Falling in love....Eight Days Of Feeling Italian Day 1

Yes, I have timing issues, but after my loveliest friend told me that she cried with disappointment when my last post wasn't this one (we are very much hung up on that vacation, so it's not that surprising), it only took me six days to come around to it....

First things first, on our first morning in Santa Marinella, we went grocery shopping which felt like such an adult thing to do; however, we seem to not have yet mastered the art of coming out of the supermarket with a basket full of things that actually make up for a whole meal together. But we got iced tea that's really cold and will satisfy my unusual thirst throughout the whole week. And some lettuce. And Mozarella. And, of course, frozen pizza  (the native cooking version of a tourist - a tourist who can't cook).

On we went to the beach - we found a pretty cliff to sit on ( if you want to have a good beach day, always go for a pretty cliff) and draped ourselves over it for ten beautiful minutes in the plain sunlight until we realized we'd be beautifully burned if that went on much longer so we bought our very own parasol like my parents used to do back when they went to the Canaries in the 90s - I have this weird complex about the 90s being cool even though I only spent the first four years of my life there, so I have the need to mention that. After a while of sunbathing and flipping through Italian Elle without understanding a word (funny how we didn't cover any fashion terms in fashion school yet), we sliddered down the cliff to try and find a safe spot to go into the water without jumping on a riff and ripping our new bikinis / our limbs. 

"You know, I really don't like that people think I'm such a girly gi-iiih" - my loveliest friend, screaming in unisono with me as a wave crashed onto the cliff we were standing on and wet our feet (Always a surprise, no matter how close the sea is).

And as we stood there, making guinea pig sounds and clinging onto each other in desperate fear of slipping and just for general support in the quest of entering the water, I turned to face the other people on the cliff, you know, to see if they were already handing out popcorn in order to make it an even better show, when I spotted this man looking right at us, and I don't remember if I smiled but I probably did because I'm a nice person, and suddenly, he was standing next to us offering my friend a hand to step onto a different stone. In our desperation, it seemed like the right thing to do, so she took it, and he kinda lifted her above the gap, and then he took my hand and pointed to a presumably better spot to get into the water. "Is it safe?", my friend asked. "We're not so good at swimming", I said, pointing out our best features in front of strangers as it is my custom. "Yeah, (oh, he was Italian, but he spoke English in a soft, slurred voice) all you need is a bit of courage." I laughed. "We're not so good at that either" (See, pointing it all out). He looked a bit confused but he must have realized the burden he'd loaded onto himself and got into the water, just jumping right in. "I'm not jumping anywhere", I declared to my friend. "Come on", the man said, holding out his hands. My friend crouched down on the cliff, leaned forward, and fell-jumped into his arms. Me, already crouching behind her, decided that anything better than ripping my limbs is fine with me, and did the same.

I think I made it without screaming. 

Needless to say, since my loveliest friend and I have issues, we were mortified already that we needed a stranger to basically carry us into the water, so we swam away quickly, and my God, I forget how good and calm and velvety the sea feels every time. It's been over a year since I've been it it and that, lovelies, is definitely too long. The sun was glittering and blinding and behind us, the pretty cliffs and the castello rose above the ground, covered in pines and flowers, looking like a real-life postcard motive (guess what, it is), and everything felt as light as it's only possible when you're just a small body moving in the endless sea.  

The only problem was the Getting Out Of It. 

See, I have a lifelong fear of being crashed against the cliffs while swimming towards them. I don't know anybody whom that happend to, neither has it ever happened to me, but humans are irrational beings. My loveliest friend, for instance, is very scared of stepping into a sea urchin, so we had all the worst case scenarios covered and reluctantly swam back, examining the situation. Could we climb up there? Would we fall and make a fool of ourselves/hit our heads and bleed to death, whatever came first? "Let's just stay in here for a while longer", I said, "like we voluntarily choose to relax in this place exactly." We turned to face the cliffs, but our casual "We really just want to hang in here, it's all good" expression must have failed to convince, and it changed into "What the hell is this guy doing" the moment we saw that man who helped us earlier run, (yes, in my memory he was running like a baywatch cast member) down the cliffs, thankfully not holding a red float but shamefully a stick; you heard right, a stick like the ones on the trees where the leaves are - out to my loveliest friend, and in that moment of panic and helplessness regarding any other possibility to get out of the water, she reached for the stick. Turns out that a stick would work great if you wanted to poke a dead cat floating in the water for three weeks to see if it might be alive; it would also be the right device to pick up a piece of trash, like maybe a Coke can, that someone lost on the other side of the coast a couple of days ago; however, I hate to say it, but my friend and I aren't the same weight as the aforementioned items, even if we're as low in dignity as they are. So, our knight in brownish bermudas threw it away in a grand gesture and tried with his hands instead and pulled my friend up in a standing position. I was so stunned that I reached for him eagerly and he, not having found a great stand on the wet stone again, and I, not finding a great stand on there at all, fell back into the water. That's the moment when I get full on irrational and my biggest worry is "Am I too heavy for him?". After that split-second thought, I look at him, he looks at me, and my loveliest friend describes that sight as hilarious 'cause we both looked utterly bewildered, gazing up at her with that same expression (as if she could help us) before he gets into action again, grabbed my waist and pushed me onto the stone. I pray til this day that my bikini bottoms didn't slip too much when the water pulled at them while I was getting out, because I need a little something of my body this man hasn't touched or seen within the first 30 minutes of us knowing each other. 

Our plan was to hide under our parasol and never see him again, but his plan was to place his towel next to ours and tell us his name - we'll call him A here - and that he lived in America in his teens and that he was waiting on a friend with whom he was starting a rap/electro music career that was about to blow up soon. Of course. He couldn't be working in an office or something, he had to be a budding musician. We "mmhm"d a lot and said "Wow that's cool" while trying to shove his dog (a small white....I have no clue about dog breeds but he looked like the one from The Adventures Of Tintin) off our stuff. He (the dog) really had it for my loveliest friend and cuddled up closely to her, forcing us to almost fall off our cliff because we tried to get as far away from him as possible. We're not really dog people (aka she's totally scared and I'm not exactly brave with them either and we have absolutely no desire at all to change that). A took him away some times, but not often, and when he went swimming, this dog stayed with us like we adopted him. A did, too. So I'll give you a better picture of him: His head is closely shaved, he's mid-height and very skinny arm and leg wise but still has pretty broad shoulders (I don't know how that's possible either) and pretty good abs, and he is covered in scars and cuts, the most recent one resulting from me being clumsy enough to make him fall off a cliff. Makes you think he's professionally rescuing girls out of the sea - either that or a drug dealer or something. 

We met him again at the cafe at the end of our street; turns out he's our next door neighbour. His friend, B (I'm just noticing they're like Chip'n'Dale), had arrived and they asked if they could sit with us - "No they can't". I hissed to my friend. "Yeah, sure", my friend said with an uncertain smile (we're too polite/socially awkward to tell off strangers, which is probably a dangerous quality to have). We ended up spending the afternoon sitting there, letting them play us some of their music ("It's....interesting. I mean, I don't like that kind of music, but someone who does would think it's good, right?" - me, not liking it at all) and declining their offers to play it live for us "up in the apartment". It's not even that we thought they would do something to us, but even the idea of sitting in this guy's home, when we just met him in the weirdest situation ever and them playing bad music to us and us having to pretend to like it, when we could be out and about that gorgeous town eating gelato in the sun by ourselves.....it honestly didn't appeal to me as something I had any interest in doing. 

"But why don't you trust us", B said. I think he was offended 'cause he thought we thought he was in the Mafia (how did that even come up?). Italian men, lovelies! "They're young girls, in a strange country...." A got me better there. Well, he does have a daughter, so I guess he thought about her being 19 and hanging out with two men in their thirties - yes, they were that old, even though A looks younger due to his 90's rapper style in cut-off jeans and plaid button down shirts. All in all, a strange situation. Not neccessarily bad, but indeed very strange. We kept saying that after we finally left and got some ice cream. In heels, 'cause in Italy, it's never too early to wear heels.

Remember the piazza? Me and my loveliest friend just sat there again, on our usual bench, like two extras on a movie set, and watched the magic happen around us: By ten o'clock, the people came and started to have dinner (unthinkable for us, being hungry at six sharp) and the kids were running around again (don't the Italian kids have to go to sleep, ever? It's like being in Neverland) and the air was still warm and the old-fashioned streetlights gave everything a dreamy radiance. 

"I like how I am here - I feel like I can't be this way at home", she said thoughtfully. "Maybe that's the way we are when we're in Italy", I said. 

And then, the buskers appeared. And they played a beautiful, beautiful version of Sinatra's "My Way". I swear, that moment sitting there, with that tune hovering around mixed with the children's playing and the people laughing and the silverware and the glasses clinking and the knowledge I'd be there for a week, I was so in love. With everything. And I was serious when I said to my loveliest friend: "I want to get married right now. I'd marry anyone".

Love,

Rosy Smith

PS: I changed my mind about the marriage thing by now, but you know, the mood was right at the time.