Travels

11 Nov 2008 No Comments

MoDELS’08

One month ago I was in Toulouse, France, to attend the MoDELS’08 conference… Sounds important, isn’t it? :) Well, actually for me it really was. MoDELS’08 has been the first international conference I attended, and I am glad that I started with a very relevant one. I had the chance to go there because me and my colleague Adrian had an article accepted — the first in my PhD programme — in the ChaMDE 2008 workshop, a satellite event of the conference.

The six-days conference was plenty of researchers from world-wide, including many of the “big names” in software engineering. Getting in touch with some of them was definitely interesting. Many of the works presented at the conference seemed brilliant… I even learned what does it mean “megamodelling” — which is, in my opinion, the most childish keyword ever appeared in computer science. However, I have to admit that I was also disappointed by the general lack of applied results. The interest of industry in Model-Driven Engineering might vanish again if research does not (quickly) provide anything really useful to them. There is a urgent need for techniques and tools that simply work, and this is possible only if we have mature standards, which is definitely not the case nowadays. None of the works focused on that topic… Kind of surprising to me. Of course, theory is fundamental, but sometimes I had the feeling of listening to someone “selling thin air” rather than showing concrete results. To be honest, the idea that some theory “might be implemented” one day by the industry have never convinced me. The fact that the popularity of Model-Driven Engineering nowadays is not the one that researchers expected ten years ago is just an additional proof for me. Maybe one day I will be selling thin air myself too, who knows… ;) But for the time being it seems to me that research is going in a dangerous direction…

Anyway, the city of Toulouse is just gorgeous. So old and so modern at the same times, it offers a lot of sightseeing, attractions and restaurants were we had delicious meals and wines. I am waiting to upload a bunch of pictures on Flickr. Unfortunately my Linux distribution provides a buggy version of the software I use to handle pictures and I have to wait the (lazy) developers to read my bug report and fix it… More complaints on this in my next post. :)

Well, at the moment that’s it… My next destination? NWPT’08 conference in Tallin, Estonia. I will present a work there, so keep the finger crossed for me as always! ;)

by Alessandro in Research, Technology, Travels Tags: , , , , ,

06 Aug 2008 4 Comments

Norge-Italia-Norge-Россия

This year I applied for 20 working days of vacation… Strange feeling to have vacations constrained by a contract… Well, I am a full-time worker now, first or last it had to happen.

Planning my vacations was not so easy this year. I wanted to go home in Italy, but at the same time I wanted some action somewhere else in the world… And I had to make it fit with some deadlines at the University. The final choice was the following: Italia at the end of June, and Россия — it means just Russia, but I could not resist to write it in Cyrillic :) — at the end of July.

A journey to Italy always gives me a mixture of contradictory feelings. On one hand it is pleasant to come back to my home-sweet-home after a long while: my family, my wonderful nephews and niece, my (few) good old friends, good weather, good sea, good food, good wine… On the other hand, the little old-fashion culture of Italy makes me pissed off every time I clash with it. Italian society seems hopeless and passive, staring at the cultural and economical decline. You can sense it everywhere, even in the speeches and faces of people. Every time I am preparing my trip to Italy I am so excited, but once back I always feel that my vacation has a sour after-taste. Anyway, my home village is very little and I did not do that much except sunbathing, swimming and going out with my friends. At least one day I was brave enough to climb the Gran Sasso mountain up to the top (2912m). This was the most exciting moment of my vacation in Italy, and I have to thank Antonio for being my guide.

If the first vacation was calm and relaxing, the one that came after was absolutely thrilling and exhausting. I visited St. Petersburg and Moscow, together with Diego and Federico, probably the best — or the worst depending on the point of view… :) — “colleagues” I could ask. The same way Diego said it to me one year ago, now I can say as well “la Russia mi ha cambiato la vita” (Russia changed my life). Part of me will never be the same after this vacation… It was probably the best I have ever had, well done guys!

St. Petersburg is a lovely old-fashion city, quite European in the way of living, but still Soviet in its symbols. Being full of art, it was a very good place to enlarge my photography experience. Moscow is young and dynamic, somehow too big for my taste, but definitely magnificent. Very good night life, even though we had only a couple of chances to experience it. It is difficult to compare those two cities, they are very different but I was fascinated by both.

I was very surprised by this country and by its people. Russians, especially Russian girls, were extremely charming and welcoming. I got in touch very special persons, who helped me in many ways and acted as tourist guides just for me. Curiously, I noticed that Russians dress up on more occasions than Europeans do. Even to go for a casual walk, a Russian woman could wear high heels and a nice dress. A hardcore feminist might have the wrong impression that women do this because they are victimized, but Russian women themselves explained it this way, “We only live once; I want to look and feel my best”. I was actually very glad of it. ;) Moreover, all the stereotypes I heard before about criminality in Russia were exaggerated. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that we spent most of our time either sightseeing or in our apartment, but I had the impression that both St. Petersburg and Moscow are not more dangerous then other big cities in Europe.

What else can I say? Probably that I will be back in Russia one day, hopefully soon! I uploaded pictures from my trips. Check my Flickr photostream, and do not forget to leave comments!

До свидания.

by Alessandro in Society, Travels Tags: , ,

26 May 2008 3 Comments

7-fjellsturen

There is a town in the world where once every year almost 5000 people are waking up with only one desire: climb up 7 mountains before the day is over. The name of this town? Bergen.

I was one of those crazy people who managed to finish the so called “7-fjellsturen”. My equipment was just a backpack with a camera, a jacket, a bottle of water, and some sandwiches, but what I needed the most was a lot of motivation and adrenaline.

I started at 9:00 and finished at 23:00, walking for about 35Km and going up for about 2400m in total.

7-fjellsturen map

I am exhausted, stiff, and aching, but it was worth to do it. The weather was perfect, with clear sky and mild temperature. I never enjoyed the nature that much, and at the end of the day I really felt part of it. Now I am left with a diploma, a very exclusive t-shirt, and a lot of good memories…

I want to thank Synnøve, for being the best company I could desire for this trip, and Francesca, for giving me a bar of chocolate when I needed sugars to go on.

by Alessandro in Travels Tags: , , , ,

21 Dec 2007 No Comments

Vacations in Italy!

Finally some vacations! My life has been a great rush lately, so I really needed to take a pause and relax. :)

Today, despite the extreme weather conditions in Oslo (-11C and fog), I managed to fly back to Italy, where I will stay for a short while. I will spend one week with my family and then I will visit my friend Fabio in Milan. We will celebrate New Year’s eve together in an “Italian-Norwegian” party in Como’s lake.

Thereby, I will try to be as far as possible from my laptop before 2008 starts, so I take this chance to wish everyone Merry Christmas, Buon Natale, Bon Nadal, Feliz Navidad, Joyeux Noël, God Jul…

by Alessandro in Travels

01 May 2007 No Comments

From Spain to Italy by car

I am back from a long trip together with my girlfriend. It has been great! With her car we started from Barcelona and we stopped one day in Avignon, one afternoon in Chamonix, one week in the wonderful Aosta Valley, two days in Florence and finally back home, in L’Aquila.

I will upload some pictures on flickr as soon as possible.

Update 19 of May: a lot of pictures from the trip have been uploaded on my flickr photostream.

by Alessandro in Travels

07 Apr 2007 No Comments

Back in Bergen

Thursday I came in Bergen, a very beautiful city in the Atlantic coast of Norway where I lived for one year as an Erasmus student. Only those who had the same experience can understand how many memories you collected living in a multicultural environment like this. I always had the sensations to live my life two time faster when I was here. You meet everyday new people, you understand a lot about other cultures and your own culture, you improve your languages knowledge, you enjoy the life as you never did before…
Coming back here I had an extraordinary mix of sensations, that are very difficult to describe in a blog, especially when you do not write in your mothertongue. ;) When I just opened the door of the Fantoft Student Hostel – the hostel where all the foreign students in Bergen live – it seemed to me that I never left this place. I recognised even the little details like the smell in the corridors and the noise of the elevators. For a moment I was half smiling and half crying.
By the way, I will stay here until the 18 of April, probably part of my future will be decided during these days so please, keep the fingers crossed for me! ;)

by Alessandro in Travels

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