Marco picked up the four of us from the beautiful Contrada Beltramelli, our lovely last stop before the long return trip home. Everyone at the B&B was lovely. The dinner last night was outrageous. The breakfast table was filled to overflowing. They allowed us sit in their courtyard to enjoy the beautiful atmosphere for a few more hours until it was time to make our way to the airport. Just a charming group of people. We would definitely visit the Contrada Beltramelli again.
The only problem was that our air conditioner made a rhythmic coughing noise throughout the night. I chose to interpret this as a blessed confirmation of the chilled air, a divine intervention when it was 93 degrees yesterday and 95 degrees today. They’ve had a heat wave for most of our time visiting, and this part of the world is not accustomed to, nor prepared for, this kind of weather this time of year. A coughing air conditioner might interfere with your sleep, but only if you let it.
Anyway, Marco picked us up. Him and the four of us and our luggage in his little car for a two-hour ride down to the airport in Milano. He said he’s been on this particular job for six weeks, and it has allowed him to improve his English, which was quite good. Every day, he said, he’s learning something new, and so I began to wonder what he would learn from us. But then he told the 25 minute story of how he came to learn the language to begin with, when he was a younger man.
There was a woman. I’ll just leave it at that.
OK, he met a woman at a club. They had a fine night of dancing. There were drinks. They decided to go somewhere more private. She asked, through their broken bits of language, if he had any protection. He did not, so that was the end of the night, but the beginning of his motivation to study English, somehow.
I was really hoping the story’s punchline would wind up with him one day learning that he did have a preservativo, only he didn’t know the word, but that was not the case.
It was quite the story, filled with many of the people that have dropped into and out of his life giving him a little English here and there. And, just yesterday, he said, he learned the word for when you’re startled. As if a car had suddenly pulled out in front of you.
CHEESE!
We returned to that line over and over, and either everyone else heard “Jeez” or no one had the heart to correct him from the dairy product.
But then I offered up that the word can mean many things, depending on how you said the word. So I gave him CHEEEEEEEEEEEESE.
He gave us “Che seccatura,” as in, “What a drag this trip is over.”
We had dinner in the lounge of the airport, which was better than terminal food, but not a real dinner. I did find the secret platinum door.
As I stood there taking that photo the door detected my presence and slid open, as doors sometimes do. The chairs looked comfortable. It was a bit more spacious looking than the regular old VIP lounge we were in. No one looked up, maybe I could have walked right in. But, then, best not to cause an international incident.
We flew to London this evening, arriving later than scheduled because we took off on Italian time. (Which is unfair, because the previous flight was late getting in … from London.) We caught an Uber to an airport hotel, which was a place designed to look and feel like a club and, man, we’re gonna be here like seven hours. Can we just not do all of that?
Anyway, from London to New York tomorrow. Movies on a long flight. And then the drive home. And then a few days of dealing with jetlag.
