"Fear can make you prisoner, hope can set you free" kenadams's Profile

PLANS FOR THE SUMMER:

23/07/05-09/08/05: Karaikal, India, contruction work in Tsunami hit town.

10/08/05-17/08/05: Edinburgh, Scotland. Music Festival (sorry Shirez, see you in Sziget in 2006).

25/08/05-27/08/05: Stockholm, Sweden.
27/08/05-31/08/05: Glasgow, Scotland (again!).

See you all in September!

My name is Daniel, I was born and raised in Italy, in a small city in Tuscany. My father is italian but my mother is from New York (Brooklyn) so I'm also American (and proud of it). I always got to spend a lot of time in the U.S. Since I was little, my parents have made me travel around north America every summer so I piled up a bunch of very interesting experiences in the U.S. and Canada.
I have a degree in history from the University of Florence where I'm now a phd candidate. Right now I'm a visiting scholar at Columbia University in New York.

Atletico Sangallo

There are two things I like to do in life: the second one is traveling! So that's why I'm here.
I'm very proud of all the traveling I've done, although most of the credit for doing it goes to my parents. They met on an airplane about thirty years ago (a Pan Am flight from Milan to New York) and... here I am. I guess I was destined to be a treveller even before I was actually born.
I'm also into sports: soccer is the sport I play the most, but my favorite is actually baseball. Unfortunately baseball isn't exactly the most popular game in
Italy so I only played it for a few summers in the U.S. and for a couple years even in Italy. However, the sport I have played the most consistently is soccer. I almost always played as a goalkeeper, but I can play other positions as well.
This picture was drawn in 2000 by my then roommate Alessio "Szaio". We were a pretty bad team, but we had lots of fun, and really enjoyed our post-game parties.
[From left to right:
top row - Agostino, MArco, "Toniel" (me), Alessio, Domenico
bottom row - "Mimmo", "Gianfracoli", "Pelo", Simone, Alessandro, Jacopo.]
I've also played tennis for five years, and I've done plenty of rafting,
mounteneering, rock climbing, backpacking, sea kayaking.

a morning in eastern Long Island

I spent 4 summers, from 1994 to 1997, doing intensive outdoor travel. I took four expeditions organized by a group called Longacre expeditions - adventure travel for teenagers (highly recommended!). So thanks to my parents (they paid for all this), instead of spending my summers on some very crowded italian beach, I found myself backpacking in Maine, biking in Nova Scotia, climbing in British Columbia, kayaking in Alaska and so on.
I had the time of my life, and I learned more than any school could ever teach me.
Now I still try to get as much backcountry time I can get, but I don't have much time. I still do some rafting in the spring, usually in the Alps, and I go seakayaking in the summer (off Long Island, but I really hope to go back to Alaska or the Puget Sound, WA someday).

The cockpit of an A-320

Ever since I was little, and started flying back and forth between Italy and the U.S., I have loved planes. Becoming a pilot was my childish dream and, although I've abandoned the ambition, I've held on to the dream and I still have a great passion for aviation.
I read a lot about planes and I still love to fly. Check out my album with some tips on low-cost airlines.

Kenadams mobile 2

I love to drive. I love roadtrips. So far, the longest roadtrip I've taken has been a three day ride to Berlin. I was helping a friend to move back there from Italy. So we left Florence on a warm July night and arrived the next afternoon. We slept. We spent the next day in Berlin and then had to go back. It was not nearly as tiring as I thought it would be. Of course I had to see Berlin again, as I couldn't see much in one day. Luckily, Hapag Lloyd Express offers very cheap tickets from Pisa to Berlin!

Kenadams mobile 3

"Youth is not entirely a time of life it is a state of mind. It is not wholly a matter of ripe cheeks, red lips and supple knees. It is a temper of the will, a quality of imagination, a vigor of emotion, a freshness of the deep springs of life. It means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, of appetite for adventure over loss of ease.

Nobody grows old by living a number of years. People grow old by deserting their ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up interest wrinkles the soul. Worry, doubt, self-distrust, fear and despair - these are the long, long years that bow the head and turn the spirit back to dust.

"Whatever your years, there is in every being's heart the love of wonder, the undaunted challenge of events, the unfailing childlike appetite for what next, and the joy of the game of life. You are as young as your faith, as old as your doubts; as young as your self-confidence, as old as your fear; as young as your hope, as old as your despair. In the central place of every heart there is a recording chamber; so long as it receives messages of beauty, cheer and courage, so long are you young.

When the wires are all down and your heart is covered with the snows of pessimism and the ice of cynicism, then, and only then, have you grown old."