Monday, September 18, 2006

Milan Revisited

The weekend seemed a bit ominous, with forecasts of nothing but rain for Hezzy and Stephanie going to Cinque Terre and similar forecasts for my trip to Milan. Regardless, I bid adieu to sunny Ferrara to hurtle across the country on a train bound for the city I called home for a good part of the summer.

It was strange to go back. It was either the fact that I am reading Se una notte d’inverno un viaggiatore of Italo Calvino or the drastic change in climate from unbearable heat to calm cool dampness. It was nice to see Niki, Dorota, Matilde and Marina again, as if I was coming home from another day of work. The weekend consisted of plenty of chitchat with Dorota, plotting with Niki about his online downloads (downloading is huge in Italy, or so I was told), going out to grab drinks with Matilde and Marina at Tijuana and Kaputziner, and hitting downtown for a little shopping with my fashion consultant.

It’s hard to write down more of what happened, so much of it is tied up in inside jokes, abstract thoughts and old routines. My trip wasn’t about sightseeing, it was about visiting friends and catching up in a way that isn’t based on question and answer but on spending time in each other’s presence. Gin Julee, in the navy, Mary Poppins, desperate German housewives, future plans of marriage, plotting to travel the continent… in a list they just bubble together in a stew of confusion for those who weren’t there. A strange but beautiful weekend.

Returning, I left a now sunny Milan to come home to Ferrara, soaked and rainy. Finally making it to my apartment down a very quite via Garibaldi, I found Sarah sitting in front of our door, locked out and ecstatic to see her roommate home. In Ferrara it had rained all weekend but she had managed to get out to Bologna on Saturday and out to run her half-marathon on Sunday. She came home bearing prizes from her race (since the first 30 women get prizes and since there were only 6 women running) which included a bra from Pierre Cardin, cookies, frying oil, Kleenex, rigatoni, tomato paste and iced tea. So much for a gift certificate to Sport’s Experts. So we both came home with an ample and varied munition of prizes from a refreshing weekend.

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