California on the road

21.09-9.10.2016

A bit more than a month ago I left for California. I won a trip to the never-ending-summer state through a competition. Vitadaturista.it, together with Visit California, Lufthansa, and Europ assistance, chose a travel blogger, a travel agent, and a consumer/tourist for passion to visit Calfornia and to write about our experience.

I left with Fabio, traveller, and Monica, travel agent. We met the airport and was friendship at first sight!

Fabio and Monica. Monica, 39 years old, has a blog about travels and works as travel agent. Genuine and funny. I found in her a great friend, almost a big sister. Fabio, 32 years old, 3 years ago decided to travel. He never left Italy before. By the end of the year he will be able to say “I visited all continents”. I found so much of me in him. Btw, he doesn’t define himself as a travel blogger, but “just” a travel lover.

We left from  Frankfurt landed in San José, a pretty new destination of Lufthansa. There we immediately visited the center. The day aaftr (22.10) we left for San Francisco! Along the way we visited the Silicon Valley: Apple, Facebook, and Google. In Google we took pictires with Android statues and we had a ride with the colorfull Google-bikes. In the late afternoon the arrived in SF! What a beautiful city.

Our California Dream video by Fabio Liggeri.

Monica Sauna: I Viaggi di Monique and Fabio Liggeri: Viaggio Ego Sum

…and my article for  #movesafe.

THIS POST IS WORK IN PROGRESS 😉

Seoul – South Korea

July-June 2015: 20 days in Seoul.

I was there for a Summer School about Biopolymers. Intersting eh? Ahahaha… Well, for me it was pretty cool. Before these 2 weeks of summer school I stayed in Seoul with a good friend and colleague in a hostel. We went around, most of the time without checking the guide book.

 

 

 

Work in progress…

Bungee jumping in Valle Verzasca

In July 2013 (yeah… I did a lot in 2013) I did BUNGEE JUMPING!

Valle Verzasca in Ticino, the italian speaking part of Switzerland is very famous for various reasons: well, it’s a beautiful place, and James Bond did bungee jumping from there in the movie “Goldeneye“.

It was a beautiful sunny day… so perfect to enjoy a free fall in the nothing.

I was with 3 friends: Jovana, Nadine, Alicia… the third one was the moral supporter. Nadine was super excited… until she actually saw the dam! It impressive! The road to go there has a lot of turn… suddenly, after a curve, we saw it. Wow! And we heard the scream of a person doing the jump.

Well, we arrive, we signed “yes, if something happen is my fault”, they trained us, and…. JUMP!

It’s really difficult to describe the sensations… during the first 5 seconds I wasn’t breathing. Free falling is different from the sensation you can have on a roller coaster. Launch ourself towards the nothing is unnatural I think. It’s against our survival instincts.

Then I started to scream and then to think “when the rope will ends?!”.. and boooom! First bounce back! In my case it was a big one because I’m 52kg.

And down again!

The second bounce was small… and then I stop. Head down I enjoyed the peace to be hanging by a 220m dam. I pulled me up I positioned myself in the seat positions with the harness, and I called for the recovery cable. I attached the cable and they pulled me up… also the way up was pretty relaxing.

We enjoyed the rest of the afternoon with cold beers and swimming in the cold and crystal water of a river.

I had such a burst of adrenaline… I didn’t sleep for the subsequent nights.

Dehli, Agra, Jaipur – the golden triangle

In 2013 I had the opportunity to attend a wedding in India… an indian wedding!

A colleague of mine invite the whole lab to India, in Ahmedabad for his wedding. I tought: “this is a great occasion to actually participate to ndian wedding! I must go”. So, I sent an email to the whole group “I wanna go! Who would like to come with me?”. We end up to be 4 girls: a Greek, a French, a Macedonian, and me. It seems almost a joke.

Red Fort

We decide to reserve a tour since we didn’t have so many days available and we wanted to see as much as possible. I booked with viaggitourindia.com, everything via email. We flew with Finnair thru Helsinki. On the 12.01.2013 we lended in Delhi.

We landed on the 12.01.2013 at 6 in the morning, but this didn’t stop us to start the tour. Our lovely driver did took us during the whole week around from city to city, from temple to temple.

We started visiting the Old Delhi (Shahjahanabad), the Red Fort, the Mosque “Jama Masjid”. We had to get rid of the shoes in the temples… I got a cold immediately (so I started to bring with what I started to call “my temple socks”). We also had an exciting ride with a rickshaw through the narrow and crowded streets of Old Delhi. It was scary and at the same time funny when we ended up in the middle of a crossroad and everybody were shouting at us.

Shahjajanabad

The Mosque “Jama Masjid”

Colors, parfumes, flowers. So different from Europe!

The next day we moved to Agra… Taj Mahal! No need to say that it is so beautiful to be out of breath.This amazing building is completely made by ivory-white marble. Actually the Taj Mahal is a mausoleum in honor of the favourite wife of the emperor Shah Jahan (reigned 1628–1658).

Taj Mahal

To be continued…

 

 

13.01.2013 -> Agra

14.01.2013 -> Jaipur

15.01.2013 : Jaipur

16.01.2013 -> flight for Ahmedabad

17.01.2013 : Wedding

18.01.2013 -> back to Dehli

19.01.2013 -> back to Switzerland

 

Here I am

I’m Erica (yes, with C). I’m 29 years old and I’m italian. Since December 2011 I live in Zurich, Switzerland. Why? The love for science.

I was 14 years old when I decided I wanted to study Biology. This passion brought me from my little town (Gualtieri, 6000 inhabitants) to Reggio Emilia, where I attend a very cool high school. Then I moved to another city Parma. There I graduate in Molecular Biology with the maximum mark: 110 cum laude. And then? What’s next? Well, if you love science and you want to work with it, unfortunately Italy is not the right place atm. So, I moved to Zurich where I did my PhD at the University of Zurich.

Since ever I always did sports: swimming, ballet, track and field. I have to admit, I was pretty good in athletics. I won 28 regional titles in 12 years and I participate to the Italian Championship every year. I did abandon athletic when I moved to Zurich.

Moving to Zurich did open me many doors… I learned English and German, I worked in a place that I loved and where I found many good friends and good people. More important, the multicultural environment did open my mind.

I finished my PhD on the 27.11.2015… almost a years ago… then 4 months of PostDoc in the same lab. Now I’m dealing with the unemployment status and searching for a job here in der Schweiz.

How come I’m trying to start this kind of diary? Well, I love to travel… and I did travel a lot since ever. When I was a kid, until 18 years old, I saw almost the whole Europe with my parents: with a tent, with a roulotte, with a motorhome. Then I stopped for a while. A 18 years old girl doesn’t wanna travel with the parents and the little brother. Am I right?

In Switzerland I didn’t find only a job that I loved, but also the the right amount of money which gave me the opportunity to travel: USA, Ireland, India, Gran Canaria, Tenerife, South Korea,…

My parents and my brother travel with me, in my heart.

But the trigger for this “diary” was a extremely recent trip I did. I won an on the road journey in California. 3 people have been chosen to travel in California #CaliforniaDream: a travel blogger, a travel agent and consumer (me). We met at the airport… In front of us 17 days together, 13h per day. I don’t believe in destiny, but maybe we had to meet during our life. 

What I wanna do next? Are you curious? Well, me too…