This year on October 5th I woke up in my bed in Colombia, not really ready to celebrate my 27th birthday. And, my 5th birdday away from home. Here is my chronology of my return of the day. October 5th, 2016. Brighton, UK. My first birthday off shore. I was spending a month in Brighton…
Let’s talk wormholes!
#WormholeChallenge Speaking about science is definitely out of my confort zone. That’s precisely why I’m doing it today. Let’s talk wormholes. A wormhole (or Einstein–Rosen bridge or Einstein–Rosen wormhole) is a speculative structure linking disparate points in spacetime, and is based on a special solution of the Einstein field equations. A wormhole can be visualised as a tunnel with two ends at…
My adventures by voice
2016 is the year my life changed. However, I never could have guessed it. 2016 per se didn’t start well for me. I was coming out of a 2 year relationship quite heartbroken, and felt lost about my academic career. I wanted to quit everything. And so I did. I graduated earlier, while working two…
Dentro la comunità indigena Kogi
Tiro fuori i 10,000 pesos e glieli porgo. Francisca li mette in un borsellino di tela. “Bienvenidas”, ci dice. Sua figlia di due anni corre scalza nella polvere, rincorsa da due bimbi dai capelli neri corvini. Mi trovo all’ingresso del villaggio della comunità Kogi, una delle 4 comunità indigene (le altre si chiamano arhuacos, wiwas,…
Inside Bogota’s Botanical Garden
A photographic journey In 2016, I visited Rio de Janeiro’s Botanical Garden – I took hundreds of pictures and then lost them all, but that’s another story. Ever since that day in 2016, I felt reluctant about exploring botanical gardens in other cities of the world. None of them would be as wild, rich in…
Book of the month: La melancolía de los feos (May 2021)
La melancolía de los feos, by Mario Mendoza “La melancolía de los feos” (the Melancholy of the ugly) was the book I picked during my second month in Bogota, as my second Colombian reading. Written in 20216 by the Bogotan author Mario Mendoza, its story is moving, exciting, inspiring. Here is why. The protagonist of…
Learning French with non-traditional methods
How I did it, and how you can do it too When I moved to Brussels, Belgium in 2018 I didn’t know any French. It took me two months to become fluent in French with non-traditional methods. That’s the story for how I did it, and of how you can do it as well. In…
Traveling as a Vegetarian: how to
Traveling as a vegetarian can be hard. Welcome to the golden guide to make vegetarianism exciting even while traveling. In 2018 I spent 6 months in India as an exchange student. I did experience the notorious cultural shock everyone talks about, but not when I arrived there. Instead, I felt it on my skin when…
Il vaso di Pandora delle proteste in Colombia
Le proteste in Colombia viste da vicino “In Colombia, nel giorno della festa della mamma, non ci sono figli con cui celebrare” recita una vignetta di Patancartoon pubblicata da uno dei maggiori quotidiani del Paese andino, El Espectador. Quasi tutte le 47 vittime delle attuali proteste in Colombia avevano infatti tra i 17 e i…
How I feel about being in Colombia during the protests
Living in a foreign country in the middle of a socio-political conflict isn’t easy. May 9, 2021. Protests day number 13. Understanding how I feel about being in Colombia in the middle of the protests is complicated. Very complicated. Over the last days I have felt overwhelmed with a kaleidoscope of emotions about the ongoing…