First of all, I’m back in suburbia and was just about to learn how to tie a noose because it’s so boring here, but then Monday happened. So I went to the grocery store to buy everything needed to make Ina Garten’s Flag Cake, which has a cream cheese frosting with which I’m not thrilled, and in honor of the unofficial start of Summer, I wore a very standard Palm Beach outfit for me which is just a bathing suit and a polo shirt. Well some beyond incompetent mother had the nerve to come up to me and tell me that my Vilebrequin bathing suit (which was not cheap, I might add) was too short to be worn in a place with children and that she and “other mothers” found my rudeness to be insulting. Somewhat confused, I simply looked at her, smiled and said, “That’s nice, but I don’t really care” before walking away. I’m sorry, suburbia, but my bathing suit is only 2.5 inches shorter than standard “American” bathing suits (I measured). It’s not like I’m wearing a thong/speedo (the whole Simon Van Kempen thing isn’t for me) and I’d rather have a shark eat my legs before I put on a pair of those extra-long boardshorts. To say the least, it made for an entertaining moment.
So I have to say that it’s a bit weird to be back home, but only because when you go from being busy every single day to suddenly having nothing to do, it makes trying to even get dressed every day seem like a difficult task because there’s nothing I have to do aside from attempt to unpack.
So after arriving in Milan, I expected mother to meet me at our hotel, the Hotel Principe Di Savoia, but no, instead I was told to meet her on the Via della Spiga.
The hotel, which isn’t exactly in the middle of the city, provided a complimentary car to all of the shopping areas, so as if mother was waiting for me to show up. I ended up with one thing, a safari jacket I had been looking at from Allegri since December. It’s not a true safari jacket, but rather a safari-style rain coat that I got in a slate-color in an attempt to shake things up a bit in my closet. I have to thank Justin for not only encouraging me to buy it, but for also getting me completely obsessed with the safari jacket look before everyone started doing them. Also, I justified buying it (like I need a reason) because it’s replacing this rain coat I’ve had since the 9th Grade that is Burberry, reversible (navy one one side and nova check on the other) and just not for me anymore. I wore that thing to the movies and treated it as more of a jacket than a rain coat. And no, I NEVER wore it nova check out. I’m not crazy or from Hollywood. The funniest memory I have of wearing that jacket was the night Grace and I went to dinner and then the grocery store and I wore that jacket and she had on her Burberry nova check boots and people stared at us like we were that couple that matches. I’m giving it to Mother who will also use it for trips to the grocery store and to the hair dressers.
Dinner our first evening was at a lovely restaurant on Corso Como, Alla Cucina delle Langhe, which is courtesy of mother’s seatmate on the plane-ride over to Milan. Sadly, it wasn’t Snooki, but instead she sat next to someone named Patrick who works for Loro Piana. And this being my mother, instead of asking for discount, she asks for restaurants in Milan. I love her, but their cashmere sweaters cost over $600 and I would LOVE this half-zip one they have in burgundy so badly.
So Friday was probably the most amazing day of my life and mother’s life because we first began with the most amazing breakfast we’ve ever had in the hotel’s restaurant. Then, following more extreme shopping on both our parts, we headed to the restaurant Paper Moon, which is right in the heart of the shopping district and a great place to unwind; it’s also a great place to do some people-watching, which mother and I could get an Olympic Gold Medal for doing. We thoroughly enjoyed watching the caspian sea of Russian blondes stream in and out following a lunch consisting of three pieces of lettuce and two bites of a 20€ pizza.
After lunch, we high-tailed it past mother’s close friend, Muccia (and by close, I mean we went to every Prada in Milan) and decided to see the Last Supper, which was actually worth the pain of getting those tickets. Though, I have to be honest, I kind of liked the fresco on the other side of the refectory a little better than Leonardo’s great masterpiece.
So as it turns out, right next to the Last Supper is this store I read about in Departures last Spring named Bernardini and I’ve been dying to go ever since I read about it so of course I schlepped mother there. Bernardini is this vintage, luxury travel store and while we didn’t buy anything, it was fun to see everything they had for sale and in case anyone truly loves me, there is this Rolex in the window second window from the door that I’d love! From Bernardini, we strolled around this very residential and less-touristy part of Milan before realizing that it was almost time for what will forever be one of the all-time highlights of our lives, the opera.
Now as many of y’all know, the Teatro alla Scala is without question the greatest theatre in the world when it comes to opera and when mother and I found two tickets available, we jumped on them before looking at the price. We were in the front row, orchestra, therefore making me so close to the conductor that I kind of spent the majority of Act One watching him sing than I did watch the stage. We were at La Scala for the final night of the opera season and the closing night of Giacomo Puccini’s superb opera, Turandot. Seeing “Nessun Dorma” be performed at La Scala actually brought tears to my eyes because my Italian teacher in prep school played Pavarotti’s rendition of it at least once a week for the two years I took Italian with her and it was just so breathtaking that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to properly describe the experience.
La Scala’s stage with the curtain being raised
I don’t think I’ll ever forget that evening for the rest of my life and I’m so grateful to my mother for not even looking at the price of those billets and just giving me her credit card number so we could buy them. A side note to the folks at La Scala, it was so damn hot in that theatre that it made sitting in the Verona Amphitheater in the deathly heat of July so I could see the Barber of Seville tolerable! Y’all need to get some air conditioning because I was beginning to schvitze by the end of the performance!
So meanwhile, Saturday arrived and we spent our final day in Northern Italy taking a “short” two-hour train-ride two stops from Venice to Vincenza. Now the last time we spoke, I said that all there was to do in Vincenza was to visit the Bottega Veneta factory store but as it turns out, I was wrong. Apparently, Vincenza is really known for the Palladian villas, and of course this would happen to me, but the most famous of the villas is the same one from which UVa founder Thomas Jefferson copied in order to design the Rotunda, so y’all know we went to see La Rotunda.
Let me say this, if anyone is dumb enough to let their mother convince them that Vincenza is a short train-ride away from Milan, don’t go. And if you end up going, RENT A CAR! It was so difficult to get to La Rotunda because mother just expects things to run very smoothly and effortlessly so clearly she hasn’t spent enough time in Italy to know that neither of those two things is possible. We also visited the Teatro Olimpico, which was kind of a special place, but, and I feel bad saying this, it wasn’t La Scala. It was my fault because I was still on a mental high from the night before so I didn’t really give it the attention it deserved.
Now don’t think for one second we came all this way and didn’t stop by to see the Bottega factory outlet. Oh, we went and we didn’t even have an address to give the cab driver, but he knew exactly where we wanted to go. The address, in case anyone wants to know, is Viale della Scienza, 9/11. So here’s the thing, it’s nowhere near the city center and is really in the industrial part of the city, which makes sense since the Bottega factory is directly across the street. Also, there wasn’t a whole lot that grabbed my attention, or mother’s for that matter. At most, they had this one wallet, but considering all the damage I had done this semester, I figured I needed to start thinking about stopping. Our dinner that night was courtesy of our hotel’s concierge and was so touristy that I won’t even bother mentioning it.
On Sunday, we took the train down to Siena so mother could see where I lived and spend some time exploring the city after we took photos of our hotel room in Milan because it was so stunning! That bathroom had the most amazing shower of all time and I’ve told mother that I’m having that shower head installed in my bathroom at home. Plus, I took this kind of neat photo in the bathroom of my watch:
In Siena, we ditched my dumpy apartment and headed instead for the Grand Hotel Continental, which was so much nicer than where I lived for the previous four months. Our room was beautiful and had this amazing view of the Duomo:
I showed her all the sights and took her to a great little dinner not too far from our hotel that I frequented from time to time. We went to Grom, where I had my final May flavor of the month. On Monday, we visited the Duomo and strolled around the city before us and our seven bags (including mother’s purse) headed to the train station.
Now I love my mother, but the woman is useless at helping with the bags. Normally, I’d accept this simply because she’s never helped before so why should she start now, but this time, it was a bit hard for me to manage them all by myself. Once we arrived in Florence, I was ready to kill her because we only had a very short amount of time between our train from Siena arriving and our train to Rome leaving. So when we went to board our train to Rome, I put her and her bags on board and then put my Ralph bag on the train before the big suitcases. I asked her to just move the bag and she looks at it like it has some terminal illness and just taps the bag ever so slightly, but as if that thing moved. In the meantime, a lovely line began to form as I struggled with my lovely seven bags. At least someone took pity on me when we arrived in Rome.
When we arrived in Rome, we headed first to our hotel, the Hotel Slpendide Royal, which looked onto the Borghese Gardens, but was still just a block from the Via Veneto and only five minutes from the Via Condotti. The view from where we had breakfast was so amazing as it looked out on this sea of green with the Vatican off in the distance. Fortunately, both mother and I have done the major tourist sites in Rome so we had more time to do things we would have otherwise had to miss.
So I made the executive decision (because someone had to) that we would make Tuesday our shopping day and Wednesday our “cultural” day, even though members of my family believe that the Via Condotti is an historical site since both Bulgari and Buccellati were founded on that street! In addition to shopping, I also took mother just three blocks away from the Via Condotti so we could visit my all time favorite gelateria, Giolitti. I went four times over two days:
Tuesday night, mother wasn’t feeling too great so we headed to the nearby Via Veneto for a simple dinner and ended up at Ristorante Tuna, which was a lovely seafood restaurant. I think we sat next to three members of the mafia however. The restaurant had a very Upper East Side feel to it with a very Upper East Side kind of clientele, which was fine because let’s be honest, I’m a little Upper East Side boy and my mother doesn’t like to leave the Upper East Side when she’s in New York.
Wednesday, our last day in Italy, was spent doing a tiny bit of shopping for my aunt, but then we went first to see the Richard Meier-designed Ara Pacis museum, which was… interesting. Ara Pacis was a peace alter built for Emperor Augustus and located in his Campus Martius. Unfortunately, I feel as though we were ripped off by the Italians because we paid about 15€ a person to just see the alter and nothing else because the other exhibit wasn’t opening until later in the week, but the space itself was simply breathtaking and the way Meier designed it to really focus all of the attention on the alter was just brilliant. There was a great deal of natural light throughout the space the just made it this very calm and serene space that just happens to be in the middle of bustling Rome. I mean, there’s a major road that’s right next to the museum, but you almost seem to forget it’s there because the space is just so peaceful.
From Ara Pacis, we then walked a very long way toward the Forum to get lunch at Tricolore, which was a really neat place with delicious sandwiches. Despite being right next to the busiest tourist parts of all of Rome, the restaurant is in this neighborhood that is in a world unto itself. There were very few tourists, simple shops, hairdressers; it had a very locals only feel to it, which is what I enjoy the most about any city because there are times when you need to escape the tour groups. The place is so brilliantly designed because they have little sinks around the walls so you can come in, wash your hands and then sit at this counter that has ovens all around the base and order your sandwich or panino. Raised in a vertical position around the marble counter are about eight, maybe nine ranges and you just sit there and order your lunch and Pellegrino and it’s prepared in the back, which you can see from where you’re sitting. It’s very small and really designed as a take-out place, complete with take-out window, but they love having people stay for lunch, which we did. I honestly believe it was one of the best meals I had in all of Italy and it was a sandwich covered in warm prosciutto on the most amazing bread ever!
After lunch, a very grumpy and gradually annoying mother and I took a taxi (because someone wore the wrong shoes) over to see the Borghese Gallery, which had been closed for the past fifteen years for a renovation/restoration project (which doesn’t surprise me because the Italians are well… slow) and had just reopened. Well, a word of advice, book early and ladies, don’t bring a purse because they make you check them before you can enter; they give you a little bag which I had to carry that can hold your wallet, but that’s it. It was a little strange. Now, the galleries were lovely and all, but at the end of the day, 15th-18th century art isn’t really my thing because I’m more of a 19th-20th century art fan, plus Jeff Koons because I love those poodles and want one in my front yard. That said, there were some lovely pieces and the building itself was an amazing space nonetheless.
After our visit ended, we strolled in the Borghese gardens for a while before getting ready for dinner, which proved my mother is insane. So we had made reservations at this place that was kind of on the other side of the city so we take a taxi over there and she won’t get out of the taxi because “it looks creepy.” This was because she didn’t see anyone in her age group there and there were only 20-somethings walking around. So instead, we went to this other restaurant we had heard about called Cucina Roscioli, which was out of this world amazing! It’s really a salumeria that happens to have a restaurant and so we sat next to a wall of wine and across from refrigerator cases filled with cheeses and meats. As an added bonus, this guy who looked like an Italian version of Stanley Tucci was seated across from us and was staring at mother the entire time! It was a great way to end our time in Italy and a phenomenal final meal in Italy.
Thursday Morning had us up and in the taxi by 6h0, so we missed breakfast. Then, five minutes into the taxi ride, I realized I had left my iPod in our room so we had to race right back and retrieve it. This was a first for me because usually I’m always on top of where everything I have is located. From there, it was off to Fiumicino for the flight back to America. Thursday also happened to be Andrew’s 21st birthday so as if I was going to pass up being in New York for that! So, when the plane landed in fabulous New Jersey!, I put mother on the train to Baltimore and headed straight for Manhattan to celebrate his birthday with Maggie, Nathaniel, Caroline, and of course, Andrew at Café Gitane in the Jane Hotel. It was so much fun and we had such a good time celebrating Andrew’s big day, even though he was on the tail-end of a cold and by the time dinner arrived, my body thought that it was 1h0 Friday morning! I went to bed at what my body thought was 6h0 Friday morning and was up by 8h0, so I think that it actually helped my body re-adjust to EST.
Friday morning, following a little food shopping for mother and me, I hoped on the Acela with three enormous bags (I condensed since I knew it would just be me) and headed down to Baltimore for the Preakness. Friday night was the traditional Chinese food dinner we always have and then Saturday, it was off to the Baltimore ghetto to go to the races. I was in a so-so mood that day because my cousin and I got into a bit of a tiff and I just didn’t really have the usual excitement about being there that I’ve had in years past. However, I ended up having a great day at the races because I broke with my usual “methodical” selection of the horses on which I want to bet and picked the winner, Shackleford, simply because I liked his racing colors. I won $60 on one $5 bet, which was amazing and I ended the day making quite a bit of money, which was good for me. As an added bonus, mother and I did something I’ve waited years to do and that was buy two Black-Eyed Susans, the official drink of the Preakness:
Since returning home, I’ve been struggling to dig myself out of the obscene amount stuff I have between the mail, the clothes and the stuff I bought, but I’m down to just one or two last things. I’ve been baking, grilling and getting ready to head to Charlottesville for a month so I can take a fun-filled science course. However, there was one event that occurred last weekend that I still can’t believe I attended. So Grace has decided that since she can’t show horses anymore, she’s now going to compete in dog shows with the not-so-little Henry Flagler. Y’all, I’ve never been to a dog show before so I had no idea what to expect when we arrived and so to say that it was a spectacle is like saying that the Real Housewives of New Jersey are completely normal people and that there’s nothing wrong with their trailer-park-trash lives. This was just insanity at its finest. We met a woman who has TWELVE Corgis and travels the country with her husband and daughter selling dog grooming supplies and showing her dogs; we saw just a whole bunch of crazies and I have to say, I almost stole four dogs. Though at one point, Grace asks this lady with four King Charles Cavaliers where she got her crate for her dogs and I mentioned that the dogs were so well-behaved and she tried to sell me one. At that point, I mentioned that my parents would kill me if I brought a dog home because we already have one and when I told her that Buddy was a (very expensive) mixed-breed, she turned around and walked away without saying another word! I still love my cockapoo, even if he is a mixed-breed. I just have to say this to Walter: Get Grace another horse because those dog show people are crazy and I miss the fact that I could look for a girlfriend at the horse shows; you can’t do that at a dog show because a lot of the people there lacked teeth! Anyway, it was an experience that I will never partake in again.
Finally today, I guess the time has come for me to really look back on my semester and express my overall opinion on it. In short, I loved Italy and being there and being able to explore it was just something I’ll never forget. However, I picked the wrong program. It was too small and there wasn’t really anyone with whom I really clicked. Some of those girls were flat out rude to me, while others were nice to me, but not necessarily people with whom I plan on being life-long friends. I tried my best to be friendly and go along with the group, but in the end, it was made very clear that I wasn’t really welcome so I did my own thing and had a great time. No, I don’t regret going at al, however, Siena was always back-up since I couldn’t study in Paris due to having too many transfer credits from Rollins, so I didn’t really have the same enthusiasm I might have had if I had spent the semester in Paris, but oh well. As I said, in the end, I had a great time in Italy, but just not with the people in my program.
Anyway, this officially concludes the travel guide only part of the blog and next week, I’ll be returning to writing about life and the crazies I call friends who are in it. Until next time…
-JD
The Yapper 