I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t completely in love with Italy. There may not be a single drop of Italian blood in my American mongrel veins, but I’m Italian on the inside. I can’t help but feel a connection when I hear the language in an old movie or see a Vespa puttering down the street. I studied Italian in college simply to learn how to pronounce all those wonderful words that just seem to flow off the tongue like a soft Sangiovese wine. I swear I could listen to Sophia Loren read the Roman phone book. She could hurl curses at me and I would smile and nod and be utterly charmed.
Italy may as well have been on another planet as far as I was concerned because travel there just seemed completely out of the question. I had a thousand reasons not to go; too expensive, too far, I hate flying, my suitcase is stupid, I only know enough of the language to get myself into trouble and not enough to get out of it, etc.
It suddenly occurred to me one day that the timing wasn’t ever going to be perfect and I wasn’t ever going to feel I had enough money saved up and the stars weren’t ever going to align just so. I simply needed to go. So my partner Chris and I kicked around some ideas and dates, and before I knew it we were booked for two weeks in Rome, Florence and Venice. Just like that. It’s so much easier thinking of reasons not to go places, but at some point it’s necessary to just take a deep breath and hand over your Visa card to an airline. Take a leap of faith. One of my biggest fears was the damage the costs would make to my modest budget, but I can’t even remember any of those numbers now. A valuable lesson I learned about travel is that the bills get paid off sooner or later, and then you’re left with the great memories. Hopefully some cool souvenirs, too.
I was afraid of building Italy up so much in my mind that I was bound to be disappointed, but that didn’t happen. Italy far surpassed my expectations and seeing the land and breathing the air gave me a million new reasons to be in love with her. Since that first trip I’ve managed to get back there twice more, and I’m already booked for another trip this fall. I can’t get enough. She’s in my dreams, this Italy, and I hope she always will be.
I’ve had some interesting things happen to me on these trips. I was yelled at by one of God’s Policemen in the Sistine Chapel. I was cursed at by a gypsy who looked like someone out of a Fellini film. I stopped a thief from robbing a woman in Florence. I got hopelessly lost for several hours in the labyrinths of Venice. Each experience I’ve had there has made me feel even more attached to the country (except for the gypsy, she really freaked me out). I’m always planning my next trip in my head, and if I could figure out a way to pull it off, I’d get some tiny little apartment and split my time between here and there. It’s probably just as well, because with unlimited daily access to gelato, I’d probably end up having to buy my clothes from a tent maker.
The majority of the time I’ve spent in Italy has been in Florence, with a decent amount of time in Rome and Venice, and I look forward to sharing an outsider’s view of the Big Three and all the incredible things to see and do there. And if you have a tiny little Italian apartment you’re willing to loan me, I can promise I’m tidy and won’t break anything.
Matt Grigsby is a Redding native who has learned how to tell the difference between fresh gelato and machine-made. He owns a beautiful imaginary six room villa in the hills above Florence as well as a very real cottage on the West Side of town. By day he’s a computer analyst toiling for the public good and he dreams of one day owning a robot servant. He only uses the fancy ketchup.
