Last week in Italy.

Today is Wednesday the 21st. I am sitting in Piazzale Santa Croce. The
first game of soccer (or calcio) was played here, where a young artist by
the name of Michelangelo also used to play soccer. Last Thursday a volcano erupted in Iceland sending ash and debris into the
air grounding planes all throughout Europe. A funny coincidence that
I was walking around the ruins of Pompeii the day after. I go back
to the States on Saturday. I am secretly hoping for another Icelandic
volcano eruption.

I suppose if you are still reading this you haven't grown tired
of my overly decadent feelings towards this country. So I suppose I
won't stop now.

The realization that in less than a week I won't be here anymore has
finally set in. I'm not ready to go back yet though. I feel like I
have seen so much and done so much, but I haven't done anything.
There is so much to see and experience here, I can hardly stand how
overwhelmed I am by it all. But in a strange way I am a little
excited to come back to San Diego so I can have time to register and
process all these things that I have seen. I want it to become real.
It doesn't feel real here. It's impossible for it to, because the
things that I think are so incredible and unbelievable are simply
everyday occurrences to the rest of Italy. Waking up to the Duomo
outside my window in the morning. Couch Surfing with strangers across
the country. Being able to speak Italian with anyone on the street.
This is not real life. But it is to the people who live here. And
that makes it even more surreal. I don't know how you are supposed to
stay grounded in a country like Italy. I still don't feel like I have
lived here for two and a half months. I feel like I have been renting
out somebody's life, someone who gets to do extraordinary things every
day. I don't want to turn in this body. I want to live in it
forever. I guess at the end of all the pontificating I am just
overjoyed by how lucky I am to have gotten to do this. I don't know
what I did to deserve it. I have a ton of "Thank You" letters to
write.

***

I think everyone should take an overnight train in Europe sometime in
their life. There's nothing quite like sketchy Neapolitans peeking
into your car every 15 minutes looking for an opportunity to steal to
give you a good nights sleep. So I took the luxurious and notorious
night train from Florence to Sicily for 14 hours last Thursday. On
Friday morning I arrived in Palermo to a cheery Sicilian named Enzo in
the train station. I recognized him from his profile picture. As you
could have guessed, this is another Couch Surfing story.

Enzo missed the first part of his work to come pick me up from the
train station. We went back to his house where I dropped off my
trusty back pack and was given a delicious breakfast. Within the
first hour of meeting me, Enzo gave me his cell phone number so I
could call him if I had any problems while he was at work. I told him
I didn't have one. Without hesitation, he pulled out a cell phone,
handed it to me and told me to call him on his work number. And he
was off.

I wandered around Palermo for the day and everything I had heard about
it was true. It was beautiful and kind of seedy. It really did feel
like a different country.

I had also heard about how much nicer the people were in southern
Italy. I was a bit skeptical, because all the people I had met in the
north were already too kind to exist. But then I met Enzo.

Throughout the weekend Enzo made it his sole purpose to make sure I
had the time of my life in Sicily. He gave me a personal tour of the
city showing me the interesting things about Palermo, such as the
first page of the Qur’an on a Christian Church. Palermo does feel
like a different country because it practically is. They say there is
more Arabic, Norman, French and Spanish blood in Sicilian veins than
Italian blood. You can see it in the architecture and layout of the
city. The history of Palermo is so muddled with different occupation
and conquerors of the city it
seemed not to have an identity of it's own, but just a little of
everyone else’s. Or at least that's how I felt about it. ,

Enzo refused to let me pay or buy anything when we would go out to eat
or make food at his house. I would offer so much it even reached a
point of him and his friends getting angry with me. I quickly realized
the cultural difference and tried to explain that I am not offering
the money because I am not grateful, in fact it was quite the opposite.
I told him in the States it is a way of showing our appreciation
towards those who take good care of us. He understood but still
insisted that it wasn't necessary. He said because he knew when he
would Couch Surf, he would receive the same treatment. And it's true.
I have heard so many experienced Couch Surfers talk about how it's
not about giving and taking, it's just about sharing. Sharing the
things you have, a part of your culture and your time with complete
strangers. Nobody better embodied this philosophy than Enzo. I am
really excited to share when I get back to California.

I think my favorite thing we did was visited the Capuchin Catacombs of
Palermo. We walked through aisles of embalmed bodies all the way back
to the 16th Century. To add to the creepiness, all the Sicilians were
left in their death clothes. They weren’t just bones, they were propped up
bodies in suits and dresses as if waiting to go out in their Sunday
best. You could tell the difference from the rich ones and the poor
ones too because the poor bodies were adorned with minimal clothing. Some
of the bodies still had skin and hair, but it was pulled tight giving
them the appearance that they had emotion on their faces and were
ready to recount to me the story of their death. But for the few
hours we were down there I didn't see a single body move.

I had told Enzo that the Grandma of my Grandma was born in Sicily.
When I told him our family last name, he said it was a very old last
name and had some history in Sicily. I couldn't help but wonder as I
wandered around the musty catacombs if I was distantly related to one
of the lifeless bodies adorning the crypt walls, like lifeless
photographs hung on the walls of my grandmas house.

My last day in Sicily was one of the best. Mind you I only had three,
but this is beyond the point. Before I had come, Enzo asked me if
there was something particular I wanted to do while I visited Sicily.
I told him I was content to do whatever he liked doing and I was
interested in seeing what real life in Sicily was like. But I also
mentioned that I heard about the beautiful beaches in Sicily and how
much I loved to swim. So never failing to come through, Enzo, his
friends and I piled into a car Sunday morning and drove to Monterosso.
Driving to the beach Enzo and his companions were making fun of me
for putting on a seat belt. I just smiled. Ziggy Stardust was in and
everyone in the car knew the words. Or rather, everyone in the car
thought they knew the words. They would sing along making sounds of
English words vaguely reminiscent of the ones Bowie was singing. I
smiled again.

I think Palermo is the only place in the world where walking up to the
beach you can see piles of trash towering over the seemingly non
existent trash cans and then arrive at the beach and see beautiful clean
transparent turquoise water. It was the greatest clash I have ever
seen. I swam and Enzo said he had never seen someone so happy just to
"have a swim." By this point, the smiling muscles in my face hurt
terribly.

At the train station later that night I told Enzo he has to come visit
me in California. He said "prepare your surfboard Remy, I am coming
to California." As the train slowly started to pull out I wondered if
one day I would be surfing with Enzo in San Diego.

Speaking of seeing people again, Roberto demanded that I come back to
Italy before he dies in 2 years. Not the Roberto that gave me free
gelato and runs the tripe cart by my house. This Roberto lives in
Capri.

As Barbara, Kortney and I are descending a fenced off cliff in Capri
towards some unbelievably gorgeous blue water, we round the corner of
the overgrown
trail and the wall of the mountain that was hidden by
our high vantage point was revealed.

We see a group of people lounging
the rocks by the water near what looks like a beach shack carved into
the face of the cliff. They are staring at us. I tell the girls to
wait and I will go ahead and ask them if it is ok to swim here. As I
get to the bottom of the trail and mountain goat my way over to the
people over the jagged rocks I can see the scene more clearly. The
beach shack is indeed
carved into the face of the mountain and the eyes of the owners of it
have still not left me. As I approach a particularly dark man and ask
if it is ok if we swim here, his face lights up and his teeth provide
a stark contrast with his beach tan body. He throws his hands up and
exclaims, "Yes! It's the last free paradise!"

This is Roberto. He is a physical therapist, but says he works for
two days and lives his life for the other five. The beach shack is an
old concession stand that has been abandoned for thirty-five years.
Roberto and his friends practically live on the beach and just stay
out in the sun all day swimming and enjoying life. You can see it in
his skin. He jokes about how he is fifty and is afraid to die. We
assure him he has more life in him than many college kids we know, but
I can't help but think that skin cancer may be lurking around the
corner. Within ten minutes we are eating "Italian Flag Pasta" made
specially in the cave and fishing out the jelly fish that they share
the beach with. Roberto brings out a net and we begin clear the water
of the jellies so we can swim. Once the scene is set, Roberto takes
his place on a rock above the water in perfect form and exclaims "For
the next Olympic games" and dives gracefully into the beautiful water. I can't
tell which is more blue, the water or the sky above. As we leave to
catch the last ferry back to Sorrento, where we are staying, the girls
and I assure Roberto that we will come back to Capri within two years
to swim with them again.

I have said it before and I have to say it again. There is just
something unexplainable about the way people in Italy live their
lives. They are not as concerned with ephemeral things, and
incredibly aware of the fact that life goes by in the blink of an eye. Maybe it is because the past is present in their everyday lives. They know that they don't have time to waste it. They need to live it to the
fullest and above all enjoy it. You can see it in everything they do; the way they treat each
other and strangers with such emotion. You feel it from the second you
step off the
plane. It's unexplainable yet at all times tangible. It is true, the main reason
to come here is to see all the incredible history and places Italy has
to offer. I would be lying if I said that it wasn't the best part about
Italy. Walking through the ruins of Pompeii, standing in front of
Michelangelo's David, crossing over the line into Vatican City from
Rome, sailing through the Venetian canals and waking up every morning
to the Duomo outside my window. These things are what make Italy so
relevant and such an incredible place to visit. But I think my
favorite part was meeting all the beautiful people who live in this
country. It's going out into the streets and talking to people and
taking a train to go stay with a complete stranger that really made this
trip amazing for me. I have learned as much from the people here as I have about the art and the history. The Italians are different from the art and the history though. They are not something you can satisfyingly read about or see in a movie. You have to come live over here to experience it. I feel so lucky to have come here to see a different way of life from the people who live here. I guess that is it.