Wednesday, December 21, 2016

Italian concerns continued

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Welcome to our blog, Genzano it story
and this post, Italian concerns continued
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The central Italy earthquakes are continuing. One can only hope that they stop soon to give the people of that regions some hope that things could become to normal one day.




Italian concerns continued
Dear readers, this post is the continuation of our last post, we Italians should be concerned, since this is about the same issue, let us continue to talk about what is happening in Italy these days. In our last article ‘We Italians should be concerned’, we were talking about two main issues, one was about the earthquake that has rocked central Italy for the last few months and still goes on every now and then, the other was about the refugees or illegal emigrants, which has gone on for several years: from our point of view both issues are related, because they put a strain on the Italian economy, they also involve all the Italian authorities and they are making a great effort to solve these problems. So, let us talk about how they are doing, and if they are getting there and solving their problems.
When the first earthquake struck, the Italians were quick to respond and helped the people affected from the earthquake, they seemed well organized to do this sort of things, so much so that most Italians including myself could feel proud to be Italians. So, we were all believing that the Italian authorities were doing well and had everything under control, because they were quick to help the earthquake people, at least it seemed so at that time. But when earthquake of these magnitude happens, and they continue to happen things are not that easy to fix, so people affected might start losing hope.
So, today we are asking ourselves, whether the initial interest in helping the earthquake victims is losing interest, because they seem to have slowed down a bit. They should know that during this time of the year, they cannot afford to do that, because winter is coming and winters are very cold over there, especially on the mountains the temperature falls below zero most nights and to sleep in a tent is terrible to say the least. So, they should try to fix some better temporary accommodation as fast as they can. Anyhow, at least this is how most people feel it should be done, but it is not always possible to do that the way that we would like to do it. So, we should wait and see how the Italian authorities will solve this humanitarian problem, which has come from natural causes that nobody can stop happening. Anyhow, the Italians seem to be mostly on their own to face their problems, since in the world there are several other problems and everyone tries to fix their own first.
Above we have mentioned that usually people try to blame somebody else, or something else, because there are things that usually complicate the outcome, so, let us see what these things are that makes people unhappy.

Inclement weather and other
For people that have been affected severally from the quake, and today they don’t have any more a roof over their head, inclement weather is their enemy number one, this is followed by their worries about the properties that they have been forced to temporary abandon, because they are now open to robberies, the authorities in charge do what they can to stop thieves entering them. But thieves are people that don’t care about other people properties and the laws that forbids them to enter other people properties. So, some of them will find a way how to rob the already unfortunate people that have lost so much already. When we think about all this, we can only feel very sorry, for those people that are going through all this painful stuff, even though, they have not done anything wrong to deserve this. So, if these people are unhappy we understand the reason why.
Now that I have mentioned above this issue, about deserving or not what they are going through. I cannot help to remember that in the news there has been this foolish priest that has said that this is a divine punishment, how he can believe that stuff I do not know, but he said it anyhow; he must be a bit like the Muslims, who believe that their God Allah will punish them if they don’t do what is written in their Koran, or what they believe is written in the Koran. They both live in their fantasy land and believe in these extremist views. But let us leave behind this believing issues, because what has happened here is a natural disaster and not God send.  
As we have said, already, the main enemy of those people that don’t have a roof over their head is inclement weather, so, it is imperative that they find a way how to protect themselves soon enough, before the winter comes if possible, because over there in winter-times very little can be done, of course that depends how severe the winter will be this year, one could hope that it is not that cold; but it is better to think that it could be very cold. So, the authorities that have already promised the people so many things at the start, they better try hard to fulfil their promises, because winter is just around the corner, so to speak. We could say more about all these problems that these unfortunate people are facing today, which could be liked to other problems as well, that we are going to discuss, about the refugees and the mafia, where we are going to write about our own personal views about them, in our next article later. 
Now, we should say that in Italy there are other urgent problems as well, so, the government cannot concentrate all its efforts to the earthquake people, because there are also the refugees that need help, as we have already said. 


Every day there are thousands of illegal emigrant, they come in by sea on whatever floating device they can find, it is a real problem over there, and it could get worse if a solution is not found.



Back to the refugees’ problem
The refugees’ problem is a worldwide problem, but for Italy, because of its unique position in the Mediterranean Sea is getting a very large share of refugees, which is no good for the Italians; these refugees also need food and shelter, like the people that lost their houses in the earthquake. So, the Italian authorities need to work hard to solve these accommodation problems, for both. But that is not going to be easy, because the sheer number of these refugees that need help causes some problems that are hard to solve. But they need to be solved before they become even larger. But there are even more problems, because of what happens in Italy now and has happened for a very long time. The worse part of this refugees problem is that there is no end in sight. But this cannot go on for a long time, because there will be other problems that these refugees would cause.
Some of these concerns are already well known throughout the world, one of which is that they bring with them some extremist elements, as we have seen a few times already; everybody knows about a year ago what these extremists did in France and then Belgium and other countries as well. No   country can be safe from them, because of their extremist beliefs, which could be attributed to their religious beliefs, or just for convenience they try to blame their religion to commit these atrocious crimes. Whatever is their reasons, they don’t deserve to be helped at all. Why help them when they turn around and kill you. One should ask oneself, how this could make sense in this people twisted minds.
So, today the entire world should work out this problem of the refugees, because not only they rely on the willingness of other countries to help them. Because, other countries go to help them on humanitarian grounds, they help them willingly without thinking that one day they could cause real problems.
We will be talking about, some of these problems that they can cause in our next article, where we are going to talk about, the unseen problems that the refugees can cause, the extremist problem and the mafia problem. You see, this is one of the reasons why I am writing these articles here.  See you soon, in our next article called, concerns about refugees and mafia.
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Genzano it story
Italian concerns continued
IS GOING TO BE CONTINUED;
Next time with, Italian concerns continued
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Tuesday, December 20, 2016

We Italians should be concerned

WELCOME TO FRANK MENCHISE BLOG OF GENZANO DI LUCANIA, YOU ARE INVITED TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE.
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Welcome to our blog, Genzano it story
and this post, we Italians should be concerned
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We Italians should be concerned

Italy is a European country in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea that today has many problems of its own. One is that there are too many refugees coming in, the other is the recent earthquake in central Italy. Both these events make life harder for the Italian people, for this reason we should be concerned.  










We Italians should be concerned
Dear readers, I am going to stop writing my life story for a while, I will come back to it another time, because there are other things more important to write about. Let me explain, I have already written and published some articles in another site. Now these articles have a lot to do with Italy, so, because I am a Italian I am going to publish these articles in my blog, that in a way has got a lot of Italian content, so, let me repeat these articles here in my blog, Genzano it story, as I am sure that most Italian emigrant would be interested.
What I am going to write in this article today, it is an issue that has been on my mind for a long time; it has been on my mind, because I was born in Italy and I feel that I am still Italian, therefore, whatever happens in Italy it affects me personally as well, and for that reason, I would like to say something about it if I can, so, I am writing this article to have my say. Anyhow, today while I am trying to finish this first article, I have become aware this I have lots of things to talk about, so there will be more than just this article, as we will explain later. 
The reason why I am writing it now and not before, it is because there are a couple of things that have happened recently and they have pushed me to write this personal article. Now, I believe that as things are today in Italy, Italy seems to have so many problems to cope with, one of which is the illegal migration from Africa and the Middle East. This illegal emigration touches me personally, because in the fifties and sixties, we Italians had to emigrate ourselves to other countries to find work, and one of this emigrant was myself.
But since then, a lot of things have changed and today the Italian people are better off; they are so much better off than then, that instead of people living Italy to find work somewhere else, they are somehow able to help other people that move to Italy illegally, even if they cannot give them some work, because even today there is not enough work for the Italians. I see that this illegal emigration could cause a problem soon. So, I wish that somebody somehow would come up with a solution, how to stop or control it to an acceptable level. You see, I believe that this uncontrolled migration could create some serious problems in the future, therefore, I feel concerned, and here I am writing them.
Anyhow, while I was looking in the news on the Internet, for any signs or any ideas that could slow this unwanted emigration down, to my dismay, instead of finding this solution how to stop the illegal emigrant coming in, in large numbers, I found in Hub Pages an article that was showing the benefit of migrating to Italy and Europe. I know that the writer was writing only his point of views, without thinking of the consequence this could eventually cause. Anyhow, to me this article seems as if the writer is encouraging other people to migrate to Italy and Europe, which I believe is not a good thing to do, as I am going to explain some of the reasons, which will be evident by the time I finish writing about my concerns. But let us leave behind this difference of opinion between me and the Hub Pages writer; because I would like to point out, what are the real problems over there, and then we will talk about some of the major issues one by one, including this article that I found in Hub Pages.
Looking at these Italian issues from far way, since I happen to be today in Australia the land  of the Kangaroos’, because I am so far away, for this reason, I imagine that I would be able to see these important issues, in a different way, and perhaps better than the people that live on the spot in Italy, because I am not directly affected by what is happening over there just now. So, let me write down my point of views, about the illegal emigrant and other things.
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This is a boat full of illegal emigrant people, they could be said to be lucky, because even if the boat is overloaded, it is still floating and they seem safe enough.



The illegal emigrants’ problem
Anyhow, I should say first that I am proud of what the Italians are doing these days, since what they are doing is being done on humanitarian grounds. We know that helping other people in need is the best thing that we humans could and should do, so, we should encourage this sort of behaviour all the time. But, there is a big question mark here. Could this sort of behaviour in the long run be detrimental to the helper themselves? So, let us see what this could mean.
As we have said, in Italy we have a big problem with the illegal emigrants, because there are too many of them coming in, we also believe that from what we see happening in the world, this emigration problem will continue for a long time. So, we Italian should be concerned, but not only we Italians should be concerned about that, because, I believe that also the rest of the world should be concerned about what is happening today in Italy and other part of the world as well.
Anyhow, let us continue these discussions, or point of views if you like to call them that; so, let us see what is happening in Italy, because there is some news from Italy that should concern most of us Italians, even if today, some of us like myself happen to live outside Italy, perhaps these issues should concern other people as well. My own personal point of views is that Italy today is under a strain, it has been so for a long time, because of the refugees and the illegal migrants that come to Italy every day, the last count that I have heard of, there were 156 thousand refugees this year alone, there were also over 4200 people that drowned in the Mediterranean Sea, so, the Italians and other countries as well feel that they should help them and they do, because on humanitarian grounds that needs to be done.
But, this is not all that needs to be done today, because even this drowning issue is not the main problem for the Italian people over there, because, for the last two months there have been several earthquakes in central Italy, which have damaged lots of towns, and there were near 300 victims from these earthquakes, in some of these towns there is hardly any building left standing. So, Italian people should solve these two huge problems that keep going on, one after the other, with no end in sight.
Now, in this article, I would have liked to talk about three main issues, the earthquake problems, the refugees and illegal emigrant, and last of all discuss about the article on Hub Pages that seems to encourage illegal emigrant to go to Italy, the gateway of Europe. But it looks like that this article is becoming too long already. So, I may have to write two or three articles to say what I want to say. But to conclude this article, let me talk about the earthquake and the Italian response.
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This photo that we have taken from the internet, is one of the many buildings severally damaged during the earthquake.







The Italian earthquake  
Today, if we Look at what is happening in Italy, here we are talking about the earthquake and everything else, I believe that the Italian authorities are coping very well indeed, in doing what needs to be done. As most of us may have noticed in the daily news, there are too many things that the Italian authorities need to do all at the same time, while they have also so many other problems going on. Now, the Italian are not rich people, because Italy is a small country in size compared to other countries with the same population; Italy is also poor, because every now and then there are these earthquakes that destroy many towns, like what has happened just now. Some people might think that you can just rebuild again and the problem is over. But it is not so, you see every time something is destroyed, the country becomes poor because of the destruction. In Italy, there are too many mountains, so, some of this territory is not easily cultivable, but the Italians are good at finding what they could grow on some small piece of land, if they live in the mountains, and they do. They are also good at doing other things, since most of them are individual that try hard to solve their own problems. But even knowing that they can solve many problems, today they should be concerned, because there are several negative things all happening at the same time. Anyhow, now let us talk about what the Italians are doing because of the earthquake.
When earthquake like these that are happening in Italy take place and there are hundreds of dead people, and tens of thousands have their houses destroyed and become in a way refugees, usually other countries come to help, but this time there was no much help from outside Italy, and if there was any it was not mentioned much in the news. So, it seems from here that the Italian people could cope with the earthquake problem so far by themselves.
The Italian government and authorities have been quick to get involved, so, they have already promised to the people that they will rebuild the damaged houses and everything else that needs to be rebuilt, so, now it remains to be seen, if what the authorities have promised the people affected from the quake, is going to be delivered on time and to the standard that they have promised; we hope they do, for the benefit of everybody involved.  
Now, I should say that next step is going to be a critical one, because while the government is giving money to re-build, the damaged houses and everything else that needs to be rebuilt, there could be some greedy idiots that don’t care about the plight of the rest of the community that need help, so, they want a share of the government money; here I am talking about the mafia and other criminal groups, I hope that they are caught in time from the Italian authorities before they do any damage. My own personal view about them is that they are a disgrace to the Italian people that work so hard to achieve a good outcome for everybody, they should be ashamed of themselves, instead of being proud to be robbers.
Anyhow, I believe that I have said enough about the earthquake for the time being, because I would like to talk a bit about the refugees and illegal emigrants that come to Italy by thousands just about every day, which is another problem for the Italian government and we should be concerned about that, as we are going to write in our next article, that perhaps we could call, Italian concerns continued.
See you soon.
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Genzano it story
We Italian should be concerned
IS GOING TO BE CONTINUED;
Next time with, Italian concerns continued
------------------------------ 


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Some of our hub links


Wednesday, December 7, 2016

On the way to Australia

WELCOME TO FRANK MENCHISE BLOG OF GENZANO DI LUCANIA, YOU ARE INVITED TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE.
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Welcome to our blog, Genzano it story
and this post, On the way to Australia
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-Australia












On the way to Australia


Happenings on the way to Australia

Dear readers, this post is the continuation of our last post, going to Australia, so, let us continue from where we left our story.

During the fortnight that the ship took to cross the Indian Ocean, every one of us was wondering his own way about the future in Australia and what we knew about Australia; in my own case at some stage of this crossing I would start wondering how hard it would be to live in the driest continent on earth, as I had learned at school that Australia is very dry compared to other continents or countries. So, what would the supply of water be like, and what about the westerly wind be like, I remember that my teacher had said that these winds last up to three months, so, I was asking myself, is it going to be just as bad and as cold as winter times winds of Italy, who knows? You see to cross this stretch of water of the Indian Ocean was taking too long and therefore it was becoming even boring to go out on deck just to see the sea water and the sky above. So no wonder we were thinking so many strange things.

There is something else that I found out on the Indian Ocean, which was not good news for me; but let us start this story from the beginning. You see, in those times when you went overseas from these small towns like Genzano, anyone that had relatives would like to send a present or something to their relatives, or at least their greetings or something like that, and also if you went to a relative house to stay when you arrived in Australia, you could not and would not go there without bringing some presents, from your family and their families, so you can imagine how loaded you were with your own presents and friends presents when you boarded the ship, and I tell you I was loaded too with all this stuff.

Now forgive me my readers if I all of a sudden I start talking or thinking, or comparing if you like about today TV shows like border security, instead of talking about my journey to Australia, but you see, I was coming from a country town and most presents were not bought at the shop, they could be food or something that could not be allowed to go through customs in Australia, so every time I see something on TV like border protection show, I cannot help thinking that I have been in the same position myself, when I first came to Australia, but anyhow on the ship I had plenty of time to work it out, as I was talking to some people that had been in Australia before, so I was able to avoid the worse.

Among other things on the ship I had two demijohns of local wine, which I was sure that would be very much appreciated from the people that I was going to stay with in Australia, for people that don’t know what a demijohn is I will explain, A demijohn is a large round glass container dressed with something like woven straw, in my case I had two of them one was ten litres, and the other seven litres, in addition to that and strange as it may seem I had some (lampagioni) small wild onions, which I slowly realised could never go past customs, so when I was sure that they would not be allowed to enter Australia, I dumped them in the Indian Ocean. I had also some local homemade large beautiful biscuits and other stuff. Anyhow let me talk about the two demijohn of local wine now, because for a long time anyone that were sailing with me on this ship would remind me of this event; these two demijohns were in my cabin and there wasn’t any way to restrain them properly, so, when the sea was rough they were sliding across the cabin floor until one of them broke that is why my passenger friend always remember and remind me about the good lost wine.

These are some of the happenings during my journey to Australia. Anyhow after a fortnight we reached the continent of Australia and docked at Fremantle in Western Australia. Hurray, we have made it to Australia, now we are going to see what Australia is like and if it would bring us good fortune.

But we are going to do that in our next post, as people today don’t like tong articles. So, see you soon in our next post called, first positive impressions.

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Genzano it story
On the way to Australia
IS GOING TO BE CONTINUED;
Next time with, first positive impressions
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Saturday, December 3, 2016

Going to Australia

WELCOME TO FRANK MENCHISE BLOG OF GENZANO DI LUCANIA, YOU ARE INVITED TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE.
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Welcome to this blog, Genzano it story
and this post, going to Australia
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This is the map of Australia, the far away land on the other side of the world that we wanted to emigrate to, in the early sixties and we did.









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Going to Australia

Dear readers, this post is the continuation of our last post, the real journey begins, this is the story of my life that I am writing here in blogger in small posts, which are going to be several articles; in this article, we are going to tell you about how I felt and what I did on the ship during my voyage when I was migrating to Australia. Then if you follow my writings you will find that I have worked in the building industry, as a bricklayer building houses and this could be interesting to some of you, if you would like to DIY some building work. Anyhow let us go back to my trip on the ship to Australia. You see, in the early sixties just about everybody that went overseas had to sail to whatever destination one had to go to.  

While I was on this ship called the Sydney, in my heart I was already saying: Hello Australia, here I come with my dreams in my heart of finding a better life for myself and perhaps for the future generation of my future family, if or when I can have a family of my own.

I know that I might be dreaming these dreams that may not happen at all the way I want, but I am young and there is no harm in dreaming to find a better life if I could.

So, as I have said in our last hub, we left Port Said to go straight to Australia and while we were on the ship crossing the Indian Ocean we the passenger that were migrating to Australia started to think already about what we had left behind in Italy, and at the same time we were eager to see what Australia was like, on the ship we made some acquaintances and everyone had some story to tell, most of us would be talking about the reasons why we were migrating to Australia and what we would like to achieve in Australia, but really we didn't know a thing about what we could do in Australia, most of us did not have any job qualification, so we were hoping to do whatever job came our way, as long as there was enough money to earn a living for a start, so we hoped for the best.

Now, this time I want to keep this post very short for my own personal reasons; so, see you in our next post, on the way to Australia.

Monday, October 31, 2016

The real journey begins

WELCOME TO FRANK MENCHISE BLOG OF GENZANO DI LUCANIA, YOU ARE INVITED TO BROWSE AS LONG AS YOU LIKE.
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Welcome to our blog, Genzano it story
and this post, the real journey begins
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The real journey begins
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Ship docked in the port of Naples, where people in the sixties would usually embark to go oversea. In those times there were no real large airlines that could fly you anywhere in the world like today. So, we had to travel for a long time to reach our destination.
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After we left Italy, we crossed the Mediterranean Sea, then the Suez Channel and The Red Sea. We that had never travelled before, we were all wondering what we would see next. In a way it was very interesting, but we also were worried sometimes.
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The real journey begins

The real journey outside Italy begins

Dear readers, this post is the continuation of our previous post, Goodbye to my country, where we had gone ashore and walked the streets of Messina and then back to the ship to leave Italy for good, and we did. Next evening, we were in Port Said Egypt. Here again we were allowed to go ashore, and here for the first time we met with real foreigners who talked a different language, you see, until then I and perhaps a lot of the other passengers who were also migrating to Australia had never been outside Italy. In Port Said I saw for the first time that the people of this world are not all the same, in fact I am going to describe to you the way as I have seen it at that time. We came down the ship and we were walking by instinct in small groups, or perhaps it was one of the ship crew that took a group to show us the way, and to see how things were done down there.

There were a few very young and poor people that wanted to shine your shoes for a small coin, there were others that would sell you anything, in fact they sold to a few of us a piece of well reaped wood for a piece of chocolate, there were a few shops open that you could buy a bargain if you knew how to bargain, because they would ask a very high price and who knew how to bargain could reduce that price to one third of the original price, or something like that.

On reflection today I would say that Egypt was a strange place, you see the people that we talked to, knew a bit of Italian and they would tell us that we were robbing them by calling us (mariul or mariooo) which in the dialect of southern Italy could be translated as robber or thief; but while they were telling us that we were bobbing them, they were indeed robbing us, right, left and centre. But today I understand what they were doing, they were just trying to live their life, they were so poor that what they were doing was the only way for them to survive, may God forgive them if they hurt us by robbing some of us a bit of what we had. 

Anyhow, then we went back to the ship and next day we were navigating in the Suez Chanel, the Suez Channel offer one of the strangest sights, because, while you are in a ship in this man-made channel that mankind should be proud to have made, and while you are in this strip of water slowly navigating towards the Red See, on both sides is desert land, what a sight this is?

After navigating the Suez Channel, we went through the Red Sea and next stop was the port of Aden Yemen. By now I and the others were aware that here too things would be different from the normal way, but anyhow there was not much to see or report. Because I did not venture too far away from the port, what I can remember of Aden is that there were a few shops near the port, but what I remember most is that the air seemed to have a strange smell like sulphur that day, so even today I wonder why it was so, and also, does the air in Aden smell like that all the time? If that is so, then different lands have different smells. I wonder if somebody else has had the same experience as I have.

Then the time came when we left Aden to go straight to Australia, this time it would take about a fortnight navigating no stop the Indian Ocean, a fortnight in the middle of the sea with no land in sight, this was going to be another hard take for the people that had never been to sea like myself, but anyhow we had taken that decision to go to Australia, so let us go and see what Australia would be like.

When we left Aden I had already set foot on three continents during my life, so, within my heart I was saying goodbye to them all, starting from my native town of Genzano di Lucania, Goodbye Genzano my native town, goodbye Italy my country of origin, goodbye Port Said Egypt Africa, with your poor people that try to rob all passenger that set foot on their land just to survive, and goodbye Aden Yemen Asia with you strange air smelling of sulphur. Next stop will be Australia that very far away land, which we were all thinking it would be like the Promised Land.

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Navigating the Indian Ocean

Navigating the Indian Ocean from Aden to Fremantle Australia took us a fortnight; I should say that it was all right considering the circumstances that most of us had never been at sea before. You see, in those days’ people travelled by ship or any other kind of transport only when it was necessary, and even though the ship was not a luxury cruiser like the cruisers of today it was good enough for us who were just passengers who wanted to move from Italy to Australia, as it was in my case. The ship had embarked over 2000 passengers and we all had a proper bed to sleep in, there was plenty of good wholesome food and meals that were served regularly, we all had a place to sit at the tables, which were attached to the floor, but if the ship moved too much we had to mind the dishes and the drinks. Anyhow at other times we would go around the ship with some of these acquaintances that we have met on the ship, or just sit in our own cabin. We had also an English class that we could attend, so that we could learn a few words of English and be able to say at least the most Basic English words, in the hope that we would be able to say something and make other people understand what we needed when we reached Australia. There was something else that we learned at these English classes and it was the convict song I believe and it went thus: Oh my darling, oh my darling, oh my darling Clementine, you are lost and gone forever, oh my darling Clementine. How appropriate it was in our cases.

Perhaps I am saying too much about my personal story and it is becoming boring, so I am cutting it short and close this article. See you in our next article, hello Australia here I come, or going to Australia.

See you soon, where I am going to tell you a bit more about my life story.  

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Genzano it story
The real journey begins
IS GOING TO BE CONTINUED;
Next time with, more of my life story, or something a bit more modern, depending on what happens.
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Some of our hub links