Travelers never think that THEY are the foreigners. ~Mason Cooley

It has been almost a year since I went to Genoa, for the first time, to visit my mother.  It was my first time leaving the continental U.S. and I was pretty much terrified.  Terrified of traveling so far away, as much as being in a country where I didn’t know the language.  I was reassured by some people and warned of how it would be by others.

First it was, “Don’t worry, everyone will speak English there.”  This is not true for Genoa, whose only tourists are Germans in May, and only slightly true for Milan, which has not only the fashion industry but an international airport.  The police officer I spoke with in Malpensa airport spoke enough to give me directions to the pharmacy, but everyone at the hotel spoke perfect English…but the clerk at the Lufthansa counter thought she spoke perfect English no matter how much I could NOT understand her.  For just wandering around the city, it turns out that it doesn’t matter.  People in Italy are friendly and will try to communicate with you anyway.  Last time, a few people surprised me by knowing a bit of English and being nice enough to try to use it.  I got the impression that Italians don’t think that you should have to speak the language to travel to a country – something I’ve too often heard from Americans.  

I also heard “Oh, you’re going to Europe?  They have different ideas about cleanliness there—they don’t bathe regularly.” Not even remotely true for Northern Italy, where everyone is so fastidious.  Everyone I’ve run into in Genoa smelled clean and fragrance is worn minimally there.

No one ever commented on their shoes.  I am fascinated by the shoes Europeans wear.

This year I decided to go to Genoa in April instead of May, since it starts getting really hot toward the summer months (by the time August hits, everyone has fled the city to avoid the terrible heat).  I'd say I was avoiding the Germans, but the only Germans who have actually been mean to me work at the Frankfurt airport, so I'm safe from them.  My tickets were purchased as a Chrismukkah present from my brother and this time he promised me that the layover would be brief (as opposed to last year’s 12-hour layover in Philadelphia—the layover from hell).  He found the right price on Travelocity with Air France and Alitalia (who work together), a 10-hour flight from SFO to CDG (Charles deGaulle) with an almost 2-hour layover in Paris, then an hour and a half flight to MPX (Malpensa—Milan’s international airport).  Being the world’s best big brother, he also bought me extra baggage allowance and an upgrade to “SeatPlus,” which offers extra leg room.  Once that was all settled and I had purchased enough random stuff for my mom to fill a large duffle bag, I felt that I was as ready as I could be.  

This time around, I was more worried about being comfortable on the flight and not getting lost on the way.  Upgrading to SeatPlus and a co-worker lending me a seatbelt extender gave me peace of mind. My biggest worry is always feeling like I have no clue what I’m doing when I don’t have time to calm down and figure it out.  I get all frazzled when there’s no need to be, which I thought was just me until two friends who have done a lot of traveling both said they always feel the same when traveling alone.  Thanks, Jess and Tam—that actually made me feel a whole lot better coming from you!    I always get butterflies traveling by myself.  I feel lost in the airport, intimidated by the security line (and SFO now does full-body scanning for everyone, which just sucks), and although I can grab a seat at the gate when I first get there, if I want to go to the bathroom before the flight that seat will end up being taken…most likely by someone’s luggage.  A lot of people aren’t particularly friendly or considerate when they’re flying (though that does make the nice ones really stand out).

I didn’t have the energy to do any shopping in the international terminal or the inclination to get something to eat.  I bought a couple of magazines for my mom (Vanity Fair and Vogue) and a couple of bottles of water for the flight, then went and sat on the ground near my gate (Americans are not the only ones who use the seat next to them for luggage, that particular act of inconsiderateness is widespread).  One thing we do well in America is stand in line and not cut each other off.  I don’t think anyone else does that, certainly not the French or Italians.  I’d forgotten this from last time—if you want to get anywhere in Italy, you have to make your own path, evidently it's no different in France.  I felt downright meek at the gate, constantly getting cut off by people, but I just couldn’t get back into that mindset yet.  But the boarding process wasn’t that bad, especially once I got onto the upper deck. 

Unfortunately, I hadn’t realized that my seat was in the emergency row.  More legroom, yes, but it meant I couldn’t keep my purse with me because there was no seat in front of me to put it under.  It also meant no TV screen and when I sat down I could feel my hipbones being squeezed together.  Luckily, once everyone boarded, my section was only half full and I got to move to a more comfortable window seat behind the emergency row.  I think it’s odd that the seats all looked the same but the emergency row seats weren’t as wide.  In any case, my ass actually fit in the seat the flight attendant offered me and there was no one sitting next to me, so it was heavenly.  More so when I went to buckle the seatbelt and it was more than long enough to comfortably fit me (there were even several spare inches of strap left).  I still had twice the legroom that I’ve had on Southwest and Continental, too.  It was a quiet 10-hour flight with no mishaps.  The dinner was scary looking chicken in wine sauce with rubbery mushrooms on overcooked egg noodles with a hard roll, orange-cranberry cake (which was good) and rice pudding (which was not).  I could have bought wine or champagne or some sort of liqueur, but I stuck with water and still barely managed to stay hydrated.  All in all, the flight was just fine and I thought of nothing but nice things about my brother for sending me to Italy on such a fabulous flight.

At CDG airport I ran into my first hitch.  I never ended up going through what felt like Customs (those French are tricky!), so I had plenty of time, but after going through the shortest passport line ever,  I couldn’t find my terminal.  I knew I had to go from 2E to 2F, which sounds simple enough, especially when you come upon the escalator to 2F so quickly!  Of course, when the escalator is blocked off and there are no other signs to tell you where to go and no stairs to climb up, you’re kind of screwed.  The lady at Information pointed out the stairs around the corner and several yards down the hall, but at the very last minute mentioned that there was an elevator to the left of the staircase.  Thank freaking god.  Once I was on the right floor, I just had to go through security which did not involve a full body scan or taking my shoes off.  Yay, France, you’re my favorite!  When I got to the gate, I checked with the guy at the counter to make sure I had all my paperwork in order, then went to have a seat…which I did not find because—that’s right!  Everyone was using any spare seating for their stupidass luggage.  Son of a…  But they did have these weird mushroom shaped things, like giant sectioned mushroom bar stools, that you could lean against, so I grabbed one of those and tried not to be annoyed while everyone around me jostled me so they could sit, too.  Thank god there were no Italian grandmothers around.  Last time I was in Italy one of them shoved me off a bus step.  Wicked little things, they are.

Boarding was equally chaotic for my connection flight and the seats were positively teensy, but the seatbelt still fit with length to spare and the French woman sitting next to me was very nice and I could actually understand her French.  Oh, and she smelled good. Like powdery light floralness.  I, on the other hand, smelled horrid despite applying deodorant, brushing my teeth and doing the extent of washing up one can do in an airplane bathroom.  I read a French (subtitled in English) fashion magazine which had a picture of a young man in a navy blue suit, wearing navy blue sneakers and holding a newspaper in front of his face.  His hands looked like Danny’s.  Was it you, Dan?

It didn’t take long to get my luggage at MPX and my mom was waiting for me when I got out into the main lobby.  I let her carry the duffel with all her stuff in it, all 36 pounds of it, to the bus.  That’s right, we have to take the bus from the airport, to the train station.  The bus ride was 45 minutes at least, more likely close to an hour, but was no big deal.  It was the train station that killed us.  The train station is responsible for our jetlag.  My mom said it was trainlag.  So true.  

First, the mattelone (cobblestones from hell) tried to eat the wheels of my suitcase repeatedly.  Then we realized that if we caught the next train we wouldn’t be able to get any food and neither of us had eaten in several hours.  So we got tickets for the next train, which was a little over an hour out, and ran to the nearest bar to get Panini and orange Fanta (they never have blood orange in the little bottles for some reason).  I have to drink Fanta when I’m here: Pepsi, 7Up and all that taste funny to me in Europe, no idea why.  I’m probably prejudiced.  Then we stood with a huge group of people, all staring up at the sign that tells what binario number your train will arrive at.  This sounds simple, but this is Italy so it’s just not.  We stood looking up at that sign for a good twenty minutes.  Finally, at ten minutes till the train was supposed to depart (and they’re certainly not going to wait for you), the binario flashed on the board.  

We made a mad dash for the correct binario as the train was pulling up, but then we had to figure out where to wait for it.  We knew we were in Car 1, but sometimes it’s at the beginning of the train and sometimes it’s at the end.  We were lucky this time, it was at the beginning.  Getting the luggage quickly up the steps was just not going to happen and no one in the crowd gathering behind us was going to help, so we were as quick about it as we could be and both breathed a sigh of relief once we were safely inside the train.  Unfortunately, we were seated in different compartments and I was the lucky winner of the full compartment that contained two businessmen that were incredibly rude to everyone.  I wanted to swear at them in French because I don’t know any swear words in Italian, but I do know how to tell you to go fuck yourself en francais.  I won’t get into how awful they were, let’s just say they ruined the hour and a half train ride for me and everyone else in our compartment.  The good news is that I fell asleep several times on the ride.  The bad news is that my mouth was hanging open every time and I may even have snored.  Ah well.

When we finally arrived in Genoa I almost fell flat on my face as we got off the train, but managed to just stumble a little.  I was that tired.  Effing trainlag.  An American kid on his own was trying to find out if he was on the right train and the first person he asked dismissed him, so I told my mom that he needed her help (she was trying to find us an elevator at the time).  I asked him what he needed to know and my mom told him that he was on the right train (to Monterosso) and made his day, which made my day.  I know that wash of relief when someone treats you like a human after a long day of being treated like crap, the food cart lady on the train had just given me a really brilliant smile when I went to move my suitcase from the corridor for her, so yeah, you’ve got to pass that on when you can and it really doesn’t take much.

Is it over yet?

Next we had to deal with stairs, escalators and more mattelone.  The stairs went down, then the escalator took you back up, then my suitcase and the 36-pound duffle toppled in front of me on the escalator as I was getting off and I fell onto them, which made both of us laugh really hard, then I had to try to get all my luggage over the horrible man-eating mattelone again.  Finally, we found a taxi to take us home.  The driver was very friendly and chatted with my mom in rapid Italian all the way to the apartment.  I said “buona serata” to him and he said, “bye-bye!” to me, then gave my mom his name and number so that we could call him for a ride any time.  He loved that she chose to move to Genoa and loves it so much here.  He was probably also surprised that she’s Italian, since most of the locals think she’s Dutch or German.  

Finally we were home…which meant carrying my luggage up a flight and a half of marble stairs and into the world’s smallest elevator.  But I made it to the front door of the apartment alive and just had to wait for Ollie to let me in, which he wouldn’t until I said something in Italian.  My mom was almost up the elevator herself (we had to go separately because of the luggage) by the time he let me in.  

Not baked yet, I forgot to take that photo

So here I am.  In Genoa again.  In my favorite room on the planet.  I woke up this morning and looked out the double glass doors to the Mediterranean, which I realized today is terribly blue in the morning, then turns a soft gray as the day wears on.  Unlike last time, I was too tired to go out the first day, but we were productive at home.  I gave lots of attention to the dog and two cats, watched some TV, did some dishes and helped my mom make bread (which mostly involved doing more dishes).  She made Celebration Bread with dried apricots, pecans, cinnamon and cloves.  She made pizza dough and sourdough that will rise overnight.  Tomorrow we will go out into the city and buy focaccia and produce and torture ourselves by going to the Questura to file my paperwork so the Italian government won’t kick me out after eight days, then my mom will make pizza for dinner with any toppings we want and we’ll drink my favorite Ortruga frizzante wine.

Pictures of the guest room I'm staying in follow.

Baci a tutti!

Entrez vous!  I don't know that in Italian, sorry.

This apartment has no closets.

View from just inside the French doors - it was too windy to take the picture outside.  I'm afraid of heights.

Is that a spider on the ceiling?

It's a huge floral spider, yes.  I want to eat it, but instead it lights up my room.

That's all for now, more in the next post.