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To the early and less enduring snow of late autumn that year followed abundant precipitations that soon covered with a white mantle the mountains around Munich It could have been the landscape printed on a Christmas card or the atmosphere depicted by Thomas Mann in many of his novels Perhaps even Hitler would have taken inspiration for a watercolour It could have for sure promoted the sale of the frame...
The daylength was shortening and the winter was coming Autumn with its colourful games was also leaving the pace to the quiet and well ordered mood of the winter A Sunday morning I was going to pay the weekly visit to the local museums I managed to wake up quite early more than usual because the weather forecast did not announce a favourable day for strolling around without an umbrella...
The exotic and fascinating aura generated by the Islamic community has not spared to influence Munich under different forms The curvy belly dancers of the local burlesque review Kurdish refugees living in Germany for a whole life without having lost the attachment to Homeland Iranian taxi drivers and engineers sick of the idiocy of the Ayatollahs regime Also some Moroccan of Berber extraction and Bosnian eacute migr eacute s gifted...
I came back quite tired that night riding on the bicycle for more than 50 kms in a day is something I was not accustomed to I am not either during these days Just the time for a brief shower then back to my highly demanding social life Since I have moved here a small club of expatriates free thinkers some tinkers and really few ladies although not deprived of...
I move around the ruins of an highly classified area paying more attentions to the thriving nature than to the desolated buildings Field flowers are surrounding the place Like in a pre raphaelite painting wild roses are embracing the surviving bricks The atmosphere is enchanting the only danger could come from a spiky rock My shoes are old they comfortably fit to my feet but have also got acquainted far...
Ralph had become one of my best friends in Western Germany Sympathetic with my peculiar condition he was so deeply attracted by Italian culture that he allowed me to forget about the political troubles I had recently lived Just like playing Bach or Mozart by speaking to him was like to travel back on the other side of the Alps in a XVIII century aristocratic mansion On the shores of...
I need to relax and play the music of Johann Sebastian Bach on the piano It has been installed on my special request a silent mechanism Just to watch out the reaction of my neighbours Germans are quite sensible to any loud and their scarce artistic feelings would let them judge my tunes as much annoying as the sound produced by a drill John Cage would have perhaps agreed but...
Quite regularly the jewish community offers to the inhabitants of the city cultural initiatives aimed to give to the gentiles a positive perception of its own presence They are always enjoyable mostly organized by gentle ladies who could have been depicted by an Agatha Christie s movie Sometimes are lectures mostly about a prominent jewish author who has written about Munich or worked for a while in the area Others...
Among the others I have acquired a good sense of familiarity with colleagues moved away from the former Socialist Republic of Romania Some of them are actually Hungarian and still sadly recollect the Treaty of Trianon with all the consequences on the territorial integrity of their own land Other just complain how in Yalta the doom of the Danubian nation has been decided without even slightly taking care of feeling...
It is not the same to work with a local company that also hires foreigners to cut the budget still maintaining the habits of the country and to be employed within a multinational based corporation The latter attempts to involve everybody almost on the same level under the not written rules of an international coexistence For such a goal is required an extremely flexible mind prone to accept any kind...
It rsquo s Monday once more and a new week will start among the labyrinth of cubicles that constitutes my workplace If I could take a slice of the tower that is hosting me among another couple of thousands of colleagues take a picture and just slightly enhance the contrasts with Photoshop I would have a perfect wallpaper for my screen It rsquo s just like that Jacques Tati rsquo...
The sun has risen once more and it rsquo s sunday A day for preaching it were not that I have preferred to declare myself an atheist than to pay the Kirchensteuer An expensive toll extorted to any believer on the western side of the Berlin Wall as if they were purposely trying to eradicate any religious feeling Yet Germany is a democracy and does not belong to the Soviet...
The hardships of exile sound harsh also for those whose spirit would tend anyway to expatriate and explore what lies beyond the horizon What has been left behind is after all a full explored world and a rich social network It is however hard to fully appreciate the essential nuances of a foreign country without living there for years Sometimes they turn out to be nuisances as well but it...
It is during one night spent out looking for girls and wasting money on cheap beers that I have met one of the most extraordinary creature who has so far populated my adventure She appeared to me like the queen of the night suddenly A log left along the Isar after the great flood was covering her from my sight when humming a XVII century melody Come unto these yellow...
We gather close to the city centre A friend of mine and I are looking for some seductive glance from young ladies Especially those who have just ended the University and are looking for a first job even part time They are perhaps going on with a Master or also collecting some extra money to be put together with the limited income of a Ph D The square is quite...
Environmentalism is a science or a religion or both of them As much as marxism has been for more than a century and Scientology claims to be Adepts of environmentalisms as well as of Scientology are quite common and well entrenched on the side of the Isar that I have chosen for my encampments They have however successfully managed to cross the river and infiltrate the most conservative areas quite...
He had experienced my fears and understood my feelings he had lived my obsessions much more than I had done so far He is a colleague of mine and comes from Erfurt from the former so called DDR It is now just a videogame one of the funniest one the Disco Dance Revolution Also quite outdated almost as much as the Deutsche Demokratik Republik or even more given the fast...
I reach the office quite early as usual Germans do The schedule is quite flexible and even full time employees enjoy some freedom that is seldom allowed to freelancers in other countries Like that I have just left behind me where scarce consideration exists for those who do not work under the protection of some labour union Qualified personnel is on the contrary regarded with the rank of the best...
When I wake up I usually roll peacefully in my bed I seldom had such sweet dreams before for so many nights in a row nbsp It rsquo s like to qualify first for the Grand Prix week after week being praised like a champion and indeed mathematically winning the world title Perhaps the cover is quite smelly since in the capitalist world you have got to do it everything...
I suddenly stand up and move in the direction of the next door aiming for home A slim and tall man who has followed the conference leaning against the wall without speaking raising a question or any other reaction seems to follow me Marching at the double quick he soon reaches my shadow and flanks me I avoid his sight but he seems to be friendly and willing of couple...
I wake up at 6 o clock I have not already left the habit to reserve the most precious hour of the day before getting ready to go to work to my favourite activities Reading a book newspapers sometimes also playing the piano With an headset to respect the right of my neighbour to disdain my performance It s the way to preserve my personal integrity against a system that...
I am leaving the office for half an hour of fresh air As someone condemned to a long imprisonment charged of a terrible crime My exile is however sweet as the water of the Promised Land and from my office windows I enjoy the view of a beautiful park Among the trees the sound of the wind so nicely accompanies the singing of the magpies Even without paying proper attention...
Thinking at the lifestyle I have left behind me there are seldom any complains I will have to start from the scratch the project of a new established life but no alternatives are available in the short term horizon During the last days of democracy of my home country before the Prime Minister had resigned and the Party took over the power the opposition has been cornered and smashed into...
A greater game was indeed progressing outside the borders of the Democratic Republic After a couple of generations the cleavage with the Free World would have been so evident that even those few opposers survived would have scarcely survived a successful attempt of escape If not with that abhorred State or charity support that every independent spirit wouldn t ever ask for Since professionality and specific skills were highly valued...
Recovering a morale stormed by uncontrollable and adverse events is the hardest task members of humankind could accomplish Injuries of a life spent under the influence of a witless potentate are the most nefandous effects of tyranny since they endure long after the aforementioned ruler has been put aside whether by an insurrection a catastrophic outcome of a conflict or the personal ambition of a no less vacuous leader Although...
The bright rays of the sun entered the open space in that early morning The engineer hardly realized to have successfully digged an hole under the wall of the KZ chosen for him by the HR Recent events had upset him so much that he had to conquer back the solicitousness that allowed him to becam an Indian on the prairies of the Democratic Republic Beleaguered in his own box...
Although image manipulation with the help of an open source tool easily available from the web as well as the design of a virtual professional profile resulted to be quite trivial harder was to create a network of presumed colleagues whose identities were linked to a living human being in the physical world Actually the Indian avatar the engineer created did correspond to his bones and flesh To his brain...
Day and night the engineer had to work on his new identity Italy was still at least nominally a European nation he had no reason to behave like the subject of an African regime Yet if he had to find a job he couldn t boast his EU citizenship Employee who could have required too high wages had scarce chance to obtain a job on the on line market You...
I approached that decisive night when I definitely decided to settle on the roof of what sooner or later would have become my former company with the most pro active spirit that any consultant should ever been capable of Just few hours were in front of me before the closing time of most of the superstores where something cheap and durable could have been tracked The life of an intellectual...
As the time went by the world became to welcome petty employees all around me Most of the chatting about the last TV shows wired the previous evening Others just striving for a cup of coffee their breakfast Italians are so proud of I was quite annoyed of their presence although most of them never harmed me Sometimes I could consider myself quite lucky Really few bothered me because I...
Most of the ICT companies rely on workers hired by agencies that according to the professional gossip are causing too many redundancies and quite an unsustainable raise of industrial costs per unit The practice was born in the UK were the salaries and the skills are quite high later imported in the late 1970s to Italy where the chaotic way of life contributed to generate a web of fake consulting...
The gentle light of the morning penetrated the blinders to hit the screens of the few desktops left in the office Nobody was there and I could enjoy my loneliness Perhaps the secretary had already entered and sit at her own place staring at the wall with a well set smile ready to welcome anyone could have approached the entrance Ready to sign on her pc date and time as...
It was so quiet out there Apparently no noise was produced in the hearth or the metropolis during the night when just few workers were active and most of the students spent the money provided by the family Most of them pledged for a State support to their own expenses but socialist regimes hardly pay for free drinks That s much more the style of a decadent and edonistic Monarchy...
I entered the supermaket and looked around me I was quite unnoticeable among the mass I collected some provisions mainly edibles that don t require cooking fruits and vegetables off the shelves Some sushi as well provided thatI had not direct access to a fridge Not at home of course but at the headquarters of my company Where I plannedto relocate waiting for a call from abroad I could have...
The day after the meeting I m welcome into the office by the gloomy light of the lamps Quite a large open space in which 60 people nbsp have got to work together side by side in no more than 2 square meters The very same feeling of closureness should have been felt by the captives held in Sachsenhausen Less hyperbolic would be the comparison of the several kind of...
A purposeless meeting is the one I m going to face or at least what I m expecting of it Meetings and committee are the best subject for financial humorist even in the Anglo Saxon world Quite a lot of jokes were coined during the Honecker s rule XXI century Italy is not so far radios praise as the greatest conquest the fight of the workers to obtain Labor Union...
The deadline is approaching That s the deadline of the project lead by a bunch of managers whose number is by far higher than the technicians involved That s the deadline for the last of the assignments I m supposed to submit to my tutor if I want to pass the exam That s also the time to shut down the PC and take the train to get home Business...
I ve got to type as fast as possible avoiding that someone could spot me I m not working on the main project I m assigned to I m not reading the documentation of the new one either I m just collecting some information for the next course I m going to attend Actually an on line course some professional training nobody should be aware of I m going to...