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.