stuttgart, roman drivers, and really smelly feet

ciao ragazzi,
i'm sure that you won't believe me, but by the end of this blog, i will have tied those three random things into a semi-coherent account of my last few days. here i go...

where to start? i was supposed to have a show with the band on sunday, but due to electrical difficulties and that fact that i had completely lost my voice, we had to cancel the show. i was pretty bummed about that, but i tried to console myself with the knowledge that i would soon be undertaking another journey and another concert...in germany!

i had to work monday night...got home at 1.30 am...had to wake up at 4.30 am to head to rome. i got there just in time to catch my flight and a few groggy hours later i was in germany. why germany, you ask? well, thanks to the miracle that is the internet, i have two fans there who offered to set up a show for me and show me around stuttgart if i would come visit...and so of course i took them up on the offer.

dirk and wolfgang were incredibly gentile hosts. they picked me up from the airport (3 hours from stuttgart) and on the way home, they took me to heidelberg so that i could look around. we wandered around the giant castle there and i took a photo next to a vat that can hold 227,000 liters of fluid. i'll have to post the picture...it was really incredible.

we spent three days in stuttgart. i was still a little sick, so my energy level wasn't at its peak, but the guys took me around their beautiful city and showed me as much as i could handle in such a short time. stuttgart is a big city (about 800,000 people) but it feels much smaller. it reminded me a lot of lyon, france...both cities have managed to achieve a wonderful balance between its past and future. modern buildings fit in perfectly alongside the much older structures, and i was amazed at how much greenery there was everywhere. dirk told me all the parks in stuttgart are connected by bridges or tunnels, and so you can walk for 8 km without crossing a street. stuttgart is also very hilly, and i think i walked more in this past week than i have all summer. too bad there were no strudels to burn off...three days in germany, and the only strudel i had was given to me by an italian on board my flight home...but that is a different story.

did you know that in germany, the postal workers (at least in stuttgart) deliver mail by stroller? not by jeep, as in the states, not by vespa, as in italy, but with a stroller. they load up an over-sized pram and begin walking, pushing this thing laden with a ton of paper up and down hills (no small feat in stuttgart). it was incredible. this was easily the fastest way i could see to get in shape.

let's see, what else? the show itself was great fun. i was pretty afraid at first, because my voice seemed to have gone on permanent holiday, but apparently it had gone on holiday to stuttgart...i found it shortly before the show. i was a little nervous, because i wasn't really sure how much of my lyrics would be intelligble to the audience, but they were really kind and attentive and even asked for an encore, so i suppose they enjoyed it enough.

the only thing that troubled me was how much i missed having my band with me. i had forgotten how hard it is to play solo - you really have to be perfect, because there is no other sound to cover any bobbles. it is a really naked feeling to be there with just your voice and your guitar. i never knew that before, because it had always been that way for me; i guess it was sort of like adam and eve noticing they were naked. i kept hearing the arrangements in my head while i was playing. i suppose that at the minimum, it made me even more determined to make something work with the band. on the other hand, it was nice to be able to do what i wanted without worrying about throwing three other people off tempo... i guess there is an upside to everything.

another thing. i didn't (don't) speak a lick of german, which made me feel bad (even though everyone spoke english very well). i hate going to another place and not being able to communicate in their language...however, german instills a sort of paralysis into my vocal cords. i take one look at a word like "beforderungsbedingungen" and i really have no idea where to begin in the slighest... it really instilled in me a new appreciation for the english language. if nothing else, ours is very efficient. there are a million ways to say what you need to say, and they are all relatively brief in comparison with many other languages.

anyhow...here's where the roman drivers and smelly feet tie in. so i get to the frankfurt airport and say my goodbyes to my wonderful german hosts. i then have about 3 hours to kill before my flight. i checked in and went to the boarding area and settled myself into a corner. i began to play my guitar, very quietly, trying not to attract attention. not 5 minutes had passed before a guy pulled up across from me and began talking. at first he wanted me to sing, which i positively refused to do, and then when he saw i wasn't going to budge, he began to talk about various things, showing me the clothes he had bought on holiday in germany, etc. i asked him if he thought i would have time to make the connection between my flight and the last train home, and he said most definitely not...but he offered to drive me to the station, and i said i would think about it.

2 hours later, he was still talking to me while we were boarding the plane. he sat next to me on the flight (open-seating) and continued to talk (in roman slang, by the way, which is not the same things as italian, not by a long shot). He offered me a strudel (finally!!) and instantly we were the best of friends. We talked all the way to rome - nearly 5 hours. he was actually very kind - just one of those people who is impassioned with meeting other people. and so when we got to rome, i decided to take him up on his offer. if i missed that train, i would be stuck in rome at midnight...i figured i would take my chances with pino (short for giuseppino).

so we set off in incredible haste to try and make this train. at one point, pino was driving 130 km/hr (about 70 mph, i think) through the historic streets of Rome. The Coliseum, the Forum, St. Peter's...all flew by at the speed of light, little twinkly blurs at the corner of my eye. Incredibly surreal. Anyhow, thanks to his Schumacher-like driving, we arrived with plenty of time to spare - 20 minutes, or so I thought. I went inside to check the schedule, and my train was 80 minutes behind schedule...instead of leaving at 22.40, I'd be leaving at 23.55. I groaned heavily, though I was at least thankful I hadn't missed the train. Pino decided he was going to wait with me and bought me dinner. I am ashamed to admit that dinner was - for the first time ever in Italy and for the first time in years, regardless of country - McDonald's. It was the only thing open in the train station and I hadn't eaten (not including the strudel) since my fantastic kebab in Stuttgart 10 hours earlier (which was, by the way, one of the best things I have ever eaten).

While we were eating, my train decided to arrive even later...finally, it arrived, nearly 2 hours late, at 00.30. The problem was that there were 3,000 people on the platform, all jostling for about 100 open seats. Luckily, Pino, my Italian angel, saved the day again. He escorted me aboard, found me a seat (a miracle in itself) and got my guitar situated safely in the luggage rack. I bid him a fond and grateful farewell, and then settled down to survey my surroundings.

Italian sleeper cars are not known for being comfortable, or spacious, or clean. This one lived up to its reputaution. They hold 6 people - 3 across from 3 others. Across from me, from right to left, was an Albanian, an Indian, and a German. On my left was a guy from Perugia; on my right, a guy from Naples. I decided to plunge headlong into my book...but almost immediately, two things happened to divert my attention from my book (which is really good, by the way: called "if nobody speaks of remarkable things" by jon mcgregor).

first, the german gentleman, having placed my american accent, declared that he wanted to practice his english with me and proceeded to do so with more energy than i could match. he launched headlong into a flood of questions and comments about who i was, what i was doing in italy, why i had been in germany, had i been to berlin, had i been to paris, did i speak french, how was his english, was his grammar correct, what did i think of rome, etc. i could actually barely get a word in edgewise, which was for the best, as i was really tired, by this time, of talking. he paused to consider his question and then said,
"of the 50 countries in America, which should i visit?"
"you mean 50 states?" i said.
"there are 58?"
"no, 50 states. states, not countries."
"are you sure there are 50? i always thought there were 52."
"no, i am quite sure there are only 50."
"okay. of the 50 countries, which one should i visit?"

by this time i was so exhausted with being the friendly traveler that i could barely muster an intelligent or polite reply. i muttered something about them all being very different and smiled sweetly, then turned to my book, hoping for peace. alas, it was not to be.

at this time, the Indian guy across from me did something that none of us could believe, given the close proximity of the quarters. he proceeded to remove his shoes and socks to reveal extremely smelly feet, and then to add insult to injury, he closed the window inside the car, cutting off our clean air supply. and then, to top it all off, he propped up a smelly foot on either side of me, in effect straddling me with his horribly odiferous bare feet.

i was agape with horror, disgust, disbelief,and extreme amusement. i gave him a look as poisonous as i could manage, but i guess it wasn't a universal look, because he didn't register any sort of understanding. the albanese next to him asked him point blank what he thought he was doing, told him that his feet stank, and asked him to put his shoes on. the indian ignored him, seeming as though he heard nothing.

and so for two hours, i endured the shifting whims of the stinky feet. after a while he tired of the straddle position and shifted both feet to one side of me, his toes nearly touching my elbows. the german opened the window; he closed it. time passed. the neopolitan opened the window; he closed it. more time. the german opened it again, and when the indian rose wearily to close it again, the albanese lost his temper (all of this is happening in italian, mind you):

"you need to decide!! we can't breathe in this kitchen (because it was so hot). your feet smell horrible and you are causing us to be unable to breathe! either put on your shoes, go out in the hall, or leave the window open!"

at this the indian guy gave a sort of languorous look to him and said:
"i don't smell anything."

"how can you not smell anything!???! it's horrible! and that poor signorina over there! what about her? having to breathe your smelly feet while she is trying to read!! you will leave the window open or you will leave!"

and so stinky feet nodded in some sort of acquiesance and returned to his napping while we all gave silent thumbs-up to the albanian.

i have never been so glad to get off a train in my life.

i got to arezzo at 3 am, and two minutes later, my knights in shining armor, my drummer (alberto) and guitarist (manuel) arrived to take me home. i am always happy to come home to castiglion fiorentino, but i have never been so happy as i was this morning, the city twinkling in the darkest moments before dawn.

and so i am home again, and i plan to spend today doing essentially nothing before i have to wash dishes tonight (which i am actually kind of excited about, in some weird sort of way). thanks again to all my new german friends for bending over backwards to make me feel welcome...and to pino, for saving the day...and to the albanian, for kicking stinky-feet-butt. the world is really sort of an amazingly small place.
love to you all,
vanessa