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The distance between Milan and Kuala Lumpur ranges more than 9900 Kilometers. After flying over highly media-popular locations like Mosul, Kobane and Tehran (I have no idea who actually chooses the flight plans but I’m pretty sure that he/she is not updated at all about the military events in these days) at 4.50 PM local time I landed at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. I was really surprised in realizing how fast all the customs and immigration bureaucracies were, and in no time I found myself on a local taxi. While trying to entertain me on topics such as the clandestine motorbikes races taking place on the malaysian expressways in which mostly australians participate (note: obviously we saw one on the same road we were traveling), the driver was also calling other colleagues to find out where he had to take me. Probably I was more oriented than him in that moment, considering the fact that he had to use three different tablets before finding the right address. To reward me for the end of the trip obviously Mother Nature blessed us with an epic thunderstorm after the tremendous jinx said by the driver “well, you know, it’s more than two days that’s not raining!”.
Left in front of the main building of the University I wondered around with luggage and backpack for about forty minutes before finding my way to the student residences, along which I got to know a friendly indian engineering PhD student that took some time to show me its laboratories and give me its phone number. One hour later I had the keys of my new bedroom right in my hand, and I was opening the door. Nice, spacious, clean and with a lot of light. Any problems? Well, there wasn’t either the pillow nor the bed sheets. Apparently it’s not that obvious that someone might need them, so only the following day I managed to obtain (by buying them at the accommodation centre) the “bed-set” including bed sheets, a pillow, a pillow cover, a towel and one single roll of toilet paper. Before spending a night with sweatshirts and pants (to avoid direct contact with the mattress) I decided to look for some food. Still under pouring rain and with a vague map of the area I reached the nearby 7-eleven where I bought water, local chips and cookies, solving therefore also the breakfast dilemma for the following day. I arrived then at my first day of malaysian university, that for an italian landed the night before means a biological alarm set at 4-4.30 AM local time. After setting up once and for all my bedroom and an infinite signing, filling, printing and discussing of paperworks, I received the “University of Nottingham Malaysia Welcome Kit”. This small lilac bag along with a detailed malaysian map and numerous touristic flyers contained also a terrible “Malaysia Truly Asia” pin and a chrysanthemum tea pack. The rest of the day evolved actually in a pretty normal way as I went to different classes and suffered the daily afternoon thunderstorm. But the most fun part of the evening I found it to be the -going to dinner- process. After a lovely walk along the border of the palm-tree forests that surrounds the campus I ran into a local busy moving up and down its motorbike along the uphill road. I stopped to observe him a couple seconds, almost ready to ask him if he needed help or anything. And there it is: he was trying to run over a flash-green snake that on the other hand was just attacking and jumping around him. I arrived therefore at the university cafeteria. Actually it’s more of a terrace in front of palm-trees and grass, and it really looks like a restaurant of a tropical resort rather than a place for students to eat. After noticing that pretty much everything was already closed, I decided to walk towards the only open food counter and I try to communicate with the cook. I’m not going to argue about the fact that the payment method is through different coupons bought from the cashier (1RM=0.3 cents, 5RM=1.5$ and 10RM=3$) and they are absolutely identical to the local money so that this whole process is useless, but after a long non-understanding I somehow receive a plate with potatoes, rice and some meat covered by a brown sauce. I didn’t ask myself what kind of meat that was, and maybe it’s better this way. I just know that the brown salsa was actually made out of pepper and I almost chocked at the first bite while a couple dogs where waiting not far from me to get some of my food. It’s useless to say that University of Nottingham has a zero tolerance policy for students to bring pets on campus, probably as they’re very jealous of theirs. The conclusion of the night was going back to my bedroom. The body of the snake was laying on the wet street. But its head wasn’t there anymore.
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It has been more than two months that I’ve been waiting this moment. I remember that several years ago one of my high school teacher said that the true party is the waiting for it rather than the party itself. Even if in about 90% of the cases I’d agree with this idea I must say that these last months have been a true torture rather than a celebration.
Finally I’m ready to leave after a planning that has been over 4 months long. Destination? Kuala Lumpur. During the waiting in these last months the questions and comments that I’ve heard to most about my trip were mainly 2: “Why did you choose Malaysia?” and “Well, I bet you’ve read the tourist guide at least hundreds of times during all this waiting”. Why did I choose Malaysia? Usually I just smiled as an answer but what I really though was: why NOT Malaysia? It’s a part of the world so unknown to us and that probably (and I hope so) will have to offer lots of unexpected and incredible things. There isn’t any profound and deep thinking behind my choice besides maybe a little exploring of the foreign asian markets. As it regards sentence number two, I must admit that I have never read the guide besides some sneak peeks to discover locations about places that I already knew or look up some hotels. “Wait … what? And what are you going to do once you’re there?”. Well, considering the timing on which I’ll be gone, I think that I’ll have all the time to discover the area by myself and particularly to get surprised by events rather than by a book bought in a bookshop and lose the possibility to live a true adventura, but this is just my opinion. So, after a pleasent trip to Milan with mom, a lunch at Eataly with two dear friends and a train all the way to Malpensa, I’m seated in front of my Turkish Airlines airplane and, like Charlie in the novel by Chobsky, it’s exactly in this moment that I feel Infinite. I leave Italy with a quote by Charles Baudelaire, even if it may seem a bit too cultured for me (since I’m not): “But the true travellers are they who depart for departing's sake: with hearts light as balloons, they never swerve from their destinies, saying continuously, without knowing why: 'Let us go on!'. These have passions formed like clouds.” |