The New Tenants

This all happened a while back. It´s time to catch up. Excuse any typing errors, it´s a German keyboard. The proof? ßßßßßßßÖÖÖÖÖÖäÄÄÄÄ-. Bang.

The two new tenants of Petra Capitani´s Poggetto apartment in Florence (once my lovely home) arrived on Saturday. First Lorraine, from Ontario. I was still sleeping off a long last night of conversation and fun with my classmates when she knocked on our door at 9. Later on she shared her life´s story with me while I cleaned the kitchen, and when we sat down for a simple lunch, I told her mine. Still jetlagged, she took a nap while I finished packing.

I went outside to toss some bottles in the recycling bin. On the steps, there was a massive black suitcase and a woman in a sunhat that somehow made me think of Diane Keaton. "You must be Karen," I said, remembering what Lorraine had told me, all after hesitating and wondering what her first impression of me must have been.

Lorraine woke up, and I showed the two of them around. Like, where the grocery store was, how to get to the school, where the Baroncini gelateria was, etc. They wanted to pay me for helping them out, I wouldn´t have any of it. I just took the mere sum left from Petra´s deposit and hit the swollen, sweaty road for the train station. I was going to Viareggio again to decompress under the sun, knowing the sea wasn´t too far.

The night before, I sat on the sunwarmed steps leading up to Piazzale Michelangelo for a taste of red wine and a sunset view of the famous city I´d been calling home for a month. The voices around us were getting louder, and every now and then you´d hear the sparkle of a bottle rolling down to the bottom.

The evening finally brought us back across the Arno to a favorite bar. Then, we slipped into Santa Croce´s notorious tourist club, Twice. I can say with gusto that I´m glad I´ve only been there once. Ashley and I, the only two guys, didn´t have a ton of fun playing body bumper-cars with Ettore or Niccolo`.

I realize now, with dismay, that I never got a good picture of that yellow sign that marked out my neighborhood so well. And by good, I mean any.

Guten nacht. I´m in Frankfurt, Germany now. Yes, yes, I know that screws up the whole concept of this blog. But I´ll be returning to Italy in ten days.

-a