20May, Day 13, The Warmth of the Sun

I feel like I’m due for an entry but don’t have many travel-adventures to try to poeticize. I’ve kept pretty busy through the week and had plans that fizzled this weekend. I met with the Fullbright coordinator at the US embassy on Thursday and then joined the Sicilians for dinner and then met a couple of their friends in Milan afterwards. Fabrizio cooked up a delicious mix of baked beef sprinkled with breadcrumbs, in a pan of tomato puree, buffalo mozzarella, and some secret herbs and spices. I admit that despite my acute schnozzola, I couldn’t identify any the fragrance aside from the oregano (which is easy).

It seems like learning English has become a fashion trend these days so I find I’ve been hanging out with the Sicilians a lot more these past 2 weeks. But they’re fun…

I met Emiliano and some other friends for an aperitivo at Piola on Friday. I was surprised to find Giuliana had returned from France for the weekend and made an appearance in Milan tonight. I met two of my French friends Alexis and Eric afterwards to go out to a bar. I feel like I relate to them better than a lot of the other people I’ve met here. I think being foreigners we have something intrinsically in common. I’ve also noted some interesting differences between Italian mindsets and my own, but I’ll let that discussion ripen a bit before posting.

I was planning to go to Liguria this weekend to visit Portofino or another beach. But the plans fell through. I saw Leonardo for a few hours in Genova. He’s a Brazilian classmate from the language school I attended in August. I returned to Milan Saturday night to go to a club with the Sicilians and a few of their pretty lady-friends. I had a good time until I got tired being extroverted. Then the fatigue began to weigh on me and I think I might’ve napped for a few minutes on a couch before the others were ready to go home. With the exception of last Sunday (12 hours), I haven’t slept more than 5 or 6 hours a night since I left the US. I don’t think I can blame this on jetlag anymore, but I haven’t found a cause for me to wake up early even when I’m staying up late.

I feel like it’s been a long time since I’ve done any traveling. I think the last significant trip was to Spain: about a month ago. I’m attending a party on a tram on Friday. (I know that sounds bizarre. But it has potential to be good.) Maybe I can try for Portofino again on Sunday. I’ll look for a decent airfare tomorrow to get farther a field in June. I had big travel plans to see 4 big destinations in Italy before July, but the longer I wait the more appealing it becomes to string them together into one trip to waste less time going back and forth.