Itinerary
As of 10:36 pm there exists a vague plan for the next week or two. It consists of a good deal of driving (at least for European standards), some familial obligations, and then a lot of spontaneity hopefully combined with good travel karma:
Tomorrow! i.e. Wednesday: Geras-> Vienna -> Moneglia
Thursday, Friday, Saturday?: Moneglia
Sunday: Interlaken (Grandparents)
Monday: Astrid and I go off to Paris or Marseille, Dad goes back to Vienna to fly to Beijing (he wouldn't take me, grr). Sponteneity sets in. We all report back to Vienna about a week later.
Tomorrow will be about 10+ hours of driving, split between my dad and my sister. I'm just glad I never got around to getting my license. Lunch will happen as usual in Udine, where we will arrive just too late to go to the-trattoria-we-are-always-too-late-for. (I remember eating there once, but standing outside the door at least a half dozen times. It stops serving lunch at 3 I think.)
Moneglia is a small Genovese bathing/resort town, right next to Cinque Terre. It's still populated mostly by Italians, unlike Cinque Terre which was utterly American the last time I was there. Moneglia is where my parents used to go for weekends when they were living in Zurich. One of my earliest memories is of a New Year's Eve there when I was maybe four; the noise at midnight woke my sister and me up and we went downstairs to the restaurant, due biondissime belle bambine, to the great amusement of all... Also great plates of small sea snails that you had to extract with a pin. The owners of the restaurant in which all this happened still remember us/my parents well, which is why I'm so happy to go back: even besides the opulent 5? 6? course meal they served us last time we came, they were wonderfully hospitable people (Italian restaurant owners - how surprising, right?) and it's lovely to be known and remembered in such a place, to really be more than just a tourist (traveler, blech). The density of social relations in Italian towns is something that's been romanticized enough, especially by those of us who are only very loosely tied to any particular place or people. As a kid there was also the fact that the bimbi and raggazzi seemed to have much more freedom within this communal structure (than we did, anyway), so there was always the fantasy of getting in with them, "becoming Italian" and leaving the parents behind. Mostly, it's nice discovering things in the proverbial family closet that aren't skeletons, but nice little Italian restaurants.
In related news, my luggage finally arrived, from Neverneverland (LGA? JFK? VIE? AKX?). Be grateful and don't ask too many questions.
I have the bad trait of not enjoying rereading my own writing, so if these posts are overly rambling and incomprehensible let me know. I doubt I'll be online until I get back to Vienna, certainly not enough to post much.
Tomorrow! i.e. Wednesday: Geras-> Vienna -> Moneglia
Thursday, Friday, Saturday?: Moneglia
Sunday: Interlaken (Grandparents)
Monday: Astrid and I go off to Paris or Marseille, Dad goes back to Vienna to fly to Beijing (he wouldn't take me, grr). Sponteneity sets in. We all report back to Vienna about a week later.
Tomorrow will be about 10+ hours of driving, split between my dad and my sister. I'm just glad I never got around to getting my license. Lunch will happen as usual in Udine, where we will arrive just too late to go to the-trattoria-we-are-always-too-late-for. (I remember eating there once, but standing outside the door at least a half dozen times. It stops serving lunch at 3 I think.)
Moneglia is a small Genovese bathing/resort town, right next to Cinque Terre. It's still populated mostly by Italians, unlike Cinque Terre which was utterly American the last time I was there. Moneglia is where my parents used to go for weekends when they were living in Zurich. One of my earliest memories is of a New Year's Eve there when I was maybe four; the noise at midnight woke my sister and me up and we went downstairs to the restaurant, due biondissime belle bambine, to the great amusement of all... Also great plates of small sea snails that you had to extract with a pin. The owners of the restaurant in which all this happened still remember us/my parents well, which is why I'm so happy to go back: even besides the opulent 5? 6? course meal they served us last time we came, they were wonderfully hospitable people (Italian restaurant owners - how surprising, right?) and it's lovely to be known and remembered in such a place, to really be more than just a tourist (traveler, blech). The density of social relations in Italian towns is something that's been romanticized enough, especially by those of us who are only very loosely tied to any particular place or people. As a kid there was also the fact that the bimbi and raggazzi seemed to have much more freedom within this communal structure (than we did, anyway), so there was always the fantasy of getting in with them, "becoming Italian" and leaving the parents behind. Mostly, it's nice discovering things in the proverbial family closet that aren't skeletons, but nice little Italian restaurants.
In related news, my luggage finally arrived, from Neverneverland (LGA? JFK? VIE? AKX?). Be grateful and don't ask too many questions.
I have the bad trait of not enjoying rereading my own writing, so if these posts are overly rambling and incomprehensible let me know. I doubt I'll be online until I get back to Vienna, certainly not enough to post much.
posted by stella at 10:52 PM
1 Comments:
The first episode of Emily without Stella--and two weeks until we hear from her again?
I've got nothin'--at least you got your luggage back!
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