Travel Virus

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Colchester castle, originally uploaded by sabrina b.

I just arrived in Colchester UK, for the Essex summer school. I went for a tour of the city, which is small and nice. There’s a beautiful park just near the castle, in fact it’s called castle park. It’s huge and very artistic! Also a good place to spot wildlife such as some strange birds with long tail and cute squirrels. The museum inside the castle is fine, although is mainly about romans, which I already know It’s very kids-friendly and interactive. I also learned that Colchester was the capital of the roman empire in England (about 2000 years ago).
The campus of the summer school is almost 1 hour walking distance from the city center. You can take bus 61, 62, 74 and 75 to travel between the campus and the city.
I already met a lot of people here, mainly phd students from around Europe. And many many Italians Tonight there’s the welcome reception.

Does it look like Switzerland?? no way!

Geneva is a beautiful city with a very mediterranean athomosphere. I vote it as my favourite swiss city! Very multicultural, but still safe, it has the beach and so many people hanging around! What I like best are the incredibly long and wide walk/cicle paths along the lake, where I’m dreaming to go skating! It’a also a serious city, home of the UN, redcross, CERN, and two big universities. It can satisfy all tastes: one part of the city - Paqui - is multiculutral and has thousand of ethnic resaturants and shops. On the other side of the lake, Plainpalais is somehow the modern city centre. The old town is very nice, situated on a little hill, it looks “more swiss” than the rest of the city. Great city also for shopping.

Today I’m introducing you a very swiss recipe, called something like Alpinist’s pasta

It has three main components: apple sauce, fried onions and pasta cooked with potatos and dressed with: grated cheese, cream, milk, pepper, aromat, pinch of meg nut.

And then:

-Uri style (by Rahel): now put everything together and enjoy!
-Luzern style (by Ursina): put the onions on the pasta. Enjoy some pasta and then the apple sause (separate)!

The football game just finished, qualifying Italy for the Euro 2008 semifinal, and the athmosphere in Lugano is crazy! There are so many cars around the city with flags, clacson, music, screaming… it has been going on for half an hour now! Ah but, wait a moment…

Isn’t Lugano in Switzerland????

When Switzerland won the match there were maybe 10 or 20 cars around, with their small flag, and today is a total mess like if we won another worldcup!

It’s fun! But also makes me remeber that this is not really Switzerland!

You know, Italians are crazy about coffe, and in Italy you can find 100 different ways of putting coffe and milk together (espresso, macchiato caldo, macchiato freddo, cappuccino, minicappuccino, marocchino, decaffeinato, decaffeinato macchiato, d’orzo in tazza grande, in tazza piccola, cappuccino d’orzo, corretto… and so on). But here in Lugano I found the top of the top! The “mini cappuccino d’orzo”! That’s fantastic, since I don’t drink coffe, but the caffè d’orzo is also not too tasty, this is a very nice combination.
I discoverd this specialities in a famous pasticceria (backery) of Lugano, together with Christina and Eliane, that I met this weekend for the Alumini Corporate Communication and Marketing master meeting. All together the meeting was not so good, didn’t see many people from the old time as I hoped, and the crap weather didn’t help for sure. I hope by next weekend I can post some pictures with the sun!

I know, this blog is about travelling, not politics, but the choice of the next US president is going to affect also travellers, as for now it is nearly impossible to migrate to the US. Today was the announcment that Barak Obama will be the democrats candidate to the 2008 presidential election. This is a revolutionary fact!! Having lived in Virginia and experience the REAL America in highschool, I am absolutely amazed by the success of a non-white person for president! Already two years ago I named my dog Hilary (in the pic here, you see she’s also trying to get a too big bone!), convinced that Mrs Clinton would win the 2008 elections… but America made a big step toward renovating the dusty unfriendly image of the country, a bigger step than most of us could ever imagine! I’m very looking forward to the actual elections…

Last weekend I went to look for some sun, since in Lugano we had rain every day for the last three weeks! I went to the Istrian coast of Croatia, actually also for dental tourism, since it costs one third and the dentists are more friendly

This time I visited Porec, a very cute town (about 14.000 people) which forms like a peninsula in the sea, very scenic. There were too many tourists (like me!), but it was nice anyway. We took a bottom glass boat for a short trip around the coast and S. Nicolas island: it’s fun but didn’t see any interesting fish, just several gray little fishes and a few plastic nemo (mmm… some scuba divers is making fun of us??). In Porec there is also a famous church, the Eufrasian basilica, with beautiful golden mosaics (bizantin).

In this second trip to India I learnt to put the itinerary after, and not before starting the trip, because in India you never know… In fact I was planning to visit more places, north, but also small distances always need so much time travelling with public transportation. but it was fun to travel on the train and local busses… I made some interesting encounters on the nearly 50 busses I took, especially joung girls who were asking me all the details of my life In Kerala the busses have assigned sits for women, where men cannot sit, which was very nice.

I had a few reverse cultural shocks while coming back: first Swiss Air’s flights were all late (and I really mean all: four out of four!) and in the last flight they even manage to forget my luggage in zurich airport… so the swiss are not so precise as in the stereotipe! Then i go to the grocery store and I pick up one small melon: 4.50 CHF, and I’m thinking, with this money (220 rupies) i can go to a fancy restaurant in Kerala, have fish, vegetables, rice and fresh juice! Also the weather decided to make me miss my holidays even more… it will be raining for the next 5 days