Well I made it.

 

No I’m serious. I made it. Not only do I use the term as in ‘I finally made the trip’, finally got the green light to come across, sidestepping Italian bureaucracy for the moment, overcoming massive delays, missed connections and bags tumbling out of overturned baggage crates and spinning like tops on the tarmac; not only did I make it past tremulous turbulence, a transatlantic flight next to an aging Indian woman who smelled like, well India, and an afternoon in Paris and the French; not only do I mean that I made it to Genoa after stopping for an overnight breather in Milan, overcoming swarms of gypsies scrounging for a spare euro by offering to carry your bag, or loaning you un ombrello, or giving a direction or helping you with the Trenitalia kiosk at Milano Centrale; made it after hurdling over and under people and animals and smaller humans with names like Tommasino and Daniella and Giorgio in the narrow train corridors with my three enormous bags—each 51 pounds exactly thank you very much; not only do I mean I finally made it to Brignole station in Genoa, Italy a mere 38 hours after departure from lovely Austin, Texas…

 

 

I mean I made it. As in, I officially live in Italy.

 

My apartment is enormous, too big, on the fifth floor of a squat and solid six-floor building with three bedrooms, a sitting or dining room, twelve-foot ceilings, chandeliers in every room and marble floors. It’s mine. I live there.

 

I have a small balcony, barely big enough to scooch a chair out on, with a view that the romantic in me finds oddly striking: more squat and stolid buildings dotted with bright shutters, clotheslines and hanging laundry, flashes of green here and there be it a vine or a plant or trees tucked below. In the distance, and above, are more of these, and a distant staircase leading up and then down to the sea.

 

The sea…I have traded Town lake for the Mediterranean. I live four blocks from this sea of so much history. It’s where I run! Or, if I don’t run, I can go down to MONU, a little café perched just below the a statue commemorating the march south to unify Italy, but just above the crashing waves. While there, I’d order a glass of wine and with it they’d bring a complimentary plate of food. Not a little Spanish-like Tapas plate the size of a sauce, but an entire plate of food. Sandwiches with prosciutto, focaccia stuffed with arugula and some sort of creamy magical cheese, olives, potato chips, bruschetta, salumi, individual servings of pasta as big as a cupcake, and more potato chips.

 

I made it. In Genoa, an espresso costs one euro. I can get one at every corner. I bought two peaches yesterday for breakfast and it cost the equivalent of 40 cents. In the grocery store the olive oil section is eight feet long and categorized by the Italian regions from which they hail.

 

The people laugh at me when I try to speak Italian, but there is no malice in it. They like that I am trying. They help me along, smiling nodding, correcting, and they will most likely remember me when I stumble into their store the next time.

 

This blog and this post will not always be happiness and contentment. This will not be a Facebook version of myself, best foot forward type of stuff, all wine-happy smiles. There are people out there that I love and miss already from back home, missed from the minute I got on that plane. And there are struggles and frustrations and loneliness in my future here too. I hope to write on all of them.

 

But for now, at this moment, writing these words from the tiny balcony with a nice little view, I can’t help but think I’ve made it.

 

 

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