Leaving Nice and Meeting my Shakespeare Reference Quota (Newsletter #4)
Dear Lovers and Haters,
Today begins with a brief solo excursion. 😆
We last left you at 4am, sleepy. Four hours later, I rustle out of bed and go outside to listen to Nice on my own, in my Hokas. When I visit new places, I’ve always loved to explore by running. There is, I think, no better method. The city suddenly contracts to the size I can cover with the soles of my shoes, but that means swaths of sea, grassy parks, spooled-up threads of street, all in a few miles. And in the earlier morning, I see the city still halfway between sleep and waking, tender and worrisome, like seeing a dear friend asleep, looking so empty and close to dying. On my run through Nice, I traverse the straight green park by the tram line, dodge past a strange, half-parabolic iron statue and an ornate stone fountain empty of water. I pop out by the Promenade and see the Mediterranean for the third time in about 18 hours, this time with high morning sun prickling little white stars all over the surface. Out here at the edge of the city the early-risers gather like magnets, pulled out to the open expanse of sea and sun. The heat starts to press down on me, and then hunger, which swishes in my stomach with sink water. I switch directions and after half a mile end up at the same place where the Flower Market was, yesterday. This time, the tented stalls are crammed with antiques: dozens of identical flatware pieces, absurd vases and metal figurines, intricate wooden mirrors and boxes of warped records. I jog through the market, shop with my eyes, then cut through narrow stone streets until I reach a librairie near our apartment I’d been eyeing since day one—I jog inside, wield my (almost-perfect) “Bonjour,” and manhandle Dune in French before jogging back out and home, or at least home as it is for the next hour.
During the hour that remains, we pack frantically and then parade our luggage and American sensibilities to the restaurant just next door. The word “BRUNCH” is etched onto a chalkboard in the middle of the cobblestones, followed by a string of French dishes. This is a common technique used to seduce Americans! It worked on us.
Owen and I have our last French capuccinos and we watch our waiter take a smoke break in the bird-spotted little plaza, between serving our plates of eggs and croque madame. With his last opportunity to flex the French muscle, Owen converses with the waiter, helps a family take a photo, and submits his candidacy for President of France. After he wins, we take the tram, which is a utopian glass caterpillar that glides through Nice like we’re in the next century, to the train station. You know all about parting and sorrow already: we say goodbye to Alexa and Ariana, who continue to Paris and 10 Euro leather jackets and a nightlife that Nice can’t even imagine.
Mention Shakespeare once and he won’t leave you alone: what follows next is a comedy of errors. Owen and I rush through the turnstiles and onto the platform with our Youth Eurail passes and our clear mastery of the European transportation system. When we arrive, I decide to search for the toilette, only to realize it’s outside of the turnstile. After a few minutes of consideration—our train still fifteen minutes away—I figure I’ll be able to scan back in, and I leave the turnstile for the main hall. It takes several minutes to locate the bathroom, but when I do, I see that it is paid: 1 Euro, coins only. So good! Every restaurant stingy with the water, and no ice, now the bathrooms tucked behind a paywall—my American pride is rising—I decide to wait for the train, but when I lift my pass to swipe, a friendly red X tells me that I’ve already used it for today. So good. Owen, where’s your French when I need it? I track down an attendant, lead with my weathered “Bonjour!” and then switch to English for: “I don’t speak French, please help!” Glance at my watch: eight minutes until train time. He tells me to go to the booth, so I go: no one is there. Wait a minute. No one arrives. It’s go time, Laura. I eye the turnstiles. A businessman clicks through, and the doors slide open. A woman struggles with her QR code for a few minutes. Fives minutes until our train. All because I drank that capuccino. OK. I step behind the next man in a suit and wait for him to swipe—then follow quickly behind him. The machine protests with a sound, but I scramble down the stairs and then up to the platform where Owen is waiting. Winner winner! Bet you haven’t broken rules in a foreign country like I have.
After that head rush, it takes four separate trains across France and Italy for me to calm down. I wear my 15-Euro sunglasses the whole time, as we transfer from Ventimiglia to Genova to Pisa and finally to Firenze. At one layover, Owen and I both order giddily in Italian, thanks to him for the inspiration to try speaking a language I don’t know at all—more on that later. Outside the train, I see a line of individual trees on the ridge of a round forested hill, poking up like spokes of a great wheel, deep in the earth, that powers the whole of the Italian countryside. In the shadow of the wheel is a country village painted like saffron, dark red husk roofs and golden yellow insides, drywall and warm-lit rooms. There is—I absolutely promise you this is true—a row of cactus by the edge of the train, bracketing the town. The wheel spins, but the village remains unchanged, only a few more wires and metal pieces welded into the structure as time moves. I watch it pass.
By the time our fourth and final train is rolling into Florence, the sun has vanished and my headphones are dead. State of affairs: it’s 8:40pm when we arrive at the station, and our AirBnb check-in has a 25 Euro mandatory cash fee if we arrive after 9pm. The AirBnb is 30 minutes away. Ready? Set. Go! Owen is a New Yorker and I will always run anywhere, but we’ve also hardly eaten anything—that breakfast, and a small sandwich during the layover haze, and I’m dragging a rolling suitcase and wearing a coat. As we run, Florence is glowing, lights off the river and tourist fireflies buzzing through the narrow walled streets. We arrive, sweaty, to a stone-silent road and an imposing building with the doorknob on the middle of the door. 9:02pm (Impressed, aren’t you?). No one is there. When our guy arrives, he doesn’t mention the fee. He doesn’t know how to open the door. When he gets it open, he leads us to a door, reaches for the key to open it for us, then realizes it’s just a tall cabinet. He searches on the next floor, and locates a door, tinier than the cabinet, which the key matches. Here it is! Thanks, man.
Actually, our AirBnb is perfect and has lacy curtains and a stocked kitchen and soft paintings of the river and low ceilings and only a little bit of fire un-safety. But no time for that! Quick change, because Owen and I are going out to meet our long lost housemate, Jackson, and his study abroad crew. We venture back into Florence, and this time I can closely study the cobblestone streets, the railings overlooking the chasm of the river, the untimely sense that we have somehow been airlifted into a 16th century place, without neon or flashing advertisements or logos pasted on every corner. On the Arno, this feeling has the most force; down by the banks lays untouched grass, running against the river, up on the shore are unbranded buildings in neutral colors, browns and golds and grays and coppers, gardens and arches. The timelessness is itself a brand, but I’ve bought it. I linger in the feeling that we’re outside of it.
This languid walk quickly becomes a chase, because we are looking for Jackson and co. on every corner of every block, in every osteria and trattoria and ristorante. We run a bit more, we slack off, he gets away, until we finally locate him behind glass, sitting just beyond the door to a bar, The Bitter Bar. Owen runs forward, but the glass closes in our faces. Un momento, per favore, the man says, in English. The universe playing a game, I think. After a moment he truly does let us in, and we see Jackson and his friends and our new friends Carlson and Graham. There’s partings and sorrow, and then there’s meetings and joy—you already know this.
Reader, in the whirl of the trains and running and the antique city, Owen and I still have not had dinner. And dinner was not to be. What was to be? We sat with the three of them at a corner table, so dim, listened to the bartender tell us his handcrafted cocktails would change our lives, scrutinized the prices on the menu and quickly drafted up a game plan to order the cheapest drinks we could and, well, get out as quickly as possible? The night progressed, and we found an Irish pub for Owen, kitchen closed, a slew of Americans who were quite frankly terrorizing this country and of whom I am sorry to be a part. We found a man from Romania who pointed us to a karaoke bar. At this point in the night, I started speaking Spanish with Graham and, with a few exceptions, did not stop. The karaoke bar glowed dark red, pulsing with those aforementioned Americans—not a single sign bothering to be in Italian—on their (our) sweaty spring breaks with roses from street vendors. Everything was tinted in that same wine-dark color, the pub benches and balcony and elevated stage, sounding with off-tune notes of Valerie and Ain’t No Mountain High and Mr. Brightside. Where was I? Where was the timeless city of watch-sellers and dark rivers and brass doorknobs? We were on the inside of it, bloody-red like a pomegranate dropped from the tree, and all of the seeds were just American tourists, crushed in tight together and mostly unwilling to disperse, singing our songs in our language back to reflections of ourselves in the audience. We drink Long Island Iced Teas and I bring everyone on stage to sing “Born this Way”. We try to be the sweetest pomegranate seeds.
Despite the talk of fruit we had nothing to eat, and light and umoored and still speaking Spanish, we cross the Arno not once but twice, just before 3am. Rain mists from the night sky, which will not stop before we leave Florence. And we are HUNGRY, more hungry than I’ve felt in a long time. But as is tradition, all is well that end’s well. Little drops of joy in the river.
Keep us apprised of your antics, and don’t worry about us,
Prego,
Frog and Iggy (Laura and Owen)
March 25, 2024