Christmas travel this year, it’s red flag for us now – for us, not President Bush… It’s a matter of time, one of these days Zuz will jump out of his mom’s belly. Maybe tonight. In his room his cradle is already waiting for him and diapers are stored in the closet.

We’ve spent December 31st on our own in a restaurant in the Navigli area, close to a large Russian/Croatian /Hungarian family which, coincidentally, have offered us that typical off-shore, “what-am-I-doing-here?” atmosphere we’re now used to, that accompanied us other times in the turn of the year.
December 31st in the Navigli area can look close to another one spent in Beirut, or in a British Channel gale, if a fifty-year-old blonde, covered with department-store mink tails suffocates you in a cheerful hug spilling her vodka on you, wishing you "Sretna nova godina!"

The travel in front of us – yes – will last one entire life, and maybe I should start to think about a digital camera.

Zuz will grow up under our world map, and the many little flag pins pointed here and there. I look at Emanuela’s belly and I think that he knows nothing about those little flags, he actually knows nothing at all and we will need to teach him everything. Mommy, daddy, food, pee and passport. Maybe when he’ll grow up there won’t be any passport any more and at each check in we will be scanned by some electronic device controlling our retina.
He will grow up in a Europe which won’t look at all like the one we were crossing twenty years ago, where we used a thousand different currencies and change (and the Italian phone token), where you used to spend hours at borders, and sometimes you even needed a visa, while now you can fly anywhere with 99 Euro (sometimes just 9, but if you flap your arms) and you can pass underneath the British Channel through a tunnel. Luckily you still need to catch a ferry boat to cross the Messina Strait. I suspect that, whatever somebody says, we will still navigate on this Strait for a long time, at least for the same time we will need to catch a bus to reach the Filaforum in Milan, and the Milan metro will wait for extensions...

However, it was just 1986 – not the beginning of last century - when at the Greek border I got three passport pages stamped to get in, and it was 1977 when at the Bulgarian border there were tanks and each car was thoroughly checked before passing.
Now you can buy one car, if you want. And if you’re not careful you’ll be sold your own car.

Maybe in Lhasa Zuz will arrive by train, or will fly to Australia in six hours. He will videocall us from Burundi forest to show us gorillas, or will sleep on a hut on Everest South Col, maybe after watching weather forecasts directly via satellite on his wrist monitor.
Or maybe, like a friend of ours says, he will send us an olovideomail from the Adria Sea, because, mom and dad, I’m so bored by your travel stories that bye, I’m going to the beach with my friends and I really couldn’t care less of Burundi, gorillas stink and Burundi people are in my school and can run faster than me.

We would love to go back to Romania, and take a tour of Moldova. There’s half an idea regarding Cook islands which has been floating in our drawers for a while, and those three weeks in Japan that we always keep as a B-plan. All of a sudden we look at her belly, Emanuela from top and I from in front, and we find ourselves asking him: - Zuz, would you like to come to Japan with us?? -

- Glu glu glu? [What’s Japan?]
- Japan is that world where Japanese children are...
- Glu glu glu? [What’s the world?]
- The world is a slightly smashed ball suspended somewhere in space… well, we’ll talk about it another time...
- Glu glu glu? [What’s a ball?]

God, we really need to teach everything to this little one...

We had to go to the stationer’s, buy "the Album of My Researches", carefully cutting out those little pictures and stick them on squared paper pages to complete our homework: that’s how we’d learn “the ancient Egyptians”, "Africa animals", "desert people".

Now you just need to click into the web or watch tv and you learn so many interesting things. For instance, you can learn to read what’s behind so many images (including – let’s say it – some pictures that we’re publishing on this site...).

photo by Laura Bogliolo?
you can find it here

I’m asking myself where is the truth I should learn: on top or below? I have the impression that the world, seen through the Album of My Researches, were easier (and, certainly, Vietnam lied much farther from our homes than Iraq today).

Will we be able to have Donald Duck win over Pokemon? Glu, glu, glu...