Snow predicted for Sunday? They’ve got to be kidding. Please tell me they’re kidding. With a predicted low of 32 degrees and a high of 37, snow is certainly possible.
In the meantime, my neighbors in Seattle called to tell me how warm the Spring is and how beautiful the flowers are in my yard.
Nicoletta rode over the overpass at the same time I did and then began to move ahead. I called out, “Excuse me. I have a question.” She slowed a bit, I pulled up alongside of her and we rode the rest of the way together, talking. “Why are there no other women cyclists?” I mentioned that I see only 1 woman per 200 or 300 cyclists.
(Just recently I wrote about this in the “Rolling Ciao” post.)
She said that they don’t like to get tired or sweaty, and that they don’t like to go out unless the weather is warmer.
It was such a surprise and a treat to see her, and we enjoyed the chat along the way. Nicoletta is also an independent consultant, and therefore, has a flexible time schedule. And she lives close by. I gave her my card and we may ride now and then in the afternoons together.
She just came back from a bike tour out of Rome in January and will forward the bike touring information to me. An Italian road tour is sounding very good to me these days.
It pleases me that I can just be riding along, and have such a wonderful encounter out-of-the-blue. Those moments are the real high points of my being here, and they’re the simplest.
We got together to celebrate Anaïs’s 24th birthday with traditional Milanese apperitivi at an “art bar” in town. Several of us women from Italian classes get together outside of class for chats, bike rides and travel. Anaïs is one of them.
She’s from Cannes, France, and 3 of her friends drove over, (bringing her kitty with them) to spend her birthday weekend. There were 10 of us together around the table, representing 5 countries: 4 French, 1 Portuguese, 1 Turkish, 2 Italian, 2 American, ranging in age from 24 to 40-ish… and me. The language changed depending on the speaker and the listener.
The Milanese apperitivi tradition allows you to go to just about any restaurant in town, buy one drink for 7 – 9 euro and eat as much as you want from the buffet of appetizers: pizza and foccacia squares, bruschetta, pasta, french fries (!), sliced meats, cheeses, risotto, mini-tarts. A better apperitivi offering will include such things as steamed mussels, veggie sticks, interesting salads, and other foods that are lower carb and more artfully prepared.
After our apperitivi, several of us went out for dinner at 11:30 p.m. to a Mexican restaurant, while the others went to the disco.
Hmm. I might find me a cute, little Italian. All the right curves and straight lines. Just my size. Fits into tight places. Agile and responsive. Yah. Sounds good to me!
(I don’t know what YOU were thinking. I was talking about a CAR!)
Before I came here, I sold my Honda CR-V and figured I’d get something else when I returned. As I go around Milano, I look at all the cars and 98% of them have tiny, little footprints. Certainly better suited for the city than big SUVs and pickups.
So I think about “going small” (aren’t I already?) and getting one of the models I see here. For sentimental and purely irrational reasons, I keep thinking of getting a Fiat 500, or “Fiat Cinquecento” (ching-kway-chain-toe). It’s small. It’s Italian. And it would remind me of my time here. (Irrational rationale.)
It would also remind me of the day I went to the Triennale Design Museum and saw the wooden mold for the Fiat 600, (say-chain-toe), cousin to the Cinquecento, and then walked outside on that sunny day and saw a golden oldie original 500 parked out front. (Ahh, the things that sway decisions!)
Yes, there are Smart Cars; a chartreuse green one that parks in front of my apartment appeals to me because of it’s color. But the Smart Cars look like praying mantis heads. (Not necessarily a bad thing. I think of a former pet mantis named “Elvira”.) And there are a dozen other near-microscopic boxes-on-wheels to consider.
But what of road safety? When EVERYONE has a tiny car, such as here in Europe, that’s one thing. When most people have landboats, like in the U.S., a micro-vehicle wouldn’t stand a chance in a collision.
And what about repair and maintenance?
I don’t know. I have some time before I need to make a decision. A high-end bike may very well be my first vehicle purchase when I get back to Seattle, (whenever that will be).
Who out there knows about Fiats? Who knows what they cost? (I read online that they’ll be available in the U.S. in the late Fall.)
In the meantime, I’m just keeping my eye on these cute Italians and admiring what I see.
UPDATE: 13 Feb. 2010
I saw this little Fiat 500L along the street last night. It’s TINY! (Looks almost the same as the red one, above.)
There’s just something about having my bedroom window on the ground level, facing the street. At about 5:30 in the morning the recycling truck pulls up and parks in front of my window. They roll the glass-sorting bins holding a building’s-worth of bottles up to the truck and dump them with an alarming clatter. Imagine the sound.
I know of less jarring alarm clocks.
I’m pouting. Tuesday morning and it’s 34 degrees outside. Sunday morning I was riding a bike along the sea, wearing a light t-shirt with blue sky overhead and sun on my face. Temperatures were in the 60s, which felt fresh and warm enough to remember the glory of warmer days.
After the dark, cold, wet days of Winter in Milan we will all have EARNED our Springtime here! I’m just a trainride away from warm sun. Hmm. Where shall I go for some sun in my eyes?
There’s no way I could have CONCEIVED of this weekend! Talk about “living on a movie set!” It was all beyond real, not to be believed. Pinch me. Am I dreaming this stuff up?
Friday morning at 11:10 I hopped on the train heading to Sanremo on the Italian Riviera.
Just outside of Milan, a blizzard started.
(I later heard Milan had several inches of snow. I missed it again.)
I arrived in Sanremo in pouring rain and was welcomed by Sandra, my landlady, and her husband, Mauro, whom I had met once last Fall and had talked to for only an hour. They had invited me to stay at their house for 3 days.
We cleaned a big pile of mussels, clams and branzino (fish) to cook up for dinner.
Their good friend, Sandro, joined us for dinner and the four of us ate and talked all evening. Sandra, Sandro, Mauro and Maureen.
Saturday morning was sunny and blue-skied, and Sandra, Mauro and I wandered through the crowded street markets of Sanremo and strolled along the shoreline path.
At 2:00, after lunch, the 4 of us took off driving west along the Ligurian Sea/Riviera coast and about 15 miles down the road crossed over into France.
We stopped in Menton, France, wandered around town and I kept forgetting to change languages and say “Merci” instead of “Grazie”.
About 15 miles further, we crossed over into Monaco.
We walked around town, saw the outside of the Casino Monte Carlo and the route for the Grand Prix Monte Carlo.
We toured an amazing show of 300 photographs of women, photos c. 1900-2008, all from a private collection.
This morning was again sunny, blue-skied and in the 60s. The four of us went for a 14 mile bike ride to the town of Santo Stefano al Mare, along the paved bike path at the water’s edge on the Riviera.
We returned home to a meal of apperitivi and rabbit.
I had spent three days, with three people, speaking and listening to Italian the whole time. (I think I rounded a corner a month or so ago.)
When I left this afternoon, I felt as if I had spent the weekend with friends I’ve known for years.
I hopped on the train which left promptly at 3:15. The ride was under sunny skies until the town of Ronco, in the mountains halfway between the coast and Milan, where there was deep snow and whiteout conditions. I arrived home at 7:30 Sunday evening to “bare and wet”.
I had traveled from Spring back in time to Winter in a matter of just a few hours.
What’s next on the list?
From my journal entry, 23 January. Bergamo.
Bergamo is beautiful and reminds me of San Gimignano in Tuscany. I’m on in the “Alta Cittá”, the high city up on the hill within the old fortress walls. Towers, stone, weathered doors, cobbles. I’m sitting in a little trattoria, “Trattoria 3 Torri”, the restaurant of the 3 towers.
I was standing outside looking at the menu, and the proprietor, Casimiro, came to the door and smiled out at me. A smile goes a long way with me; to be in a foreign country and have someone reach out in that small way seals my decision of where to eat, shop, explore. A geniune smile is the universal entree to first connection.
I’m sitting under vaulted stone ceilings eating a lovely polenta with sausage and porcini mushrooms with a hint of gravy. The sun is shining in onto my table, the first time I’ve seen and felt it in ages (more than a month?). As others enter the restaurant, he gives them a menu in their “madre lingua”, mother tongue. He gave me the menu in Italian. (That’s a compliment.)
It’s now 2:00 p.m. Midday is a good time to have my main meal, come in and get warm sitting next to the heater with the sun in my eyes. And January is a perfect time to be exploring these places that would attract the tourists. It’s quiet and uncrowded. It’s much more relaxing.
My heart and head are SO pulled by this history that reaches back to 1400 and further. To touch surfaces touched for centuries, to stride stone ways that have been stepped upon for so long. We simply do not have such history in the U.S. We do not have the remaining evidence to lay our hands on. Perhaps one day I might become inured to this, but at this point it makes me gasp repeatedly in disbelief. I cannot conceive of what I’m in the presence of.
The visual and physical richness here charges me. It excites me.
Trattoria 3 Torri • Cittá Alta, Bergamo
Piazza Mercato del Fieno, 7/a • Tel: 035-244474
Facebook: Trattoria Tre Torri
It’s an odd position to be in this limbo of not knowing how long I’ll stay in Italy. My original plan was to be here for a year, but as my Seattle departure date approached last June, I thought, and all my friends concurred, that one year might not be long enough.
I arrived in Milano. I got my apartment “comfortable enough for a year”, and I’ve settled in “just enough”. As it turns out, I’m more than a tourist, but not quite a real resident. I’ve got “short timer’s complex”. Uncomfortably, I am neither here nor there. Most friendships I make will likely be short term. Any household goods I buy will likely be the most minimal and least expensive “because I’m leaving sometime”. The emotional investment is greater than that of a tourist, but is still restricted. This is an odd phenomenon to have put myself in the middle of.
I arrived here June 18; it is now January 17, 7 months later. I know that I have a trip planned to Seattle in late Spring, and then again at the beginning of August. Will the flight in August be simply for a visit, or a return home “for good”?
There are more than 6 months in front of me during which I intend to be living here. Six months is many times more than most people can ever dream of being here in Italy, yet I’m feeling “the crunch” of departure. The other day an almost-panic set in and I started to think of all the things I haven’t seen or done yet in the last 7 months! Huh. So I started making my list of “Must-See, Must-Do”. Weird. I plan to be here AT LEAST for another 6-months-plus, yet my sights are already on departure in August. Ooo. Not good. Granted, that panic might fuel a frenzied string of weekend train trips to all-parts-Italy, plus a few flights to places more distant, but the MINDSET is what I’m concerned about. Focussing on departure means I’m not here, I’m already leaving. That doesn’t create a rootedness… But how does one root when she knows her time is limited?
Starting out with an imagined end-date has contributed to this limbo. But how does one have the boldness to say “I’m moving to Italy”, instead of “I’m moving to Italy for one year.” Whoa!!! Those two are ENTIRELY different in feel! Those two statements are worlds apart. I made the second choice, adding “…for one year”, and that colors my whole experience.
I constantly monitor personal and professional considerations when discerning the best time to return to Seattle – when my few belongings will be packed and shipped, my Milanese apartment will be vacated, and goodbyes will be said. The other day I recognized the push/pull of it. There are things here in Italy that pull me in to stay; there are things here that push me back. And Seattle – and the U.S. – have their own push/pull. All of it swirls and mixes and tumbles and stirs me deeply.
So, not having any solid answers, I’m making plans for Bergamo, Firenze, Savona, San Remo, Torino, Roma, Venezia, Sicilia and as much of Italy as I can lay my eyes on. And I intend to set foot in Germany, Spain, Greece, England, the Netherlands… and places I haven’t even conjured for myself yet. Hmm. Sounds like either a LOT of travel, or more than 6 months… or both.
Getting out at Milano Centrale Metro Station to change from one line to another, I came up the escalator and was faced with this beautiful, colorful, tired doorway. Gorgeous.