Start!

After all the preliminaries, the meetings, the Skype calls, the farewells to those who will stay at home and the preparation of the luggage… THE ADVENTURE FINALLY BEGINS! We flew  towards Portugal, towards a new chapter of our Book. The trip was perfect, two amazing flights with applauded landings. During the landing in Lisbon, the view of the city was wonderful, with an ancient charm made of beautiful architecture, colors, and green areas.

We are four strangers put together by chance for this Portuguese adventure. Adventure within the adventure!!!! Up to now our group dynamics have been great. Let’s introduce ourselves:

FERNANDO GATTO

My life motto is “Live and let live” (not very original, but surely mine). I want to summarize myself in this way: “travel, unexpected and adventure lover. I started travelling more frequently during the last few years, straight after I retired. Maths teacher for more than 30 years, I taught in Torino for 8 years and for 22 in the San Donato di Lecce middle school, where I ended my career. Besides of travelling, I like hosting people from all over the world with whom exchanging opinions, ideas, methods and costumes.”

STEFANIA CICCARELLI

Hi everybody, I’m Stefania, I’m 54 and I’m from Genoa (Liguria) but I live in the Salento region (Puglia). I’ve got a husband from Puglia and two half-blood children of whom I’m very proud, as all mothers (maybe in Portugal they don’t know the saying “Every beetle is beautiful for its mother”- let’s say: it’s Italian culture!).

As with everybody from Planet Earth I’m a zero: before I thought it was an improper condition, but now I think it’s a wonderful thing. As with all the people from Liguria region, and surely the Portuguese people too, I love the sea, sailing and I’d love to discover the world; I feel comfortable in ports and the coast is my natural habitat. I’m happy about doing this trip in Lisbon, above all in this way that help me participate in all the local activities, know a little bit of the language and meet local people. I want to fill my eyes and soul with ALL the beauties of this country, my heart with all the new people that I’ll meet and my stomach with all the good delicious things that they can prepare! There are a lot of sentences, aphorisms, quotes that I like, I’d write them everywhere to surround myself and/or to offer them to other people, but these three are the most recurring ones: To start with, I’d say, “IF YOU CAN DREAM IT, YOU CAN DO IT” by Walt Disney (a genius, and a great innovator of his time); secondly, “WHEN THE GAME GETS TOUGH, TOUGH PEOPLE START PLAYING” by Benito Mussolini (I liked it before knowing it was his!!!!) and finally, “EVERY MISSED CHANCE IS LOST” of which I ignored the author, maybe it’s common knowledge; I stopped saying the last one because my daughter hates it (but I think about it anyway, Alessandra!). This is, moreover, a story about the tiny particles and beams inside one’s eye that everybody should always keep in mind. I’m sure that even in Portugal they know it quite well, the Author is a pretty famous person.

My biggest passion is painting, through it's various shapes and aspects, through which I try to create environments and subjects chromatically and harmoniously, that can embrace the one who lives it in a joyful and beautiful atmosphere. That’s how I want to change the world, in my own small way.  I’m always “hungry” to knowing new things. I’d like to love more and better, but my limits make me fly low. But I don’t give up.

GIUSEPPE FRANCO –PINUCCIO

My name’s Giuseppe Franco, but everybody calls me Pinuccio. I’m 63 and I’m retired. But if you think that I wear slippers and live like an old man…well…, you’re wrong. I take advantage of having more spare time to travel, read and practise my favorite sports, which are speleology and canyoning.

La scoperta della Grotta Micello a Poggiardo 

My motto? I borrowed it from Dante Alighieri and it says, paraphrased: “You were not made to live like brute, but to follow virtue and knowledge!”

ANGELA SABATO

The life motto I’m thinking about is: « “Live and let live”. I try to describe myself: …I’m almost 55 and I often need to remind it to myself J I’ve lived every nice and bad moment of my life intensely, I’ve got a beautiful family, wonderful children. I’ve so much to give, I’ve always felt like learning, meeting new people, sharing life experiences; I like being part of a group and being organized… It’s useless to say that I like to spend time with young people because they give me so much life energy and make me remember the 16 year old girl living inside of me.

I like listening to the others, talking about myself and comparing our experiences. I like rock and roll but I can’t dance it… And finally I love Freddy Mercury like a fool.

As in the funny movie “The Incredibles”, we’re a normal group of ex super heroes, a bit old, but still with a mission to be accomplished, and to do so we need to use our superpowers.

By now we found out that Angela has so much sweetness, Pinuccio keeps has very good physical strength and shape, Ferdinando has a sharp sense of humor that makes us cry more than  laughing gas. I, Stefania, was unanimously elected to be the group blogger, so I have to allow the others make comments about me.

VulcanicaMente selected us and sent us to Spin. Spin gave us a warm welcome and the adventure started in the best possible way. We were welcomed by a happy and joyful committee at the airport composed by Aneta, the Spin “boss”, and two wonderful volunteers: the sparkling Tiziano and the discrete Gonzalo who took us to our new home.

The arrival at the Lisbon airport

They assigned us a beautiful apartment right in the city centre: we have spacious, comfortable and bright rooms, with a view of the castle. We have big and comfortable bathrooms and a great living room. The kitchen is equipped with everything we could need.

We didn’t even fight for the rooms because they are all beautiful and each one can have their privacy.

But it’s not over yet: Zofia, another volunteer who will be our Portuguese teacher also joined us and we all ate something together in a friendly environment.

When an Italian tongue touches Portuguese food it’s love at first bite! And this is how we got to know the amazing sopa de frango (chicken soup) and bacalhau com natas (cod fish baked with cream). (Another parenthesis to my Italian brothers, cod fish here is legendary!!), well combined with wine and juice. Full and satisfied we got ready for the next day.