A suitcase for Chloe
My niece Chloe is studying fashion in Florence, Italy, for a semester abroad. I recently flew across the Atlantic to visit her.
Obviously, it wasn’t that simple. I took two planes, a subway, and a train to get there. At the train station in Rome, I stared at a train that read “Firenze,” not knowing that “Firenze” is the Italian word for Florence. I was lucky that some passerby said, “That’s the train to Florence,” and I jumped on.
I don’t know why we don’t call things by the name the locals use. Most of the names are remarkably similar: Rome is Roma, Naples is Napoli, Milan is Milano (like the cookie), but Florence is Firenze, which threw me off.
Side note: I am looking forward to the day when we have Star Trek transporters that can teleport a person across the continent in the blink of an eye, because the only thing I don’t like about traveling is the actual traveling. I like being somewhere, but I despise getting there.
But I digress, like I do. My sister-in-law asked me to take a suitcase full of Chloe’s spring clothes and, at the end of the trip, return the suitcase with her winter apparel. I agreed, and I traveled with two suitcases, one for Chloe and one for me.
At the airport, I was terrified that a TSA agent would open her suitcase and think I was an optimistic drag queen. It was filled with tiny, trendy clothes meant for a young woman who is much smaller than I am. Because she’s in fashion, she always looks like she stepped off a runway in Milan, whereas I look like I slid out from the undercarriage of your car in an auto body shop on a car creeper (that wheely thing mechanics use when they slide under cars).
The crowded cobblestone streets of Florence are delightful, unless you’re hauling two suitcases behind you. I got to practice my Italian by repeating one of the few words I knew: “scusi” – excuse me – as I ricocheted off my fellow tourists in the throng.
I was a menace.
It got worse when I tried to navigate the winding streets with my cellphone. I needed three hands for the assignment. A smart person would have just jumped in a taxi or Uber and said, “Take me to the Hotel Santa Croce, please.” I was not that person.
When I learned that my hotel was only a mile from the train station, I decided that I needed the exercise after being on a plane for 11 hours, and off I went. I don’t know how many toes I ran over with the luggage, but it was more than can fit on five feet.
I don’t recommend hauling two suitcases (or even one) down crowded cobblestone streets, but it was an adventure I won’t soon forget.
On the return trip to the airport, I grabbed both suitcases and jumped in a cab.