L'ottavo

Hello from the floor of Milano-Malpensa airport. I just ate a piece of pizza and watched the sunrise over the alps. And I’m pretty sure that the international terminal of an airport is the only place where 8:30am pizza is ever okay. I mean, who knows where I might be coming from, what time zone I might be walking around in? Granted Ferrara time is by general standards pretty much the same as Milan time. Making the pizza and pepsi light my breakfast.

My eleven-hour flight to O’hare is scheduled to take off in half an hour, and to land about three hours later in Chicago. I’d call this the longest day of my life but I think yesterday takes it out of the running. After a morning of way too last minute Christmas shopping I packed my bags and headed to my last class of the year, somehow scheduled for 5:00pm on the last day of the semester. It only took a half hour of waiting for the professoressa for us to realize that she wasn’t going to show. Allora, I rode home, picked up my bags, and got on the 19:31 train to Milan.

Pulling into the biggest train station in Europe just 45 minutes past my scheduled arrival, I consider myself lucky that the train only stopped twice in the middle of nowhere for no apparent or explained reason, for about 20 minutes each. But when I got off the train and looked up at the giant Dolce e Gabbana ad covering half of the glorified airplane hanger that is the Milano stazione, and then saw the pigeons swooping down and the thousands of people smacking each other with wheelies, I was completely overwhelmed. I had done this before. I had been exactly here before, about four months before to be precise, and I knew just what it felt like. I got off that train and ran straight into myself, four months ago, still walking up and down that platform, trying to find the right binario and missing train after train and almost swinging my backpack into more than one nun.

Needless to say I ran for the taxi stand. And subsequently was in for the most ridiculous and definitely most expensive cab ride of my entire life. Maybe I should have been more concerned when the driver couldn’t seem to remember where my hotel was. He was sure he’d been there two or three times, but il nome non viene a mente. He laughed. And called the cab agency, who also weren’t entirely sure. They told him to use his in-car navigation device. And I’m thinking, now there’s a great idea. So we pull up to the next intersection, come to a stop, and the driver jumps out. Leaves his door open, so when the light turns green and he’s still rummaging in the trunk no one can go around him, including the other lane of traffic. The general honking starts, to which he waves, jovially, I presume, and I close my eyes and wait for the car to be rammed out of the way. He jumps back behind the wheel and we take off, only to repeat the exercise at the next intersection. Ho dimenticato di ricaricarlo! He forgot to recharge the battery.

We’ll forgive him for all of this, and for getting completely lost even with the navigation system, because I ended up really liking the guy. Maybe I just feel that way because he told me I spoke well before he knew I was American. Somehow there’s just a different ring to, “You speak well,” than to, “You speak well for an American.” He asked about Chicago and I mentioned the snow and he immediately launched into a long monologue on the perils of global warming. It’s snowing in the south but the sun is shining in Milan! he shouted into the rearview mirror. And then, cutting right to the collective heart of the matter, he explained to me that the result of so many years of global environmental destruction was that he had to eat his oranges from Israel, or from Spain and they just weren’t the same as the Italian ones. They’re too small.

He talked to me for a while about all the American things he’d like to try. In such a way that I felt somewhat obligated to bring him back a few things from home. California wine, he said, because the terra there is different, and the vines they grow different grapes. He told me about the time he tried peanut butter, and how completely disgusting he found it. Why would anyone eat that? What he really wants to try, he said, is red licorice. He heard that in America you buy licorice made from sugar dyed bright red! He’s only ever seen it in the movies. An hour and 90 euro later, we pulled into the Crowne Plaza, where I immediately took the most incredible shower of my life and slept for about 4 hours before waking up to come here, to the airport. There’s nothing quite as miserable as international travel during the holidays. Let’s all cross our fingers that I’m not delayed. And then that both of my bags arrive together, in Chicago, when I do. Buon natale e tanti auguri a tutti.

jenn

Il settimo. the light and the halflight

I go home in five days. Five days. It's kind of impossible for me to comprehend that right now. That all it takes is a good long plane ride to escape the incessant transportation strikes and 100% humidity and most importantly, the line cutters. Italy, if I haven't mentioned it before, is an entire nation of blatant and somehow self-righteous line cutters. Grocery check-out and bank teller line-formers of all ages will, without question, always try to big fat cut in front of you. Completely unsubtly. They actually expect you to let them do it. And when you refuse to surrender the spot you probably already had to do a good deal of cart on cart combat to get, the line cutters flash you the most deprecating look you've ever experienced firsthand. Nine hours on Alitalia and I'm rid of them for nearly three weeks. And, knowing me, the first time I walk into Sunset and no one stares at me or tries to take me down in the dairy aisle I'll miss all of this unspeakably.
I've been trying to find Christmas gifts to bring home with me for a good week now, and it's proving a lot more difficult than I thought. That might be a good indication that you shouldn't expect anything spectacular this year. It's just hard to imagine what you all might like so completely out of context. That and I still haven't figured out how to pop the trunk on my bike to get everything back to my apartment. I'm still trying, though. Italians take their Christmas very seriously. I feel like I ought to join in to whatever extent I can.

In the winter, my city disappears. Elvira, our resident spettra, is still clanging around the apartment. I don't think this is her favorite time of year. The water heater has started to make this noise, fairly incessantly, that's something resembling dishes rattling together. Or horses hooves. But made of coconuts like in Monty Python. Our poor lavatrice, washing machine, also still seems to be, well, possessed. In Italy, to make another brief and terrible generalization, people seek out the broadest and most inexplicable causes to whatever daily problems they might encounter, rather than identifying specific, logical explanations. I've adopted this modo di vivere to a certain extent, (The train is delayed. What terrible luck. My professor didn't show up for class today. Must be the fog.), but when it comes to laundry there's a pretty clear point of no return. Allora, we called up Signore Reggio, my landlord, and he came over to sit with me and watch the electrician fix it.
With the water heater clanking away in the background, my landlord talked to me about his aunt who used to live in the apartment.

Elvira. She grew up in Ferrara and became a professor of literature at the university, where she spent the rest of her adult life teaching and studying Dante. Guido was incredibly excited when he found out I was a lit major, and told me to take anything that interested me from her allegedly enormous library stored downstairs. Later I talked to him a little bit about Chicago, but he interrupted me right in the middle of an explanation of Lake Michigan: Parla adesso, he said. He always addresses me in the formal, and I'm never sure how to handle it. You speak now. Al' inizio, non parlava. At first, you did not speak. I guess we'll always have Guido to thank for that opening line. He explained to me how this apartment has been in his family for generations, like most Italian houses. How he remembers the day his grandfather planted the magnolia tree outside my bedroom window.
This Wednesday I'm meeting the Pattersons in Florence for dinner, which should be really fun. I'm excited to see that city this time of year. My friends here are celebrating Christmas as a group on Thursday, I think, and then Friday I take off.
Five days e tanti auguri. If all goes as planned I should be seeing everyone back on your side of the Atlantic in no time.