And so it begins...

Hello world! This is the first message on my first blog ever - exciting! I hope that all you interested people will remain interested as you read about the things that keep me busy... Comments are welcome!

Let me start with a short introduction. The main reason for me writing this blog is to keep people up-to-date with my activities in the United States of America. Why am I in the USA? Because I wanted to study here. I have been admitted to Yale University's School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and have won an amazing fellowship which supports me financially during my first year here. Why the School of Forestry? Because they have a Master's program in Environmental Management. Why environmental management? Because I am still sufficiently young and naïve to want to save the world.

The preparations for this personal project began about 10 months ago. Since then, I have been applying for a fellowship, looking up interesting and good programs, applying to those programs, getting admitted, choosing which university to go to, deciding that it would be Yale, taking care of all the administration to come to the States. In between I have been teaching math in middle school and I have also had my fair share of travel.

I left on Wednesday morning, July 14. Packing all my stuff had taken almost the entire Tuesday, and I would never have managed to get it all done without the help of my dear mother.
We arrived at the airport well in time and began my americanisation with a coffee at Starbucks. Then we proceeded to the gate where we said our tear-seasoned goodbyes. I went through the gate without looking back - a new chapter had begun.



The flight to Philadelphia was long and boring. We landed on time, but the weather was so bad (in American terms, not so much in Belgian ones) that we had to wait for an hour to get off the airplane. More delays followed: luggage claim, customs, luggage re-check-in, security, ... In the end I was an hour late for my connecting flight to Newark, but luckily that one was delayed by more than an hour too. That flight was the shortest one of my life - I think it took only about 40 minutes! Between landing in Newark and arriving in New York, there was still an hour and a half however. But in the end I got there...

Surfacing from Penn Station, I was again overwhelmed with awe by the city of cities - apart from the huge skypscrapers, I think this effect is due to the fact that walking in New York is like walking on a filmset. The people in the streets are star actors - you feel like you've seen them so many times in some movie. Truly amazing, this city! And the views at sunset are beautiful.





The Big Apple is big, and I realized that again when I arrived at Vincent's place, soaked in sweat with my 60kg+ luggage after dragging it along for 40 minutes. Still, the exercise was welcome after all the immobility on the airplanes. After taking a shower at his wonderfully located apartment, a few blocks from Grand Central, I felt reborn and we took a stroll on the streets. Not too long though, because I was in dire need of an early night.

I left for New Haven on the 15th in the morning. I went straight to Jonathan, the guy who was handing his room over to me, left my luggage with him and went to take care of some practical stuff while he was working: check-in at university, check out a local bar, short noodle lunch with Jonathan, say hi at my school, open bank account. Then we took my luggage to my new home, which I had only seen over Skype. There was an internal sigh of relief when we got there - it is a nice place, very reasonably priced, ridiculously close to my school, and my room was bigger than I had imagined (but I would still call it small).

Taking the room brought about a little more administrative hassle than when I moved into my place in Turin, when there hadn't even been a contract - I had met the landlord, discussed the price and the terms with him, and the thing was settled. Every month I gave him some cash, when and if he showed up at our door, and that was it - the feeling of mutual trust was our contract.
A whole different story in New Haven, though. I had to read 4 pages of terms and conditions, sign them, sign some other papers, write down all sorts of personal details, pay some cash in advance and receive a receipt for it, ... In the nation of silly lawsuits, that's how it's done.

Here is a picture of the green house, apparently constructed at the end of the 19th century. It has quite a spacious kitchen, a rather badly-kept backyard, a dining room and a living room with carpet (which I'm not fond of) and a clean bathroom. The other picture is my room with view of the backyard.
















I had dinner with Jonathan, which consisted of two happy hour beers and a burger each. I had the NY steakhouse burger - yummy! I realized that for both financial as well as sanitary reasons, I should take it easy on these things during my stay in the US...











Woke up early today (damn jetlag) and began my quest for a plug adapter, since my computer's battery had run out of energy and I desperately needed to power it. Since Jonathan very kindly lended me his bike, I decided to do the 6km to Walmart. One unnecessary km, it turned out, because they had nothing I wanted - not the plug adapter, no fresh food, only processed stuff - so I had to bike back to ShopRite, where I found the food but still no plug adapter. Finally I ended up at Radioshack where I found one for an outrageous $10. But the fact that I could power my computer was worth the odyssey. Robots are slowly taking over the world...

After a quiet afternoon, I am about to get ready to return to New York. Vincent invited me to go out and I have discovered way too little to do here in New Haven to say no to that. Coming back tomorrow morning though, to show the other rooms to students of my school interested in it. Looking forward to meeting (and selecting - the landlady gave me that power) my future housemates!