Differently from my previous return trip to the US last July, this time I did not have any change of plan and I left on September 12 as scheduled. As I wrote in one previous post, I had already made arrangements for the new accommodation before going back to Italy, in August: my recent experience suggested that I should be cautious, but this time I was pretty confident that I would have no bad surprises. And fortunately that was the…
As described in the post that I published yesterday in the Research category, I spent the past days in Vienna to participate in the IAEE conference. The conference started on Sunday evening (September 3), so I thought it could be nice to leave on Saturday morning and enjoy a couple of days as a tourist. After all, it is well known that Vienna is magnificent and I really longed to visit it. Plus, this desire has probably grown during this…
Yes, eventually I decided to go back to Italy to spend some weeks at home. In fact, not only was the research of the new accommodation unsuccessful, but it was further “flavored” by a series of frustrating events (I will write the details in a book, I swear!) which, added to the problems that I had already been experiencing, made me decide to take a period off. In this sense, it was really providential to have sent an abstract to…
The International House often organizes events and activities for residents. Apart from in-house events (like the coffee&sweets night on Wednesdays and the social games on Fridays), an excursion is scheduled about once a week. Already in the very first days of my stay, my attention had been captured by this announcement: I did not think about it twice and I immediately signed in: after all Alcatraz – probably the most famous prison in the world – is a must-see here…
As predicted, I could access the International House only after the weekend (see my previous post). The residence was built in 1930 to host students and researchers from all over the world (and partly from the US as well), so for about one hundred years it has somehow represented the “linking point” between UC Berkeley and the world. One interesting fact is that when I was filling in the admission form that I mentioned in my previous post, I could…
17.15 18.41 19.06 19.30 20.15 21.00 21.45 22.00 23.00 22.45 Am I getting mad? Well, it is possible indeed, but in this case these figures do have a sense: they are the departure times of my flight from Washington to San Francisco as progressively communicated by United (I have the proof on my email account!) Last Friday, in fact, a huge storm suddenly broke out precisely when I was approaching the airport. “Fortunately it all began when I was just…
After my three European weeks, it is now time to go back to the US! As I had anticipated, before going to California, however, I am spending some days on the East Coast, and in particular in College Park, Maryland – basically near Washington – where I am taking part into the International Energy Workshop (IEW). “Then why did you take the plane to Newark (i.e. New York) if you had to go to Washington?” one could reasonably ask… Indeed…
Gosh, five months have already passed and it is now time to go back home! Even before leaving for California in January, in fact, I had already planned a “European break” from mid-June to early July. In this period I will be going to FEEM – where I will have a meeting with my supervisor Prof. Tavoni and I will give a seminar concerning the work done in the first months of my project – and I will participate in…
Once again, the past weekend was characterized by a tour outside the San Francisco Bay with Sara. This time our trip was shorter than the previous one, though: on the one hand Sara had her plane to go back to Italy on Saturday afternoon, and on the other hand I could not take more days off, so I would be free only starting from lunchtime on Friday. Therefore we decided to have an excursion to the Monterey Bay (about one…
Last week I finally managed to make my first real trip as a tourist here in the US. Actually it was not too long (three full days, basically), but I was very satisfied because I could see some of the places that I had highlighted in my agenda. After all, the timing was favorable: on the one hand on May 19 it was my birthday, and I really wanted to gift me something special; on the other hand, my Italian…