The Things They Carried

One evening while watching TV I saw an ad for Philadelphia cream cheese. Philadelphia brand, mind you, not some generic Romanian knock off. The real stuff. The same cream cheese we haul in and out of cars, trains and airports.
I jumped off the couch shouting "Oh no you didn't!" at the screen.

Thus, with one TV ad, ends our overpacking mania. A box or two of Ziplock bags? Sure. A container of ibuprofen? Yeah. But that's it. No more. Everything else we can get when we arrive.
I've seen the ad to prove it.

So say I.

The overpacking wasn't all for naught: with the extra luggage space we were able to bring home 5 bottles of Italian wine, 1 liter of honey, 2 liters of palincă, 3 bottles of homemade liquor, chocolates from various European countries, some jewelry and pottery from Italy.

However even the aforementioned items, heavy and numerous though they were, did not require the max allotment of luggage. The wine we could obtain in the States. "It's not the same thing" you protest. Oh no it's not. A leisurely stroll downtown to Zoccoli's is not at all the same as the drama of trying to find bubble wrap, pack and weigh 8 suitcases followed by unpacking and redistributing everything until you finally get it all properly proportioned, trying to find two taxis with trunks big enough to hold everything, watching the suitcases get tossed about during check-in, hoping the bottles don't break in transit and saturate all of your shoes and clothes with wine by the time you arrive in San Francisco (yeah, we've been through that before).

In short, we need to remember that it's not 1996 any longer. It's time to leave the cases of deodorant and power tools at home and enjoy the freedom of luggage that's light enough not to require strapping on a weight-belt to lift.

Along with the availability of Philadelphia cream cheese, there were a few other discoveries this time around.

We learned that Mircea can grow a beard.

We learned that there really is such a thing as too much of a good thing, even if that thing is Italian food.

We learned that Italian road safety is much like Romanian road safety. ("Sure it's ok to drive by, it hasn't exploded yet so you're probably safe.")

We learned that there are some "roads" our van simply cannot fit through. (Ok we actually learned that last time we were in Italy but we sort of forgot)

We learned that my phone takes horrible pictures and that I cannot be trusted to remember to bring the good camera with me to the meetings. Apparently I get so emotional and excited that all I can manage are photos of butts and the sides of noses. This was the cream of a very pathetic crop.

We learned that Romanian taxi drivers are versatile. (Or as I told my boys: this is what it means when you know how to hustle).

We learned that I still have to take the stairs to Vali and Simona's apartment on the 7th floor.

We learned that we have wonderful friends and that it doesn't matter how long we have, it's never enough time to be with them. (Ok that one we already knew).

We learned that going home to Romania is not the same without Pia there.

It was over too soon.

So we return, carrying extra pounds of fat on our bodies (all nicely distributed in flattering places of course), and souvenirs to give to beloved friends. Most of all we carry the memories of a lovely holiday and the warmth in our hearts that comes from once again being with those we love on the continent so far away.
Imi va fi dor.

Village LIfe part 10: The return of the Italians

"You can't go home again"
So said Thomas Wolfe

I'm wondering if this is true for folks who have two homes; one on one continent, one on another. Does the rule still apply? Is it less true the more homes you have or does it, in fact, become more true? Is it division or multiplication? Addition or subtraction? Where does the quadratic equation come in to play?

I realize this a supposed to be a travel blog where we discuss fun and exciting things which means I should not get math involved. Getting math involved is like starting a wedding speech discussing the results of your colonoscopy. Sure it's a necessary procedure but no one wants to hear about it and you force everyone to think about the details of their own most recent bowel movement and that just brings everyone down when they should be thinking about how many slices of cake they'll get and if the DJ will play their favorite hits from the 80's.

Frankly, I'm already down, which has nothing to do with the state of my GI tract and everything to do with being a bit travel-weary and probably even more to do with becoming emotionally overwrought at the thought of having to leave Romania so soon after we've arrived.

Not that Italy wasn't wonderful, not that I want to sound ungrateful for having been given the opportunity to spend three weeks galavanting around Europe. No. But we've had so little time at home. And by home I mean that place where you can lay on the couch eating popcorn, using your pajamas as a napkin while you watch mindless TV.  Home is where your hand knows where all of the light switches are without having to think twice, where you can make it to the toilet at 3 a.m, half asleep, and not wake up in the morning to discover you actually urinated in the closet.

I like being home, whether it's Santa Cruz home or Obedin home. Being home is pretty much my favorite thing.

So I suppose I'm down because during this trip we didn't stay in our Obedin home for very long. Instead we spent most of our time overeating in Italy.

We managed to be here long enough to do the necessary things like pay our taxes and get the boys' passports renewed. But there are other important things that make a trip home feel like a trip home: freeze a bottle of Fanta and make Fanta slushies, go to the school and play on the playground, watch an episode of Romania Au Talent, have a BBQ with Maru, be spoken to in Italian.*

Mihai and I unfortunately (but rather unsurprisingly given the lack of sleep we were getting) came down with a flu/cold and were unable to do our traditional 2-3 hour winter hike up the hill. We had to be satisfied with a sneeze-filled stroll down to the end of the village and back. So that's another thing I missed out on and am lamenting.

However, as we went about on our mucus-filled stroll, there was comfort in seeing that things haven't changed much. Yes, you still need to make sure your tetanus shots are current before you go down the slide in the schoolyard. Yes, drivers still use our little road like the Daytona Grand Prix.

So in that respect, Tomas Wolfe is wrong. You can go home again but you've just got to give yourself sufficient time in order to absorb the experience.

Unrelated to emotional angst, another problem with cutting things short is that when you go home and only leave yourself a few days for picture taking, you run the risk of having nothing but a string of overcast skies as your backdrop. This does not make for very appealing photos. But not every photo from a wedding is frame-worthy, right? Yet you keep them all because in each of them there is some moment caught, a memory that is evoked and for me, when I'm back in the States and looking at these images, it will remind me what it feels like to be home again.

Maru and his children

Foanta. We came across him repairing a neighbor's wall. Working as always.

Christy's grandmother

Irina, our faithful hiking companion. Growing up to be a stunning young woman.

Gigil, Nicolina, Alex (the other two you know)

The high schoolers (formerly known as the kids from the gradinita)

Bar-b-que and loafing on a Sunday.

Last but not least: Silvia.
Yes I know that after waiting so long I should have given you something other than a distant side shot but you know how I have no skill at photographing people. Must be an Italian thing.

*It has been brought to my attention by new readers that this Italian business appears to make little sense. I would refer you to this post: Village Life Part 2: Natural from 2011 April for an explanation.

http://zikebikediaries.blogspot.com/2011/04/village-life-part-2.html

Prato (and some place called Florence)

Let me start by saying that Prato is not Florence.
It's small, its plazas and statues have not been well maintained (although they're working on this issue), there are only a few museums, it doesn't have the Arno. It also doesn't have throngs of crowds so thick you say to yourself "This must be what it's like running with the bulls in Pamplona."

Last time I thought that our sense of disappointment in Florence was due to visiting it on a Monday (closed museums) and the fact that it was pouring rain. But sunshine and a Wednesday didn't improve anything. In fact, I liked it less this time around.
Maybe the first time it was simply that we were there later in the season, maybe the rain drew the crowds away, whatever the case, this time around I felt like I was back in Venice. Even if you don't suffer from enochlophobia as I do (yes, it's real, it's listed in the DSM), it's difficult to understand how one would enjoy visiting a place when you've got to share the space with so many thousands of people. In practical terms, it's just so hard to see anything. (I make this comment with complete awareness that I, by my own tourist presence, was contributing to the throng).

However, Florence (Firenze for you purists) is only a 20 minute train ride from Prato so we had to give it a go. Our trip mainly consisted of walking in circles trying to find a museum without a 5 hour wait to get in.

On the plus side, we had a lovely lunch in an unexpected place: the Mercato Centrale and managed to get some time in the Medici museum which momentarily assuaged my guilt over not keeping up with the boys' school work as well as I had hoped we would (who am I kidding I knew we'd get behind).

Then it was back to Prato which was where we really enjoyed ourselves. Enrico's recommendations were spot on, we enjoyed one restaurant so much we broke our strict rule and went twice (the only other place we allowed ourselves to do that was La Sosta in Lake Garda). The second time we were treated to one of the best waiters on the planet. The kind of waiter who, after you order, thinks for a moment and says "I think you'll like this soup better," points to the menu, describes it a little and when said soup arrives you spend a few minutes with your family being amazed that such a bowl of goodness could exist in the same world where Hot Pockets are manufactured and sold as items to be consumed. It is the sort of soup we will dream about and talk about for years to come. The sort of thing against which every other soup will try to measure up and will invariably fail.

But back to Prato.

There were lovely gelaterias, some even more lovely bars and the Museo di Palazzo Pretorio which in itself probably isn't so remarkable (the avant-garde films I could do without and the ceiling-high medieval art depicting the beheading of John the Baptist is not my cup of tea) but the timing of our visit and the arrival of a thunderstorm made it really memorable. By the time we got to the fifth floor (my favorite, I prefer ivory statues to dark oil paintings of decapitations) it was directly overhead, with thunder so loud it rattled the windows. We spent a while not only looking at the great view but also hiding out since none of us had brought umbrellas or rain coats.

Over all we had quite a bit of rain which some might find disheartening but for us drought-weary Californians it was refreshing. Despite the rain the temperatures stayed in the low to mid 70s so it was never unpleasant.

They had rain in Florence too. And I'm sure the weather was balmy as well. But the thought of being smacked in the head by 30,000 umbrellas while trying to get a photo of a corner of some famous sight or other doesn't sound like my idea of a good time. Prato isn't as impressive but I'll take its quiet, slightly dilapidated, empty streets and plazas over noise and crowds any day.

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The Medici Museum, lunch and other random bits of Florence.

Prato.

Monica, I know I promised you a photo of the Aperol spritz but this is the only one I could find. For as many as I drank, you'd think I would have a better one. Get ready to try one when we return!