A.I. Cuza University, Iaș i, Romania Geo-biography of me Just like many other storytellers, I’m not the only one remembering about my childhood. From… [629156]

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Cultural Geography
A.I. Cuza University, Iaș i, Romania

Geo-biography of me

Just like many other storytellers, I’m not the only one remembering about my
childhood. From the place whe re we grew up begins everything : the beginning of
our lives, the knowledge of people, the different tastes and colors and the
beginning of our faith.
I believe that everyone have beautiful memories about childhood and
everyone can say: ,,more beautiful memories that mine, no one have’’. When I
was child, I was thinking like a chi ld. Now I’m not a child anymore , and I think
differently. If I can be agai n child but with the thought of a mature man, how
would I behave? I wouldn’t be a child. I wou ld be a little man. Child means : not
to understand how things are and to marvel at everything.
There is a difference between an adult's crying and the crying of a child. The chil d
are crying when he is beaten or argued by his parent, but an adult why is crying?
He doesn't get any beatings from his parents. He’s crying because he has interests:
he’s crying because he was betrayed, because someone lie to him, becaus e his
favorite team are losing, and also he’s crying and when he lost someone dear.
Innocence and naivety make childhood a happy world, surrounded by good and

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defended by purity. I guess everybody, boys and girls alike, we had a period of
restlessness in w hich we didn’t know what was true, what wasn’t, what was
natural, what was abnormal.. and then we lost our naivety, so then the childhood
became a memories.
How beautiful was the years of childhood! Now if I'm thirsty, I have to put
water in the glass and then drink it. Often, being a child, I was running home from
play and I was thirsty and, I didn’t take the glass or the cup to drink water, I was
putting my mouth straight on the tap and I was drinking until I was quenched my
thirst. I liked to drink that because if I was using with the cup, the water was
quickly ended in it, and that was ruined my appetite to drink. My grandmother
scolded me, and sh e said to me: "Do not drink like that anymore, you will be
sick…’’ but let’s start with the beginning .
Until first grade, I only lived with my mother in the Nicolina district, Iasi. Just
because she divorced of my father when I was very young. But from my first
grade, my childhood was beginning in another neighborhood, to my grandparents,
because my mother had to go to work in Italy where she is now. She missed to
me, but I can’t say that I was very affected, because my grandparents knows who
to care about me, also I was talking to my mother almost every day and in the
every summer I went to her in Italy. At my grandparents I stayed until the
beginning of the university. I can tell that I spent the most beautiful years of
childhood at them. There I met the best friends and I ma de all kinds of naughty
things. We don’t have cell phones like all children have today. And it was so
good.
After I was coming from school I went to play. I was spending the rest of the day
out with my friends playing all the time -specific games, but I repeat, especially
the naughty things. I remember that I was doing all kinds of pranks at the

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neighbors' doors and I had a talent in br eaking the balls of my friends. I guess that
my grandmother was saturating enough to pay those balls . I remember how we
all was gathering at my staircase and we was talking , and was playing cards or
was playi ng the "thieves and cops," and we was hiding around the neighborhood.

Me in first grade

The funniest and also the most frightening folly was happening when I was
running despretly with two of my friends chasing a hive of wasps. It was a warm
afternoon of week -end and together with two friends I was standing at a picnic
behind a block, we were playing all sorts of games, naked, with only your shorts
on us. At one po int, I was seeing my friends that were jumpi ng and they were
running scared , and I didn't understand why. Of course that then , when I was
seeing that they had a few wasps that followed them, I st arted to laugh with tears.,
it was seems funny to me, but it all took a dramatic turn when one of them showed
me with his finger to look behind me. Turning my head, what can I was seeing?

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An entire colony of wasps, all were aligned in the war formation, all were
prepared to attack. I think it was the weirdest thing that I was seeing in my entire
life, as if we understood their anger and the next moment they were goi ng to
attack us, but no, We started running all over , even if we were following by a real
army they couldn’t have caught us. God, what memories! Sometimes I was
backing home at 10 pm. When I was going home, I was getting a little quarrel
from my grandfath er: "Where have you been? I've been looking for you
everywhere. I needed to send you to the store after … " How well it was because
I did not had a phone, o therwise my grandparents would call me and they would
ruin my game. Besides all the mischief thin gs I was doing outside , I wasn’t a
good child inside the h ouse either . I remember that on a New Year's Eve, at the
age of 11 -12, before midnight with about 2 -3 hours, I was preparing to make a
bath. As every year I had all sorts of fireworks and firecrac kers, suddenly this
brilliant idea popped up inside my head to trow a firecracker in the toilet bowl.
Said and done. I lit the firecrackers, I threw it in the toilet bowl,I put the lid and I
waited for something to be heard, a noise, something interesting. But to my
disappointment, there was a simple " -pick!", Slowly. I wasn't s atisfied and
amazed because that it didn't sound louder, I raise the lid and what to see? Half
the toilet bowl was cracked. I stumbled instantly, and already I was seeing myself
punished and probably moke by my grandfather. But, to be even more dramatic,
I went to my grandmother and I started crying. Seeing this grandfather, he
suspected there was something in the bathroom, so he went and found my

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masterpiece. To my joy, I was not even punished. The only problem was that for
a couple of days, when I needed t he toilet, I had to go to the neighbors. Was so
beautiful, we didn’t have computers, but we were finding anymore something to
play the entire day. If w e happened to fall and wound up , we didn't looked for the
guilty, we got up and we continued playing. If someone had a bottle of juice, he
was sharing the juice and to the others in the group. Nobody died because drank
from the same bottle. When you read these lines, do not laugh, but that was the
life of a child. I wasn't thinking like now.
After the en d of class II, every summer I went to my mother in Italy. There
she remarried with an Italian and settled both in the island of Sardinia. I was 9
years old, not yet fulfilled, in the summer, I was going for the first time in Italy,
I was very happy but als o very excited that I will meet my new father, the
stepfathe r. When I arrived in Sardinia, Giani met us in the harbor, so I told then,
although from the beginning he told me that he would love to call him "father".
He received me with great enthusiasm and we quickly joined each other and
became very close each other with the passage of time… So now, at the moment,
before being a devoted father, he's first my friend, with whom I can advise in
everything. But let's get back to the subject. Besides the knowled ge of the
stepfather, I also made acquaintance with a new area, new people and different
mentalities .

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The port of the Olbia , Sardinia

Isola Rossa, Sardinia

But from the first foot on the island I fell in love with her, the wonderful beaches,
the very clear sea, their culture, the wonderful landscapes etc. So I would love to
go there and I would really like to move there. Okay, now you're wondering why
I have not moved wit h my family for a long time ago ? It's been 14 years since
then, I've been there a lot, and yet why I didn’t stay there? For me the answer is
simple: until the end of the general school, I did not want to move to Italy because

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of my friends and because I was attached to my grandparents, and from high
school to college years, I did not even think of leaving , because I fell in love with
my curre nt girlfriend and did not regret for a moment that I was still in the
country, bu t in the future I would see me living there.
Besides Sardinia, another place that marke d me and which I have attached is
the Venice region. Every time I had to go to the co untry, for 2 -3 weeks I was
stopping at aunt or one of my uncles in Venice. And there I saw very beautiful,
interesting places, but I loved m ost to go fishing with my uncle , at the tent, for a
few days on the shores of a river in that region.
Fishing on the Pad River
It was nice , relaxing, I was talking about
anything, and I was fishing with passion. Even
now, in the summer, we're doing something like
that.
Me in Venice

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With regard to other places visited throughout my childhood to date and
which have been printed in my mind are: Ibiza (Spain ), Corsica (France), Monte
Carlo (France), Budapest, Croatia, but especially the cities of my country.

Me in B udapest, Hungary

At present I live alone, but close to my grandparents apartment, the place of
my childhood, and as often as I can, I go to visit them and change some wo rds.

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How nice it is to remember different childhood happenings, important events
for me, that make me smile and escape from the routine of everyday life.. like a
book I can read anytime, like a movie that the cine ma of thoughts are playing
that, like a song that only I can hear. And that makes me feel special!