Almost There!

Once again, writing in transit. I am sitting staring at the valleys that go by me as I wind my way from the Ligurian coast inland, my destination Pisa. I’ve spent a beautiful, short, two days in Genoa with Alii and her family and friends. Wonderful Italian family dinners, with crazy conversation flying by too fast for me to understand half the words, but with enough animation for me to understand and laugh at the jokes with everyone else. And of course, delicious food. Finally real prosciutto again! It’s something I’ve missed all year long between my visits to Italy – prosciutto in America just isn’t the same, and it’s impossible to get the “prosciutto crudo” (uncooked) that I like so much.

I arrived at the airport safe and sound, on time, with all my luggage there and intact – a minor miracle if you know the stories of my past travels. Alii’s mom picked me up from the airport and I had a delicious lunch with her and Alii since everyone else was at work or school. In the afternoon, while Alii studied, I got to sleep finally since I hadn’t slept since waking up the day before at 5:00 am in San Diego. I meant to only sleep for an hour, but Alii took pity on me and woke me up an hour later than I requested, so I got 2 hours of sleep. And, well, I suppose you should call it more like 3 because it took me a full hour and a half to make my body sit up and leave that comfortable bed.

That evening, while Alii studied more for her big exam, Chiara came by to see me, and took me on a Vespa ride to a little café for the best granita in the city, an icy slushy drink. Like her, I ordered the berry granita with whipped cream on top, and I can personally confirm that it was quite delicious. I have to admit, I was a little nervous about the Vespa at first. I’ve never ridden on a motorcycle or Vespa before, but Chiara is a great driver, and it was so much fun! Speeding around the maze of narrow streets with the wind in my hair, and the Italian buildings surrounding us with painted stucco and stone walls. Layer after layer, they rose around us out of the moonlit night, going from modern to centuries old in the blink of an eye. After the granita and some conversation about life, the universe, and everything, Chiara took me on a complete vespa tour of the city by night, seeing the university where she went with Alii, the old churches, the port, and the piazza where young people hang out at night. A great time.

Wednesday I managed to sleep the whole morning, and wish Alii luck as she went to take her exam at eleven. I met her for lunch afterwards and we walked around the city a bit, sightseeing and talking. After a relaxing, easy-going afternoon we had another delicious dinner and then went out to meet her friends for a drink. I had met them last year when I came to visit, and it was fun to get to see them all again. We went to a bar by one of the old churches, which had some clear plastic panels interspersed amidst the stones in the floor so you could see the water flowing in the cistern several stories below. We went down a flight of stairs into a tiny little room, the center of which was all plastic, revealing the water underneath, and the sides lined with cushions to sit on. Very cool. Who knows how old it was. Anyway, we went back upstairs and ordered drinks, and sat and talked until 12:30, at which point we walked down to the harbor to take some goofy photos and mess around – Alii wanted some fun photos to make a gift for the birthday of one of her friends, so she used me as an excuse to take a bunch. We enjoyed ourselves, were generally ridiculous, and adopted all sorts of poses in our crazy wigs, hats and fake ears.

And then this morning I got up, packed, missed my train by about five minutes, and got on the next one that will eventually get me to Florence, only a little bit later than originally intended. A very exciting evening ahead of me!