'This is th next century, where the Universal's free. You can find it everywhere, yes the future has been sold'
I'm listening to this Blur' song, The Universal, while writing this lines: I guess they fit a bit the situation...
I'm lucky enough to have visited different places in the States, at this stage of my life: Denver, Miami, New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Las Vegas.
When I look back at my early days I remenber the picture of America in mind, the right place to be, the place of all the sitcoms inspiring me, the place of the running economy, the place of freedoms. I was very fashinated by a country which I had not yet visited, and this country I wished to visit for so long.
First I landed in Denver, I touched my promise land. Then in Miami, then in Boston. Then in New York, with my Regine, at the center of the World!

This time the 2007 HP Software sales kick off was the occasion to have another view of America: the West side in Los Angles and Las Vegas.
We were supposed to be in Vegas on the 13th for the Convention's opening, but we thought it was a good idea to take the chance to leave some days before and spend a weekend in the Los Angeles area.
Me, Fabio and Massimo left on the 9th to reach Santa Monica and meet there Francesco, Sandra, Franco and Alberto, colleagues form HP who had the same idea.
We stayed at the Bayside Hotel, there in Santa Monica. I enjoied Santa Monica and the wonderful Californian beach and appeal so close to the ones I had in mind. I took some walks along the seaside and relaxed on the bay. There at a few minutes by car (by the way we had a gigantic car rentd by Fabio!) Los Angeles was awaiting.... Do you remember Pulp Fiction and the atmospheres of a lost town where you dunno where you exactly are, where the center is, or where the people stands among those ugly and disorganized constructions? Do you remember the place where the shop of Zed stood...can you recall the atmosphere of that movie? I cannot imagine another way to better describe the feelings I had in Los Angeles, the city where Pulp Fictin was played. It feels exactly like that: it is not city, it looks like a messy urban agglomerate, with no people in the street or not as much as you could expect once approaching to this huge town. I will not bring with me good memory of Los Angeles in the sense of beauty and example of a great place (...the memory I have of NY, for example...) but I'll remember the unique mood of this immense and lost town, and the views of Hollywood, Beverly Hills (where we had lunch once) and Melrose Place...

...and while driving from LA through a piece of California and the desert of Nevada...Las Vegas suddenly appeared as a million of lights surrounded by the black empty desert! Fabio drove us through the Strip of Vegas before reaching the place where we resided: the Metro Goldwin Meyer MGM Grand Hotel (www.mgmgrand.com).
The excess of the excess of the excess of the excess of the excess of the excess...
This is a place so full of people and stuff and so empty at the same time. Another place which was worth to see and worth to leave. Another side of this immense and weird reality. Another imagine of a Country that somtimes fashinates and sometimes sucks! Another picture of the American people, one time so great and one time so disgusting.
Another view of America.

...and now, while I write this lines I'm spending the last hours of this trip on a Delta flight surrounded by a Christian community of pilgrims (www.petersway.com) going to Rome where Vaticans awaits them with its notions about a better World....