Wayne went to Rome to study Classics...

...but found so much more.

Unfortunately, Wanye put a gag order on me talking about the "More" bit. But, I'm not going to leave you hanging! Let's just say that you should visit the Anne Proctor page.

The first thing I heard from Wayne in Italy was

i'm here, i'm living it up, i haven't slept in years, and i'm already eating like a king and drinking like a fish. it's a beautiful city...

"dude, rome kicks ass. the coffee is amazing. the food is amazing. the wine, the buildings, the motorini... all amazing. and there are cats everywhere. we have one named grigio (grey) who hangs around. damn cute."

"olive oil is everything. gelato has made me forget about my home. i dig the food. i feel bad for the one vegan here. no, i don't actually. what the fuck? it's some of the best cheese in the fucking world--eat it for christ's sake"

"you know how the espresso which comes out of my machine tastes roughly like used motor oil? the espresso here is strong, smooth, smoky, and not bitter. at all. it's amazing. today, while running errands, i stopped at three different bars, ordered caffee freddo which is cold strong coffee (unfortunately sweetened) and come sin a tall shotglass and downed them and left. each one cost about $1.10. :)"

"dude, rome is saturated with wine. it's wonderful. i'm going to go home, and cry about the fact that i can't get excellent wine for $5. or shitty wine for $2."

Sometime last week: I get the idea in my head to visit Greg up in the land of fine prosciutto, excellent cheese, friendly people and beuatiful women. I was getting a little claustrophobic in Rome, and, hell, I hadn't traveled in, what, 2 weeks?!, so it was time to be Parma-bound... I also figured, what the hell, I'll just show up at hsi doorstep without telling him that I"m coming, or, ideally, walk into a Parmiggiano pub, tap him on the shoulder, say "Buona sera" and watch him explode.

Friday morning:
I take the 75 over to the Roma Termini, and find myself a train to Parma. (backing up a bit: the day before, i got myself a cartaverde, which is a student discount card for train trips. very cool). Since I'm running late, I buy a ticket from a machien. Big mistake. ONe, I had to buy a ticket for all the way to MIlano, which was more expensive, and two, I think the machine just might be more expensive in general. ??? But anyway, I get ont he train, and find that there are no open seats. So I sit in the back, ont the floor, in the international student section next to some college kid from Brazil.

So I ride and ride, and since i only had 4 hours of sleep the night before, I'm half awake for most of the trip. At Bologna, abunch of people get off, so I claim a seat. AT about 2:30, I get off at the station in Parma.

I go down to the nearest pub to piss, grab a caffe, and ask how to get to Via Morandi. Nobody knows how to get there (I find out why later: it's a very small street, out in the 'burbs). Meanwhile, I have an Ital-glish conversation about Mark McGwire, which was quite humorous to me since they had only heard that he had hit 61, whereas I knew that he had hit his 62 and had set the new record. Anyway, I finally call Greg's house, giving up o thte idea of surprising him, and talk to Signora de Simoni. She tells me how to get to their house.

So I get on the number 9 bus. The problem is that I get on it going the wrong way. So I ride it to the end of the line, which confuses the hell out of the driver. He doesn't know much English, and I try to explain where I'm going, and he tries to explain where he's going. I even break out the phrase book to facilitate thigns. We eventually figure out that his bus will go where I want to go, I just have to ride it for a while. Which is fine with me, having nothing better to do.

So I get dropped off in Greg's neighborhood and I find his house. It's only about 3:30, and since the Signora said that he probably wouldn't get back until 8:30, I decide to wander around Parma, with the hope of finding him in a pub and surprisng the shit out of him.

Of coruse, I get wicked lost

I eventually buy a map of Parma and discover that I'm a LONG ways a way from Via Morandi. So I walk and walk and by now the sun has set... I get to a main street, and I'm walking around looking lost, checking out bus signs in the hopes that I can catch a #9 going the right way. This guy sees me and he starts talking to me. He's dressed head to toe in denim, so he's obviously cool, and he looks like he's in his 20's and he starts talking to me, since i'm obviously american and lost as hell. he knows about 3 words of English; I know about 2 and ahalf words of Italian. He eventually conveys to me what street I"m on, and the direction in which to go, but every time I try to say "Grazie, ciao" and leave, he tells me to stay. So eventually he says "come with me" (I think) and I follow him down the street. He takes out a Marlboro and lights it; he offers me one. Having walked 10 miles in circles around Parma all day, I gladly accept.

We walk over to his bicycle . This is the shittiest looking bicycle I've ever seen. There's a wire rack over the rear tire, and he motions for me to get on it. So I do. And so we start riding down this fairly large road in Parma, in the dark, and I'm riding on a wire rack, waiting for it to break and for a spinning bike tire to get shoved three feet up my ass. Amazingly, it didn't. He takes me all the way down to Ventiquattro Maggio, which puts me about 10 minutes away from Greg's place. I thank him profusely, and offer to buy him a beer, but he declines and says "Take care, Wayne" and I say "Buona notte, Nick" and he went his way and I went mine.

Between him and the busdriver who helped me get to the right place, I"m now convinced that the Parmaggiani are the nicest people on earth.

I show up at Greg's house. He's, of course, a little bit drunk. He introduces me to Signora, and his 14-year-old host sister, Diletta (?). He offers me some whiskey, and we go outside and drinka nd talk. Being drunk and having lived with an Italian family for two weeks, he's not talking like, y'know, Greg, and is throwing in lots of Italian into his converstation. It was very strange.

Greg asks his host mother if I can spend the night, and being another nice Parmaggiana, she says I can. So Greg and I go out to a pub. On the way, we run into Greg's 20-year-old host brother, Matteo. Very cool guy. Unfrotunately, his girlfriend had recently sort-of-broken up with him, which is the worst kind of break up, so he was bugging out, and he made Greg try to call her, and it took several tries on public phones, but they never got a hold of her.

So the three of us drive to a pub. Matteo is hands-down the worst driver I've ever seen. What's worse is that he's driving stick. Somehow, we don't die.

Between him and Nick the cigarette-smoking bicyclist, I'm convinced that the Parmaggiani are the best drivers on earth, for not having run me over.

( Non sequitur: How do Italians ride their motor sccoters and smoke at the same time? Are talk on their cell phones while riding???)

So we go the Crazy Bull pub and Greg and I drink a lot. It's an American nostalgia pub, with picutres of Elvis and Marilyn Monroe everywhere. Thereare a lot of these in Italy.

Tehn we go back home, and I break out the chianti which I broguht all the way from Rome. We go out to a gazebo and sit and talk and pass the bottle.

So bear in mind that I've now had whiskey, a vodka limone, a beer, and am now drinking wine. Substitue two whiskey sours for the beer and that's what Greg had to drink. Matteo gives up early and goes to bed. So greg and i are drinking and talking in the gazebo out in the rain. The rain gets harder and harder and blows into the gazebo more and more, until finally we're just getting drenched. But dammit, we keep drinking.

Greg recalls that I had made a prophesy last year: That I would show up at his doorstep with a bottle of wine at 9 in the morning, and Greg would already be drunk. Substitute a 9 pm for 9 am, and the prophesy came true.

So eventually we've had our fill of rain and wine, and we pour a libation and go inside. I'm soaked, so I borrow some clothes from Greg. And we go to bed.

Saturday:
Somewhere along the line, my plan to visit Greg mutated into a plan to visit Greg and to bring Greg down to Florence to visit Anne.¹ So we do. I having no clothes borrow some from Greg and will be styling in a white t-shirt and black jeans for the rest of the weekend.
¹This is an important factoid. [Ed.]

Somehow, in an effort to get from Greg's hosue to the train station, we end up in Emilia Reggio, a town 10 miles southeast of Parma. Don't ask.

So we get on a train to Florence, and we spend th ewhole ride in the dining car, watching the Tuscan countryside go by int he late afternoon sun. Imagine heaven on a partly cloudy day, and that's about what it looked like...

So we show up in Florence and I call Anne. She flips out when she realizes who it is. I say, "guess whos' in Firenze (Florence)?" She freaks out again. "You're in Florence?!?!" Sayeth I, "Well, Signore H. and I decided to pop in for a visit..." and she frekas out yet again. She tells us to go the Duomo, and she'll be there in 20 minutes.

We go there. Florence is amazing. Go there. It's amazing.

Anne finds us. Much joyful reunion. She's with her fellow classmate/housemate Stephanie. We all walk over to a grocery store, get some food, and stop by Anne's host house. We say hi, use the bathroom, etc. and then head over to Anne's friend's apartment. Katie, occupant of said apartment, was mad cool and agreed to let us crash their that night. So I make us all a delicious dinner of steak with prosciutto, penne rigate, sauteed vegetables, peas and bread. Adn the five of us go through 3 bottles of wine at dinner... actually, it was really Greg, Anne and I who drank 80%of the wine.

Anne, Greg and I decide to go see the David and get wicked trashed. Katie says "Just ring the bell when you get back, and I'll let yuou in." Important side note: Apparently it's illegal for residents of Florence to have guests stay over in their apartments. ??? But anwyay.. We want to get back at about 1 am, so it's not too late.

We walk through Florence in the rain, still buzzed, and on the way to the David, we run into a British couple who had previously asked us for driections that day. We talk with them for a while, and they decide to come along with us. So we go to the David, look at all the monuments, take some pictures, go lookat the Arno river and have a good time...

Now it's time to get wicked trashed.^2
2This is the coolest line ever [Ed.]

Fortunately we find someplace that's open. By now, the brits have split. The guy was really funny, and wanted to hang out with us, but the woman seemed to give a shit and only wanted to get out of the rain adn didn't give a fuck about three "mad americans".

So Greg and anne and I get a bottle of chianti and three vodka limoni and a bullshit bread/appetizer platter which was obviously designed for dumb americans. it was mad expensive, and it closed about 45 minutes after we go there, and we hadn't finished our drinks, but we did get wicked trashed.

So Greg and Anne and I walk back arm-in-arm in the rain through the streets of Florence, drunk as hell. It was one of the best times of my life.

We get back inside. Katie let us in, and she was really cool. I feel bad for getting in at 4 in the morning, but hey, that happens sometimes, y'know? I lucked out 4 times that weeeknd:

1. Greg was actually in Parma.
2. Greg's family let me crash with them.
3. Anne was actually in Florence.
4. Anne's friends let us crash with her.

So the three of us sleep on the floor. I wake up for a little while at 5:30, and Anne is awake beside me, looking at the sunrise throught he window, and it occurs to me just how awesome life is.^3
3 Another significant factoid. [Ed.]

Sunday: The three of us go to the Boboli (?) Gardens. (I hope that's the right name; I'd feel like a schmuck if I was just getting it confused witha brand of pre-made pizza crust). These Gardens were amazing. Go to Florence. It's a amazing.

And here we come to the only negative experience of the trip. We get to the back edge of the gardens which looks over this superb vista, a bunch of olive trees below. Greg says something, in his usual greg style, like "Well, an amazing view like this calls for a cigarette" and pulls one out. This American woman standing next to us says something to Greg like "How can you look at this beatuiful nature like this and light a cigarette? Way to go big guy..." Honestly, I don't remember the exact wording but it was really sarcastic and very very rude. The woman and her friend walked away and we were left kind of flabbergasted. And you know Greg: that kind of shit affects him. He sat for aminute and said " I think that's the rudest thing anyone has ever said to me." Which is probably ture.

So here's my profound reflection for the weekend. Everybody in Parma went out of his/her way to help me out. Nick was probably the nicest guy I ever met, giving me,a complete stranger, a ride on his bicycle. But an American has the effrontery to eavesdrop on a conversation and say something thorougly obnoxious to a complete stranger. (And where does American get off making snide remarks about smoking in Italy, a country where EVERYBODY smokes??)

It pissed me off. For me, it sort of put a damper on the rest of the day, especially since i was exhausted. but I should have slapped the bitch silly...^4
4This line is evidence of the fact that Wayne is no longer at Swarthmore.

But anwyay, the three of us walk around, and enjoy ourselves, and we head back into the downtownm and go to the train station. I was out of lire, so Greg bought my ticket back, and he even got me the express train. So we part ways. I got back to Rome in 1 hour 45 minutes, and it felt like 10 minutes, so I guess that I slept for a while.

At present I am a sojourner in civilized life again...

It was so good to see Anne and Greg. It was so good to hang out with them in Florence. But it's also good to be back at Il Centro. I've been telling the bicycle story to everybody. :) But I'm tired, hungry, strung out and I haven't done any work all weekend.

Sound familiar? ;)

So that was the greatest weekend of my life.

Love y'all
Wayne

So i'm taking 5 credits, whereas everyone else is taking 4. y? because i'm a swattie, and i made it through intensive latin at berkeley, so i can't live without the intellectual flagellation. all these students here, from pussy¹ schools like amherst and brown and stanford, think this place is so tough. i say "bring it on, motherfuckers!"

¹ Not a P.C. term. Strangely enough, if you substitute "not intellectually rigorous" for "pussy" in this paragraph, you end up with something resembling Swarthmore's admissions packet description of other schools.

here are a few things i miss about america. italy is so cool, that i don't miss them a lot, but a few things. like popcorn. and mountain dew. (that's a big one). like all my U2 which i left at home.

i miss big breakfasts.

I miss swat in some fucked up way. indian summer is a great time at swat (even if you california wimps are sweltering to death ;) and fall... god, i miss pennsylvania in the fall. i cna't believe it actually is fall now! thus endeth the coolest summer of my life.

d-doo-dude.

i got some crazy shit to tellyou.

but it will have to wait until i get back from sicily. ;)

hope you're doing well.

yo'bitch