Four Things My Geeky-Jock-of-a-Best-Friend Must Do in Europe

by Jane Harrington

  Oy!!!

  Thursday

  (No, wait! That can’t be right! We go home

  on Friday, and I’m not ready!!)

  * * *

  Dear Delia,

  We are pulling into a new port—Livorno, Italy.

  Hm. Does a cruise ship “pull in”? I don’t think so. A cruise ship “arrives,” I guess. Well, whatever it does, we’re doing it.

  Livorno is a very industrial-looking place with lots of big, rusty ships and factories and stuff. This is not the place where we are spending the day, though. We’re taking a train to Florence. Or Firenza, which is apparently the Italian name for it.

  Mio madre (note I’m back to Italian) woke up really early and headed to the Internet Café to do research for our day in Florence. She spent some time there last night, too, by the way. I suspect she is trying to avoid surprises, such as the one we encountered on the beach in Nice. Or else, in her emboldened state, she was making plans to jump ship and run off to become a tour operator in the Mediterranean. Nothing would surprise me anymore, after the mother-in-a-bikini occurrence.

  Per usual, she wants to get going as soon as we are allowed to get off the boat, because she says the trip to Florence is over an hour, and then we’ll have exactly three hours there, and then we’ll get on a train to Pisa, where she says we’ll run to the Leaning Tower and take a picture, and then we’ll run back to the train and arrive back in Livorno with just enough time to get on board before the boat leaves port. Feeling a case of Barcelona coming on, and worrying about such a tight schedule, I asked my mother what we’re supposed to do if one of our trains is late and we miss the boat. She just waved her hand at me and sort of tutted. As you can see, having an emboldened mother can be very risky business.

  This morning I e-mailed my little sister. My mother kept bugging me about doing that, even though I TOLD her Clare and I have already had a VERY deep and meaningful IM conversation this week. But choosing not to start an argument (SOMEONE has to get sensible), I went ahead and did it. Here is what I wrote:

  Dear Clare,

  Yesterday I was in the French Riviera. The shopping was excellent! Apparently, there is some law about clothing sales in France, and because of this they have sales only two months out of each year. And guess what? One of the months is JULY! (Which is this month, in case you are having a hard time keeping a check on reality in my absence.) By the way, our mother has become an exhibitionist. If you don’t know what that means, ask Jeeves.

  Brady

  p.s. Please give the following note to Irene

  - - - - -

  Dear Irene,

  Even though I’ve always refused, on principle, to participate in sports that require athletes to wear skirts and ribbons, I may reconsider in regard to field hockey, since you have recently taken it up. Goalie, huh? That’s AWESOME. I guess that’s one way to become the big one.

  Yesterday I spent the day in Nice. It was amazing. I sat and watched the rolling, white waves glisten in the Mediterranean sun, my view only occasionally obscured by big, bouncing—

  Your loving sister,

  Brady

  After I took care of that task, I headed to the breakfast buffet and pigged out. Literally. I ate bacon. Plus pancakes, and French toast, and eggs, and a mocha latte. If everyone on this boat is eating as much as I am, we will surely sink before the end of this cruise.

  Seriously, though, I am getting SO out of shape. I feel like the Super Size guy in that movie. (SHUT. UP.) Not only am I snarfing down WAY too much food, I have TOTALLY gotten out of my running routine, what with my mother’s sightseeing schedule (which is a workout, for sure, but more mental than physical) and the constant demands of my cruise-ship social circle (a.k.a. the Odd Squad, as I am now calling us since Gorkon beamed himself down to join in).

  Speaking of which, I ran into Tatyana and Noori at breakfast. They told me they are staying on the boat today.

  “We’ve been to Florence, like, five times,” Tatyana said. “So we’re going to get facials, do the fitness room, sunbathe, drink virgin piña coladas. Stuff like that.”

  Which sounded REALLY good, actually. I mean, I WANT to see Florence, of course, but I started thinking how, if I stayed, I could get in a five-mile run, do some serious lap-swimming while the pool isn’t so crowded, drink a few of those virgin piña coladas, AND take a nap. (The last two items being #1 and #2 on my brain’s priority list, I’m embarrassed to say. Welcome to blob world.) I started to think about approaching my mother with the request, when Tatyana said:

  “I know what you’re thinking, but you HAVE to go to Florence, Brady.” And she poked her finger at my hand (which was, at that moment, very busy shoveling a fifth piece of bacon into my mouth), and specifically at that #4 instruction (which just WON’T fade away).

  Before I could respond, Gorkon wandered up to us.

  Truthfully, it’s a mystery that he ever figures out where we are. His head is always in straight-ahead-robot mode, and his eyes never venture anywhere NEAR our faces.

  “Remember, Gorky, Brady needs SPACE,” Noori said, when he’d planted himself a little too close to me again.

  “Space,” he said, not moving a muscle. “The final frontier.”

  Tatyana gently pulled him back a few steps. “Brady doesn’t really want you there in HER frontier, Gorky,” she said.

  (Clever, isn’t she, Delia? I will NEVER let you two meet.)

  “AS I was saying, Brady,” Tatyana continued, poking at the word “Euro-hottie” on my hand again. “TODAY is your last chance.”

  “Brady,” Gorkon said, “do you hurl heavy objects?”

  I was grateful for this question. It represented a change of subject. “Yeah, sure!” I said. “Why?”

  Smiling, he answered, “Klingon women hurl heavy objects.”

  Quickly realizing I’d made a bad move, I turned my attention back to Tatyana. “I think I’ve proven I’m not very good at finding, uh, the #4 thing,” I said, making discreet head motions in the direction of Gorkon.

  “Klingon women roar when they hurl objects,” he said.

  “Oh, well, sorry, then,” I said to him. “I’m not much at roaring.”

  “What do Klingon men do?” Noori asked him.

  “They duck a lot,” Gorkon said.

  We laughed at that for a while—including Gorkon, but I’m about 100% sure he hadn’t meant to be funny.

  Mio madre has returned from the Internet Café with reams of printouts, and she is doing that clapping thing again. I’ll write later, although it may be on postcards I scribble out between shifts at the factories in Livorno, where I’ll likely be working to earn money for a plane ticket home when we miss the boat later today, which will make us miss our plane tomorrow. But, hey, I guess it would give me more time to meet a Euro-hottie.

  Arrivederci . . .

  Thursday evening

  * * *

  Dear Delia,

  I am COMPLETELY BUMMED about tonight being my last night on this ship. Even though it’s been less than a week, I feel strangely at HOME here. The stateroom may be the size of a walk-in closet, and the bed the size of an ironing board, but there you are.

  There’s a farewell party tonight, and I really should be taking a shower and figuring out what to wear. Of course, what to wear shouldn’t be a huge deal, because all my tops are dirty except my “Alexandria Recycles” T-shirt. (Uh, why did I bring THAT?) The matter of taking a shower may be a little more difficult, though, because our porter has shaped my bath towel into a rabbit tonight. Very cute, but I’m feeling squeamish about taking a furry animal apart. So, I will instead take the time to write you now, since you are probably patiently (HA HA HA) waiting for the report of my day in Florence and my pursuit of the Euro-hottie.

  Mio madre and I took a bus to the Livorno train station, which I am guessing took longer than she had scheduled for in her carefully planned itinerary, because when it arrived, she felt the need to grab my hand and RUN at top speed. The t
rain station was buzzing with Italian life, much of it male, so I began doing some hottie hunting right off, which ended abruptly when my mother stopped short in front of a vending machine, causing me to run into her with such force that I almost flipped over her head like a circus performer.

  “This is the place to buy tickets,” I could hear my mother’s voice saying through the dizzying chirps of cartoon birds around her head. “According to Rick Steves, people in these stations don’t always speak English, so it is best to use these machines.”

  I was curious about this but didn’t dare ask any questions for fear of having to hear the (potentially boring and long) answers. The things I wondered: Who is Rick Steves, and is he the Euro-hottie I’m looking for? AND, why is an Italian vending machine easier to communicate with than an Italian human, and should I be worried about that?

  The answer to one of those questions (you decide which) became clear when a screen appeared on the vending machine with a menu of language choices—French, English, Japanese, etc. As a cute little joke, I reached out to press “Greek,” but I changed my mind when I noticed my mother’s hand ready to violently slap mine away from the machine.

  (The lesson I have learned: Never get in the way of a mother-turned-emboldened-tour-guide.)

  On the train, we sat next to—get this!—an Italian man. (No, not Euro-hottie material, but cute in a unibrow-ish sort of way.) Mom thought this was a “marvelous opportunity” to practice our Italian, to which I replied, “Our what?” So she handed me a piece of paper, on which she had written out—just for me!—many Italian phrases with pronunciations and meanings. Here are a few she included on the list:

  prego (PRAY-go)—please, you’re welcome, all right

  e basta (eh BAH stah)—that’s enough

  per favore (pair fa VOOR ay)—please

  il dolce far niente (eel DOHL chay far nee EN tay)—the sweetness of doing nothing

  “Why are there two words for ‘please’?” I asked her.

  “I guess you can use either,” she said.

  “And what about that ‘il dolce far niente’ thing?” I asked. “In what situation, exactly, would I say that?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “It’s just so wonderful. I think the Italians would be impressed.”

  “And then they’d, uh, speak Italian to me?” I asked.

  To this she nodded enthusiastically, obviously not seeing the inherent problem with convincing a population that you speak a language you actually don’t.

  I reached into my pack at that point for my Discman and CDs, facing the fact that it would be a VERY long trip to Florence.

  “Prego,” my mother said, turning to the Italian man next to her.

  I wondered what she meant by this. Please? You’re welcome? Maybe she was trying to be cool and was saying “All RIGHT!” I watched to see if a high-five would follow. But, no. She began saying a bunch of words that made no sense to me (or probably anybody), and the Italian man nodded politely at her and glanced over at me. I smiled back at him, hoping my mother had not inadvertently offered me for sale.

  Then the man said something which sounded very musical, somehow, and included the word “Firenza.” My mother nodded, somewhat carefully. (I think “Firenza” was the only thing she understood, too.) Then the man went into this whole THING with lots of words ending in vowels, arm gestures, and nods of the head. I had an urge to applaud when he was done, but instead I just stared at him. My mother did the same.

  Then he sighed, in an Italian sort of way, and began a pantomime with his briefcase, holding it tightly against his chest, and then moving it in the air. At the end of it all, he uttered what may be the only English word in his vocabulary: gypsies.

  Mom leaned over to me and whispered, “I think he’s warning us about the gypsies who attack tourists in Florence.”

  “Why are you whispering?” I asked her. “He obviously doesn’t speak English.” Then giving some thought to what she had actually SAID, I added, “WHAT gypsies who attack tourists?”

  “I read about that online,” she said, patting the man gently on his knee as he sighed, loudly, again. He was obviously very distressed about this gypsy thing.

  I stared out the window at the sunflower fields going by in a blur, wondering what the Italian gypsies would be like. Joyful people in colorful, beaded clothes? Or more like those Irish boat people in the movie, Chocolat? Then (because I’m trying very hard to keep my promise to you, Delia) I wondered if any of the gypsies would be hotties, like, say, Johnny Depp, who even I agree is a blistering, radiant code-red. A Johnny Depp attack couldn’t be so terrible, I thought, as I slipped my headphones on and chilled for the rest of the train ride.

  I’m glad I had that chance to relax, because mio madre went right back into manic-mode the second the train stopped. The first place she (very literally) dragged me to was the San Lorenzo Market, which was, actually, AWESOME. We MUST go there, Delia—you would not believe the stuff! The leather jackets are amazing! I wanted to try them on, but before I had one off the hanger, Mom said we had to move on.

  “Time to see David!” she said, over her shoulder.

  “David?” I asked.

  “Michelangelo’s David!” she answered.

  I glanced back at the leather coats of the San Lorenzo Market, all waving their sleeves at me (YES, they WERE), and then I followed my mother into the crowded street. She was jetting along so fast I could hardly keep up. At one point I lost her completely, but that was not my fault. It was YOUR fault, Delia. I was passing this crowd of teenage, back-packed boys who were speaking what might have been German (but what would I know?), and I stopped for just the briefest moment to scan the group for any signs of Euro-hottiness. When I looked ahead again, my mother was nowhere to be seen.

  “This is NOT working,” I said, aloud, to myself. (No, I don’t know why.)

  One of the German-ish boys looked over at me and said, “America?”

  “Yes,” I said, looking closely at him, sizing him up as a code-orange. If nice, I could easily bump him up to red, I thought. Which made the nervousness start rising, rising . . .

  “Where?” he asked.

  . . . rising, rising . . .

  “Across the Atlantic Ocean,” I said, knowing IMMEDIATELY that I was, well, an IDIOT. He wasn’t asking me where America IS, of COURSE, but where I LIVE in America.

  (Hottie hunting OBVIOUSLY has an adverse effect on IQ. Which might explain some things about YOU.)

  He and all his friends started laughing at that, which avalanched him right into the Euro-glacier zone. I felt a sudden, crushing need to see my mother (which should give you some sense of the humiliation level).

  I darted down the stone sidewalk, pushing my way through a large glom of people spilling off a bus, and found my mother standing on a street corner. She was scanning the crowds, and when she saw me, she signaled me over and said, “Come ON!”

  “Aren’t you even a LITTLE relieved to see me?” I asked, catching up to her roadrunner pace. “I could have been kidnapped by gypsies!”

  “I don’t think they KIDNAP people, Brady,” she said. “What would they DO with a bunch of tourists? They probably just steal your money and go.”

  Then (CUE THE GYPSIES), a man dressed in a red suit appeared in my path and started entertaining us. He had a large water bottle balanced on top of his head and a dog that hopped on its back legs. (Uh, the dog wasn’t on his head in case I didn’t make that clear.) Then, out of nowhere, two little kids—like, five years old or less, I swear—started bouncing around me, tugging at my backpack. My mother shooed them off and pulled me along.

  Looking back at the red-suited man (who looked NOTHING like Johnny Depp, by the way), I said, “If those are the gypsies, I’m REALLY disappointed.”

  “We are SO behind,” Mom complained, grabbing onto my hand, now, and shooting down the street.

  “Mom,” I whined, “slow down!” But she was completely oblivious.

  Then, re
membering the piece of paper in my jeans’ pocket, I pulled it out and scanned her list of (seemingly useless) Italian phrases. “E-BASTA!” I yelled, grabbing onto a nearby lamp-post. My arm almost came out of its socket, but it was worth it because she stopped.

  I braced myself for the expected impatience of mother-turned-drill-sergeant, so IMAGINE my surprise when she SMILED at me. I had, apparently, impressed her with my command of the local language. “What, dear?” she asked.

  “Mom,” I said, panting (for dramatic effect). “I’m HUNGRY.”

  “But I planned on eating after the Uffizi,” she said, pulling a piece of paper out of her pack.

  “Uffizi?” I repeated. Whatever it was, it didn’t sound very appetizing.

  “Oh, no, not after the Uffizi,” she said, looking over her notes. “We eat after we see David at the Academia. Can’t you wait?”

  “Uh, no,” I said. “Let’s get some take-out and we’ll eat it, uh, on the steps of that big churchy-looking place over there.”

  “Oh, Brady!” she cried. “That’s the Duomo!”

  I wasn’t sure if that was good or not, so I looked back down at my little cheat sheet and said, “Prego?”

  She smiled at me again and said, “Okay.”

  (I’m DEFINITELY switching languages at school this fall. Italian apparently gives me complete mind control over my mother.)

  We found some EXCELLENT pizza. Do you know that there are actual LAWS in Italy about what ingredients are allowed on pizza? In fact, they take pizza so seriously in this country that the colors on the FLAG are even about pizza. Madre told me this stuff—she said she learned it from the Internet. You know, in these Mediterranean lands, there are laws about pizza and clothing sales, but it’s okay for women to go around with no shirts on. Interesting priorities.

  Munching away on our pizza, we settled on the steps of the Duomo, and I asked Mom if I could see her list. It looked like this:

  THINGS TO DO IN FIRENZA