2 blogs is too much!

despite my initial good proposition to maintain a blog in italian for my family and friends and one in english for many colleagues and friends, I suddenly realized that it will definitely be impossible to catch up with both of them... :-(

hoping that anyone interested will at least enjoy the pictures
http://alegindia.blogspot.it/

to Ludhiana

I couldn’t sleep so much but I’m excited to go downstairs to the lobby and meeting my CSC colleagues….we are all there in the small lobby and it is strange but it seems we already know each other…Time to go to the train station: amazing experience! Each of our luggage is brought by a man on his head (mine’s weight is exactly 23 kgs, the maximum allowed) and we have to rush behind that man walking into the crowd not to loose it. The station is crowded and noisy but we manage to safely got on the train.

The first class has wide and comfortable seats where we will be able to take a rest….but unexpectedly we have to share our couch with a very  noisy groups of old classmates and their families going to the marriage of one of them. They sing, play funny games and above all they do not stop eating! They are only heating up for the real ceremony …I cannot imagine what it will be!

At Ludhiana the train stops only 3 minutes and we have to carefully prepare our strategy to get off with all our stuff: thanks to Shruti and her suggestion everything is fine.

We are now tired but we manage to have a very spicy lunch (at least for me). Will I survive?

the departure...again

It’s Friday morning and I’m back at Malpensa hoping to leave! The flight this time is confirmed and in almost an hour we are in Frankfurt. While waiting for the next flight we exchange contacts with the other unfortunate passengers promising we will keep in touch for future travel….(Iran? why not!). Finally @1.30 am on Saturday we land in Delhi!

At the gate I’m surprised by the great crowd at this time in the night….!!! Looking for a while, I finally find Smitha holding a small sheet with Corporate Service Corps. She will have to wait for another participant so she calls me a taxi that drives me to the Bloomrooms hotel where I can get a little rest (2 hours)

the departure....

Finally the day has come, February 6^th, and I’m ready to fly to India. My travel plan includes a flight from Milan to Munich where I will meet the other European participants (Peter, Pierre, Cristian, Lukas, Dmytro). From Munich we will fly to Delhi and then we will reach Ludhiana by train.

……..

Unfortunately, after initially announcing a delay, my initial flight to Munich has been cancelled. After a 2 hours queue, I finally have a new flight (leaving Milan to Frankfurt on February, 8^th), a voucher for an hotel near to the airport and some new friends met while queuing. They are all passionate travelers and we have dinner together telling stories about countries all around the world…not too bad anyway! ;-)

- 4 days

This week we had our last CSC team call before departure…Thanks Jennifer for leading us through all the modules over these weeks! We got the last logistics information and details about our trip. We will meet all together in New Delhi and we will go by train to Ludhiana, the destination of out CSC program, in the indian state of Punjab. 
 

I’m really looking forward to know the other 11 participants coming from all over the world: US, Brazil, France, Romania, Germany, Czech Republic, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Hungary.

In the meanwhile today I’m struggling to pack all the stuff now spread all over the floor trying to keep the weight within the allowed 23 Kilos: MISSION IMPOSSIBLE!!!! 

I’m also preparing my personal mp3 compilation for this adventure…good music is always an important part of my travels ;-)

#ibmcsc india 22

Congratulations! You've been invited to join the India 22 Corporate Service Corps Team!

I’m starting counting down the days to the departure for my IBM Corporate Service Corps to India.For those of you who don’t know what it is about, just a quick recap of what happened in the last 9 months.

This journey surprisingly started from India, yes…India!....and, like in a loop, will bring me back to that country.It was indeed on April 2013 that I finally decided to apply to the CSC initiative after having thought about doing it several times in the past thanks to the stories heard from colleagues that already joined the program. I submitted my application one week before leaving for a business trip to India (Bangalore) and got my manager’s approval while we were waiting our flight at the airport.

What a great surprise when, several months later, I received an email congratulating with me for having being selected as participant for the India 22 CSC Team with destination Ludhiana!!!

Since then I started thinking back to what I’ve seen, smelt, tasted there and looking forward to immerse me again in that wonderful atmosphere….and started the countdown!