Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening.

Two years ago, I published a blog post titled “イタリア（Italy）.” It offers no hacks or travel tips. It’s one of my favorite posts. I thought I’d share it with you today.

It starts like this.

No, it’s not that I love Italy. Or that I’m obsessed with the Italian language. Or that I have any Italian friends. Or that I’m up for an Italian shopping spree.

Not at all.

I have no friends who are Italian or live in Italy. I can’t eat most food served in Italian restaurants. My Italian is limited to a few phrases expressing gratitude and enthusiasm, plus asking where the toilets are. I know next to nothing about how people in Italy live their everyday life.

But I have spent a total of ten weeks backpacking in Italy on two trips (plus once as a child with my family). And I’m not that fond of traveling.

Why?

Then I go on to talk about the whys.

This is me talking to myself after reading this post this morning: Self, isn’t it obvious you really, really like Italy? How is it that you haven’t realized this for so long? Your post emotes the love of places. How oblivious of you.

Some things have changed over the last two years. I added Italian to my Duolingo this summer. Learning Italian feels alarmingly easier than the other languages I study on the app (i.e. French, German, and Mandarin). Probably because 1) we use Romaji, the Latin script, to type Japanese on the computer 2) both Italian and Japanese are highly phonetic (meaning words are pronounced as they are written), and 3) I use English and know some German and French. Nothing is for naught.

Italy is home to two friends. I like them not because they live in Italy, but because they are kind and many other wonderful things. I am so fortunate.

Here’s the rest of the post.

convent accommodation

You will find me where there are safe places to stay overnight.

• 『I like to stay at Italian convents (イタリアの修道院に泊まるのが好きだ)』
• 『If evolution was true (わたしたちは進化しているのか)』

museums and churches

There are so many.

friends of a good friend

I have an art history degree. I spent an overwhelming part of my college years in a dark room with an elderly white man, staring at the pictures of naked white women, dressed-up white people, churches, palazzos, and the rest. Because that was what my beloved professor liked to talk about: Italian Renaissance Art.

Sometimes I wondered if it was a prudent thing to be doing for an Asian person like myself. Wouldn’t that stunt my brain development or something?

My professor served in WWII. As a young US service member, he was detained in Italy, where he was exposed to the architecture and the language. He fell in love with them. After the war, he went back to school for a Ph.D. in art history.

He was, as he would often say, “too old to be working but having too much fun” introducing us to his friends from the past, showing us their works. My professor never made me feel ignorant. We aren’t supposed to know everyone we meet at a party. And he was such a gracious host. He loved to gossip about those people, their agony and ecstasy, daily routine, and whatnot.

I also wondered if any of this would be useful in my future career. But I was having way too much fun.

good samaritans

I have autoimmune chronic pancreatitis.* I’d always known something was wrong with my body long before I was diagnosed. As usual, I collapsed on the floor of a hostel just outside of Bologna.

A traveler from Mexico, a total stranger, called an ambulance, stayed behind to pack my backpack and check me out of the hostel, and arranged for an elderly lady to put me up while I recuperated.

The next day, she showed up at the hospital with my backpack. She stood by my bed and watched the IV drip. I heard her say “Air.” and pinch the cord. I felt so safe. She took me to the lady’s apartment, instructed me to hand the lady a small amount of money for room and board, saw me get settled, and said “I’m off.” She left for her next city.

I stayed at the lady’s place for a week. Our conversation was minimal, in that my Italian was limited to “Thank you very much” and “Delicious.” I ate and drank in silence what she served in silence. Gentle foods can be found anywhere in the world. The rest of the time, we sat side by side on her sofa and watched her tv shows.

On the ambulance, one of the paramedics kept reassuring me in English. “You’ll be all right. When you’re traveling, you get tired. You’re tired. You’ll be okay.” After everyone left, she stood by my gurney in the hospital hallway, still talking to me. My eyes were rolling back, and I was in horrible pain. But I felt so safe as I passed out.

This post is dedicated to all the Good Samaritans of the world.

*This April, the doctors told me that all the signs of the illness had disappeared. Chronic pancreatitis is an incurable, debilitating condition. My doctors don’t know why and how I was cured.

late 20th-century Bologna, a doctor’s office at Ospedale Maggiore

Doctor: What did you eat?
Me: I ate some panini.

Doctor: (Gesturing rows of panini) Did you buy the ones outside of a bar?
Me: Yes.

Doctor: That’s it. You know, here in Italy, we don’t put panini in the fridge. It gets warm during the day, and they go bad. You had food poisoning. I tell them to refrigerate panini. Do they listen? No. No one listens to me! We should be ashamed. This is Italia’s fault. We’re not charging you anything.

Me: Thank you.

How are you going to spend the coming week?

It will be “kind, honest, no holding back” again for me.

More later ~~
Ayuko

[Image: End of a scarf 17th century, Italian The MET Open Access ]

today’s special

something new: a new recipe (stir-fried eggs and white parts of green onions)
something read: ”Poetry for Dummies” by The Poetry Center at San Francisco State University and John Timpane. bits and pieces, here and there.