I have no intention of writing a travel log or keeping a
journal of all my activities to bore you with in order to justify the tax
write-off I intend to take for this trip. Instead I intend to bore you with my
thoughts and observations about international travel, jet lag and trying to
establish a friendly rapport with the locals who speak a foreign language; most
specifically, my wife who has gone almost completely native on me.
During my career in the military I literally traveled around
the world a couple of times, so when it comes to dealing with jet lag, this was
not my first rodeo. Sandra had warned me that I might be dragging around for
the first few days while dealing with jet lag. I assured her that, being a
seasoned world traveler, I had become accustomed to international flights and
jet lag didn’t effect me much.
When I said that, I failed to take into account three very
essential things; first, the last time I took a 20 hour flight covering three
hemispheres was over 20 years ago, second, there is a long and embarrassing
list of things my body could do a lot better 20 years ago, and finally, Sandra
is never, ever wrong.
I vaguely remember going to bed that fist night and I have a
fuzzy recollection of getting up to see Sandra off to school the next morning.
I turned on my computer with the intention of catching up on my emails and
maybe doing a little writing (IRS, please note that I went right to work.)
When I woke again a coupe of hours later I made a valiant
effort to get up and go take a stroll around the neighborhood but when the door
buzzer woke me up late that afternoon, I let Sandra in realizing that I had literally
slept an entire day away.
I don’t know if it’s just my age or if traveling east and
losing time is tougher on you than flying west and gaining time but I can tell
you that jet lag left me feeling washed out, faded and, to quote Dan Jenkins,
“too tired to eat spaghetti.” Whatever the reason, jet lag had kicked my butt
and once again; Sandra was right.
I think it was my third day here that I ventured out with
Sandra to sit in on her Italian class. It was my first street level exposure to
the narrow streets, centuries old buildings and insane traffic that give
walking through Florence that special feeling of being on a Japanese game show.
Cars, busses, delivery trucks, emergency vehicles and
thousands of bicycles, motorcycles and scooters of every imaginable variety all
honking horns and ringing bells while fighting their way down streets built to
accommodate horses and buggies; oh, did I mention the occasional horse and
buggy on the same roads?
I couldn’t shake the feeling that if we could somehow snake
our way trough the relentless oncoming pedestrians, avoid being taken out by a
grandmother on a Vespa, getting decapitated by the rearview mirror of a passing
bus or colliding with a business man doing about 80 MPH through a three foot
opening he imagined near the sidewalk, we would be met at our destination by a
Japanese game show host telling us we had won dinner for one at Guido’s Sushi
Emporium or one of those really cool kites.
It turns out we weren’t on a game show, that’s just typical a
Tuesday afternoon in Florence and we arrived safely at Sandra’s Italian class
where I discovered that I had wasted either the $300 I spent on that language
software or the 25 minutes I had spent trying to use it because I couldn’t
understand a word they were saying.
While I didn’t find the place at all unpleasant; the
buildings are magnificent, there is art everywhere, the food is incredible and
the people don’t leave home unless they are actually dressed…not a pair of
sweat pants in sight. It quickly became clear that my culture shock was just
beginning.
As for re-establishing a rapport with my wife; that’s just
beginning, too. Things are never going
to be the same; she’s an international artist who has found a home in this city
of artists and I’m lucky enough to be her husband. I really don’t know how to
be the husband of an international artist, but I really want to and I think
that’s a good start.
Next week; wine, women and a thousand church bells.
No comments:
Post a Comment