Mulan and Mulah

Two quick note on this blog:
1. Sorry for the late posting - we ran out of internet at midnight and I was too lazy to get more until this morning, and:
2. I thought I was quite clever for coming up with the blog name, but I was incorrect. There has not been one hour on this trip during which "If I Were a Rich Man" has not played through my head. In fact, it is such a prevalent theme* in my mind that it is possible I will actually turn Jewish (and then I could go to Israel for free!).

Okay, let's get down to business. Did they send my mother daughters when she asked for sons? Yes**, but today I proved that I am just as hardcore as Ping, and decidedly less obvious about my crushes on hot Italian men (like the one who stood outside our restaurant last night talking on his cell phone - he was so cute that my mother and I actually agreed on his hotness, and she even tried to convince me that he was standing out our window because he wanted me to go hit on him, but then we realized he was the waiter for the table next to us). Anyway, this morning PB and I left for a bike tour outside of Florence. We met Bill Dillon, an ex-pat turned Selective Resident of Italy and Bike Tour Extraordinaire, at Ponte alle Grazie, and headed to his warehouse to pick up bikes before hitting the proverbial and literal road. We actually pedaled all the way up to Fiesole, where we stopped to glance at Georgetown's Villa from above at the lookout point, and ended up about 45 minutes past that little town at a cafe for lunch. We were quite obviously the only tourists that the cafe had seen since the week before the Ice Age, and we were served some of the best bruschetta and ravioli (filled with potato!) I have ever even conjured up during my hungriest moments (some of which occurred during the bike ride up). We ended up biking around 15 miles, which is not exactly impressive, but since the three of us were required to stay together I performed as well as any son of my mother's might have by keeping up admirably.

Perhaps the most thought-provoking part of the day was our lunch conversation with Bill, who has been running his bike tour business for more than 15 years and is content to live the sleepier life of native Italians. "Americans live to work," he told us, "but Italians work to live." He soliloquized about the benefits of leading a life grounded in simple pleasures and centered on happiness and family, noting that his own father did not understand why he did not try to be more successful but that was the American mentality, after all. “It is not even about money,” he continued, sounding almost confused; “Americans just work hard.”

I listened, my mind floating between the two months I have spent in Europe out of the past six and my current gig in Atlanta. I have always romanticized Europe; I do not believe any lover of literature could avoid that, and I do not see any issue with doing so, anyway. I enjoy wrapping a gauzy, colorful scarf once around my neck and letting it trail out behind me***, and I like to visit tiny mercati and crepe stands, and I particularly love reading or writing in leather-bound journals in the middle of fields with foreign flowers dotting the unfamiliar landscape. The life of Italians has of course appealed to me; when on vacation in a country of a slower pace, one cannot help but consider that way of life. However, I have long since come to the conclusion that this romanticization is just that, and any attempt to capture, bottle, and live it would be altogether disastrous for me. Besides, like a good American, I love to work hard.

Ah, Italy! Your natives think I am crazy for wanting to make enough money to spend one month a year here; they say I should just move now and get a job and live in the simple, happy way. I understand their perspective, but like any tiny fire-breathing lizard-ancestor, I cannot help but hope that if I try hard enough I will become a dragon.

Too far?

At least I have a different song stuck in my head.

Buona sortie to all, and to all a sortie buona –

*Get it?
**She wanted to name the first one "Sonny", but he probably would have been "Claude Henry Booker II"; she actually tried to name SB "Sunshine" and call her "Sunny". Terrifying on all counts.
***A recommendation: when on trains, remove or wrap the scarves more closely to your body, as otherwise they WILL catch on another passenger’s foot, bag, newspaper, chair, pet monkey, imaginary friend, etc.