December. Christmas. What a bloody cool time of the year this is. My favorite part is the food. And also when people magically unite, eat dinner in peace, laugh, share. Unfortunately it is not like this for all the people of the world, joy comes with suffering, sadness, loneliness, it is a matter of equilibrium of the equation. Fucked up I must say, but real. It is also a month where there are a lot of confessions, of opening emotions, of revelations. Which is why I prefer the food.
Last year I was lucky enough to have an amazing trip around United Kingdom, Ireland and Germany. I saw friends from old times, I saw friends from current times, I saw amazing places and landscapes, I lived and rushed through flights, delicious food, white beer, the best whisky of the world, medieval castles and highland cows. The funny and weird part is that I did it alone.
You see, I am indeed a travel addict, a person who wants to conquer the world, a simple man who would love to save the planet through technology and engineering development, and as very close friends described some hours ago, I do know how to treat with people and do whatever it takes to make my friends happy, to make them smile. Having said that, through all my travels (which have been so far to around 15 countries and counting) I have been very lucky to meet nice people, good people; to those who know me, it is not difficult for me to approach a total stranger and ask how is the day going, what do they do, what is their favorite thing in the world, what do they recommend about the place I am in. As the same friends aforementioned also said, I always love, I always give, I am so brutally honest and authentic that it is not easy to tell if I am indeed fake or not, because people is simply not used to be treated with the truth, to be actually listened to, to be in fact treated as they deserve. This egocentric prick I am sometimes, is actually just a solid effort of being a good man, of being a decent person, of being happy and provide happiness.
But where the fuck am I going with all this rubbish? Well, I was just remembering that after the astounding xmas travel of last year, I felt just miserable as soon as I returned home. Because I was alone. Maybe I’m just being ridiculous and silly and over-thinking this stuff, you might even say “but mate, you can be happy by yourself, when you love yourself, nothing else matters”, to what I would nod and agree. Maybe I’m just another selfish soul that just wants company sometimes because specially traveling by yourself could be a bloody staggering experience provided you know how to deal with entire loneliness. Maybe, just maybe, today is a weird day where I open myself, that I am being 100% emotional and would actually like to experience being at the top of the mountain with someone holding my hand and kissing my ugly face. As a matter of fact, after that travel I said to myself I would not travel alone again because…#samba, to what life responded with a huge “LOL” and made my biggest dream come true.
So as xmas approaches again, I will find myself wandering at the Sahara desert and some other remarkable african destinations and I just cannot wait. Happy. In peace. And ironically alone. (Not complaining at all! you’re the best #momondo)
I am a true believer that things always have a reason to be, that life provides and that it is up to us to get perspective and to do stuff. I have learned that there are just no excuses. At. All. (Cheers you Kiwi!) We should not stay behind the line, we should just stand up, take that leap, DO, SPEAK, KISS, DANCE. No excuses. I might be an annoying, too optimistic, absolutely intense and unstable lucky human being that will indeed travel around almost the entire globe trying to transmit my happiness. I might be a too radical individual that thinks we humans can become better if we just would stop finding stupid reasons to not do what we truly feel we need to do. I might think this way because I feel I am unbreakable, invincible. Of course I am not, but I am simply not afraid of trying. I am a stupid and impetuous fellow unafraid to take the fall.
So perhaps today was just one of those days where the year is finishing and the mind just loves to mess around and creates an effect of thinking “what the hell am I doing with my life, where am I going, why not even pigeons love me”. Perhaps one day, I will actually be able to share what I see, what I feel, what I hear and smell and hopefully it will be with a big eyes and cute smile lovely woman. Perhaps not and it will be with a cat. But alone or not, today, I will be delighted if you decide to join me, to smile and infect the world with happiness.
This section is purely devoted to those awkward, emotional and strange moments of my life, that gave me a nervous laugh while feeling head over heels for someone. Some come from life, some others are extracts of my travel journal. Hope you enjoy.
Bergamo, Italy. 29.10.16 at around 12:00 pm
I just found a lovely bench to sit down on the eastern side of the city, and take out my journal to keep documenting the first days of my “all around the world” trip. As I was enjoying the sun and watching and old lady feeding some cats, it happened.
A blonde, tall and blue eye enchanting girl sits on the bench in front of me. She has a black and white stripe dress, black tights and black nike sneakers and she is eating an ice cream. I am flabbergasted.
On the other side of the bench, there is a metal fence and then a cliff, consequence of the upper city architecture. Out of the blue, a black donkey emerges from the hill and approaches to her, seeking to be petted. She smiles, she takes a picture and indeed pets him. Her smile denotes tenderness towards the cute donkey and this is the first time she looks at my stupid face, fascinated by her and her smile. I drop my pen and become clumsy. -What is her favorite band? What is her biggest dream?-. I think to myself. I don’t want to look like a stalker and a perv, but I cannot stop looking at her and I bet my face is the one of a total fool. Very discretely, basically undetectable, she moves her eyebrows and her eyes as if she is having a tremendous internal debate with her, as if she is talking with herself. It just looks as crazy as when I do it with myself.
She looks at me another second and yet again, I cannot maintain her eye-sight and I look down. It is fucking embarrassing, and the only thing I do is to drink water while my legs are just not responding. I don’t even know how to approach her and she knows, I know she knows. She finishes her ice cream and leaves. I managed to stand up 3 min. after but of course, she is not anywhere close. I said to myself that if I ever see her again I will talk to her.
I sigh.
Around 4:00 pm
I find myself right in the heart of the “Piazza Vecchia”, eating an orgasmic salmon kind of pizza, an amazing “merengue” candy and singing “Stairway to heaven” of my favorite band as a street musician goes crazy with the solo. I close my eyes, look up, take a deep breathe and smile as the song finishes.
And is if it was part of a bizarre high school theatre play, there she was, walking a couple of meters towards the “Duomo”. I freeze and think that it is one of those moments when life smiles, like when your mom agrees to take you to SixFlags after 3 months of trying everyday. Hence, my brain gave me an electrical chill and said “go and talk to her”. She was standing right in the middle of the piazza and as I approached, she looked at me and laughed discreetly. Again, I knew she knew.
Ciao! Parla italiano? Or english?- I said. -Hi, english yes, a little bit!- she responds smiling as my brain just got literally electroshocked and there is a “Technical fault, please stand by” message in my head as her blue eyes point towards me. Her name is Tiana (or maybe Tjana?) and is from Austria, I start talking very fast and asking many questions, one of them is that she looks like a very interesting person and if I could interview her as part of my travel, to what (obviously normal) her reaction was to laugh and an expression of “what the fuck?”. She responds kindly that she would definitely like to go and talk somewhere else but that unfortunately her train is leaving within the next minutes and she was already on her way to the station, (which takes a while if you’re walking or if you wait for the bus). -Well that’s a pity but no worries! I do wish you a lovely trip- I said, while my internal systems were still struggling to keep it together. -I’m so sorry! Really I would stay but I need to go – she says. I grab her hand, tell her that it was a pleasure to meet her and we both leave.
As she walks down towards the exit of the square, I turned to see her again. She turns too. I smile and she smiles back as she keeps walking.
I did not ask for her number, or fb or anything, because I wanted it to remain it that way. I will definitely never know if she was indeed attracted/interested towards me, if this was just another typical episode of saying “not interested/fuck off” politely or if this was indeed a corresponded emotional moment. A pure and authentic moment that I will never forget.
Un amor de esos que duran sólo un instante, pero que te hacen sonreír por siempre.
Do you remember what it felt like when being a kid and entered to your favorite toy store? or a candy/ice cream/video games store? or going to the concert of your favorite band? or entering a selected whisky or wine store as the alcoholic I am? Most of the times, it becomes an unexpected and amazing surprise in those cases, and such feeling is what I got as soon as I landed in Bergamo.
Bergamo is a medieval city located at the northern part of Italy, 52.2 km from Milan, right in the middle of the mountains, and distributed with an old town at the upper part of a mountain, and the downtown all around the mountain. As any medieval place, there are huge fortress walls that used to protect the city from thieves and war. Specifically, from the Venetian army and the Cyprus war. A lot of gardens, vineyards, and mountains surround the city. The chilly fall mornings and afternoons, plus the red leafs, the stone roads, the huge stone arcs and the red roofs, make my arrival to the city, a magical and astonishing one.
East side
Porta Nuova
“Oh mio dio!” said the taxi driver as he found out why I came to Bergamo in the first place. A fat, big, with a lot a beard and a fantastic laugh italian sir, that immediately started to ask me what I knew and gave me advices of where can I search/ask/go. “Ciao italo-messicano, benvenuto a Bergamo!” he says as he lefts me in the door of the hostel.
The next day, a chilly and cloudy, yet fresh and nice morning wakes me up, and I found myself walking to the “Archivio di Stato di Bergamo” to ask thewhereabouts of my bergamasca ancestors.
A lovely ma’m is at the reception lobby and welcomes me with a cute smile and blushed make-up cheeks. Her name is “Maria Gracia” and as I remembered all my italian, courtesy of “L” and of “Enzo Gorlomi” I explained my story and she becomes very curious and interested in what I’m looking for. I ask her: what is your favorite thing of Bergamo? and she responds: “Everything!” She tells that she travelled a lot when she was young and wild, that she was very curious about traveling around the world, about meeting new people, but specially to have memories to share some day. I do ask her: “do you think if we all were optimistic, the world could be a better place?” to what she responds: “are you a Jehova witness or something? you’re just too optimistic to be normal, and they asked me the same question you just did. You won’t convince me to join you!” while laughing, to what I laughed very loud too, I said that “holy water” makes my skin burn instantaneously, more laughs, and in the end, she just stated that traveling indeed makes people better human beings, and that going back home in peace is the most important thing in this life.
It surprises me very much, that one of the managers explains that someone, at some point in the past, went already there to search the origin of “Maqueo”. The research is however unsuccessful and they actually said that “Maccheo” does NOT exist. (Imagine a scene of me screaming in my knees NOOO! dramatically). They explain that they have records only after 1822 and that anything before that is extremely difficult to find, or at least I would require way more info than what I had, which was not much. They also confirm that surnames like “Maceo”, “Macchio” and “Machio” might exist but are definitely NOT from Bergamo; however “Macchi” and “Maccali” pop up and gave me some hope. They advise me to go to the cathedral and ask for the “Archivio Diocesano” and search for these names. If they were born and baptized in Bergamo, they would have it there, so off I went to the “Citta’ Alta” or upper town, right in the heart of Bergamo, as I ate an insanely orgasmic tasty ice cream of strawberry and figues and something else.
Citta’ Alta
Piazza Vecchia
Biblioteca
After walking for about 30 min, taking the “funiculare” and being totally speechless by how beautiful this place is, I arrived to the clerical archives and ask the lady in charge. They make the search and find that indeed, they were not registered there, they say that there are “Maccali” records in Milano, but “Macchi” might be in any neighbor villages of Bergamo. Basically, impossible to know, at least just in a couple of days. So I feel dissapointed but somewhat excited, and decide to make another research on my own in the internet and also to ask my family. I needed more.
Il duomo di Bergamo
Then, I found a mexican book that clearly says that two brothers called Julián and Esteban Maqueo, originally Giuliani and Stefano, from Italy, arrived to Mexico in 1830 to Oaxaca, both from the Garibaldi army, still wearing the uniform and the belt with the golden spread wings eagle and stay there to work as merchants. It also says that Stefano was known as “the traveler”. It was still before 3:00 pm, which is when the state archive office closed and off I went there, to ask for any military records of that time. As I arrived, the reception lady and the managers smile and say “how did it go??”. I explain everything, and they sadly state that they only have military records after 1870. However, they tell that the “Museo Storico di Bergamo” has a lot of information regarding participants, people, places, maps, of the garibaldini army and movement, so they might be able to help. A tiny beam of light is in my head again, to what I decide I’ll give it a shot saturday morning.
I am starving and aim for a local cuisine place, to what I ate the famous “Polenta” which is a typical bread of this area and “Casoncelli” which are similar to the ravioli but these are filled with chopped bacon and have butter. A lot of butter. Plus wine of the house and another delicious gelato. I keep walking and falling in love with the city, until I find a local bar at the eastern part of the town, in which I decide to sit down, drink a beer, and start writing in my journal. After an hour, the place becomes packed and I start wondering what is this place. And then, surrounded entirely by italians, I find myself talking with the guys beside me, absolutely nice and cool, they get surprised that I only came to Bergamo to discover my roots, they get happy by the fact that I’m a Bergamasco, they say that I speak very good italian and invite me a beer. Two beers. Three beers. Wine. More wine. Pizza. A lot of pizza. I met A BUNCH of people. All of them welcoming me as if I was another italian of the group.
Casoncelli alla Bergamasca
Italia
Miau
One of them, called Edoardo Bovati, the typical handsome italian guy you would see in a magazine, both by looks and by personality. An absolutely nice and funny mate that speaks spanish too and I decide to ask him about his life, his experiences, his dreams, his expectations. Born in Milan but grew up in Bergamo, he says that he started traveling when he was 3 years old to the caribbean islands and he remembers so vague details. His first plane he took alone was by the age of 10, to visit relatives in England, and he stated that when being an adult, he first traveled because he felt just bored. Today he assures that he travels because you can learn something new every single day. After wandering around Asia and South America and North America, he says that xmas means Paris, New York or Bergamo, but no favorite city arises. Making the world a better place, means to make environmental consciousness and educate the people better in that way.
Myself, Edoardo, Carlos
Pizza
Me, Edoardo, Gianfilippo
As the wine and beer ran off and the weather went down, I walked back to the hostel and pray that the hang over at the next day would allow me to wake up early-ish and to have a bearable headache.
And of course, the prays were useless, and I was struggling my way up by one of the stone stairs at the eastern side of the city and went directly to the Museo Storico. Sad was my reaction to know that indeed the museum was open, but the offices were closed (that’s why they gave me an appointment for monday) but the guy in charge said the Dr. was aware of my case. Again with my best “Antonio Margareteee” version I explained my story and the guy got quite excited and curious about it. It was very interesting to know that there was a group of the Garibaldi army that was sent to Mexico back to 1829-1830, to deal with some loose issues of the mexican independence, the exact date my ancestors claimed to arrive to aztec lands. My eyes got wide open, the headache disappeared and my heart started beating faster. He says that the research needs indeed to be done, and gives me the e-mail address of the doctor in charge and the website. E-mail that I will send tonight. “In bocca al lupo!” he says. “Crepi il lupo!” I respond (thanks again “L”) and he assents and smiles back.
Porta di Giacomo
Scala sud.
Archi de la Citta’ Alta
And I spent the rest of the day wandering around the walls, the streets, the secret passages, the gardens, the stone roads. To be quite sincere with you, I have always had a difficult time to define a place as “home”. For me, home is where my parents and my memories are, it is where I have my family, as I would assume most of us do. But it is also a place where I can be totally in peace, and that is the difficult part to achieve, at least in a constant way. These almost 3 days, I honestly experienced quite a lot of deep emotions in this place. Happiness, excitement, anxiousness, frustration, re-happiness, the fact of being totally stunned by the culture, the people, the lovely italian ragazzi, the strawberry and ricotta gelato, the music, the language, even an unusual yet awesome instant crush/love moment that I will write in another time. As “Maria Gracia” said: Everything!.
So right now, being at the “Piazza Vecchia” or old square, right in the heart of Bergamo, I listen to the bells ringing and also to classical music played with loud speakers all over the place. I do dream and think if both my great great great great grandfather walked and wandered around these walls and I just smile. Despite being by myself, I am embedded by a magical italian atmosphere. I do not feel like a stranger. After a long long long time, I feel peace inside me. I feel very happy.
So it happened. It bloody happened my dear lectores. The majority of people of this planet spend their entire lives either waiting or trying to achieve their biggest dream (or dreams), struggling and fighting through life until at some point, life itself somehow responds and allows us human beings to final say “I did it”. I certainly did not have any words to express all the mixed emotions that hit my head as soon as I knew that the biggest dream of my life came true, the manual does not says anything of how to react nor what to do, so I did what I thought was the smartest and wisest idea: dance around and shout “A HUEVOOO” (fuck yeah!).
There are of course not enough words nor ways to thank life for granting me this unique and incredible experience. But let’s start from the beginning. So my ex-significant other “J” (which today is one of my very best friends) happened to know about a contest sponsored by the travel website “Momondo” in which you had the chance of first knowing where does your DNA comes from with a history of 2000 years back, which to be honest I found bloody amazing. So you had to write in 200 characters what is traveling for you and how do you think it can connect people around the world through traveling; so I remember typing stuff like, for me traveling is like eating tacos (yummy), it is spicy, it is exotic, it is just perfect, but there is nothing compared to share it with someone else, then it’s magical.
Somehow, I managed to go through to the 2nd round with my taco analogy and win a DNA test to actually know where does my crazy mexican hot sangre comes from and this part of the contest consisted on making a video that included the reaction of the DNA results. To be fair, I honestly thought that my 18 min. video was a normal and honest video, which was made by a no beard “baby face” mexican as a complete average video, but I thought I certainly had nothing to lose and I really had a good time while doing it, but anyway, these were my DNA results:
I might have expressed this before but I am really a travel addict. I remember listening to my parents stories that when they were young they would just say something like: “Should we go? well fuck it, let’s just go!” at 11:30 pm and arrive like at 5:00 am just to go to the beach. I also remember being taken to exotic places all around the southern part of Mexico for family holidays, walk under waterfalls, in caves, rivers, exotic beaches, delicious seafood and fantastic landscapes. It just stayed coated all over my soul and for me, every single time I had to travel, it meant literally, adventure time.
So yes, I did my emotional and full of mexican love video, expressing some family background and the results of the test. I must confess that when I did this I was in the middle of fucking crazy studying for some annoying final exams and also dealing with non-sense results while doing some simulations in my summer internship, so having a previous beer and the excitement of knowing where the fuck do I came from, was actually the most exciting part of my summer. But anyway, I honestly did it for the sake of fun and of course because I have always been absolutely curious about my family origins. I swear I was authentically surprised by the amazing world soup that I am.
And thus, there was I in my room, with a totally numb face and fingers, dancing around and being recorded while the Momondo staff was telling me that my biggest dream just became real, that I was going to be able to literally travel around the world, to go to those far far faaar away and exotic places I never dreamed of going to, and not only to really find out and be able to check civil registers and search for old surnames, but also to discover how people live in those places today, to taste the food, to listen to the music there, to dance around the world.
But really, how the fuck do you actually react to that?
It did take more than a couple of days to process all the information in my head and realize that everything IS true.
So I shall immerse myself into this incredible endeavor of basically 21 new countries and cities around the globe. I actually thought I might would like to share this experience with someone else, but after some dramatically emotional declarations, life gave me a signal and I decided to follow it without hesitating, and to be fair, traveling by yourself means you really force yourself to go OUT and meet the world, the people of the world.
And to be honest with all of you, I am very VEEERY thrilled and excited to start and also to share this DNA global journey with you!!. My first destination is a northern italian town called “Bergamo”, supposedly to be the cradle (or at least the last known) of my father’s side surname. Let’s find out what the old “Maccheos” (or Macchio? or Macchia??!!) have to say about it.
Ragnarocknrolla' 