Hotel Kyook in Amsterdam was the most spectacularly awful place I’ve ever tried to sleep.  The walls audibly teemed with biota; I heard chants of “E-bo-la!” “Lis-ter-i-aaah!” “Syph-il-is!!” as strains of bacteria competed to colonize my toothbrush.  The Kyook had all the allure of shabbily upholstered pus.

We stayed in other bad hotels, but the most charmingly horrid one was the Saint Simeon in London.  The hotel was named for an Eastern European ascetic who demonstrated his piety through self-mortification: for the forty days of Lent, he neither ate nor drank. In later years he upped the guilt ante by doing the whole thing standing up. When he tired of the luxe life of a monk, he built an unshaded 50 foot pillar, climbed to the top, and stayed there for 36 years.

Mortification and deprivation: Saint Simeon would have raised two shaky thumbs up to the London hotel that bears his name.

We went to London so Andy could give a speech at a veddy prestigious academic conference.  As usual we traveled by train, and rolled our luggage through roiling traffic that menaced from every direction.

The San Simeon was run by a Serbian family held together by unshakeable bonds of mutual resentment and simmering hatred. This created an ambiance much like an Eastern European version of Wuthering Heights.

The owner was engaging and warm, although his charm was that of a swaying cobra, and his geniality was grizzly-esque. When we checked in, Serbio explained that of course we’d have to pay in advance for all four nights. Like Mowgli mesmerized by Kaa, the snake in the Jungle Book, we nodded in unison.

Of Course We'll Pay In Advance For All Four Nights

Of course we’d pay in advance, once we learned that the policy was the unfortunate result of irresponsible Italians who, on visits to London, spend all their cash on clothing and food, so they had no money for their hotel bill.

Wait, you might say. “He told you that Italians, Italians would blow all their money on British food, and British  fashion? And because of that, he demanded that you pay in advance?”

“RUN, Goetzes, RUUUUN!!” you are shouting.  ”He’s lying! Never pay a hotel up front!!”

Ah, such innocence. We were the babysitter in a slasher flick cluelessly opening the cellar door. Sure, we got that call asking us to check on the children, and we were puzzled by the caller’s jagged breath. Yes, we heard ominous sounds coming from the basement, and, saay, wasn’t that a bloody footprint on the mat when we first came in?  But we did not run away, and what happened next was our own dang fault.

Andy turned over our credit card, and one swipe later, we were czeched into the Saint Simeon Hotel.

The kids and I used the stairs, while Andy was trapped with the owner and our luggage in an asthmatic elevator the size of Saint Simeon’s perch. Serbio brought us to Room 14, or maybe he was offering a postage stamp. The room’s three beds and four towels all overlapped, and an armoire had the dimensions and heft of an upended Kleenex box. Eaves like obese stalactites jutted from the ceiling; at 6’4″, Andy would knock himself unconscious turning over in bed.  We weren’t convinced that room 14 was going to work, so Serbio graciously offered a larger room.

Room 18 actually had a ceiling, so we had already upgraded. The bathroom was clean and neatly tiled, and we were too tired to notice the lack of soap. Or that if there had been soap, there wouldn’t be enough room to close the door.  But there was a huge window overlooking the rooftops of London, the beds looked comfortable, and this was London, where a hotel room costs as much as a room in a London hotel.  Besides, we had already paid!!

The next morning we learned why the hotel was named for a martyr. The shower head didn’t attach to the wall. So getting clean required juggling water and shampoo while trying to fend off the shower curtain, which clung to my eyelids and flung every drop onto the bathroom floor.

Andy availed himself of the hotel’s only amenity, an electric plug. He plugged in his electric razor, it let out a puff of smoke, and to the kids’ delight, it exploded. Fortunately no one was hit by flying shrapnel, and Andy’s half-grizzled, half-shaved face gave him the rakish appeal sought after by London academics.

The day had a rough start, but Serbio had promised us a breakfast featuring the best of British and Serbian cuisine. When I got downstairs, Andy and the kids were already seated at a wooden table heaped with food. Well, it wasn’t exactly food, but there were a million little plates with odd looking items smothered under Saran Wrap. My arrival triggered a new volley of plate delivery, although in a week, the four of us couldn’t have eaten what was already on the table.

A single dish held three kinds of bread that looked and tasted like several grades of sandpaper. Splayed under plastic were slices of fruit from which all color and texture had been drained. Other dishes entombed antique donuts, prehistoric rolls, and slivers of gummy cheese that tasted more like medical tubing than milk.

A pale young woman brought fluids reminiscent of coffee, tea and hot chocolate, but they were diluted to tastelessness, and cold. I felt guilty for the food we tasted but couldn’t eat, and for her carpal tunnel syndrome from all that wrapping.

On the way upstairs, I was grilled about breakfast and agreed with Serbio that it was a bounteous repast. Andy attempted small talk, but the conversation quickly went north: “Who was your favorite American president in the last fifty years?” demanded Serbio. “Besides Kennedy. Everyone says Kennedy” Serbio growled. Andy answered: “Clinton.” “Clinton bombed my country” noted Serbio darkly. When we told him we had seen the Diana and Dodi memorial at Harrod’s, Serbio muttered “The Queen killed them both. It’s printed in the British papers, so it must be true.”

With no usable electricity or water, the Saint Simeon was a drain on our budget and our mood. Two hundred dollars a night, and no soap? His presentation over, and on the verge of his 50th birthday, Andy plotted our escape during our second plastic breakfast.

On his laptop, Andy found a mystical land just outside of London, where hotels had amenities, like soap. Two rooms for two nights at a boring corporate hotel, with tickets to Legoland Windsor thrown in, cost less than one room at the Motel Martyr.

But we had already paid for all four nights.

Andy approached Serbio warily. He asked for a refund for the two nights we wouldn’t be there, and Serbio explained that their cancellation policy required 48 hour notice. Andy pointed out that it was 48 hours from the 4th night, so he could refund one night. “No. You stay for four nights. This is good hotel, and you will stay with us.”

The next morning Andy went to pick up a getaway car while I wrestled with the shower. The kids had granola bars, but by 11 I was desperate for caffeine. To get to the dining room I’d have to pass the registration desk. At 11:45 Andy hadn’t returned. Should I tell them we’re checking out, and risk having our bags dumped onto the sidewalk? What if Andy didn’t get back for hours?

So I went downstairs, said that we were leaving, and asked what the hotel would prefer – should we remove our luggage so they could clean the room? “No.” Serbio Junior replied. “You’re here until Friday.” “Yes, but our plans have changed – my husband has rented a car and we’re going to Windsor. We won’t need the room.” ”No, you don’t need a car. Windsor is 20 minutes by train. You stay here and take the train to Legoland. You have already paid.”

Trapped in Hotel Hell with no hope of rescue, I smiled demurely at the foolishness of my American husband.

“Could I have some tea?” I asked, as if a cup of tea would bring my husband to his senses; I knew it would work wonders for mine. “Of course, would you like breakfast?” “No, tea is fine.”

On my way back upstairs, Serbio stopped me. “Did you have breakfast?” “No, thank you, tea is fine.” “Take it up on the lift.” I walked onto the tiny elevator, and he stepped inside.

“Have breakfast!!”he demanded.

“No, really, tea is fine.”

“Should I wake you for breakfast tomorrow morning?”

“No, thank you.”

“Is there anything else I can get you?”

“No, really….”

Finally the doors wheezed shut and I sucked down the tea before the lift got to the second floor.

Andy got back around noon. When we brought down our luggage and asked for our money back, Serbio’s son demanded to know why we were leaving. Glaring at Serbio, he shouted: “Is there anything wrong? Tell me anything that is wrong with this hotel, why you do not want to stay here.”

Not wanting to star in an Iron Curtain episode of Family Feud, Andy demurred that we’d like to stay, but our plans had changed.

“See!! I told you!!” shouted Serbio. “This man speaks the truth!! He doesn’t bullshit!! He doesn’t say that this is broken, or that the hotel is dirty!! This man speaks the truth!!”

We escaped with one night refunded and a voucher for a free night at the Saint Simeon. Because I like you, and I know you like breakfast, that is our gift to you.

Apparently Simeon achieved sainthood for staying all four nights.

Details.

My husband Andy is a professor, and every seven years, he can take a sabbatical. A sabbatical gives a tenured professor time to dedicate to research and a reason for people with normal jobs to say “They pay you to live in cool places?  What is up with that?”  Andy could have taken off from ten weeks to a full year, but the longer he was away, the less he would be paid.  As an attorney for the Feds, I could leave for no more than three weeks, and I’d be back on the bathroom counter just in time for the next staff meeting. So I was ready to pull the plug. This was also a good time to take our trip of a lifetime: our kids were thirteen and seven, and when the next sabbatical rolled around, Alex would be in college. If we were going to live in another country as a family, we’d have to do it now.

So Andy and I sat at the kitchen table, and decided where to go and how long to stay away. “I want to live in Italy,” I said.  For how long? asked Andy.  ”&*@ it,” I said. “A year.” And then we took a slow-moving leap off a very steep cliff.

What’s amazing is that Andy so willingly jumped with me.

Once the decision was made, making the arrangements was complicated. If we were gone for a year, we wouldn’t have my salary, and we’d have only half of Andy’s. But Andy planned to teach a course for American college students at the University of Bologna.  That would give us some additional income, and the University would pay for our housing for the months Andy was teaching.  And we knew that if we were gone for a year, we’d get a refund of all the Federal taxes from of Andy’s salary, which would cushion our re-entry.

There were so many questions. Where would we live?  Andy would have an office in Bologna, and would teach there.  Our kids spoke no Italian, so we didn’t want to throw them into Italian schools. There was an international school in Bologna, but Alex was too old.  If we were all going to return to the United States together, home schooling was not an option. Luckily we found an excellent school that would take both kids, the International School of Modena. We wouldn’t have a car, but the school, located in an obscure suburb, provided bus service.  Classes were taught in English,  the kids would get four and a half hours of instruction in Italian per week, and the students came from all over the world. What an opportunity for our kids to learn about the world by being in it.

And then we found our apartment.  Actually, Enrica, Andy’s assistant in Bologna, found it. From the pictures she sent us, it was small (90 square feet) but clean and conveniently located next to a tiny train station that looked like a set from Thomas the Train.  We were charmed, and agreed to sign a lease.

Once we had an apartment, and a school,  we needed travel documents. For visits to Italy of more than three months, the Italian government requires passports and a visa. So we got our passports, and started the lengthy visa process, which required a personal visit to the Italian Consulate.  Oh, but not in Denver. To get a visa, we needed to visit the Italian Consulate in Chicago. With a few weeks before the application deadline, we booked tickets to Chicago, and landed just after Obama’s historic acceptance speech in Grant Park.

The Consulate required an epic list of documents: Visa applications. Proof of insurance that would cover us internationally.  Passports.  And photos that had to be signed on the back. We inexplicably needed three copies of some of the documents, fifteen copies of  some, and forty copies of others.

Andy and I were each alloted 15 minutes to see the consulate official. If we missed our alloted time, we’d have to reapply for a new appointment. We hit traffic, a car in the parking garage, and had to run to the office. Looking down, I was horrified to learn that I was wearing one brown shoe and one black shoe.  I thought that was the kind of thing that would get you denied a visa, at least for Italy.

When we got to the Consulate office, the Italian officials were seated behind floor to ceiling bullet-proof  glass with a tiny slot at the bottom to slide in papers and perhaps a gun. We had no idea what to do, so we sought guidance from the consulate receptionist, but she had her hands full with signing a UPS delivery receipt and dealing with her own personality.

We sat down and waited to be called while people fearfully approached and retreated from the windows. As time ticked away, I noticed that I had a 360′ view of the eyeballs of all of the people in the waiting area, because wherever they were in the processing process, they all knew that they were fifteen minutes away from annihilating their travel plans, were nowhere close to completing their paperwork, and jammed open their eyelids in fearful disbelief.

Finally, a growling Italian called our name, grabbed our stack of papers, and slid them under the glass.  He ignored some of the very documents that required the most duplication, scoffed at some, and demanded more copies of others. And then he barked that he couldn’t process our visas because we had failed to attach our photos to the applications.  We totally understood that, because of course we would sign the photo and then seal it to the application.  ?

With only minutes remaining, we tore downstairs to a copy center, made copies, and found glue for our pictures. Yikes. We made it back in time, and were ready to celebrate our success. And then Signore Cranky demanded to see the lease for our apartment. We didn’t have a lease, but we did have landlords, and an email confirming that we’d sign the papers in Italy. “NO!” he blasted. “You must have a signed lease orNO VISA!!” With that he stomped a hand stamp over our documents, and we were dismissed.

Several weeks later, our passports arrived in the mail, with a year-long visa attached. We were going to Italy. For a whoooollle year.

I tacked a postcard of a Vespa parked on an Italian street to the wall above my office computer.  I told clients I was leaving, but not my heinous boss. I saved that for my last staff meeting.  The boss, a tiny but vicious man who was later reassigned to prevent contact with humans, ended the meeting with his usual “Does anyone have anything else to add?”

“I do.” I announced. “This is my last staff meeting. I’m leaving to spend a year in Italy.”  The boss’s head snapped back on his head hard enough to chip a few vertebrae. “You’re what?!”

“I’m leaving. I’m going to spend a year in Italy.”  His face began to pale and puff, exactly like a marshmallow cooking in a microwave.  ”"You’re…leaving?” It was all I could do not  to reply: “Oh, so that means you weren’t bugging my office?”

“Where will you live in Italy?” he sputtered.

“In Modena. In the north, near Bologna. It’s where they make Ferraris and balsalmic vinegar.” And where the boss had spent idyllic summers taking tennis lessons while he was in college.  I chatted brightly about my coming adventures teaching and traveling, and thanked everyone for being such wonderful colleagues. It was the most satisfying quitting scene in history, and I enjoyed every second.



L’ho fatto! I did it!  I took the train from Milan to Modena, and I did not end up on an ice floe!  Well, almost.

I am logistically challenged and have no sense of direction. I am afraid of many things, including sandwich-stealing emus. My biggest travel-related fear involves Italian trains, specifically taking the train from Modena to Milan and back. I usually travel with my husband Andy, who believes that train schedules and departure boards can be used to control one’s destiny, or at least one’s destination. He has tried to explain how it all works….

La la la la….

But this trip I’m flying solo and will have to figure it out for myself; in order to visit my friend Melanie, who lives in Milan, I’ll have to laugh in the face of my fear. Or at least smirk at it as I tremble uncontrollably.

My Train-to-Milan fear has many subparts. I am afraid to buy the ticket, either from a ticket seller, or from a machine. I’m afraid of getting on the wrong train. And I’m terrified of the Milan train station.

I am as terrified of the Milan train station as I am of emus.

Emus are as big as ostriches, only uglier. I once had lunch in a wildlife park in Australia where emus roamed freely. While tourists lunched at a picnic area, emus stalked the tables. Their fist-sized heads darted between the diners, seizing food off the plates in their vise-like beaks. Emu noggins are hideously joined, by a long muscular neck, to linebacker-sized bodies, which attach to leathery legs, that end in rapier-sharp claws. Emus are extremely stupid and may not draw a distinction between a picnicker and her entree’.  So if an emu wants a sandwich, it’s best to fork it over.

Emus frighten me, but as long as I stay out of Aussie wildlife parks during meals, I can generally avoid them.  But I couldn’t go all the way to Italy without visiting my fabulista fashionista friend Mel, so I had to steel myself for a trip into the very aorta of my neuroses: Milano Centrale.

Milan’s central station is a menacing mini-metropolis of heroin addicts,  gypsies, and non-denominational pickpockets.  Like emus at a picnic, they feast on the naivte of tourists who don’t realize they’re on the menu.

There are two ways to buy an Italian train ticket: from a ticket machine, or from a Trenitalia clerk. The fastest way to buy an Italian train ticket is from a ticket machine. It is theoretically possible to push the right buttons, put in money, and end up with a ticket to the destination of your choosing. Except that while you’re trying to figure out how to work the machine, a gypsy is reaching past your face and pressing random buttons. Gypsy women expect to be paid for this assistance, which may or may not result in a ticket you can use, but often results in the transfer of your wallet to her pickpocket companion right behind you.  Heroin addicts perform the same ticket-confusion service, but louder and more erratically.  If you refuse their assistance, they get enraged. Think of the zombie dancers in Thriller, add tuberculosis, and you’re there.

The first time Andy and I visited the Milan station, I was so disgusted by the Oliver-esque main terminal that I fled with the kids to the relatively sedate international ticket area. There was no place to sit, but as we leaned against the wall next to a bank of ticket machines, I watched well-heeled travelers attempt to use them. They wore the same perplexed expressions as the people in the main terminal, but better shoes.

The international terminal was crowded, the ticket lines were barely moving. A chicly harried passenger, obviously a businesswoman who didn’t want to miss her train, attempted to speed things along by assisting the woman in front of her with the machine.  How civilized. Until I noticed that a man behind the assisted traveller was helping himself to her wallet. AIIIIEEE!!!!

Train ticket machines are the platter on which tourists are served to petty thieves.

There is another option; stand in a Trenitalia ticket line and attempt to wrest a ticket from a train clerk. My fear of Trenitalia clerks is almost rational. When we first moved to Italy, I used my elementary Italian to ask a ticket agent for a round-trip ticket. He scoffingly sneered at my accent, and sold me a one-way ticket at three times the normal price.

Trenitalia clerks are tied in malevolence with Italian postal employees: when Satan needs evil minions for a big job, he calls the train station.

It’s not just the train station inhabitants, I find the Milan station frightening in itself. The Milan train station is connected to the Milan Metro. If I get on a Metro train by mistake, I could be hopelessly lost in a city where the local population is as well-dressed and friendly as Heidi Klum.  Uh oh.

The train station is also connected to a million trains. If I get on the wrong train, I could not only end up in the wrong city in Italy, I could end up in the wrong country in Europe.

Europe includes many odd countries with indecipherable languages, and is small enough that I could get hopelessly off-track. My fear-based-worst-case scenario is that I could somehow end up in a train station in Iceland.  I hate to be cold and am wearing only ballerina flats, so besides the language barrier, Iceland would present  huge logistical problems.

I am proud to say I actually got myself from Modena to Milan on the train, with only a few emotional scars and a hugely fabulous Train Swain Rescue Anecdote:

In Modena, I bought a ticket to Milan, from a machine. When I checked the Departures board, I learned that the ticket I had purchased was for a train that had been cancelled - cancellato. So I stood in line, and actually convinced a Trenitalia clerk to change my ticket to one I could use. Yesss!!!!  I just had to call Melanie from the train to tell her my new arrival time.

Once on the train, I turned on my cell phone. Of course it was dead.  (I think they call them cell phones because I always end up talking to myself.)

Time to panic: It would be crazy to wander around the Milan train station, asking for directions to the pay phone. (The Thriller video is instructive here.) I would have to ask for help before I got to Milan.  Snoozing across from me, slumped and rumply, was a man of uncertain age.  While we rode to Milan he made a few calls on his cell phone, and his voice sounded like odd grunts in an alien language. How could ask this man for help? But as the train neared Milan Centrale, my desperation gave me courage to ask him about phones. I spoke in Italian, “I am an American, and my phone is dead.  Are there public phones in the train station?”

He sat up, removed his sunglasses, and I was looking directly into the heart-melting eyes of a young, very Italian version of George Clooney.  Heavens. And I mean that. He spoke English, and said he’d help me. He carried my luggage off the train, showed me the pay phones, and explained how to use them.  He was so kind, and I was so relieved I called him my angel. As we walked, we talked, and let’s just say that I understand the psychology of gorgeous Italian men a little better. He was devastatingly charming, and adorably handsome. It’s working for him. But I wouldn’t count on fidelity, ladies; I told him my angel had slightly gray wings. He chuckled.

In the delightful way of Italy, a dead cell phone led to sweet laughter and unexpected beauty.  How can you not love Italy???

We found Melanie, I had an amazing time in Milan, and now, a week later,  I’m on my way back to Modena.

But in order to avoid ending up in Iceland, I have to buy the appropriate train ticket in the dreaded Milan station; I opt for the ticket machine/gypsy/pickpocket/challenge, and hope to avoid escalating to the enraged-addict option.

I choose a bank of machines in a well-lit area with no lines, and no helpful gypsies.  I.can.do.this. The machine asks a series of questions, which you answer until a gypsy comes up and starts pushing random buttons and steals all your stuff. Okey dokey, let’s get started. For the language I would like to be confused in, I choose English. Where do I want to go? Modena isn’t on the destination list, so I chose “Other Destinations,” use the on-screen keyboard to spell out “Modena,” ….Va bene….

A list of trains to Modena appears. I want the 9:50a.m. train, arriving at 11:36. Before I left for the train station, I checked the online train schedule. The online schedule said that I should take train #2275. I seared this information into my memory along with my Italian shoe size. But now that I’m in the station they’ve switched trains on me, now it’s train #615. What happened to #2275? I picture God picking up #2275, placing it neatly on an unused track, and substituting #615 in its place. If that is God’s will, I will take the other train.

Good Lord…..

I have discovered the secret to the collapse of the Roman Empire. While I write about Italian trains, an Italian man walks by.  My gaze locks onto his crisp cotton shirt in an inescapable shade of cobalt. Why look away? His cheekbones and jawline are so chiselled, I’ll bet he tastes metal. Aviator sunglasses framed in gold glint against his perfectly tanned skin, echoing highlights in his carelessly flawless hair. I have to look at all of him, and discover all of the ways he is magnificent.

So instead of thinking and writing about Italian train travel, my brain has veered off track and is running its lips over a perfect, and  I mean that, stranger’s cheekbones. But I digress.

This is why Italy doesn’t care whether anything ever gets done here:  Because it is impossible to think strategically, or even rationally, when your thoughts are continuously interrupted by piercingly perfect beauty. Women and men are so distractingly amazing that your brain has to stop what it’s doing to process the details: tendrils of lace linger over cleavage that rivals the Grand Canyon, a flash of crystals  sparkle like snowflakes with every flutter of tapered fingers.  A bronze silk mini- skirt is an open invitation in fabric, men’s shirts caress contours and dare you to hug them back, men’s suits seduce; how does well-cut wool make one wobbly?? These people are utterly, charmingly, disarmingly gorgeous.

The decline of the Roman Empire most likely began right after the Romans abandoned their shapeless togas for flattering clothes that showcase Italian beauty and an inimitable sense of style.  Why did Rome fall? After the Romans took a good look at each other, they abandoned world conquest and concentrated on conquering the world of fashion, and each other.  That was a very wise move. Just ask my Angel With Gray Wings.

But I digress. L’ho fatto: I did it! I faced my fear of the Milan train station, I bought a ticket to Modena and I am now on the train.

Let’s pretend that I handled the Milan ticket machine like a pro, that the machine didn’t repeatedly insist that my card was inserted incorrectly, so that a frustrated Italian man did not have to tell me to leave my card in the machine long enough for my order to process. Let’s pretend that I didn’t get so flustered even the heroin addicts were embarrassed for me. Sigh.

The machine wanted my card to stay in the slot long enough so that I’d have time to save the Aussie couple at the next machine from being assisted by a gypsy.  In gratitude, the Aussies offered to help me find my train. Sadly, there wasn’t time to discuss my emu fixation.

Eventually, the ticket machine spat out a ticket, I found my new train number on the departures board, and  my new train, that God personally placed on Track 9, was waiting for me.  And that’s where I am right now, in a carriage with five lovely Italians. I have faced my fear and am smiling even more maniacally than usual.

I’m sure we will all have a great time in Iceland.

The U.S. State Department has issued a warning that Americans traveling in Europe could be targeted in attacks on tourist areas.  In response to this alert, counter-terrorism experts recommend that you avoid clothing that identifies you as an American. Distinctly American clothing includes shorts, sneakers and boxy cotton separates. What you wear can bring you unwanted attention. How do you dress to fit in?

I lived in Italy for a year, traveled to fifty European cities in eight countries, and just returned from another trip to Italy, which included a stop in Milan during Fashion Week.  Americans are easy to spot in a European crowd because of the way they dress.  Paying attention to those differences can help you blend in.

In general, Europeans dress more formally than Americans.  Have you seen Mad Men, or Leave it To Beaver? Like Don and Betty Draper, Europeans advertise their adult tastes in fabrics cut to flirt and flatter.  Americans also wear styles from the 1950s – but they dress more like Wally and “the Beave.”  Americans, in sneakers, jeans, and baseball caps, wear what children wore  in the 1950s.

Americans are obvious in a European crowd because the color and cut of their clothing is distinctively American. In general, Europeans wear muted tones and form-fitting clothes.  Europeans wear black, and shades of beige, gray, and olive, not bright whites or bold colors. Here are specific tips for men, women, and kids:

What Do European Men Wear?

While American Baby Boomers wear cotton pants, like khaki colored Dockers, European men wear rayon or wool pants in dark colors. One odd exception: Italian men wear bright-brick-red pants; don’t try that at home. American men of all ages favor boxy cotton shirts in plaids or bright colors or baggy t-shirts; older Europeans wear fitted polos in darker shades.  European twenty-somethings don’t wear baggy t-shirts, they show off their slim torsos in tight-fitting polos or dress shirts cut to flatter their abs.

The term “European Cut” is, ahem, fitting: based on size alone, it’s easy to pick Americans out of a crowd. But well-cut clothes in darker colors are slimming and help Americans to “fit” in.

There are also definite differences in the way European men wear shorts and shoes. When vacationing in Europe, American men dress very casually, as if they’re going to a ball game.  Europeans may dress more formally because they’re on their way to work, not play. But even on vacation, European dress to impress. They tend not to wear shorts, but if they do, their shorts have slim-cut pockets (no cargo bulges) and are worn with a country-club polo.

What about shoes? Europeans wear athletic shoes, but the style of the shoe is different. Americans wear sneakers with very thick white soles, and  uppers that are bright white with lots of contrasting trim. European athletic shoes tend leather in black or muted colors. The sole of the shoe is thin, and the shoe itself is tapered, not clunky – European athletic shoes look more like regular shoes than sneakers. American sneakers do stand out, and you can be recognized as an American for wearing them.

To blend in, wear real shoes, or dark athletic shoes. Men blend best in dark-colored polo shirts, dark pants. Don’t wear Dockers – they are distinctly American.  Don’t use a fanny pack, get a man-bag in leather or a dark color, and put your camera and souvenirs in the man bag.  No baseball caps, either – that’s totally American, and let’s leave that to to the Beave.

What Do European Women Wear?

To dress like a Euro woman, think muted shades in drapey and fitted fabric. Boxy cotton in shades and prints that would look appropriate on the wall of a nursery or child’s room will stand out in a European crowd.

Women will blend best in muted colors, in rayon or polyester. Black works everywhere in Europe, and travels well. In Italy, the most popular colors are shades of plum, olive, taupe and black.  Jeans, even jean jackets, in darker shades are fine during the day, but don’t wear brightly colored cotton separates. Skirts are dressier than shorts, and look great with ballerina flats. If you wear shorts, they should be long (to the knee or lower) and not baggy.

In the fall, a Dark trench coat travels beautifully; for the winter, a well-cut black coat is chic and stylish. If you’re wearing sweaters, go for solid colors in darker shades, no plaids or prints. A black sweater you can dress up with a scarf is a great choice. Black pants with a touch of Lycra hide food stains, city grime and excess baggage. Sweater dresses with tights and boots are comfortable and Continental.

In any season, lose the bright-white, thickly padded sneakers! By all means wear comfortable shoes, you’ll need them. But wear leather shoes in muted shades. Always avoid flashy jewelry – that only gets you attention from people who want to steal it. Souvenir bags and cameras mark you as a tourist, so carry a big black shoulder bag for your camera and purchases.  And pick up scarves in silk or cotton – they’ll keep you warm and help you blend in.

What Do European Kids Wear?

European kids look like kids everywhere: they wear jeans, t-shirts, and shorts. European teens tend to wear dark, clingy clothes, hoodies, and skinny jeans. Kids wear Converse sneakers – but in bright colors, not white.

Oh Darn, You May Need to Go Shopping

Americans may be able to pull off a European look by scrounging in their own closets, but it may take a shopping trip: hey, it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Where do you buy clothes that will help you fit in? Before you leave, look for fitted clothes in dark or muted colors.  Or, on your first day in Europe, go shopping. That sounds fun, doesn’t it? You can hit the department stores, but street markets in Europe are fun to shop and tend to have great prices. Be sure to bring a size conversion chart, because you usually can’t try things on.

If you’d like to shop with an expert in European fashion, Melanie Payge of PlanMilan will show you the best of Milan fashion – and help you focus your shopping on what looks best on you. For a fun expedition, for yourself and your friends, schedule a makeover with your very own fashionista!  http://www.planmilan.com/2701/index.html

If you’re on your way to Europe, get ready for a fabulous time, and enjoy every minute.  But during this alert, it’s a good idea  to look less like a tourist and more like part of the crowd. Especially when that crowd looks so fabulous.

Carpi Diem. No really, the town is called Carpi.

1. Pack light. Unless it’s cold where you’re going. Then pack heavy, so you don’t have to buy another jacket just like the three you left at home.

2. Always pack a bathing suit, so you don’t have to buy one that’s way less flattering than the three you left at home.

3. Europeans invented a lot of languages so Americans would feel grateful for pharmacists who speak English.

4. Living like a local is a lot more fun if you’re living like a local rich person.

5. Don’t try to craft the ultimate travel experience. Have fun with tourist traps, and spend time off the beaten trail – but always enjoy just being out of your element.

6. Humidity matters. As water vapor increases, so do bugs, laundry (because of either sweat or need for extra layers), fatigue, and crankiness. When packing, consider temperature and humidity.

7. Never look a gypsy in the eye if you’re going to say no. Her contempt will burn out your corneas.

8. Don’t buy anything made in China, unless you’re in China. That will eliminate most foolish purchases.

9. Local spices make great gifts.

10. Guidebooks are written to make you feel bad about all the cool stuff you don’t have time to see, and all the fascinating facts you won’t remember.  The only people who have time to see every”Highly Recommended” site in the guidebook wrote the guidebook. People who write guidebooks are compensating for some major personal inadequacies.

11. Never let a junkie help you work the train ticket machine.

12. Never tick off a junkie who wants to help you work the train ticket machine.

13. No matter who you are and what you’re wearing, encounters with Turkish toilets always end badly.

A  nine-year old boy was the sole survivor of a plane crash that killed 103 people, including his parents and his eleven-year old brother.  The little boy was photographed in his hospital room, while he was dizzy from anesthesia after 4 1/2 hours of surgery to repair multiple leg fractures. CNN flashed tight closeups of the little boy’s face.  His face was pale and swollen, his head was snaked with IVs and wrapped in bandages, his skin was stretched by an oxygen mask.

Every major news site, including MSNBC, FOX, and CNN carried video and photos of the little boy in his hospital bed. The video showed flashes of light bounce off the sheets: in addition to the film crew, there were photographers in the room. Photographers took many shots from different angles, and recorded changes in the little boy’s face over time as the swelling in his face went down, and the bruises deepened.

Hours after surgery, before his aunt and uncle arrived at the hospital, his doctor handed the boy a cell phone, so he could talk to a reporter about the crash.  He didn’t know his family had died.

When he was released from the hospital, photographers mobbed the gurney as a little boy with two broken legs was carried to an ambulance. News sites continue to carry photos and video of the battered boy in his hospital bed.  On every major news site, there are photographs and videos of that small sad boy.

Why?

He is a second grader. His parents are dead and he was in pain. He was a Dutch kid in a Libyan hospital, surrounded by strangers.  He needed love and comfort, but at a minimum he deserved quiet and rest.  He survived a tragedy most of us couldn’t imagine. Who should be in with him?  His doctors and nurses. People who love him.

But not strangers seeking to capture his misery on video.  Who lets a cameraman into a hospital room?

None of us should be there, either.  The media should have respected his right to be left alone.

I emailed CNN about their policy on photographing minors who cannot give consent. A nine-year old orphan emerging from anesthesia cannot consent to be photographed, cannot give permission to broadcast video of his battered face.  I also asked about the line between news and exploitation. CNN responded with new footage today, of the home the boy will share with his aunt and uncle. There’s no breaking news like a firmly shut front door.

CNN didn’t answer my question, because media has erased the line between news and exploitation.  MSNBC today carried video of a mother who was swept out to sea and drowned after pushing her child to safety.  What better way to honor her memory than to post her death on MSNBC?

What is the difference between major news outlets and snuff videos? Only that news clips are narrated by sanctimonious reporters.  Either way, they’re pimping tragedy for our entertainment. Does anyone care?

Sometimes, suffering is news. Cameras can open a window into tragedy and trigger compassion.  If a tsunami hits in a place we can’t pronounce, we turn away. But when we see families fighting for survival, we write checks. We send money, in hopes that we can help the children we saw sobbing on the beach. The photographs connect us to the tragedy and our connection helps to alleviate suffering.

But this little boy is presented as a freak.  A miracle. The headlines tell the story:  ”Fate or Fluke? Air Crash Sole Survivor.” “Crash Survivor Doesn’t Know Family is Dead.” “”‘Miracle” Crash Boy Returns to Netherlands.”  This little boy’s sole survivor status gives us the right to witness his suffering because he is news.  He crash-landed into The Truman Show.

I grew up during the Vietnam war, and remember distinctly the face of the little girl running from a napalm attack. I remember the grimace of a Viet Cong prisoner just as a bullet was about to enter his brain. Those are iconic images of individual suffering that captured the horrors of war.

What do the photos and video of this little boy capture?  The perils of air travel?

I live in Colorado, ten minutes from Columbine High School, and I will never forget the public memorial service.  The streets around the school were heaped with flowers, the fences were lined with tributes from kids from all over the country. Magic-markered condolences ran in the rain, a rainbow of tears. As grieving kids and their parents approached a popular spot to leave flowers, dozens of cameras snapped each mourner. The photographers took thousands of photos in order to capture the most evocative image of unimaginable pain. That is sick. Above the crowd, news helicopters droned.  This was private grief for public consumption.

At least the Columbine memorial was in a public place. But this insatiable search for fresh images of grief now follows small caskets into churches, where families mourn. Why would a church allow a camera into a funeral service? The raw suffering of a parent is not news, and a funeral is not a photo- op.

Private agony is not news. We have no right to gape at a child who has no one to protect him from our gaze. That mother’s death is a private tragedy seared into her family’s memory.  It shouldn’t be a click away for the idly curious.

We have to demand an end to this macabre quest for searing images of someone else’s pain.

Earth to Media: We’ve seen enough.

In Italy, I had a fabulous hairdresser named Patricia. She sold me the only bottle of shampoo that ever made my hair shiny. That shampoo was confiscated in an ugly incident involving carry-on luggage and airport security. I accept the apologies of the flying public, whose safety was secured with my sixteen ounces of Schwartzkoff’s Hair Restorer.  Although Suspect Schwartzkoff was shipped to Guantanamo for questioning, that bottle was totally cleared of any involvement in terrorist activity. So I ask that it be released into my custody.

Like a bout with airport security, I always had to brace myself for a haircut with Patricia. Stepping into her mango-colored salon, I was enveloped in a creamy mousse of captivating conversation and rich laughter.  We laughed about everything women talk about: men, kids, politics, religion. We spoke in rapid Italian, and I was always a few syllables short of full understanding, so with every new topic, my brain veered like an exhilarated kid on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. When my appointment was over, and I stepped back onto the sidewalk, my heart had been rattled like a maraca, and my crankiness gently fluttered to the pavement, like hair clippings.

Patricia was only hairdresser I ever understood, and I didn’t understand a sizeable chunk of what she was saying.

We were friends, so every time she cut my hair, Patricia became more invested in passing me off as a real Italian. Although many Italians are born with ebony curls, Italians do not accept the limitations of nature, they subdue and triumph over it. Italian women defy gravity with fabulous bosoms and stiletto heels.  Men scoff at summer heat in close-cut gabardine suits.  Michelangelo didn’t make his David life-sized, Michelangelo made him big enough to live forever.

Italians don’t covet natural beauty. Nature envies the art and allure of every Italian.

So Italians manage their natural resources. They dye their hair, in colors on the russet spectrum between copper and Lambrusco. Although Modena had many elderly residents, gray hair was sparse; male and female brunettes over forty tinged their locks to a brickish hue. Younger women opted for a high-gloss pomegranate finish. Their hair sparkled audibly, like wind chimes. But to make it sing, you have to take out the kinks.

Patricia hoped that I would go burgundy, but her first priority was curl removal. Every visit, as I sank into her swivel chair and faced the mirror, she would plunge her fingers deep into my unruly mop, and pull. Then she’d flip open a pamphlet of hair straightening products.  She’d point out their various merits, hoping to begin with one that lasted only three weeks: surely, I’d come to my senses.

I demurred but never wavered. Patricia was so intent on performing a humanitarian service this didn’t dissuade her. Not until she was sure  the pamphlet had convinced me to go straight at my next appointment would she pull out her scissors. She did a wonderful job. When she finished cutting, my hair was wild and tousled and I looked twenty years younger and impossibly chic.  I have never been able to accomplish that at home. So I would say: “Mi piace molto, come questo.” I like this a lot, just like this. But these words merely unleashed a tsunami of wave removal.

In this phase, Patricia would grab a metal roller brush used to pave highways, trap a ringlet in its bristles, and turn on the blow dryer. The heat was so intense it melted the fillings in my lower molars.  She dug the bristles into my scalp and pulled so hard my head would have qualified as Pilates equipment.

When she was done, and all of the waves had been wrenched from my scalp, I didn’t look ravishingly Italian, I resembled the Beatles in their Love Me Do period. Sometimes I looked like Paul, with impermeable bangs and a mahogany fringe that plummeted to my collar. Carrying  a sitar, I would have been mistaken for George. On a stormy day, I approximated Ringo in a wind tunnel.

I am philosophical about my hair, because I once experienced Hairmageddon. In my senior year of high school, I kept my hair short, and blew it dry, so for some inexplicable reason, I didn’t know that it was curly. In search of a little wave, I got a permanent.

The hairdresser wound my hair into the smallest curling rods, plastered on permanent solution, and left it in for an hour. When she took out the rods, all of the fine strands that had formed my bangs broke away, and the remaining frizz seized into a dense mushroom cloud on top of my head. I was short and pudgy, and my physique was arranged in a graduated series of ballish chunks, so with my new do, I looked like a gristly snowman. The compassionate souls at my high school called me Poodle, but they were so doubled over with laughter, I couldn’t make out what else they called me.

This is not the kind of character building experience that lends itself to greatness, but I certainly kept my perspective on the importance of a Bad Hair Day.

So when in Boston, a salon made me look so much like Hillary that Bill Clinton cheated on me, I reacted diplomatically.  In Denver, a stylist made my head into a helmet. She’d cut my hair into a ball, fluff it into a sphere, and coat it with so much hairspray I’d draw blood breaking through the crust. No worries, it wasn’t permanent. And no matter what style I tried, my curls would revert to the same lunatic fringe.  After every shampoo, my freak flag flew.

I didn’t need a magenta mane to feel Italian all the way to my roots; I love my hair just the way it is. And I loved Patricia, who made every moment in her chair a dizzying ride into her world.

She loves you ya ya ya yaaaaah…..

 My top 10 Favorite Things to Do in Italy. Okay, 8, Because the Site Wouldn’t Let Me List 10.

I also learned that Europeans do not greet every American like a conquering hero. Really, they’re over that whole WWII thing, and we need to move on.

And that in an international arena, being a jerk can get you labelled as a Nazi and an imperialist. And that’s just on a mommy blog.

First, the good news: America has many natural wonders that Europeans want to visit. The US, like the chests of Italian women, overflows with the bounties of nature. The Founding Fathers scored a continent that was the Marilyn Monroe of the Americas, a land of ample splendors.  But what did we do with our bodacious booty? We clothed our purple mountain majesties in the aesthetic equivalent of a lumpish cardigan festooned with Bud Light logos.   We schlepped our assets into saggy sweatpants, jammed ourselves into Day-Glo rubber shoes, and finished off our “look” with a big ole foam finger.  Americans, go watch a Rick Steves travel video!!  We’re not Number One, we look like Number Two. We have frumpified Lady Liberty!

How did our country end up a Cosmo Fashion Don’t? We once were blessed with vast rolling plains,  lovely wooded hills, craggy peaks, and crystalline shores.  But we flooded our landscape with asphalt,  then sealed ourselves into human storage modules, with the aesthetic appeal of the shelving systems sold at The Dollar Store.  When we finished uglifying our cities and Tupperwaring our towns, we crept home to identically beige boxes.

America The Beautiful now looks like the tabloid centerfolds of Kirstey Alley, and it’s not pretty.

Why doesn’t America dress to impress? It’s  not a lack of time or money.  As much as I appreciate the post-modernist appeal of a WalMart parking lot and a string of fastfooderies, the creation of beauty has always been a key expression of the power of the human spirit. But we seem to have left that off of our national To Do list for the last four hundred years. Sure the economy’s in the tank now, but what did we build before the bubble burst?  We tripled the size of Vegas, put up paper palaces in seventy shades of oatmeal, and plastic Pizza Huts.

All over the world, in every agonized age,  artists created architecture under much worse conditions than we face now. Europe is beautiful because during endless wars, famines, and the scourge of disease, Europeans continued to create, and to preserve, lovely and enduring structures.  Other countries with less moxie and lower GNP look better in photo ops. So it’s not too much to demand better from the developers who design the places we live and work: “If you’re going to build it, make it beautiful, and make it worth saving for future generations. Then we’ll come.”

In Europe I learned that humans and landscapes can make my soul shimmer.  That’s a souvenir worth keeping.

I also learned that Americans have to stop milking US heroics in World War II, because Europeans are totally over it. Sure, the little French town facing Omaha Beach holds a photograph of returning WWII vets, with the caption “Welcome To Our Liberators.” The town of Arromanches is stuffed with WWII memorabilia, including American flags and miniature US tanks. And everybody agrees that American soldiers were instrumental in helping to eliminate the Nazi menace. What a glorious thing to be proud of!! And we are!!

But Europeans, who actually lived, and in mass quantities, died, in Europe during the war, have a slightly different take on things. For instance, “That is soo great that you bombed the bejeebers out of the German army!! Well done!! Unfortunately, both you and the Germans were camped in our cities at the time!!”  Europeans might also point out that while America was giving itself a big ole group hug for swooping in and saving the world, it wasn’t that the French and the Italians and the Dutch weren’t really interested in throwing off the evil invaders, they were kinda distracted by mass starvation, and the shooting of civilizations, and deportations to death camps.

So what you read on the war memorials tucked all over Europe is not “Thank God for America, and Its Eternal Superiority!!”  The plaques read, “In this place in the public square, beloved citizens of our town were shot and killed by the Nazis, and died a heroic death in the defense of our own country and its proud people. We will never forget their sacrifice.”  No really, it is about them. And giving them McDonald’s and bad coffee is not helping their mood.

But what was most fascinating was finding out what being “an American” meant.

During the peak of the H1N1 flu scare, I learned that being made in America could help, or it could hurt. Because I was outside of the Italian health care system, covered only by an international insurance policy of uncertain dimensions, I was nervous about getting sick. The fact that H1N1 was actually killing people, especially children, was somewhat of a worry. Okay, that painting of The Scream expressed my fears nicely.

Andy and I taught American undergrads in a study abroad program. So when Andy was hit by flu symptoms on a field trip to Rome, (he was flu-struck while slumping on an elegant white leather couch in a bar overlooking the Coliseum) we tried to quarantine him in the apartment until he was no longer contagious. To prevent him from spreading the flu to our students, he stayed away from the office the whole week he was sick.

He tried to avoid infecting our kids, but with little hot water, and in a small apartment, it happened: Annalise got the flu.  She developed a high fever and a headache. To minimize the spread of the flu, the kids’ school requested that students stay home for two days after the fever was gone, or until sick family members were free of symptoms. Though Alex was fine, we kept him home for a few days.  After three days,  Annalise’s fever broke, and on the second day without fever, we were happy she could go back to school. But 48 hours after her temperature returned to normal, her fever came back, and brought with it a cough.

This was a scary time, not just because I was reading in Modena’s newspaper about high numbers of children with H1N1, and flu fatalities among young and healthy people. Our internet connection was spotty, and just when I needed to communicate  with our doctors, I couldn’t reach them. I tried to call Annalise’s pediatrician, but had lost the number. Our American doctor, also in Bologna, didn’t answer calls or texts. My concern that Annalise’s cough was the secondary pneumonia that seemed to be killing kids. But I had no one to ask, and how would I know?

So I called Melanie, who of course knows everything. She said to go to a Pronto Soccorso, an emergency room, where we would wait four or five hours to be seen. But if Annalise didn’t have Andy’s flu, she had a great opportunity to catch someone else’s. Okay, no. Or we could call Italy’s home health service, where EMTs would come to our apartment, but Melanie was skeptical of their medical prowess. “Go to Pronto Soccorso,” she insisted, but without a clear sign that that was necessary, we continued to worry and wait.

When her cough and fever lasted a second day, we took a cab to the only hospital we had every used, Hesperia. Hesperia is a private hospital where our doctor once sent me for tests. After four nights without sleep, I stood in front of Hesperia’s lovely receptionist, and could say nothing. I had no Italian words to explain what we needed, and she didn’t speak English. So I dialed Melanie, and gave the phone to the receptionist, who told Melanie that Hesperia didn’t have an ER and didn’t take walk-ins. Melanie begged the receptionist to take pity on the clueless Americans. The receptionist  called a pediatrician to examine Annalise.  Thanks to Melanie, we didn’t have to wait four hours in a room full of people spewing various germs, we sat on a hall with women waiting for face-lifts. Sometimes cluelessness has its advantages.

By the time the pediatrician arrived, I had translated Annalise’s symptoms, and our fears, into Italian. The fatherly doctor checked her thoroughly, found no sign of pneumonia, and sent us on our way. Phew.

The kids went back to school, symptom free. And then on Monday morning, Alex’s class left on a seven-hour train ride for a five-day field trip to Germany. On the train platform, I said goodbye to my son and heard something about his roommate being home with a fever that weekend. When later I learned that the roommate’s brother was very ill, and that the roommate was sick as recently as Saturday afternoon, within the two-day contagion window, I emailed the mom on Tuesday to ask how her son was doing.

What happened next was very funny, if your kid wasn’t sharing a hotel room in another country with a kid who might contagious with a potentially fatal disease. The mom’s emailed response was breezily oblique. She said she hadn’t spoken to her son, but he was fine when he left on Monday.  Fine on Monday, is he fine on Tuesday?  I dunno. So my next question was more precise: “At what date and time did the fever end?” She answered: ”Saturday afternoon.” My own child got sick again after 48 hours, and so did that woman’s younger son, which left open the question: Was my son’s roommate still sick? And contagious?

So now it’s Tuesday, and I don’t know if my son is in Germany with Typhoid Mary, I don’t know if the teachers know that the child could be contagious, and Roomie’s Mom couldn’t have been any more terse if she were texting with two hands tied behind her back.  Apparently my two questions were the maternal equivalent of water boarding:  They didn’t yield any useful intel.  But I felt like I had to know what was going on, for my son’s sake, and the sake of the other kids.  So I emailed “If you don’t call the teachers, I will.”  The response?  “Be my guest, dear.”

That made me feel much better about the entire situation. And then I read the mom’s blog, where I learned that my questions constituted a witch hunt. I learned about the tedium of having to muster fake concern for other moms who were actually worried, since this mom believes in abandoning her own kids to their viral fate. This information stuck in my craw like an exploding land mine. So did the part about flu not being a big deal because Germany has excellent hospitals. I responded with a comment on her blog, from the perspective of the mom whose son was sharing a room with a potentially contagious kid.

That’s when it got interesting. Roomie’s Mom provided me and the blogosphere the critical information that although she hadn’t talked to her son, her son’s friends said he was fine, and that the teachers were aware of the fact that he might be contagious, and were watching him to make sure he was okay.  But I totally understand that you wouldn’t want to put that in an email response to a direct question.

Now I was angry because I worried for no reason.  I had plenty of other things freak about, like our lack of dependable insurance. I didn’t need to add new items to my Basket O’ Noivus Condition.  I tried to point out that she should have told me before they left, and that she could have told me in the email that she knew that her son was fine.  But the comment space in her blog wouldn’t accept the War and Peace version of my response, it wanted three characters or less.  So I spit something out, and fumed.

The mom replied to my comments, and so did her blog friends.  The mom responded that my worry was overblown: eight moms with small kids were invited to lunch while her younger child was home sick with fever. All eight moms came, and they all laughed off fears of the danger of flu.  The lunch moms, and sundry friends she polled, agreed I was rude to demand that she call the teacher to make sure her son was fine.  And let’s not forget that Germany has excellent hospitals. See, that part about Europe laughing in the face of danger is totally true, and that’s why they have such fabulous cities.

The mommies at lunch scenario, tittering over a lunatic who had no respect for German hospitals, was maddening.  Especially because I didn’t know if they were the mothers of my daughter’s friends.  Or if the mommies she polled were the mothers of my son’s friends.

I am an idiot, and I like to argue. So I tried to respond again.  ”If letting moms know is a courtesy extended for a lunch visit, it’s even more important when a child is on a class trip in another country. And I don’t want to hear that the hospitals in Germany are first rate!”

And then came the return volley.  Several mommy bloggers said I was paranoid, one sighed that it was too bad that moms at our school weren’t particularly nice, and two others sniffed that when they had once admitted that their kids were sick, they were mercilessly hounded for illness updates, and  would never disclose a symptom again. But one mom was the Mother of All Mothers: She called me a Nazi, for worrying about such piffle.

The purpose of the class trip to Germany was for the kids to visit a concentration camp. You know, so we never forget.  And I was called a Nazi for needing assurance that the kids were alright. Sometimes irony is funny, sometimes not so much.

Roomie’s Mom came back with one more response, and added a few painful zingers about other troubling aspects of my behavior that Had Been Noted by other moms. That stung, mostly because they were true, but also because I had no idea who these women were.  But she concluded her blog post with an admission of guilt on both sides: her friends said she was wrong to not tell me what what going on, but that I was wrong to ask questions in the way that I did. The final verdict? The mommybloggers denounced me for acting like an imperialistic American: That’s not the European way.

Wow – my problem wasn’t that I was acting like a worried jerk, the problem was that I acted like an American, which is all wrong for European germs.

How did it end? I realized I was being an idiot. I was arguing online with people I didn’t know, shadow boxing  in a crawl space, fighting over a  misunderstanding that only got more bitter as it continued. I apologized, and never looked at that blog again.

When the field trip ended and we picked up the kids at the train station, I kept my back to the crowd of moms on the platform. I didn’t know who the eight moms were, or whether any of these people answered the poll, and I didn’t know if the woman who called me a Nazi was within choking distance.  To her credit, Roomie’s mom approached me, and gave me a hug. We embraced, and I let go of my anger.  But I was no longer interested in bonding with the school moms, I was embarassed and uncomfortable.  Although I really liked some of those women, the anonymous attacks made me distrust the whole bunch.

It was another Teachable Moment in my European Adventure. I learned a lot: We aren’t the world. We’re wearing labels that define us, but maybe not the labels that we think we’re wearing. I’m an effete easterner leftist liberal vegetarian who didn’t have good insurance. I’m a lawyer: I love to argue. That’s enough to be called a jerk in any country. But on an international mommy blog, I became a  rude and paranoid imperialist, because sometimes that’s the label that explains American behavior: adopt a certain tone, and all of a sudden you’re Dick Cheney. I considered emailing His Surliness, to see how he handled the hate, but I decided that if the mommysphere thought my problem was that I was an American, my response was “So?”

I learned a lot from Europeans. I learned a lot about how America sees itself, and how others see us. I learned that nationality can become an explanation for purely human behavior, and that using your words can raise a lot more questions than it answers.  I learned how quickly trust erodes, and that when you put the name of a group on that mistrust, you eliminate a whole lot of options to move forward.

It was a relief to come home, and get my labels back:  Pinko Easterner Liberal Lawyer. Here, the label of American doesn’t explain anything. But out of gratitude for my European Experience, I’m sorry that I didn’t turn into that crowd of mothers, and smile.

If I had stayed until the walls were redone, getting me on the plane would have required sedation. If our apartment had had water pressure, a washing machine that didn’t require a full-time assistant to keep it running, or maybe just an occasional splash of hot water for bathing and washing dishes, I’d want to stay forever.

Because what I left behind in Modena was an inherently interesting life. Every Monday in Modena, there is an open air market, where the bazaar meets the bizarre, and you might find the perfect purple sweater, or a great jacket for fifteen euro, but just riffling through heaps of fabric was endlessly fascinating. Modena also holds Elana’s skeptical laugh, Piero’s sun-softened studio, Annamaria’s home made pasta, Giovanna’s smile, and the beauty of Michele and Yael, a gorgeous young couple who will make Italy what it will be next. And bells and buildings and fabulous art.

Living in Italy was heaven for me, a perpetual afternoon in the library of a long-abandoned palace, with hours to explore shelves of intimate treasure: illuminated manuscripts, illustrated histories, carefully folded love letters and memento-stuffed diaries. In Modena, a city made modern by people who pre-dated the Romans, every building was a volume of secrets, every view held exquisite surprises of rich color and the living work of long-dead artists.

Heaven for me is an endless museum. But although I lived in my idea of paradise, I had to function in most Americans’ idea of hell. Italy is not efficient. Italy is not convenient. Living in Italy is not particularly comfortable. It’s a fabulous place to relax, but it’s a very hard place to get anything done, unless all you want to do is lunch.

The most basic tasks were insanely complex. How do you ship a box to the United States? The shipping rules of the Italian post office depended on the day, on the post office, on the mood of a particular employee, maybe the pollen count. The rules were never the same once, never mind during multiple transactions. Trying to complete a simple task in Italy was like trying to fill out a mortgage application while being held hostage by drunken bipolar pirates. Every transaction was a swashbuckling adventure into what I didn’t know.

But what marvelous things there were to learn! Where does this conga line of ochre buildings lead, whose heroism does this plaque remember, how does every fruit stand look like it was created by a Renaissance painter? What made each generation of Italians preserve all this, so terracotta trim and the roar of a carved marble lion still catch the afternoon sun, after five hundred, eight hundred, a thousand years?

Italians have always made an art of living, and they still do. Italians today transform automotive steel into raw power and growling desire. Italians create edible art, spend hours enjoying it, and orchestrate every outfit like they’re staging a private opera. Italy doesn’t hide its beauty in museums, or within the pages of magazines, Italian beauty is woven into everyday life, so the packets of sugar on the counter of a coffee bar are a fanned and festive sculpture, and the diplay of even ordinary objects (nail clippers! sewing kits!) beguiles the passerby.

Italians created a cult out of culture.

Such a fine basis for a civilization. Now if Italians could organize government as well as it organizes crime, establish a power grid that can support a microwave oven, and just maybe, ask dog owners to pick up the poop under the portici, Italy would be the clear winner in the You Should Be Like Us sweepstakes.

Back home, at my comfortable computer desk, with a tray that rolls out, and carpeting beneath my feet, I can only remember the colors and sounds. I have so many memories, so many photographs. In the past year, we visited fifty European cities, many of them several times. We went to Rome in early spring, in blazing summer, and dampening fall. The statue of David is an old friend. On the second visit, I spent twenty minutes just taking in the perfection of his calves: Great art takes time. Only on the third visit to the Sistine Chapel could I drop my eyes to the Botticellis surrounding the walls of the chapel, find all the places where Moses was painted, in green and yellow robes, and recognize a view of the Arch of Constantine in the Roman Forum. So many Emperors, so much time, how do I learn enough to appreciate what I have seen?

This year we walked the beaches of Normandy, had dinner with Andy’s relatives in Poland, and with mine in London. We skipped rocks in Sardegna, ate lasagna as it was served in ancient Pompeii, and retraced Galileo’s steps up the tower in Pisa. We saw Dante’s home in Florence, the church where he was married, and his tomb. On one of our last days in Italy, Annamaria poured into my palm three hundred year old aceto, her family history distilled into sweet thick drops. And Piero gave us a watercolor that he had painted, of the Duomo. I not only lived in a museum, I ate in it.

Now that I’m home I notice the differences. Everything in America is bigger. The streets, the cars, even the spaces between things, are all built on a larger scale. Toothbrushes look painfully swollen here, and mammoth stores sell them in sets of eight encased in packaging that can be opened only with wire cutters: How much plastic do we need to remove bacteria from our teeth? I bought juice glasses in Italy like some I had at home, but the American ones are double the size. Bigger glasses create bigger portions, even when you’re just drinking water. No wonder Americans have grown larger – our big cars carry big boxes over wide and unwalkable streets: our bodies can’t burn off enough calories to keep up with all the effortless consumption.

In America I am comfortable. Stores are always open; I can buy a lifetime supply of toothpaste at 3 a.m.. I know how to mail a package, I can wash and dry a week’s worth of clothes in a few hours, and have time left over to read Dante. But I can’t walk where Dante walked, I can’t climb Galileo’s tilted tower. I’m not spending an afternoon in an enchanted museum, I’m trapped in a 24/7 superstore. One that will sell me a million of anything I want, but that doesn’t hold anything I need.

I wonder if the paint is dry?