#BLOGMAS DAY 16 - Eight Days Of Feeling Italian: The bonding

So it's the last day of school before Christmas Holidays and I just made a list of all the highlights in 2016 (none of them having anything to do with school, surprisingly - who'd have thought?) and it reminded me of my loveliest friend and my beautiful summertime in Santa Marinella, Italy, and the series I started to do. So in the vacational spirit, dive with me into the golden sunshine and take a seat on the piazzia as the following happens around you....

Okay, the third day, my loveliest friend and I decided to explore the towns a trainstop away to get a bit of privacy (for those who didn't read this, we had previously met two men who were very, mhm, chatty). However, I had been sprinkled with mosquito bites all over my legs and feet during the first night and I always have some kind of allergic reactions to those; by the time we arrived at the castle we set out for (it looked like a couple metres away from the station but it was actually miles to walk in complete fallow land with the sun burning on us), my right foot was throbbing with every step. So we had some gelato and left for Civitavecchia. While we were making our way along the harbor, looking for some food and not finding any along the length of the ocean, the itchiness got almost unbearable and eventually, my loveliest friend set out to find a pharmacy while I sat on the ground in front of some random statue where families were taking pictures and sceptically glanced at me. Couldn't blame them, really, 'cause my hair was plastered to my head, I was practically crying (okay, I was totally crying) and rubbing an humongous foot. 

In the pharmacy, I made the most tremendous (and only) purchase of our stay: A cooling pack shaped perfectly to be strapped to my foot. It's the best. I'd have died without it. I put it on first thing in the morning and last thing at night. It's wondrous I didn't baptize it in the ocean.

I also bought some hella expensive cortisone pills but they're prescription at home and that says something, so I refrained from actually taking them (however, I slapped on my 1% cortisone lotion like it's free).We can't all be as mellow as our Italian friend.

He himself stepped out onto the piazzia that night when my loveliest friend had just made a quick run to our apartment and came up to me sitting on the edge with my knees prepped up. "How's it going", he asked and I pointed to my foot and explained the deformation And that's the point where things got slightly out of hand and I'm not sure how that happened, once again: Suddenly, I was sat on a lively piazzia in the middle of everything with a strange thirty-year old I met 48 hours ago at the beach who likes to smoke pot gently massaging my foot in his lap while mumbling on about homeopathic methods for itchiness. Yeah. Well. I just kinda let it happen because my mind didn't really know how to process this scenario that it certainly never planned for. Also, it would be rather unpolite to make him stop  - how many men give you voluntary foot massages? Still, a bit odd. And it dramatically increased the itchiness when he tenderly stroked the freaking luminous red, sensitive area. But he meant well. When my loveliest friend came around again, I almost fell off the brink with the urge to hysterically laugh at her confused, then baffled, then "Should I leave the two off you alone or...." expression. It was a scream.

So, yeah, that's the story of how he and I bonded over inflammation. It's an experience I'll treasure forever in my heart. Something along those lines.

Love,

Rosy Smith