5 Lessons from last night

1st lesson: Italians can’t play table soccer. They even have different rules...Players in the same row can’t pass to each other. WTF ???  According to their reasoning, passing is „too easy”.  Then how do they play ? Just like this:

2nd lesson: If you want to drink a nice beer at 3 a.m., you can’t do that. Even if you ask for it in a popular club, in one of the biggest cities of Italy. They told me „it’s too late” :D

3rd lesson: In case You are Hungarian, some Italians tend to talk about Russia with you. Ma perchéééé ?

In case You are Portuguese, they talk about Portugal. I have a feeling that each and every Italian has already been to Portugal J

4th lesson: Even though Italy has more than 60 million inhabitants, it’s still too small. Two Sicilians, from exactly the same village of that island, can meet each other at a random house party in the south part of Milan.

5th lesson: Even if you do not spend a fortune in the most expensive city of Italy, you can still get wasted... Ohh but I already knew this one :D 

The story of  how we became famous

This Monday, we arrived to the next stop of our journey towards the world-fame. Undoubtedly we are on the right track to become the most renowned EVS volunteers of all time …or maybe not :)

As I previously mentioned in my last post, the award of Altropallone was organized for the 16^th time. Despite the fact that we weren’t the primary objective of the Italian media and we were not awarded yet for our great work at the association, we followed the procedure from the first line and we were even presented to the public.

“….Paulo from Portugal and Bence from Hungary”: beyond the shadow of a doubt, after the monologue of Michele, whole Italy started to talk about us!

Josefa Idem, world and Olympic champion canoe sprinter, even had the chance to take up a few questions for us, while Damiano Tommassi, ex-member of the Italian national football team and AS Roma, was begging for a photograph with me and Paulo. Though celebrities like us do not usually waste their time on useless pictures, this time we proved to be very generous:

The public discourse on two EVS volunteers, Bence and Paulo, has arisen: nobody speaks more about the financial restrictions of Monti and the bunga bunga parties of the notorious Berlusconi!

Now, a few words about the award of Altropallone and the award of Space...

The sixteenth edition of Altropallone went to Josefa Idem, world and Olympic champion retired sprint canoe star. This time, she was not awarded for her extraordinary sporting results, but her faith in fair play and the respect of the others. With her exemplary attitude she earned the recognition of many others. With her own words: 

“I always did what seemed right to me and I am particularly pleased to receive an award that does not remunerate my achievements in sport, but what I always tried to promote through sport: the importance of moral behaviour and the absolute respect of rules. Mine has always been a message of enthusiasm and commitment. Sometimes I wondered if people ever listened to me and followed my pleadings, but I never gave up fighting for the sport in a world where it’s an urgent need for those people who believe.”

The town of Cremona was awarded for its efforts to bring closer its citizens to sports (especially aquatics).The example of Cremona proves that the sport constitutes  the integral part of a society and it plays an educative role inside and outside the school. It’s never enough to emphasize that the sport is a lifelong partner which accompanies us from the infancy till the adulthood. The mayor of Cremona, Oreste Perri, who is a world champion canoe sprinter as well, perfectly represents the combination of sport and civitas. 

One of the most popular Italian newspapers, La Reppublica, was so kind to publish some photos of the award.

Now let the hard work begin! 

Altropallone award for the 16th time

What do Javier Zanetti, Ivan Zamorano, Leonardo, Liliam Thuram, Damiano Tomassi, Gennaro Ivan Gattuso, Samuel Eto’o, Ivan Ramiro Cordoba and Clarence Seedorf have in common?

After hearing this question, you would probably say that the answer is ridiculously simple: all of them are famous football players who have some connection with Italy. They dedicated their life to the most popular sport in the world  and they all achieved everlasting success with their Italian clubs (and national teams as well). I’m pretty sure, that even in the furthest corner of this globe their name is being praised by the lovers of this beautiful game.

However, their great achievements on the green fields are only one part of the whole picture. The second, but more relevant thing they have in common is the award of Altropallone. An award which has the same name as my receiving foundation.

The award of Altropallone was born as an alternative of the Golden Ball, the most prestigious acknowledgement in the world of football. It draws the attention of the public to the less visible success of our modern-time gladiators; the success achieved off the pitch. In a world, where sports are guided and controlled by money and commercial interest, there are some individuals, whose aim is to help the less fortunate members of the society. Wealth, fame and success did not fade their eyes and with their hard work outside the stadiums they paved the way for a better future. I would say that they are not just champions of their profession, but they are also champions of the real life.

This year, the Altropallone award does not go to a footballer. It goes to female role model, Josefa Idem, a German-born Italian canoer, who participated in eight (!) Olympics and numerous other competitions. For years she dominated the sport of female canoe bringing dozens of medals both to East-Germany and Italy. Besides her extraordinary sporting career, she is the real champion of the humanity.

As a great pleasure, this Monday, we will participate in the ceremony of Altropallone’s sixteenth edition. It will definitely be one of brightest days of our European Voluntary Service!

Josefa Idem, see You tomorrow! 

In the memory of Árpád Weisz

Yesterday’s Internazionale-Bologna game in San Siro was dedicated to Árpád Weisz, a Hungarian-Jewish football player and manager who died during the Second World War in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Weisz born in Hungary, where he started his career and he even played seven times in my country’s national team. Later, he went to Italy where he became the manager of the above mentioned contesting teams which achieved extraordinary results under his command. Even though in Italy he considered to be one of the greatest figures of calcio (in fact, he is still the youngest trainer who won the Scudetto), in Hungary hardly anyone has heard about him.

Why was it important to dedicate the game to him?

First of all, the international remembrance day of Holocaust is approaching, but it’s not all about it. The municipalities of Milan and Bologna wanted to raise people’s awareness to every kind of intolerance and hatred could it be on a racial, religious or other basis. We don’t have to go far in order to experience these malicious phenomena: a few weeks ago, Kevin-Prince Boateng, AC Milan’s German-Ghanian player was racially abused by a group of supporters during a friendly game against Pro Patria. That day was a milestone in the history of the Italian football. Boateng had heard enough so he decided to leave the pitch and few minutes later the whole team followed him.

Thanks to Michele we had the chance to watch the Inter-Bologna game from the very best sector of the famous San Siro. Two years ago I went to watch an Inter-Bayern match in the Champions League and now I feel that I am getting use to the view of Meazza’s enormous mass of concrete blocks. We can say that the weather wasn’t on our side and it was “only” an Italian Cup game with reserves playing both sides. Not surprisingly, the huge stadium was not packed with people. Despite these circumstances we saw a great game. When you sit in front of the television you do not expect many goals when two Italian teams are playing, however this time we saw five goals with a final result of 3-2, Ranocchia heading the last one in the last minute of extra time. It was really nice to take a closer look at iconic players like Javier Zanetti, Antonio Cassano, Esteban Cambiasso or Alessandro Diamanti.

During the match we even got a free Italian lesson of various “bad words”. Hungarians tend to be proud if it comes to the diversity of obscene expressions. I had the feeling that the Italians do it better. We even see Massimo Moratti in the VIP sector, unfortunately he didn’t even salute us....

Can’t wait to see the next game! 

Smiiile, You are in Italy!!

The 7th of January 2013 will always be a memorable day for me. It was the beginning of something completely new that I was waiting for a long time. When I woke up that morning my beloved city, Szeged, was covered with fresh snow and the sun was shining brightly. What a magical day in the loveliest city of Hungary! After a while I realized the time had arrived for my departure. It’s never easy to leave our hometown behind, however the hope of the reunion always stays with us.

A few hours later I found myself in Italy again. I have never had such an easy flight, everything went perfectly. On the airplane I was surrounded by young Italians, some of them exhausted after their long nights in Budapest, others still vigorously chatting and even singing during the short journey. When you travel to Italy by airplane, you know you have just arrived if you hear this:

When I stepped out of the door of Malpensa’s terminal, Giada, Serena and Mel were waiting for me. In the following eight months the former two girls will be our mentors, assistants, guides, supervisors, workmates and so on.  If they did not invest enough energy in this project, we wouldn’t be here with Paulo.  As I have mentioned above, Paulo is a Portugal guy with who I will spend my EVS time. With a few hours difference, his plane landed in Milan then we occupied our new home in the district of Bicocca University. He even has a personal message for You, from the Piazza del Duomo:

 

It’s not easy to compress everything in a few lines that happened to us on the first week. It was all about acquiring everything needed for the ordinary life here (bank account, season ticket for transport, tax code) and meeting the people around our association in formal and informal ways. We even had time to pop up in the headquarters of AC Milan, in order to get some tickets for the upcoming Champions League game. Though we did not succeed and we didn’t even see Berlusconi, we already have some nice memories from the world of Italian football. Michele, the founder of Altropallone prize and the head of our association, managed to get some tickets for next week’s Inter-Bologna game, which is considered to be a special occasion. Later I will tell You why ;)

Now it’s time for our first party, let’s get ready for it! 

Thoughts before departure

What will you do in Milan?  Why are you going to Italy again? – These were the most common questions that I heard in the weeks before my departure. It wasn’t easy to give adequate answers in few sentences; therefore I decided to start a blog. I have never done this before, but I will try to do my best, I promise.

For those who know me, I don’t reveal a big secret if I say that I’m not a native English speaker. In fact, I have a lot to practice and this seems to be a great way to do it. The other reason behind choosing English is that I really wanted to share my thoughts with my friends all over the world. Hereby I apologise in advance for my grammatical mistakes.

In the upcoming months I will not just try to provide an imperfect explanation of my ordinary life in Milan, but I will also try to encourage You to participate in specific mobility programs of the European Union, could it be Erasmus, European Voluntary Service or anything else. I really hope that my entries, pictures, videos will bring You closer my real-life experiences and one day You will also start a blog from a different country of yours.

Now let me give brief answers for the initial questions:

What will I do in Milan? – Within the frameworks of the European Voluntary Service (EVS) I will work for 8 months at a civil organization called Altropallone. I’m not going to do this alone as a Portuguese guy, Paulo, has also been selected. The project is called „campi di coesine” or the „fields of cohesion”. I would say that three words perfectly describe the whole thing: immigrants, football and integration.

Why am I going to Italy again? – My first answer would be: Italy. I might be a little bit biased, but You will not find more beautiful country in Europe than the „belpaese”. I spent my Erasmus time in Verona which was undoubtedly one of the most amazing things that ever happened to me. Ever since I left the city of Romeo and Giulia, I wanted to return in Italy. One and a half years later I was selected for the project of Altropallone. Now here I am, in the doors of a completely new period of my life.

Let’s get started!