![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
back in Pescara
Dec. 13th, 2015 04:57 pmBack in Pescara after an extended Thanksgiving in Massachusetts. It's good to be home, even if I still have the cold (or sequence of colds) I've had for about a month. (The usual advice is to get plenty of rest, which assumes I'm not already getting the maximum amount of rest that is possible for me, as if I generally interrupt my own sleep by choice.) In my absence, the city has put up all its Christmas lights, plus a big tree and an ice rink, and the street performers and chestnut roasters have come out in force.
In the States, I got the same "making conversation" questions again and again, as you do, which were mainly "so what do you miss" (nothing, I've only been gone a couple months), "how long do you plan to stay in Italy" (indefinitely; we'll see), and "what is the best time to visit," which I always answered as though someone was asking "when is it ok to visit you" since the alternative possibility is that someone's asking me what a full calendar year is like in a place they know I've only been for one season. That season is fall.
A single autumn: that season where it's drizzly and every single day is darker and colder than the one before it. The things you like about fall? They don't exist here. There is no Thanksgiving and no trick-or-treat. The trees are adapted to a sandy beach climate, which means their leaves don't change color particularly. (Deciduous trees lose their leaves in fall to conserve water in winter. Trees that are used to low-water conditions, like pines, palms, and cacti, are already conserving as much water as they can.) Pescara is still a cool place to be in fall, but probably fall is not its most glamorous time. So now you know.
By far the worst part of my trip was the brief section on the flight over where the Italians were split off into one border protection and customs line and the Americans (including me) went another way. This left me to handle quite a lot of awkward luggage on my own, because are Americans going to help with anything? No, they are instead going to try to run over me repeatedly, to express their distress with the fact that I'm not moving as quickly as they'd like, because saying "hey, want an extra hand there" requires too large a leap of the imagination and might reinforce my willingness to do things they don't agree with (like become ill). I solved this problem by using my massive amount of luggage as a barrier to absolutely block off an entry lane until I was finished doing what I was doing, because I am also American and therefore willing to respond with an unreasonable level of force. (More accurately, I'm a board-game-playing economist, and if selfishness is what we're doing, I play to win.)
The trip back was of course great, even though it was a longer and more hypothetically awkward transit, because I was never seperated from the Italians. I find it hard to talk about what I like here, because it's atmospheric and also sounds fake. I'm also not unaware of the stuff America does better (like easy availability of consumer goods. We really win that one.) In general, I don't like to do compare-and-contrast dualism. Anyway, it's a relief to be back in the place where I live, where I can resume the many partly-finished projects I've had to interrupt. It's nice to realize my various Pescaran friends and acquaintances take my presence in their lives as a given at this point, and are similarly relieved to be back in our usual routine.
In the States, I got the same "making conversation" questions again and again, as you do, which were mainly "so what do you miss" (nothing, I've only been gone a couple months), "how long do you plan to stay in Italy" (indefinitely; we'll see), and "what is the best time to visit," which I always answered as though someone was asking "when is it ok to visit you" since the alternative possibility is that someone's asking me what a full calendar year is like in a place they know I've only been for one season. That season is fall.
A single autumn: that season where it's drizzly and every single day is darker and colder than the one before it. The things you like about fall? They don't exist here. There is no Thanksgiving and no trick-or-treat. The trees are adapted to a sandy beach climate, which means their leaves don't change color particularly. (Deciduous trees lose their leaves in fall to conserve water in winter. Trees that are used to low-water conditions, like pines, palms, and cacti, are already conserving as much water as they can.) Pescara is still a cool place to be in fall, but probably fall is not its most glamorous time. So now you know.
By far the worst part of my trip was the brief section on the flight over where the Italians were split off into one border protection and customs line and the Americans (including me) went another way. This left me to handle quite a lot of awkward luggage on my own, because are Americans going to help with anything? No, they are instead going to try to run over me repeatedly, to express their distress with the fact that I'm not moving as quickly as they'd like, because saying "hey, want an extra hand there" requires too large a leap of the imagination and might reinforce my willingness to do things they don't agree with (like become ill). I solved this problem by using my massive amount of luggage as a barrier to absolutely block off an entry lane until I was finished doing what I was doing, because I am also American and therefore willing to respond with an unreasonable level of force. (More accurately, I'm a board-game-playing economist, and if selfishness is what we're doing, I play to win.)
The trip back was of course great, even though it was a longer and more hypothetically awkward transit, because I was never seperated from the Italians. I find it hard to talk about what I like here, because it's atmospheric and also sounds fake. I'm also not unaware of the stuff America does better (like easy availability of consumer goods. We really win that one.) In general, I don't like to do compare-and-contrast dualism. Anyway, it's a relief to be back in the place where I live, where I can resume the many partly-finished projects I've had to interrupt. It's nice to realize my various Pescaran friends and acquaintances take my presence in their lives as a given at this point, and are similarly relieved to be back in our usual routine.
