Season's greetings

Merry Christmas to you & yours!

Happy New Year, wishing all your dreams make real!

I 'm going to spend my holidays in Paris. I'll be there for the New Year's Eve. Many many pictures will follow :)

Parco dei Nebrodi

Hi
I wish to show you the park of Nebrodi. It is located in Sicily (as you can easily realized). I went there for two days with some colleagues of mine and I had a jeep excursion through the park. We passed over the mountains and reached the opposite side of those. It was fantastic. Only nature, nothing else than flora and fauna.

Spite of december and the 900 meters of altitude, there wasn't snow. It was a sunny day but there were 8 degrees.
We left Troina (and its fog), a small village in the south of the mountains in the morning, with 4 jeeps. Each jeep driven by an expert ;). They brought us through wood, lakes and lowlands. After a little break at the Villa Miraglia (Cesarò) just for having a warm chocolate or a coffee and use the bath if necessary (even if the wood is FULL of "bathrooms" (as the guide said me), but only for MEN I wish to add ;)), we continued our excursion and reached S.Teodoro, a small village in the north of the mountains. The excursion taked more or less 5 hours. We took a walk also, there was mud because the day before it rained and the ground is made of argil. The result is that walking can be dangerous if you don't have the correct shoes. Some of us had the shoes for trekking, some others (like me) had only regular boots. Poor shoes :(.
During the trip, each jeep was connected to the others through radio. The jeeps run one after another, as you can see in the picture, while the guide described us the park. The "jeep guys" showed us the "twist", a particular wheels position, when the jeep pass over a irregular ground, the wheel are totally "twisted". They enjoyed the trip and we as well.
I published some pictures about Nebrodi, click on one of them to see more.

Aiutiamo i Bambini : Babbo Natale per un giorno...risultati

Ciao
sono lieta di annunciare che la città di Catania si è dimostrata molto generosa nei giorni 2 e 3 Dicembre, perchè ha donato una buona somma a favore dell'iniziativa "Babbo Natale per un giorno". Posso dire che il denaro raccolto costituisce una buonissima parte della somma necessaria alla ristrutturazione del pronto soccorso.
Sono contenta, in fondo in fondo la gente non è così egoista come sembra! WOW!
Infine voglio menzionare le persone stupende che ho conosciuto : Valeria (volontaria dell'associazione), Cettina, Claudia e Enzo (e altri di cui non ricordo il nome ;)). E' sicuramente grazie a loro se questi bambini sono stati al centro dell'attenzione della gente anche se per pochi istanti!

Hi
I 'm happy, Catania's stands collected a big part of money needed for the re-building of a part of the hospital in Cambodia. The first aid structure of that hospital will be rebuilt for hosting and nursing children.
I 'm happy because this help me to be more trustful in people. They are not so bad sometimes :).
I met beautiful people : Valeria (a volunteer of the "Aiutiamo i bambini" association), Cettina, Claudia and Enzo (someone else but I don't remeber their names ;)). Thanks to them, people walking in the street were involved and learned about cambodian children's issues. Children were under their attention for a while :).

About Poland

Marek
Originally uploaded by rossyrap.

At the beginning of November I went to Poland, in particular to Warsaw for a job seminar.
Unfortunately I couldn't visit Warsaw very deeply. I just was in the downtown, I saw the market square but it was in the evening and it was so dark .. and so cold that I couldn't appreciate it!
Then I spent a week end in Krakow with some colleagues of mine.
As Krakow is 5 hours from Warsaw by car and only 2,40 hours by train we chose the second mean and it was a good idea for many reasons.
First of all we travelled quietly. We appreciated the panorama through the windows and above all we spent the free time for discussing with a person that was sharing the compartment with us. Marek, his name, a polish man, about 45 years old. He was reading a newspaper and as soon as a colleague of mine asked him something about how to visit Auschwitz, it was the beginnning of a "history's lesson" about Poland and it was a big lesson! In fact, he talked for more than 1 hour, about Auschwitz, Warsaw, Krakow, kings, wars and more.
He suggested us do not visit Auschwitz and unfortunately we followed his suggestion. He talked us about the human rest still in the museum and about shoes of children and other stuff left there from the people that died there. We were so impressive that decided do not go.
He talked about second world war, and what amazed me was the cultural disaster that followed that war. He substained that not only people died in that war, but above all the culture because all the people with an high level of education were killed. People as professors from University and Jewish high cultured people were killed on purpose after partecipating to misleading dinners with Nazi.
Then he talked about Italy, as a great country in which culture and every kind of art has its kingdom. He talked about Copernicus that studied in Italy. He was so enthusiastic to talk with italian people :).
After this "for free" lesson he showed us how to get a taxi in Krakow and we couldn't thank him in any way except by taking a picture of us (see picture, Marek is the man with the white cap) and sending it to him by mail. And I did it !
A question arised to me suddenly: why did we choose the same compartment of that person?Was it just luck?or destiny?
Finally we started visiting Krakow, it is a nice place, Pope Juan Paul II is very loved there.
I went back home after a very short visit to Eisenstadt, but I was ill and I just saw the main street for 10 minutes. Nice town!

Swanee String Quartet

Swanee String Quartet
Originally uploaded by rossyrap.

I was in a Jazz concert last saturday, I listened to Swanee String Quartet of Giorgia Meli, and it was a beatiful concert!
The quartet is dedicated to George Gershwin. Swanee is a Gershwin's song. The singer has a beautiful voice and she sings perfectly using perfect english pronunciation and following perfectly melody with its beautiful nuances. Of course, she sang Summertime, with immense abandon.

About Wien

Last September I went to Wien for a week. I spent a weekend there and I visited the sights of the city. My God, I 've never seen anything as special as Wien! The atmosphere is full of emotion, music is in the air, art is everywhere. Magnificent buildings remind us of the imperial courts and people who lived there.
Talking about music, something very special happened: while walking in the main street, the Kinderstrasse if I 'm not wrong, I saw a girl playing a piano..I mean a piano (not a grand piano) in the middle of the street!. She was an "artist of the street" and was playing Mozart, Schubert..and whatelse. She introduced each musical excerpt before playing it. She was so involved and inspired while playing that many people stopped nearby to listen to her. It looked like an opera concert, but for free, for common people...wow!
She was beautiful! I can't forget the atmosphere I experienced that evening.
I tried to take a picture of her with a N70 but the quality is not brilliant.. see for yourself.
During the weekend, I visited the "Haus Der Musik" ( http://www.hdm.at/ ), nice museum dedicated to music. A friend of mine suggested the museum to me and I can say that it was a good suggestion! It contains exhibitions about sounds and permits you to experience with the sounds using particular monitors and tools for generating them (sometimes noises as well). The museum also contains rooms that recreate houses where musicians as Mozart, Schubert lived. I didn't like these exhibits so much.
I visited a photograph gallery, it is the second that I 've ever seen in my life. I liked it very much ( http://www.worldpressphoto.nl ). The pictures can show you foreshortenings of life as nothing else can do. Some pictures show some aspects of life that everybody knows but nobody is conscious about them before seeing them...Some pictures were too strong, I couldn't look at it for more than half a second because they showed suffering people, among them were children, it is not easy to think about children as suffering people.
The picture that sobered me the most and left me amazed was the one that showed african people, on the north-west coast of Africa, a dark land with no lights, looking at the Spanish coasts (through the Gibraltar's strait) and what they could see was lighten towns and those towns seemed to be so close to them. It seemed that they could reach them just by swimming...this should make you humble.
Above all, I met new people, from Spain, Austria itself, Albany and .. Italy :). I ate sushi, running sushi, for the first time ;P.
I met an italian guy, he was visiting Wien alone as a turist. He was so happy when he realized that he was talking with an italian. I showed him some itineraries and I spent a few hours with him. I don't remember the name ;P but he was a good company.
When I got back in Italy I missed Wien for many days...maybe I 'll go back there again some day again!

Sicily

Oh! Can this subject be missing in a blog site of a Sicilian girl? Maybe you know, Sicilian people are proud to be sicilian .. even if sometimes it should be better do not be ;). And so, why do not talk about Sicily, about its wonderful aspects, as well as its (unfortunately) well known bad aspects. I can say that wonderful aspects are so many that you 'll forget the bad ones...hopefully. This will be the bet of this section.
I 'll show you the wonderful naturalistic aspects of Sicily, the sea, the mountains, the weather ... I 'll show you the people as well and its lovely way of welcoming turists and its way of ... cheating them as well ;).
That's my country, damned and wonderful Sicily.

No comment please, I'm susceptible... I'm joking of course! Please, don't forget I 'm the moderator and .. sicilian ;)!

Travelling

Thanks to my current job, I travel a lot. Especially during last months. Furthermore, travelling is part of my hobbies since last three years and I want to see as many places as possible.
The posts labelled with "travel" are related to that. The section includes pictures, comments, stories and events occurred during my travels. The section is dedicated to the places I 'm going to visit and the ones I 've already visited so far.
It contains my thoughts about people, culture and ways of life as well.

Your comments are welcome!...as you already know :)

Music

I love music, all kind of music, whenever it is able to spread emotions....big emotions!
The posts labelled with "music" (you can select them by using the menu on the right side) are dedicated to the Music. I 'll talk about songs, maybe classic music or other genres, but not commercial music (NdR (Nota di Rossella): this last is an inconsistent sentence : "commercial music", it does not make any sense...it is not music! See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music for definition, but I 'm going to find a more useful and meaningful definition as I intend it).
With the "Music" section, I wish to share with you emotions that It gives to me and maybe it can give to you, share knowledge, understand more about music, helped by your comments..so please send me your comments, I need of them!
I'll try to transmit to you my feeling as much as possible....unfortunately I cannot sing for you ;)

PS: comments will be moderated by me and eventually published.

Eccomi..

Ciao!
Eccomi, nel fantastico mondo dei ... blogs!
Il motivo che porta alla creazione di questo blog è la voglia di condividere i miei pensieri, le mie esperienze, le mie emozioni. Ho desiderato tante volte poter gridare le emozioni, le rabbie e soprattutto le cose belle della vita.
Questo blog sarà composto da tanti argomenti, quelli che man mano incontreranno la mia vita e che in quel momento saranno per me importanti tanto da doverli condividere con le persone.
Spero sia l'inizio di una bella avventura....fatemi gli in bocca al lupo :)

Hi!
Here I am..I decided to join blogs' world finally!
The scope of this blog is to share my thoughts,emotions, life experiences. I wish to share the best of life above all.
This blog will be composed by as many arguments as possible. They will be added following my current emotions and only if they are worth to be shared and .. why not... shouted!
Hopefully, this blog is the beginning of a fantastic adventure...good luck! :)