When our minds wander, they pack bags for Italy
For our new Raves & Roves Series, we thought we’d start with Italy.
Because, well – must we really explain? Italy, people. It-alyyyyy. [With hand motions for emphasis.]
We’ve discovered along the way, that as a crew, we share a diagnosable, possibly contagious and definitely incurable case of wanderlust, which could be one of the reasons we work so well together – that kindred spirit-ness. Particularly at this moment, after so many weeks of being housebound per the powers that be, there’s nothing we’d love more than to spin the globe, eyes closed – and point. And then go. Peruse the markets. Smell the smells. Eat something unidentifiable, then tuck another different-something in our bag for later. Boldly barter using only our 7-word local vocab. Count out coins doing slow-math in our heads like 6-year olds. And request directions using mainly the universal language of charades.
We try to not seem too touristy, but the way we look at things is a dead giveaway. We possess an innate wonder and delight that’s a good kind of touristy and impossible to contain. And when locals sense our enthusiasm, they engage – and want to share more of their food, their traditions, their heritage and culture. Are there faux pas and awkward interactions? Yep. The occasional just plain weirdness? Oh yeah. But those are the stories we’re still cry-laughing about years later.
It’s a curious thing – how we spend so much time and care making our homes places we really want to be, yet still continually fixate on the pins in our personal Maps of Places We Will Go Someday. Our minds wander, hatching big plans to venture off to the far-flung – or nearer-flung if that’s all schedules will permit at the moment. When we return from each of those places, we realize it’s not such a curious thing, as home and away are truly connected. Intertwined in our psyches, a beautiful collage-y mish-mash of color and pattern, architectural silhouettes, and intriguing scents and flavors. All ingrained in our brains, with parts and pieces making (sometimes surprising) guest appearances in our work.
For Amy, Italy was where the cap-T, cap-O Travel Obsession began. When she was at Iowa State, they launched a study-abroad program with the option to spend Senior year in Italy. Hello, YES. It would mean missing AutoCad classes, which were a big deal as the world was just beginning to move away from drafting tables and T-squares. So she stayed on campus and spent a not-so-fun summer knocking those out, while eagerly anticipating the Roman Holiday – er “school year” – ahead.
This was big
Like first-flight-anywhere-non-U.S. big. She landed in Rome where she roomed with 2 girls from the program (3 more lived across the street). What stands out most about her time there (apart from a certain nearby bread shop), was a class. No really – a class. (And she’s not just saying that to convince her parents that she WAS actually in class vs zipping around all day on the back of some Italian guy’s Vespa.) It was a color study and students were armed with the Fab 4 (cyan, black, magenta and yellow), then shoo’d away to find 200(!?!) colors around the city, mixing the paint to replicate those shades. So they’d wander off and park themselves in piazzas, mixing and matching – but not really making anything. At the time it seemed tedious and annoying and not all that valuable since there was nothing to show for it. No quick-pull of the veil to reveal a smooth, hand-chiseled marble sculpture. No appreciative small claps or big-loud “Brava! Brava!” Nothing suitable for framing. Just colors. Yawner.
But to give credit where it’s due, that exercise in apparent tedium honed a skill that comes into play daily. Still. 20-some years later. The experience of mixing and remixing (the extended dance version) to get the exact match was an invaluable lesson in color theory. And patience. Basically, the wax-on/wax-off, Mr. Miyagi approach – but for color, not karate.
Classes were Mon-Thurs leaving the long weekends wide open for jaunts to Paris, Zermatt, Munich, Nice – it was all just too close to say no to. And so it began. A lifetime love affair with the intrigue of travel.
Fast forward a few years (dot, dot, dot) – Josh and Amy meet, date (long story stashed away for another post), and have a wedding in the works with lots of details to debate about and decide upon. But the honeymoon plan (Italy!) was a no-brainer, with stays in Sardinia and the cliffside Positano.
Fast forward a few MORE years
18 to be exact (dot, dot, dot, plus a lot more dots). They made their way back again with their girls, making the rounds from the Amalfi Coast and Capri, to Venice and of course Rome, where they visited Amy’s college-days apartment and nearby favesie bread shop (still open and still ohhhh-maaaannnn amazing). There were tears. The I-can’t-believe-I’m-back-here kind. And she’s already scheming the how and where and when of a hopefully-not-too-far-down-the-road return visit (dates and itinerary still TBD).
