London

"All this time I was finding myself , but I did not know I was lost"
Certain cities seem to have the power to speak to our hearts, while others put you in the corner, London has always had a strange effect on me. Like a bitter sip of medicine, either healing through its strength or weakening for its strong consequences. London shakes you, awakening with its pouring rain, challenging with its gray sky that leaves no place for easy satisfactions. It opens the mind, with its undeniable momentum, forcing you to seek more than a way out, at least with your fantasy. So many are those who come here pursuing their career, choosing to spend a couple of years away from real life. Each day, they spend fifteen hours working. Nothing else, not even during the weekends, in front of the desk or draining their soul and wallet in a posh Chelsea’s club.
In London you can choose to forget yourself, or to deal with opportunities, hidden among young professionals who fled from countries that should be their future. You can come here to get lost, or to look for yourself, hoping that someone will wake up at the right moment. Cos it’s only stopping the movement that you can understand where to go, and what you really care about.
" Don’t worry Cameron , we will stop the recession" It’s written in the subway .
We'll wake up, one day.

Nick: couchsurfing in San Fran

Couchsurfing for the first time, a new challenge in my first visit to San Francisco.

That s how I met Nick: spare keys ready for me, lunch waiting for my arrival, soft towels on my couch. Blue coloured pillows, a futurist painting with the flavours of summer, a egg-shaped chair, four guitars and two Buddhas, fluorescent lights that changed colour when passing by.

Nick loved his home: it was its shelter, his port far from the world outside, a welcoming place for all his fellows. There was a blue wall in his room, with the word "Girls" painted in red, as to suggest Nick's bad attitude towards women. But Nick would have never convinced anybody: nobody watching his drawings and his books would ever believe in his "bad boy attitude". And all those who listened to him playing would never buy that he arrived in San Francisco following the the Silicon Valley’s dream. Nick  was deep and sensitive, fast in following his passion, and so elusive to be almost forgetful of himself . He had a dream: to work as a cook in an organic catering, with no machine in the land of self –movement, having chosen to walk between the markets of a city full of Californian fruits and flavours. He was in love with Frisco, with the migrants of Castro and the organic sandwiches of the shop next door. He loved the Speakeasies of the Haights, the shadow of Prospect Park and the murals of Mission.

By chance I trusted Nick, accepting his Couchsurfing invitation, preferring him to a yoga instructor. I would have never done it before, enchained in my fear of letting go, of trusting others, even if they could be my princes. But not this time: this time I wanted to play my cards right, without sacrificing this occasion. And so I found myself in a studio in the Spanish barrio of Mission, contemplating San Francisco from a blue rooftop in front of the ocean, ready to cycle on the Golden Bridge and escape to Alcatraz after an ice cream at Fishermen's Wharf.

Only the convertible was missed to make this a daydream.

We talked about the world and our life mission, Nick and I, we discussed the"Stay hungry , stay foolish " of Steve Jobs, admiring his courage to drop everything in the pursuing of a passion.

I recall those conversation every time I think of America, now that, wandering around the streets of Rome, I think of what I miss, of the reason of my insatiable thirst to go .