are trying all their picking up strategies, one girl even asks to him to make a photo together, but the scottish looks at me with a wry grin. You know, there are a lot of handsome men around the world, but if someone gives attention to us and he looks kind and without expectation, he surely will heed the Alfa-male title. And, about Alfa-male, everything is proceding by the nature’s rules.

He’s brilliant, and wants to make himself seem interesting but I smile kindly, without enthusiasm.

He insists, so I give him one point. My girl friends insist with him too; it’s a good opportunity for to test him, if he quit for easier prey he’s off. I want to put him on probation so I take him for a ride and I start to whistle and ask to him to do the same (he’s a prince, a classy man, I’m sure he doesn’t do certain kind of things…).

He does! So, he tries to whistle but he can’t, then looks at me with a sad face, point 2.

«But I can do this» and handling a foot with the hand he does a sort of acrobacy. Oh my god, he’s definitively crazy!, I say to me, so plus 20 points.

The other girls, he really doesn’t look at them, plus 30. Then Nicoletta says to me «I’ll give you $20 if you have sex with him tonight!».

Well, we start talking, he’s smart, funny, has got an impressive sense of humor (I’m really for men that make me laugh), plus 10. Out of the blue he ask me if I would like to have a children. He would, a lot, but says he hasn’t find the right woman yet (ps: he’s 37 year-old), plus 50 to him, minus 10 to me because I rise to the bait.

Then he kisses me.

My friends want to change place. He asks to me what I want to do.

«Going with my friends, for sure.»

Ok, Prince Charming, you’re nice but I haven’t a clue who you are. I’m in Melbourne with my crazy girl friend, now, I want dance on the night and make the morning howling at the moon.

I’ve taken my decision as far he earns plus 20 more saying: «Listen, I’ll catch my flight to Sydney tomorrow morning, maybe we’ll never meet again; I swear, I won’t touch you, I just want to talk with you a bit more…»

I stand still meanwhile it starts to rain outside, on the street. It’s a kind of fine gentle rain, the kind of rain that dampens the faces and makes the road sparkling. Without I could say nothing, Stephen carries me on his shoulders and takes me away with him.

In the cab I start to worry, there are his friends with us. He realizes I’m not completely relaxed and gives me his room key, “this is your key”.

The cab stops in front a huuuge skyscraper in South Yarra, rich area of Melboune.

The apartment is amazing. Has a wall completely in glass, you can see the whole of Melbourne from the high, the sea and the boats illuminated by the moon. One of his friends puts the music up, he asks me if I want something to drink but I don’t want nothing. I don’t like his friends, they appear rude, I don’t understand very well when they are talking.

We decide to go to sleep. Stephen offers his tooth-brush to me, then he brushes his teeth. We go to bed dressed. He’s kept his word.

So it is only evident that this would happen:

Oh, my love, my darling,

I’ve hungered from your touch

A long, lonely time…

and

And I… will always love you, ooh

Will always love you…

or

Now I’ve had the time of my life

No I never felt like this before

Yes I swear it’s the truth

And I owe it all to you…

Actually, I’ll never see him again. I send some messages to him, maybe he could reply but n-o-t-h-i-n-g. Disappeared, completely, melted into the ink of the night.

«Baldi, don’t be afraid, sign plus 1, that’s it.»

Giuliano was right.

Not worthwhile to struggle

Click here for italian version.

The popoular italian song Com’è bello far l’amore da Trieste in giù attacks me while I plough through the pvc curtain at the entry of the factory. This is my first experience working as a labourer. There’s a loud noise inside blended in with Raffaella Carrà’s voice at full blast. I wear a light blue polypropylene uniform and a headdresse of the same colour and material. Santiago is my manager, Argentinian, physically half Maradona half Homo Sapiens, his English is very poor. He supervises the work in the factory on the day-shift because on the night-shift there’s another manager. The factory never sleeps!

In the beginning they had me building boxes. There are a lot of Italians in the factory, the majority of them being guys between 23-30 years of age. Some of them arrived a couple of months ago, others have been here for years. Most of them are from the South of Italy; they live close to the factory because it’s a cheap area, sharing the apartment with other Italians. Apart from the Italians, there’s a nice Chinese girl – she always smiles at me –, two Indians, the oldest is kind, the younger isn’t, and a 33 year-old woman who looks like a 50 year-old, from Macedonia. She asks me astonishedly why I’m not married with children yet.

«Do you like this job?»

Yes, of course! How long are you planning to stay here? Ah, a lot! It’s my life’s dream to work here.

So, I start to work and I with it I start making mistakes. I’m the first mistake in a long, long string of mistakes. I understood that it would be better to quit if I didnt improve than to continue to make mistakes. Anyway, the order of mistakes is:

1. Read what it is written on the labels: My boss gives me two different kinds of labels but I didnt notice that they were different. Something goes wrong and so the other labourers and I have to open all the boxes, pull out all of the tomato pizzas and then put them into their correct box, which wasn’t the focaccia box.
2. Count the boxes on the trolley: I didnt count correctly the first time and when my mistake was noticed, I had to enter the warehouse and pull out all of the packed boxes. Then recount them– but someone else counted them for me this time – then I packed up.
3. Look hard: learn to recognize a perfectly baked dough from an overbaked dough and then place the overbaked on top of the underbaked for packing. Ok, this was challenging.
4. Check the dates on the packs: I made mistakes here too as I didnt put a dated label on all of the packs. We then had to reopen all of the boxes and put a date-label where there wasn’t.
5. Test ablity a, b, c. A) Put tomato sauce over two pizza bases within four seconds because the roller runs fast and if you take even one second longer, the other labourers have to rush over to the pizzas to arrange them before they enter into the oven. B) Quickly collect batches of 5 and 10pizzas while the freezer blast-freezes them. C) Count 7 pizzas and pack them up the right way while a flock of angry pizzas advance towards you.

I have to admit, I did better in the ability test than I did on the factory floor. In my defence, I think that it would have been better if Santiago had communicated with me using words instead of gestures. I’ll give you some examples: to explain to me how to stick the label onto the box, he tapped his finger on the square on the box, or to tell me that I could have lunch he pointed at his mouth in an eating motion; and to call me (as he had forgotten my name) he made a weird, guttural sound so I would inevitably turn around. Maybe he was simply deaf-mute but I never noticed.

The factory didn’t suit me. Poor Santiago was a good man, but I think I drove him crazy. Given that I don’t like to have a starring role in people’s nightmares, one morning I decided to speak with him to apologize and to quit the job as I didn’t want to create any more problems. My behaviour struck him unexpectedly and he thanked me for my honesty.

And as for Giuliano?

He had been laid off after three days. In his case, it wasnt his fault, the management wanted to give a job to a friend and so let Giuliano go.

So, does that mean we were still together? Yes, we did stay together but it was long-distance. He was far away from me. There was the girl from Treviso in his life and although he tried to be a tough guy , he was in love with her, like I was in love with him. The problem was that he didn’t fall for me at the same time that I fell for him. The timing was all wrong! It was impossible to imagine a hapy ending becuase our future plans were completely different: I had to move to London for study and he wanted to go to Indonesia looking for adventures.

I’ll tell you, a lot of things have happened since then. He knows everything about me. My life still flows under his bridge, a river where golden boats sail, with parties and princes on board. But when all these boats sail away I’ll forget them quickly, unlike Giuliano. He is the jumper that I always have with me in my bag for when I feel cold. He’s the 4/4 time of musical arrangement, around which my notes dance.

Meanwhile, I changed house as it didnt suit my lifestyle and needs. I couldn’t sleep on the couch anymore with the guys that would play the Playstation and smoke marijuana until late when I had to get up at five o’clock in the morning and work for ten or twelve consecutive hours.

My new house is on Albion street, Brunswick. I don’t want to live far from my friends because I know how it works in a big city- If you live far away from friends you end up not being able to catch up with them.

Although my new house is very expensive I am not worried because I earn $1700 every fortnight. The problem is that I quit. For a month I will survive, and so i need to find a new job within a month, aaaaaahhhhh!!!

The days after I quit my job in the factory were idyllic. Finally I could sleep! You can’t imagine how damagd my body was: scratches, black-and-blue bruises, my arms looked like Christan F’s arms, I mean, like a heroin-addict’s arms. I felt shame wearing T-shirts. My arms looked THAT bad. Anyway, I didn’t come to Australia to earn money but to have the longest teen-aged party of my life. And Daddy, who was a hard-worker all his life, agrees with me.

I haven’t any clue about what kind of shape or direction my life will take. But it’s ok, I came here to show myself that its ok ok not to know. My agent in Bruxelles doesn’t call me anymore because I’m on the opposite side of the world and he doesn’t trust me enough to give me new jobs, illustrations I mean. But thats ok, as well. I spent years and years worrying about how many publications I would make. I have come to understood one thing as a result of my travels in australia: The struggle isnt worthwhile. Just try and if it doesnt work out, move on. Simple as that! The webmastering has taught me that sometimes the worst thing you can do to is to try and fix mistakes; it’s better to throw away the old file and to restart from scratch. To travel through the same paths again forces you to become more able to deal with their obstacle. Regret is just a waste of time and energy.

My new housemates are: Tamish, he’s indian and works as a chiroprator – it isn’t an illness, it is something similar to an osteopath –, and Alicia and Tom, she’s australian and a physiotherapist, he’s californian and a bricklayer. The house’s cleanliness, polished look and beauty makes me anxious. So far its going great. Today, when Tom came home, tired and weary after a long day’s work, he took a beer from the fridge and swallowed it quickly. Then he made a very loudy burp that sounded as if the whole house had colapsed to rubble. It was at that moment I started to feel truly at home. 

Thai girls do it better

Per leggere in italiano clicca qui.

Now I don’t remember if it was Saturday or Sunday, anyway it was raining and me and Giuliano were alone at home because the others were working.

I’m lying on the coach, under a huge heavy blanket. I’m thinking I’m not hungry but Giuliano asks me if I want to eat something.

«Yes, of course.»

The empty fridge looks like the heart of someone who has been dumped, so we go shopping. Woolworths is around the corner. We walk straight to the spaghetti, then tomatoes, onions and stuff. Giuliano wants to cook and I have no objection. I’m not the kind of woman that interferes; maybe I dislike the heavy-salty-fatty dishes for example, or the earthworms. Unlike me, Giuliano eats as much as the large tropical snakes of the Boidae, the python, the anaconda, the boa constrictor. He tells me, proud of himself, he once ate four whole pizzas at his ex-girlfriend's parents house, «Her mother will never forget me!».

We pass all afternoon sleeping on the couch. Near evening, the other guys come back from work. Take a beer from the fridge then sit near us. We end up talking about prostitution because a few hours before Tambu has come back from Thailand.

«Hey dude, you are a fucking asshole! How could you go gaga over a slut?»

«She’s different.»

It was love at first sight. She took him home, introduces him to her family.

«Duh, you give them the cash! Dude, the secret is fucking a different girl every night.»

«Did you also fall in love?»

«No I didn't, they are such hot, damn beautiful girls, and they are very good at seducing men; tell me, how much did she cost?»

They tightly hugged to say farewell. They still tried to avoid each other for a bit, but one night they met in the same disco, in the middle of thousands of people. Maybe it was the destiny. She hugged him tightly, he didn’t reciprocate, he hadn’t the courage.

«She works day-time in a cafè and whores in the night time; this is Thai culture, they have a different mentality, you can’t compare this with our own. The Thai girls are the best women I have ever met in my all life, better than a lot of fucking Italian pussy!»

«Hey, Tambu, life can be unpredictable… Maybe this could work?»

«Shut up, Baldi.»

«Giuliano speaks the truth, this is an impossible love.»

We sit in silence for a bit, someone drinks a beer, someone else smokes marijuana. Then Andrea says: «My first time with a slut I was 14 year-old, she was 60; trust me, she looked like a hot 50 year-old, a very classy woman, really.»

I die from laughing, then I glance at Giuliano. He sits on the armchair like an old man at the bar, his elbows on the sofa’s arms, beer and cigarette in hand. He speaks with a slight twitch in his face. His hair is dishevelled although it is straight and short, I think I like him.

«Listen to me, Giulio», Tambu says with a different gaze, «I haven’t got one dollar. By chance, do you have any work for me?»

«So, has Australia transformed you in to a criminal?»

«I could be a good guy if “the system” helped me; if not, I make do.»

We are going to the Library, on Swanston street. Today is Monday and we are going to do the same for the next ten days. Every day to look for a job. I can’t say now how many resumés we sent out. Gumtree.com.au is the Ganges where all rivers spill out, someone offers, the most part asks. After the first week I’m a little worried because no-one replies to me. We decide to go to Lygon street to hand out resumès door to door. The sky is grey, it’s barely sprinkling. As soon as I look at an ice-cream shop I go inside trying to be brilliant and convincing. In Pesaro, in the summer time, when I was working at Germano Ice Cream, I could serve three ice creams at once: one cone between pinkie and annular, one between annular and middle, and another one between middle and index. That was when there were flocks of children and their parents chose strawberry and cream for all of them to get out quickly.

Then I go into a delicatessen and a pretty girl asks me if I have any knowledge about wine. At last, I end up to Brunetti, I say that Eolo gave me their contact details but no-one knows him. The manager – Italian – want to know if I speak English, which I do. He says he’ll call me in the week for a trial. Cool, says Giuliano, if you make the trail it’s impossible they don’t take you.

«Australian's don’t like to work too much, the Italians instead are very hard-working and if there’s a problem we find a creative solution: Italians do it better, said Madonna, and I agree with her».

Better or not, Giuliano leaves me alone, under the rain. My resumès start to wrinkle, printer’s ink to melt. I have a strange sensation in my heart. I can’t live with the guys forever, sleeping on the couch with Giuliano; I want to meet new people, to speak in English, to start my adventure seriously. I am worried about my lack of money and the job that doesn’t seem to want to come.

I feel lost now that Giuliano is gone, I think because I start to like that beast. Shit. It would be because I have just met him on this new continent. For this reason, maybe it will be better to distance myself from him. This makes me think of the story of Sansone; at 30 years old he is now wiser and knows that Dalila will cut off his hair, sooner or later.

Goodnight Giuliano, goodnight Baldi. I wake up at 8.30-9.00, have breakfast, catch tram number 19 without having to pay for a ticket, go to the library. Spend every day together. Girls were born under a water sign like me, Pisces ascending to Cancer, through their beloved, they magically and unconsciously activated a string of coincidence with desire.
That evening I arrived home, said to Giuliano «Hey, I’ve a job!», and incredibly he also said «Great! Me too! Where?».

«Giancarlo called me, Eolo’s friend, you remember? The guy I met on the plane, you know?»

«Giancarlo? Oh my god… the pizza factory?»

«In Campfield?»

«I've been calling him all summer and amazingly he called me back just now.»

«Jesus.»

Yep. Sounds weird, doesn’t it?

The same thing happens the day after. We had both been called by a lady named Christine and neither of us could attend the interview on Saturday afternoon because Giuliano had to go to the trial at the factory Friday night, and me on Saturday morning.

I wake up at 5.30am, the couch near to me is empty. I’m tormented and worried that I won’t find the factory. I have to catch the train and then the bus. It’s a dark night, and cold outside. I arrive in Upfield at 6am and there are three labourers at the bus stop. The first is reading the newspaper like he will every day, the second will smoke a cigarette, and the third will smoke a cigarette and drink a coffee.

When the bus arrives, I enquire to the driver if he knows where The Giglio factory is. Immediately he introduces himself, he’s Russian and asks me for the manager’s phone number. I get the idea that it’s not easy to enter the factory if you don’t know anyone.

I get off the bus, and I have to cross the highway. It's a bad road. I reach a huge industrial area, luckily I bought a smartphone recently, an iPhone. Yes, 3G. Without ‘S’, to save some money. If I had a wooden phone, maybe it would work better then mine: the internet is very slooow, and the platform doesn't support new apps; so it dislikes Whatsapp, Facebook, Skype etc. Anyway, Google Maps works well, and at last I find The Giglio.

There’s a group of girls in front of the entry, cigarette and phone in hand. It’s just turned 7am. I see Giuliano, he’s tired-looking, and has a pale face. It breaks my heart. My heart beats strongly. I took his face in my hands, ask him how it's going. I am his mate now, through thick and thin, this is romantic and miserable. From now on we’ll meet just at shift change, for a few minutes at sunrise and a little while at sunset, because he works the night-shift, and I work the day-shift. Just like Ladyhawke; I am the hawk during the day, and Giuliano the wolf of the night.

8 November 2013

Per la versione italiana clicca qui.

My temporary house is in Brunswick, East Melbourne, and the black taxi-driver, as soon as I tell him I’m italian, phones right away at his brother-in-law who lived for five years in Naples. Ciao, como stai? Di dove sei? Io sono lavorato a Napoli e a Milano col camion, tu conosci lago di Como?

I don’t pay enough for the taxi and the neighborhood looks nice, frame one-story-houses and pretty trees. The guy who hosts me he’s a fella from Bologna, friend of a friend of mine who passed me his contact. When the door opens, Genna comes to greet to me and we strongly hug. The living room looks like a camp, there are backpacks everywhere on the floor. They belong to the roman Marco and Filippone and to the bolognese Giuliano, whereas Domenico from Calabria and Andrea from Verona live in the house with Genna.

Tobacco on the table, tips of a smoked cigarettes and cigarette papers, full ashtrays. Genna says he’s doing pretty well for himself in Melbourne, nice friends, kind wages, opportunity to have a good career, although he still doesn’t know what he wants to do. Into the room everyone is a chef or a kind of. Filippone has got a thriving restaurant in Rome, he moved to Australia for to open another one. He hopes to bring all his family here, but the application to became an australian citizen is long-lasting and hard: first you have to find a job, then to hope your boss helps you with permanent visa application. And, man, that means a lot of fucking money. I tell them, I don’t care about remaining in Australia and neither taking the second working and holiday visa. I just want to go adventuring and take my chance, what is to be it will be. To be honest, I contacted some graphic studios when I was staying in Italy still. Just a couple replied to me, they liked my works but not my visa. I don’t want to complain myself, I know that if part of me is looking for a stable job and a stable relationship, the other part loves to be on the road and to vagabond. And, time ago, there was someone who told me “as long as you don’t allign your desires with your heart you’ll keep living in the same way; but, maybe, that’s all right”.

I take a beer, what pleasure! It’s quite two o’clock in the night, I don’t feel too much tired.

«Where’s Giuliano?», I ask – it was him that gave me Genna’s contact – «He’s gone out with Marchino, they should come back quickly.».

And infact they arrive soon after and immediately it turns into a party. Both Giuliano and Genna seem freaked out.

«Hey, you should look at your pupils… »

«That’s mdma, Cate, cocaine is too expensive.»

We move to kitchen, the others in living room are just in their sleeping bags.

«Hey, Baldi, do you want a line?»

I met Giuliano last summer on the beach, in Pesaro. We barely talked, he’d seemed to me nice-looking with his unquiet eyes, but that was it. Then, talking with friends about Australia and bla bla bla, someone told me he was there by time, and that maybe he could help me. Actually, I have other friends in Melbourne, they aren’t just from Pesaro, even they are from my neighborhood. But there was some problem with accomodation because no one of them have got an house, they are hosted by other italian friends. That’s Italy!

After a time we go to bed, I open my camp-bag over an air bed. I could start sleeping if Filippone’s iPad didn’t light up and vibrate every two seconds for messages coming from such fucking application.

There are four sleeping people in the living room. Two on the two couches, the others on the floor. After a bit time, finally sleep wins over me. The day after I should be doing a lot of things like to apply for medicare, to open a bank account, to buy a new australian sim card and to seek a job.

Giuliano wakes up pretty early and me too. We decided to meet Marchino in the city, he came back to the hostel the night before. There’s also Filippone with us, the Anxiety-Man, a good boy but I can’t really stand him, seriously, he talks no-stop. Anyway, we roll all together through the streets of Melbourne. We clearly are a clique of immigrant, you can guess from a mile off. Italians, easily recognise each another. The face features, the gait, the way we like hairdressing and to dress. Combed gel hair, stretch brand-designer t-shirts, faked worn-out jeans. Melbourne is a kind of little Italy. You can move to Australia without talking one english word, it’s enough you know someone that for sure knows someone else who throws you in any restaurant in Lygon street to do the dishwasher. Sometimes it could be easier to find a job for an italian than an english or german with very good english. Because if english and germans prefer traveling and coming back to motherland when their visa expires, for the italian is different. The italian moves to Australia hoping to end up here forever; he’s a desperate permanent visa seeker, he places himself in a big city like Melbourne or Sydney and he doesn’t want move any more. He saves money and then to bleeds dry for the cost of the student visa. He works for 10, 12 hours a day or more, the main thing is doesn’t come back to Italy. I don’t know if it’s an authentic desire, I mean, staying in Australia at any price; sometime it sounds to me like “in so far everyone runs, I run too”. Obviously, this is in general.

Thank heaven, Filippone moves away to see a room so that me, Giuliano and Marchino can wander around the city in peace. Melbourne is a very nice place. Victoria Market is a covered-market where you can purchase everything at low-cost. There are a lot of stands which sell italian products, from mozzarella di bufala to under-oil-hot peppers. The most popular little Italy in Melbourne is Lygon street. Here there’s an obscene souvenir shop that you suddenly notice for the Eros Ramazzotti and Gigi D’Alessio songs coming out at full blast. It sells Del Piero football t-shirts, flags, gadgets, shit in a few words. Instead, the best italian shop is Mediterranea, a supermarket in Sydney road, maybe a little expensive: a Bialetti moka for two small cups of coffee costs $36.

There are a lot of shopping centers in the city. They are enormous, you can loose yourself inside, labirynths with four or five flats. I need just an adaptor plug so Kmart is perfect, I find one at $9. If you are a backpacker you became aware very quickly of the weight of everything. In ethical and physical sense. Would you have got less money and a heavier bag? The equation couldn’t be worst.

We move to an asian restaurant to eat something. Melbourne is full of asians, maybe australians hide themself during the day and just come out just in the night, like the coackroaches. Filippone, the Anxiety Man, catches up with us in spite of myself, and, with my big surprise, I ascertain he can chat while is eating too. I’m feel nauseous. I can’t eat nothing. It’s like my stomach were tied by an elastic. Giuliano insists that I grab a bite, so, just for his kindness, I order a vegetable soup. I think that’s for the jet lag, anyway.

After coffee time we go for a stroll in Swanston street, where every ten metres there’s a street artist. Also in this case, the most part of them are asians: you can find the chinese pop singer, the indonesian illusionist and, Jesus, a crazy Sailor Moon hairdressing korean girl sings with a carrot in hand.

Luckly we don’t stop, keep on walking. We decide not to go back home. Genna catches up with us in a pub close to Backpackers Hostel, the most popoular hostel in Melbourne. A lot of guys live in the hostel for months, usually as long as they find a job, but it depends. In the pub Giuliano tells me his only romantic relationship in Australia is with an italian girl from Treviso who does the streaptease. He sold marijuana, she bought it. So they start a challenging sexual relationship, a tour the force under the sheets, a sort of chinese torture, he say.

«And then?»

«She was completely crazy, it couldn’t work.»

We order a couple of jugs. I discover for the first time what was a jug. It’s very cheap compared to a normal beer which generally costs $10. Beer and alcool in general are bleed the wallet in Australia. And you cannot buy them at the supermarket, you have to go to Liquorland and, anyway, the cheapest tin costs $3. If you want became drunk without spending too much, you should buy the wine in the paper box, 12 liters at price of $10, less or more. Wait, there’s a supermarket that sells bottle of wine, very cheap too, Aldi: $3,50.

After two glasses of beer I’m quite drunk. Near to us, a table of chinese are celebrating something. I go to them for calling out one at arm wrestling. Obiouvsly, I lost. But I did just to be a little funny. And so that, this my bravery ends up in two Hong Kong girls’s mobiles.