One.
The Munich airport is familiar now. I understand its idiosyncracies, and suddenly found myself playing seasoned local to a group of entirely terrified American tourists. My own first trip through Munich made me conclude it was the worst designed aiport on the face of the planet (a view I still hold), so I reassured them that yes, this was the bus to our flight to Rome, no the bus was not going to get on the freeway, and this was pretty much business as usual in Munich. I told them that everyone's first flight through the airport is an excercise in patience and utter confusion. It's strange to think of myself as the one who knows the ins and outs of getting around various bits of Europe.
Two.
I stepped off the plane at Fiumicino and breathed a huge sigh of relief. The light had that warm quality I've only seen in Italy, the sun was out, it was warm, and
I could understand things. Signs in the bus and airport, the babble of fellow travellers...it was like coming home. On the train from Fiumicino to Roma Termini, I ended up sitting across from two entirely obnoxious Americans, the first I've really encountered since leaving home. They remind me why I want to leave the country. I spent the entire ride from Termini to Ancona staring out the window and listening to music. A lot of the Postal Service, some Jeff Buckley, Elliott Smith, the Alkaline Trio. The light is prettier, the landscape is nicer, the architecture is very specific. In Italy the bricks are yellow, in Holland they're red. The streets are narrower and windier. They actually have hills and mountains. Everything was so familiar, and reminded me why I'd missed the place so much.
Three.
I called Simo from the Termini station to tell him what time I would be coming in, and spoke Italian. I think he was downright shocked. Somehow, in a year of not using it, I've overcome my shyness about attempting to speak Italian. Last summer, communication with Pasqui was very difficult. This summer, somehow, it was easy. We had whole conversations in Italian (his slow for my benefit, mine broken and limited, but still somewhat functional). Peppe and I barely spoke last year, but this year it was like old friends reuniting. Suddenly I discover that his English is fantastic, and we spend dinner talking. Angelo had to worry even less about my understanding him. It was...incredible. Surrounded by my friends, words in two languages flying across the table.
Four.
Peppe and I are out in Senigallia on Saturday night, drinking beers. Pasqui has found his friends, leaving the two of us talking about music and life and work. We start to get drunk at about the same time (apparently we have the same alcohol tolerance?) and by halfway through the second beer we're taking silly, vaguely drunken photos with my camera. His friend Riccardo shows up, along with some of the other boys from Chiaravalle (Peppe's hometown), and it descends into the two of them sharing stories about when they were studying in England together, overlapping and contradicting and teasing. The dynamic reminds me so much of when a group of old Czars gets together. Sometime past four, we walk back to Pasqui's car, drive Peppe to his, and Pasqui drives me home. Peppe ends up spending the night in his car.
Five.
On Tuesday, Martijn asks me at lunch if I want to go swimming after work (as soon as I came back from Italy, the sun was out). We try and try to get more people in, but eventually it's just him, Derya (his wife), and me. We leave work and race to the Turkish market for picnic supplies. Derya makes small-talk in Turkish with the grocers while we pick out several pounds of cherries, good bread and cheese, and dinner makings. At the lake (dubbed E3 for the motorway nearby), we demolish all the cherries and about half the bread and cheese, then go swimming until the evil man in the truck starts driving around, berating us all to get out of the water because the lake is closing....in half an hour.
We go back to Martijn and Derya's apartment in the city center, a gorgeous tenth-floor flat with a balcony. For dinner we make a huge Spanish
tortilla and a salad, and open a bottle of red wine. They only let me help when I insist that I feel useless. We eat dinner listening to Pink Floyd and fantastic Dutch blues and watching the Italy-Germany game on mute. It's so hot that, even with all the windows and doors open it's all we can do to lie still and watch television, much less do anything. Martijn is cheering for Italy. His logic: "I don't like the French, the Portuguese beat Holland, and I hate Germany...Italy!" (hating the German is a Dutch national pasttime). It's an amazing game, and when Martijn drves me home at almost midnight I spend a while more celebrating and rehashing the game with Salvo.
Six.
Wednesday night at one-thirty I was sitting in the Markt Square drinking vodka shots and Belgian beer and eating chips and salsa with Martijn, Derya, two French, one Serb, two Portuguese, and a Mexican, all Philips employees but Antonio. We'd come from the Irish pub, where we'd all been watching the France-Portugal match. The French were celebrating, the Portuguese were drowning their sorrows, and the rest of us? We were just drinking. It was so warm out that we were in out t-shirts well past midnight. I ended up crashing in Martijn and Derya's spare room, because I didn't trust myself to ride home. Martijn and I spent a while more on the balcony talking about education and engineering and math and drinking water, so by the time I woke up yesterday morning I was pretty much fine...though for a while the three of us looked like zombies stumbling around the apartment trying to get ready for work.
Seven.
Today at work, I was cyber-ambushed by the boys. All of them. The entire hardware lab signed onto Skype and it quickly descended into the kind of half-Italian half-English madness I remember. The boss was out so they were all drinking beer, making the situation even more ridiculous than usual. Marines (who is temporarily occupying the desk across from mine) caught me breaking down laughing, and I explained that the entirety of the lab was in a chat, and they were all completely insane. Eventually there were plans to send me a cup of Italian coffee via DHL, after which we decided that, since they'd invented teleportation, that was a much better method of coffee delivery.
