It was night and the sea was shining as we flew along the coast. The moonlight showed me the seas and rivers.

On my first New York morning I did everything differently than I did at home. I drank tea, ate left-over sushi and looked through an exhibition catalogue. Two stories struck me. The first one was about Emanuele III, the king of Italy, who was supposed to have been a man without humanistic interests. One time, Emanuele III opened an exhibition of landscape paintings He stood for a long time in front of a painting with an idyllic valley and village nestled in the mountains, and eventually went over to the museum director and asked: “How many inhabitants does this city have?” Moreover, I read that Italian thrillers, which take place in Manhattan translate “uptown” and “downtown” to “upper” and “lower” city, so Italians who haven’t visited the city imagine Manhattan as a village, where, like in Bergamo or Budapest, half of it lies on a mountain and half on the ground.