Cappuccini in the evening

Leaving Italy for taking part in the European Volunteer Service was certainly a blind gamble on my future but also a necessity.
The perspective of spending ten months in one other European country seemed to me the emergency exit through which escape from the disorientation I was living from the day of my graduation.
Really, I don’t know why, but there is a part of me that is reckless, which takes innocuous but crazy decisions..and choosing to study Philosophy in a country as Italy in this historical moment, was one of these potty but nice (!) ideas!
After years of interesting studies, the moment of graduation arrived and it was like an unpleasant alarm, that brought me to a reality affected by symptoms of an old society, unable to refresh itself and to offer real chances of work to the young people, especially to whom are graduated in arts subjects.
Suddenly happened that, the impatience of who left behind the shoulders an Italy in pain, infected even me. Walking barefoot on the border of that decision, I finally did the jump and I applied for the EVS in Germany. I felt it was the right moment to move my centre of gravity away from Italy and I hoped that in this way, for a while, all fears about my future could had shut up.
For all this experience long I have been feeling like a ship on the ocean, direct to a precise destination, but without the captain knew which one. I have been living this time with strong intensity, as a precious opportunity of broadening the horizons of my future. I could say that not one moment was wasted, because besides the time spent in my hosting organization, I have passed the long afternoons of summer, autumn and winter doing what I like: reading about topics of my interest, studying German and English and going along with the friends I had the fortune to know.
I probably arrived here in search of answers for too big questions, but the project “Scanning Europe”, which I take part in with other girls of other four different countries, was in line with my desire to deepen any matters. Observing what the Germany offers to the people, I got inspiration to imagining new ways for my country.
Unexpectedly, even if I arrived disappointed of Italy, the people I met, helped me to appreciate again it and to see not only the shadows, but also the importance of a thousand-year culture, the suggestion of its beautiful landscapes and its good cookery.
Besides that, turn up in my mind the awareness that flaws and virtues don’t have nationality. I learned how to recognize the resemblances between different cultures and I catch a glimpse of an European identity in similar rituals, customs and vocations.
As the myth of the kidnapping of the young Europe, a Phoenician girl living in the Lebanon of today, by Zeus in the form of a white bull tells, the identity of our continent has not only one root but come out from the bond between lands and different people.
Living in a close contact with girls of other countries, I have lived the real experience that in all kind of things, what I thought was expected, actually it isn’t and I have started to carry out pleasure in overturn ingrained habits. A simple example of it, is how I broke up the Italian taboo of sipping cappuccino only for breakfast, and not beyond the morning! .. Now I order dozens of cappuccini for the whole day without any hesitations!
Carrying out the activities in my association and in the seminars I rediscover what I have left in my childhood: the importance of imagination and the pleasure of games, which through simple ways can be more communicative as long speeches. Besides that, I have improved my competences not only because I learned how to use new IT programs but even because, living in Germany, I learned a new “method” of running the daily tasks and I am sure it will be useful.
But difficulties didn’t miss: when I arrived, my English was very rusty and I had only few rudiments of German so that was wearying for me trying to search all day long the properly translations of my thoughts and in the evening, the quiet of my room was just the place I was looking for. Sometimes it wasn’t simple to find new balance for staying firm on my feet and don’t fall down: I learned that in any case, differently from what I was used to think, is not possible resolve the difficulties going ever straight ahead on the same line. I saw that sometimes the wiser option is to recognize the limits of the situation and simply is better to find a different arrangement, avoiding potential conflicts.
By now I am at the end of this path and I begin to see the cross where new decisions are waiting for me: stay here or turn back to Italy?
Is a big query and I hope I will see new roads for my life, and if not, I confide I will be strong enough to imagine them  .