Let’s take a break. Prendiamoci una pausa.

[Testo in italiano in fondo]

January 2016

Unannopersbagliare officially takes a break. Well, I, Gaia, take a break from updating this blog. As you might have noticed I haven’t been posting for some time (or maybe you didn’t as I was never so consistent! 😉 ) and I don’t know when and if I start again.

The thing is, I feel that keeping this blog pushed me in the right direction, the one that I am following now. I needed that push so much at that time: I was going through a depression (even if I didn’t know it yet), and I struggled and fought to get a job I was unhappy with in the end… I needed to start over, allowing myself to make mistakes, as wanting to always do the right thing didn’t lead me far. And certainly didn’t make me happy.
Therefore, in late 2009, I decided I’d find my fresh start in what I’ve always loved doing: writing and cooking. I had just met Orso who had to leave for another continent and therefore I had picked up writing again.

More than six years on I moved to three new countries, I went back to university, I became a journalist (among many other other things!) I married Orso, I threatened to divorce him, I discovered the African and the American continents, I (finally!) lived in China and ate countless slices of cake.
Long story short: apart from my love of cakes, everything else in my life has changed.

That’s so exactly me, right now.
Ecco, questa sono io, adesso.

Now writing and talking is my job: you can follow my media, communication and training work on gaiamanco.net and from there you can discover all the pretty and super-serious things I am doing with digital media.

My cakes now feature on my Instagram account, which is a tribute to my friends and family and how they are present in my everyday life, even if from so far away. And there are a lot of pretty pictures of home and travels.

My travels are featured in my shiny new podcast Accidentally in Joburg. It’s one of the projects I’m most proud of, 100% handmade by me, you should listen to it and follow it. Follow it!

I also try and give an original view of the African continent with my Yebo! radio show. As you notice, they are both in Italian, as I am exploring working more in my mother-tongue.

Of course, I always bring Lucy along, as you can see in the photoblog Lucy travels (Lucy and Gaia) as soon as I get the time to download thousands of pictures from 4 continents and 11+ years of travel.
In my travels, I have even found some fellow feminist bloggers with whom I created the thought-provoking Le Donne Visibili.

Every single of these projects started in a way or another here on unannopersbagliare, and I thank you for reading and supporting me.

I’m sure we’re going to meet again for an honest chat and a piece of cake.
See you,

Gaia

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Gennaio 2016

Unannopersbagliare si prende ufficialmente una pausa. O meglio, io, Gaia, mi prendo una pausa dall’aggiornare questo blog. Non pubblico un nuovo post da molto tempo (non che sia mai stata molto puntuale, è vero) e non so se e quando ricomincerò.
Il fatto è che mi sembra che questo blog -e voi che lo avete letto- mi abbia spinta nella direzione giusta. Quando ho cominciato avevo bisogno di quella spinta: stavo attraversando una depressione (anche se all’epoca non lo sapevo) e avevo trovato a fatica un lavoro e una vita che credevo di volere e invece… Insomma: avevo bisogno di ricominciare, sbagliando, perché credere di fare tutto giusto non mi aveva portata lontano. E di certo non mi aveva fatta felice. Mi serviva una nuova partenza, ed avevo deciso di trovarla nelle cose che mi sono sempre piaciute, comunque: scrivere e cucinare. Avevo appena incontrato Orso che era subito partito per un altro continente e per questo avevo ripreso a scrivere.

Da allora ho traslocato tre volte in tre Paesi diversi, sono tornata all’università, sono diventata giornalista (e non solo!), ho sposato Orso, l’ho minacciato di divorziare, ho scoperto l’Africa e l’America, ho vissuto in Cina e mangiato tantissime torte.
Per farla breve: è cambiato tutto nella mia vita, tranne l’amore per le torte.

That’s so exactly me, right now.
Ecco, questa sono io, adesso.

Adesso scrivo e parlo per lavoro: su gaiamanco.net potete restare aggiornati sul mio lavoro nei media e comunicazione (in inglese, italiano, francese e tedesco, non ancora in cinese!) e scoprire tutte le cose serie e interessanti che faccio e che mi piacciono.

Le torte si trovano sul mio account Instagram , che è un omaggio alla presenza della mia famiglia e dei miei amici nella mia vita di tutti i giorni in altri continenti. E ci sono anche un sacco di foto carine di dove vivo e dove vado.

Dei miei viaggi ora parlo nel mio nuovissimo podcast Accidentally in Joburg. E’ un progetto di cui sono fierissima, ascoltatelo e seguitelo, è fatto a mano da me dalla prima all’ultima parola. Seguitelo!

Cerco anche di dare una visione alternativa del continente africano con la rubrica radiofonica Yebo! Entrambi i radio-progetti sono in italiano, anche questa è una nuova sperimentazione.

Porto sempre Lucy con me, ovviamente, come si vede nel photoblog Lucy travels (Lucy and Gaia), anzi come si vedrà quando avrò tempo di scaricare le migliaia di foto che le ho fatto in questi 11 anni insieme!
Ah, ho anche finalmente trovato delle amiche blogger e femministe, ed insieme abbiamo creato Le Donne Visibili.

In un modo o nell’altro, ognuno di questi progetti è nato su questo blog, quindi vi ringrazio per avermi letta e sostenuta.

Sono sicura che ci rivedremo per una confidenza ed una fetta di torta.
A presto,

Gaia

We’re heading South

Spousal support

As my marriage is inspiring more and more posts recently, I grew hesitant about whether Orso was bothered by it. So I asked. Here is how it went.

“Don’t you mind me writing about our marriage in my blog?”

“No, I’m fine with it.

Anyway, it’s not like you’re successful or anything”

Street art in Bairro Alto, Lisbon

Siccome il mio matrimonio ha ispirato molti dei miei post ultimamente mi è venuto qualche scrupolo. Nel matrimonio siamo in due, e magari  a Orso dà fastidio. Quindi ho chiesto, ecco com’è andata:

“Non ti da fastidio che scriva del nostro matrimonio sul mio blog?”

“No, mi sta bene.

Tanto non è che hai successo, no?”

Four years – Quattro anni

Note:
Very accurate reenactment with professional actors.
Ricostruzione storica accurata con attori professionisti. 

A casual encounter that turned into four years…

of love letters,

of committment…

… and fights!

Four years of… ehm… passion!

Of travels around the world.

Four years, and it’s just the beginning.

Scenes from a European marriage: Breakfast

[English text below]

Anche se non l’ha detto io l’ho capito, che oggi è stato il giorno più bello della sua vita. L’ho visto nei suoi occhi, quando mi ha detto: “C’è il Müsli in offerta al supermercato, non è mai costato così poco” Così abbiamo preso lo zaino, le borse, i cestini aggiuntivi delle biciclette. Siamo arrivati a casa con 14 scatole e lui, con ancora gli occhi che brillavano mi ha detto: “Io ci torno anche domani”

Sono sicura che se mai avremo figli Müsli verrà fuori nella rosa dei nomi.

Even if he didn’t say so, I knew it. I knew it was the best day of his life. I saw it in his eyes, when he told me: “The Müsli is on offer at the supermarket. It has never been so cheap!” We took the backpack, the bags, the additional bike baskets and we came back home with around 14 boxes of Müsli. His eyes were still glittering when he told me: “I go back tomorrow”.

I am sure that if we ever have kids, Müsli will come up among the baby names.

A note for 2013. Appunti per il 2013

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is not an act, but a habit.” Aristotle

“Siamo quello che facciamo sempre. L’eccellenza non è un’azione, ma un’abitudine” Aristotele

Happy New Year! Buon anno!

On turning 30

I had 2 classroom parties where I brought homemade biscuits. I organised a Saturday afternoon birthday party where my friends had to dress up in fancy costumes. I got a ticket to the zoo and accessories for my bike.

They say 40 is the new 20. I don’t know about that, but the way I see it 30 is  definitely the new 10.

Three years

From the art project: A love letter to Syracuse

I lived in three countries visited four continents.
I lost a job, I left another job and went back to university.
I burned bridges and made a friend I’ve always missed.
I investigated a murder case and baked perfect meringues.
I cheated and swore eternal love.
I picked up a new language and forgot an old one.
I lost my mind, then got it back, then lost it again. Now, I’m fighting for it once more.
I screamed with rage one afternoon in the peace of the Summer Palace, I laughed in a Portuguese garden in Montreal, I waved hello to giraffes in Leipzig.

And all of it because today, three years ago, I met you.

First it was a conversation, then a kiss, then a love letter. Before we realised it, it was life.

Will you marry me?

Today two people asked me to marry them. If only one person proposed I could have considered it quite ordinary, I’ve been there before (actually no, I’ve never been asked), but two: it clearly deserves some thinking and writing.

I talk about a lot of things I am not a expert of and working as a journalist doesn’t help.
I am certainly not a meringue expert, I’ve baked them only a few times. I am not a marriage expert since I’ve been married for six months only: precisely today by the way.
Maybe it’s the oven, maybe it’s the husband. But hey, they both came out well. Maybe it’s me too, couldn’t it be?

Many say that they prefer not to get married so that they can choose each other everyday. While of course I respect that, it leaves me unsatisfied. I don’t need to ask myself the question everyday. I love him so much or maybe just enough to know the answer will be “yes”. People change overtime, you say, and I agree. But I could not imagine a different and older version of myself who doesn’t love cream and meringue and raspberries and Orso.
Thus to celebrate this half anniversary and my double marriage proposal I chose a mini version of our wedding cake: Pavlova with berries.

Pavlova is not the most obvious choice for a wedding cake, since you cannot make a real a piece montée out of it, there is no cake dough in it, just meringue. Two people who haven’t known each other for long, who only had a long distance relationship, who have never lived together and who don’t speak the same language(s) are not the most obvious characters for a wedding. Sometimes you have to trust yourself with making the right choice.

Questo slideshow richiede JavaScript.

Since I’m not home I don’t have the exact recipe with me: be patient!

This cake is for Orso, who is -needless to say- in a different country than me at the moment, and for the two people who consider me enough of a friend and a marriage expert to ask me to marry them: to each other.

I said yes.

The shortest month

It’s the shortest month, it doesn’t look like it though.
Febbraio è il mese più corto, però non sembra.

I saw Leipzig glowing with ice and snow.
Ho visto Lipsia risplendere fra ghiaccio e neve.

I got closer to the Equator and looked South, toward the South Pole, from the sunny Accra coast in Ghana, while the Harmattan covered the sky with Sahara sand.
Mi sono avvicinata all’Equatore e ho guardato lontano, verso il Polo Sud, dalla costa di Accra, Ghana, mentre il cielo era pieno di sabbia dal Sahara portata dall’Harmattan

I swam in a Tropical lagoon and went up the Volta River in a pirogue.
Ho nuotato in una laguna tropicale e risalito il fiume Volta a bordo di una piroga.

I saw the sun setting over the weird mix of Alps, highways and suburbs that for long I called home.
Ho visto il sole tramontare su quella strana confusione di montagne, autostrada e provincia che per tanto tempo ho chiamato casa.

And it’s not March yet!
E non è ancora Marzo!