THE CLIMB

I hate to name this post after a Miley Cyrus song but really it's the most appropriate title I could think of. Ahem. Hello ye faithful readers. Some significant things have transpired in my life as of late. I shall begin with Friday. We had to get up at the crack of dawn (ok, like 7:10) for a very special and much-anticipated occasion: going to the police headquarters of Florence to get fingerprinted! I didn't really understand all the logistics but it had something to do with the fact that we now won't get kicked out of Italy anytime soon. It was gross and rainy and windy and cold that morning. But we were motivated by sheer excitement! Naaaaht. There was molto traffico so the bus wasn't coming and we had one of those wonderful moments in which we had to decide within the next negative two minutes if we should wait for the bus to show or start walking. We started walking. We were late, but we found the place. When I say "we found" anything, just insert "we" with "Camilla" because I have the sense of direction of a rock and therefore completely and utterly rely on her at all times. It's bad. Anyhow we were all prepared for the worst because Italy is notorious for being heinously disorganized and ridiculous in all aspects of everything. But everything went smoothly and it didn't end up taking more than 2 hours! (apparently the year before it took EIGHT). I suppose I could have been proactive and diligent and all that stuff and gone to my internship at the library but my boss was already under the impression that I wasn't coming (let it be known that I did not TELL her I wasn't coming. I described the interference and she said, 'So you're not coming then'--wow but it sounded way nicer in Italian--and I tried to continue telling her that I just didn't know how long the whole thing would take but before long not going at all started to sound nice so I just let her think what she thought) so I decided instead to go home. For lunch I got Chinese food and the nice woman there called me "Rossina" (little red). I nearly perished on the 1 minute walk back because it was so cold and windy and rainy and godforsaken. That night we went to the ballet! We were late again and I made a very very bad decision in wearing heels. The whole thing was a Christmas present from Giovanna and Monica :). The ballet was an abbreviated version of Carmen and much to my delight I recognized one of the songs because we played it in orchestra in high school. And I recognized all the others because they're extremely famous. Overall I preferred the music. The dancing, from what I could devise, was not all that impressive. I thought the Boston Ballet could have done a much better job, but my sister would have been a better judge of that. It ended and Camilla and I were all ready to go but a curious thing happened: nobody moved. Ever. APPARENTLY there was an intermission and then a second act! Even though Carmen had just died. The second act turned out to be an opera (or, as our host mom rather briskly corrected us, an OPERETTA) called Il Campanello by Donizetti (I had to Google it later). I thought it was MUCH better than the ballet. It was funny and cheerful and I think I was smiling throughout. Afterwords the whole group of us went on an epic quest for food (it was epic for me because my shoes were trying to murder me and I prevailed). We found a little snack place in the middle of bar/club central where about 534890 youngsters were loitering. I tried to order a sandwich and the dimwit girl behind the counter just looked at me as if she was trying to use her brain for the very first time. We hadn't had dinner because we had to leave for the ballet by 7:40 and by then it was maybe midnight so I was FAMISHED. I ended up succeeding in ordering a piece of pizza. By then it was the coldest it had ever been in Florence so 7 of us decided to split a taxi home. Best decision ever.
On Saturday I expected my legs/feet would be screaming in pain, but they miraculously weren't. So I made sure they would be the next day. Allow me to explain. Camilla and I took the train to Cortona. Allow me to be more specific. We took the train to CAMUCIA. Cortona is the next town over. Although the word "next" seems slightly misleading. As we pulled into the station we were granted a sprawling view of Cortona--all the white sunshiney houses and ancient Etruscan palaces and walls distributed among a dark green hill in the far off distance, like a model. We laughed and said "Well I guess we'll be needing to take a bus." There seemed to be a bus station right outside the station but we couldn't figure out where to buy tickets, and the schedule seemed to indicate that we had just missed a bus and would have to wait quite a while for the next one. We decided to start walking, figuring we'd find another stop along the way. Also food. Umm, we found neither. We stopped to ask people in some arts-n-craftz store but they proved useless. We continued walking. Always up a slight incline, always. Always there were outstretching roads leading endlessly towards where? Cortona? WELL WE HOPED. I ate a clementine on the way. That clementine probably saved my life. That and the magnificent views that helped us forget our exhaustion and hunger. I couldn't describe them. Just green and trees and horizon and blue and clouds and buildings just as ancient and natural as the nature around them. When I realized there were no sidewalks and not another human being in sight for miles, I realized there was a REASON for that. People don't usually walk from Camuica to Cortona. Probably haven't since Etruscan times. The streets never ever flattened out. I was thirsty, I was hungry, I was exhausted, but what else was there to do but keep walking? Camilla said she would have considered hitch-hiking. But then there were no more cars. Just us and slopes. I think I foresaw my death. Not to be melodramatic or anything. haha. Honestly though it was a nightmare. Not even the heavenly views could distract me anymore from the SHEER RAW DESIRE TO REST AND BE FED. I'm truly surprised I didn't at least faint. We stopped to sit on some wall of someone's beautiful driveway until a pick-up truck pulled in. I had the last sip of Camilla's water. Around winding bends there were more winding bends and bending winds and inclines and hills and slopes and steepness and I can't comprehend even now what was keeping me going. We began seeing a dog here, a person there, which gave me hope. And then finally. And I mean finally. We reached a fairly level clearing that included a semblance of a parking lot. With a sign that had a map with a label that read "Cortona." And a great stone gate leading into the city. I was deliriously relieved. The first restaurant we saw we entered. I literally couldn't move or speak until the food came. It was the most delicious bruschetta of my life--fresh tomatoes, olive oil, pine nuts and pepper. I felt like a man who hadn't eaten in 3 days. Then we were still hungry (obviously) so we ordered something else that may have been the most delicious thing I have ever eaten in my life: warm fresh bread with melted cheese and truffle sauce and olive oil and pepper. I could have eaten 15 of them. Holy JESUS. Then we were literally refueled and had enough energy to conquer the giant hill that is Cortona. There were beautiful churches and sweet cute dogs and stunning views. At one point we saw two little old women slowly creeping arm in arm down the giant hill that is Cortona and then we wondered how the HELL CAN ANYONE OVER THE AGE OF 65 LIVE THERE. Then we cracked up imagining that they must be built like pro wrestlers under their shawls. As it happened, we were growing nearer and nearer to the top of Cortona, to that church that I had seen a few hours ago as if from a telescope down at ground 0. There was a service going on when we got there but we poked our heads in and it looked spectacular. The winding road kept going so we kept following. By that point the sun was starting to set. A man had stopped his car to set up his tripod and take pictures of the expanse of Tuscany lying below us. We kept going. There was a fortress. The road turned into a dirt path and we followed it to a perfect hill that had three massive stones with inscriptions from another time. It was the top of the world and we could see everything. It was the most explicit metaphor for accomplishment that I could imagine, let alone experience. Looking out into the mountains whose boundaries blurred and faded in the extreme distance that they were at, at the pinks and purples of the sky, I felt like I could have fallen into infinity, consumed by beauty. Or something. I doubt I'll ever forget it.
When we finally tore ourselves away we found the ONE FLAT AREA OF CORTONA. Where obviously all the stores are. So we got gelato. On the way back we asked people at a gas station if they knew where a bus station was. They knew. We found it. And the bus came. And we didn't have tickets but that wasn't a problem. It was warm and comfortable and fast-moving and bus-like and it was BLISS. Especially realizing then exactly how far we had walked. It was at least a 7 minute bus ride! We calculated the distance that night. It was 2 miles. I don't know if that's impressive or not because I don't do physical activity but maybe you can understand from this post that it was.