Travel Writing: First Impressions

Normally when I fly, I'm that girl gripping the arm rests praying to God that the plane doesn't fall out of the sky or that the baby in the row in front of her would shut up or that the zzzQuil she took three hours before take off would kick in so that the slight shaking of the plane would be forgotten. However, this trip, all of that was forgotten as soon as we touched down in Frankfurt. There, as I whipped out euros to help Kelsey pay for the best airport latte we could find, I realized I was going home.

First impressions? That I was home. I immediately knew that up the street would be the smell of fresh pizza and gelato wafting down the cobblestones, through the legs of teenage girls in camo and mesh and older men with thumbs clasped behind their backs. I fell in love again with the scent of cigarette smoke and Daniela's "absolutely interesting." But it was when I saw the aqueduct lit up by a spotlight at 11 o'clock pm, that I knew Spoleto would always be crammed inside me with a little espresso residue as lubricant, making room for more spaghetti carbonara and bistecca di vitello.

But let me tell you, while no one cried at the airport, I wanted to cry as soon as I started walking around. One, because I couldn't believe I was back. Two, because I realized then and there what that meant. It meant I was really a veteran. It meant that I am now required to remember things like what "frutti di bosco" means or how to be patient. I imagined that this would be like riding a bike, that it would all come back to me immediately. But, as my first impression was last year, I am officially overwhelmed. There is so much intake of information the first few days: how to flush a toilet, what the bidet is (and how it works), HOW BIG MY STOMACH EXPANDED...but I feel like I'm functioning on autopilot while the person inside of me is wrestling a language around, trying to grab and hold the flip flapping Italian tail of a Dantean monster: Italian tail, Haitian arms, French feet, Spanish hands, with an English torso and head. A wrestling match I probably won't win in five weeks. That wrestling match didn't match up in my head with last year's impression. I don't ever remember struggling with feeling foreign in terms of language, but I do now.

Honestly, it's because I've been here before.

Seeing Bar Duelle again affected me more than any of the monuments, probably. Maybe it was because of last year and the memories made giggling around bowls and bowls of pasta. I'm hoping that happens again this year, because that's Italy. One version is most definitely the monuments, but the other version is what happens around food and people. That's my first impression of Italy: food is highly important, as is company. That impression didn't change at all in my mind.

I've been here before. I can "suck the marrow" to a whole new level because I know how to dress. I know some people. I am okay with being looked over by middle schoolers with pompadours. But I don't remember not being okay without the language.