So I have returned, triumphant, from my 10 day trip to Italy. It was an amazing trip, and I urge anyone with the means and opportunity to make it. I cannot do justice to the trip in one enormous post, so I will add information about the cities over a staggered period. I might also add my trademark irrelevant posts as well, just so you don't choke on my descriptions of Italy. That all being said, I would be remiss if I didn't at least mention something about the trip.
We flew Air Canada to Rome, which involved a flight from to Toronto, and then a 9 hour jaunt to Leonardo di Vinci Airport in Rome. Now, I like to imagine some people read this page and perhaps might be so bold as to take my advice on something. If you hear nothing else, hear this: for the next two years (minimum) avoid Toronto International Airport like you would avoid a piano being dropped on your head. It is a dingy and labyrinthine study of needless complications. I am skipping around a bit, but pretend I'm Garcia-Marquez. On the way back from Rome, we had our connection in Toronto. Our bags could not be checked all the way through from Rome to our destination, and we had to pick them up in Toronto to pass customs. The procedure for getting our bags was as follows: arrive at terminal 1, take a bus to terminal 2, go to the baggage claim belt, get our bags off the belt, walk through a short corridor, deposit our bags on another belt, take a bus from terminal 2 back to terminal 1, retrieve our bags from a belt, pass through Canadian customs, pass through American customs, mercifully board the flight. Murphy's Law being the unshakable truth that it is, our bags were...lost between that second belt and the third one. As we stood staring incredulously at a conveyer belt full of luggage that nobody seemed to claim, we were running out of time for our flight. We finally filled out some forms demanding that our bags be shipped to us at home. It was a grueling and idiotic enterprise. Toronto Airport's logistics make about as much sense to me as Kangaroo Jack being the number 1 move in America its first week.
Anyway, let me indulge you with some Italy tales. Our first city was Naples, which we arrived in by train from Rome. Italian trains and train stations are nice enough, but are sort of a microcosm of Italian life in some ways. The trains are always a minimum of 35 minutes late--even when they arrive early. Railway station employees seem to not understand that people have trains to catch, and need service quickly. They are all to busy smoking 3 cigarettes at once, watching Juventus play Parma on a TV behind the counter, and gesturing so wildly that they poke small children in the eyes. Nonetheless, our arrival in Naples was in the early afternoon, and it was so hot even my parents, who grew up in tropical climates, complained. Naples is a fascinating city that is an intense study in Italian life. Everyone says that Italy intensifies as you head south, as the more European cities of Milan and Rome in the North are tempered by an international flavor. Not Naples. It is distinctly Italian. There is very little English spoken, and the Italian image cultivated through movies greets you on every corner and cafe. I loved it instantly. Naples has a chaotic and rumbling charm all its own, personified in their taxi drivers. We rode in a lot of taxis in Naples, and they all seemed to have a few things in common. First, every taxi driver in Naples is your best friend, or at least he acts like it. You are infinitely amused when they place their hand on your shoulder and passionately explain to you that since it is after 10 PM, what would cost you 10 Euros in the daytime has now been adjusted to a fair of 35o,000 Euros. If you looked at their faces and didn't speak Italian, like me, you would believe every word of it. These guys should be getting Oscars. The other shared trait among drivers in Napoli is their extreme recklessness coupled with cheerful obliviousness. Naples drivers lunge down alleys and scream around corners in whichever lane suits them, but are blissfully unaware of the danger they put themselves and passengers in. It is almost instinct, like they can feel that enormous van coming around the corner and slam the brakes and swerve around it, only to stand on the accelerator a moment later. It was like a Formula One race with traffic. I used to thing New York cabbies were dangerous, but the Napoli drivers make them look like Freeman in Driving Miss Daisy.
For dinner in Napoli we had pizza, fitting since Napoli is the birthplace of pizza. Italian pizza is generally thinner, has less cheese, but is more filling. It was light and exceedingly tasty without making you feel like you swallowed a cannon ball, a common after effect I get when eating at pizza hut. After dinner, we walked around Napoli's Via Toledo, a major shopping street full of clothing stores, gelato vendors, and cafes. I found it very interesting that one of Napoli's most lively streets shares a name with one of preeminent centers of dullness. You know what people do for fun in Toledo, Ohio? They leave. But enough bashing Toledo, no need to kick it while it’s down. Back in Naples, we grabbed some gelato and headed to a large indoor mall, the name of which escapes me now. Inside, we met some Italians and sensing we were foreign by our baseball caps and cameras, they asked us where we were from. When we mentioned New York, they all got very excited and told us how much they loved New York, how it was so fun and alive. Then one of the Italians, a blond haired, blue eyed gentleman who looked like he knew his way around a nightclub, informed us that he had lived in America as a model for some time, setting up camp in Los Angeles and South Beach. I couldn't say I was shocked--he looked like the type of chap who would live in LA and Miami, but I was amazed at how much enthusiasm he had. It was nice to see. Later, we walked down to the boardwalk equivalent, a sidewalk area off a main road that overlooked the Naples harbor. It was gorgeous, full of soft twinkling lights and the gentle slap of waves against rocks--it was no wonder the Italian youth made this their make out spot, as we saw 15 young Italian couples trying to suffocate each other with their mouths, I thought to myself, "hey, that's Italy."
More on Capri, Florence, Venice, and Rome later.
