MilaNO

So I have some awesome friends who have an amazing daughter who was born in September. They are not too ecstatic to be in Italy at the moment considering it's so far from home and they're newlyweds with a brand new baby. There's a lot of stress in a situation like that and as a topper it was looking like they weren't going to really have a decent Christmas. Then, miracle number one happened: some of their family pulled together and got them tickets home. The excitement begins at this point because baby girl still doesn't have a passport, even though the application has been processing for about a month already. I know this because I applied for mine and Felix's about two weeks after they applied for hers so I was keeping up with it. Well, good ol' government processes being what they are, their paperwork got misplaced while ours arrived a week earlier than expected. Naturally this would happen since we didn't actually need our passports for a few more months. They were exhausting all options trying to figure out a way to still make it happen and it was truly beginning to look hopeless. Then miracle number two happened: they found a way to make it happen! The American Embassy in Milan could issue an emergency passport, but they'd have to go pick it up there. Luckily, Milan is only about a two hour drive from here. Unfortunately, by the time they were informed that the emergency passport was available for pick up, there was literally only one day left that they would be able to get it before that part of the Embassy closed for the holidays. Wanna one-up that news? The passport office there closes at noon - not for lunch, for the DAY. Awesome. We decide that it will work as long as we leave the second Felix is on the bus to school - I mean, leaving no later than 8am means we'll get there by 10am, we can get the passport which shouldn't take more than 30 minutes, then maybe take a look around the city for an hour or so before needing to get back on the road home because Felix doesn't get home until about 3pm. We're even figuring for some traffic delays, maybe 30 minutes on either side and we still have time to get the passport and see at least one attraction in the city. HA.HA.HA. 

We left at about 8:30 that morning and arrived in the city of Milan at 10:15 (I drive fast... especially here!). According to my Garmin, we had about two miles to go to get to the Embassy. Sweet! This is gonna be cake - we'll have plenty of time to explore. Then came the traffic. Ok, it's not looking too bad... a little congestion but we're moving and it looks like maybe it'll take that extra half hour we figured on. No big deal, maybe we just stop at a cafe and have lunch rather than trying to sightsee. Still not panicking because getting there at 10:45 is still plenty of time.

Yup, there's still plenty of time. See those birds? They're going as fast as we are. The distance from the building in the first picture to this sign was about half a mile. We saw that building at about 10:20 and we saw this sign at about 10:45. Once we were through this light, though, it looked like we were really gonna start moving. This was about the time we realized that the single lane road we were entering had about four lanes of traffic smashing themselves in however they possibly could. There were several times when we were literally only inches away from the cars on either side of us. My friends are in full panic mode at this point because it really does look like we're not gonna make it and that makes me even more determined to get them there. I know I told them a couple times that I was really lucky that my mom taught me to drive because I never would have been confident enough to navigate those streets otherwise. I mean, Naples in the middle of the night was bad enough but this was a whole new level of crazy. 

By this point, the end is actually in sight, but traffic is just not moving at all. It's 11:20 and we're in full panic mode. I'm weaving in and out as much as I can, cutting people off like a pro and I feel like I've stepped into full Italian mode cursing people out loud and in sign language while driving maniacally towards our destination. We get to about two blocks away and can see that there's no way we'll make it on time driving because it's about 11:40 at this point, so I tell them to just run for it and I'll take care of the baby and try to find a place to park. They race for it and I drive very calmly (yeah right!) in a one mile circle around the Embassy looking for parking. Not happening. The baby starts crying in earnest (she'd been a little fussy off and on during our excursion already) and I know she really just needs a diaper change and a bottle, but I HAVE to be parked to make that happen. So I start looking for absolutely anywhere I can pull in, legal or not since that seems to be the protocol here anyway, and find myself on a street at a complete standstill. This is really not good. But they did have cute lights up...

See? Really pretty lights! And that building off in the distance looks like something I really want to see up close. Not this trip though! We slowly make our way down the street... poor baby is just screaming and I'm trying to calm her down making all kinds of promises to fix it just as soon as I can. My window was down because the weather is really nice and there's an older man on the street who hears her crying and me trying to console her and he gives me a look like he wants to help but has no idea how and then traffic starts moving and we both just kinda shrug at each other like "I hope it works out soon" and keep going. About a block and a half after that, a guy pulls out of a parking space right in front of a pharmacy and I do the best parallel parking job I've ever done in my life snagging that spot. I get baby girl out of her seat and change her diaper, then look in the bag for her bottle. Crap. We forgot water. Thank God we're in front of a pharmacy! I take her inside and she's still screaming and the ladies try to calm her down a little while I desperately try to express to them in Italian what I need. Luckily, they understood me and the pharmacist spoke English so we had a little conversation while I made her bottle and got her calmed down. At that point, my phone was ringing because her parents were ready to be picked up. THEY GOT THE PASSPORT!!!! Best news all day! So I get her fed and strapped back in and head over to get them. By the time I got back around to the Embassy, it was coming up on 1pm and they just jumped in at a corner so we could head back ASAP because we now had exactly enough time to get home and meet Felix getting off the bus. Traffic has not changed, of course, so I'm realizing that I'm gonna have to drive like the same bat out of hell I've been driving like all day. So I do. We made it back after he got off the bus, but before he made it to the apartment, so the day was a success all around. My friends are officially able to go home for Christmas and show off their beautiful daughter, I volunteered to care for their cat and dog while they were gone (partly because I wanted to leave nothing to chance and partly because Felix swears he wants a dog and I wanted him to prove it) so it all works out for everyone.

I have no intention of driving to Milan ever again.

Leaving Sorrento (part three)

Our final day in Southern Italy dawned bright and beautiful again. After the evening's rainstorms, the sky was clear and the views were fantastic. It was also much cooler, thankfully, as we had laundry to do! Today's plan was pretty simple: get some laundry done and enjoy Sorrento while doing it. After breakfast, we loaded up the necessary laundry and walked about half a mile up the road to the laundry place our Australian friends told us about. Americans: be grateful for your coin laundry places!!! This was pretty much the same idea, but there were three washer and three dryers (hey, kinda like my laundry room at home) but it cost us about 8 euro per load... that's a hell of a lot more than a dollar to wash and a dollar to dry, my friends! While here, somehow not surprisingly, we met someone from the area where my aunt lives. I promise you, this is just amazing to me, but she really does seem to know someone everywhere and if she doesn't, she's stellar at making friends. So while washing our laundry, we had a lovely conversation with a girl who is living in Sorrento as part of a work-study program while studying to become a chef. I'd go to Italy to learn to cook too... these people can definitely throw down in the kitchen!! So the conversation ends, but the laundry's not done washing, so we make a quick trip to the pharmacy to pick up cold meds for the ailing uncle and have a coffee out of the machine. YUM for me!! I wind up walking the meds and child back to the hotel while Aunt Ceil writes out postcards and switches laundry over... this is good because one can never really do enough walking. Yes, I do actually believe that, although my child strongly and verbosely disagrees with me!

When we got back to the launderette, we decided lunch on the way back to the hotel was a great idea so we stopped in at Il Ritrovo for this delicious pizza and salad combo. I'm pretty sure the pizza was half quattro formaggi (four cheese) and half prosciutto (ham). The salad was an awesome suggestion from Aunt Ceil: it's ham, buffalo mozzarella and a little lettuce on a bed of melon. Delicious! We had a leisurely meal... the only thing we didn't have to wait for was the beer... and enjoyed the nice weather and the calmness of the day. As we were paying, it began raining, so we stayed a short while longer and Felix did what he does best: found something that could be a gun and used it!

I can't really express enough how much I love having an unscheduled day to run with and actually running with it. The only thing we knew we needed to do was laundry, so we did. There was no timetable to follow, but there was plenty of time for conversation and just sitting around experiencing our little piece of Italian bliss. When we finally made it back to the hotel, Felix wanted to jump in the pool but it was cold enough that I was pretty sure it wasn't a good idea... didn't stop him. He played by the edge (but didn't get in!) until he was thoroughly soaked and I had to bring him a towel from the room because the hotel staff wouldn't let him come in trailing a literal river behind him!

I took advantage of the time in the room to move more pictures from my camera to my computer, then let the munchkin hang out with the other boys (and his gameboy, of course!) while I brought the computer and some wine up to the rooftop to enjoy conversation and pictures. I keep forgetting how nice adult interaction is and I'm quite grateful to have had such fun people to spend my time with in Sorrento.

Felix was ecstatic to learn that we were leaving in the morning, but naturally couldn't bring himself to sleep at a reasonable hour. It was nice to have the windows open all night, though it was definitely chilly in the morning! We had a quick breakfast and said our goodbyes. The plan, since I was still assuming an eight hour drive, was to hit the road early enough to be in Tuscany for lunch and make it home in time for dinner. Whoops. I'm really good at planning, but execution just doesn't seem to be my strong suit. As soon as we got on the road, we were (naturally) behind a tourist in a rented vehicle who was driving extremely cautiously... and pissing off everyone else on the road. I learned a lot of Italian sign language in the 45 minutes we were trapped behind them on this winding cliffside road. I also saw some of the most dangerous driving maneuvers I've ever seen in person during that time. Once we were finally past him (yes, it was a man, I checked!) we headed toward the autostrada only to be caught in a fabulous traffic jam. Traffic in the circle really is supposed to keep moving, but they can't if the people exiting the circle are waiting for everyone and their mother to cross the street. Perhaps this is the fundamental flaw in the system. I decide to bypass the traffic circle jam by taking the second exit instead of the first (checked the map first to make sure they both went the same way) and we were off traveling through tiny towns on our way back to the autostrada. It was very scenic. We accidentally drove around Mount Vesuvius because we got on the autostrada in the wrong direction. At least it was picturesque. So we finally get headed in the right direction and make it to Tuscany just at riposo when all the cafes have closed for the period between lunch and dinner. So much for lunch in Tuscany! Oh well. On the bright side, neither one of us is hungry and both of us want to be home, so it's not a problem to keep going. We arrived home before sunset, which was really nice. The car was FILTHY, which I think is going to be the car's theme for life in Italia. It was freezing compared to the tropical climate we had just been in, though in reality it was only around 50 degrees. We crashed out almost as soon as we walked in the door... nice ending to a great mini vacation!