In January 1999, Terri and I were married by Travis County Justice of the Peace Scott Davis in his office in a strip mall off South Lamar. A few hours later we were headed to Italy for our honeymoon, my first ever trip to Europe. We've been traveling ever since.
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Finish stuffing more things in our suitcases then drive over to the JP's office. Wait in line behind someone paying off a traffic ticket, noisily and reluctantly. I do, she does, we're married. Rush back home. You have the passports? The cab's here. Off on a honeymoon: Austin to Chicago, Chicago to Milan, Milan to Florence. Almost 50 years old and at last I would see Europe.
On the flight across the Atlantic, free Champagne, Chablis, claret, port, Italian beer, grappa. Delay at Malpensa. Too much booze. Too little sleep. Too much excitement. Everyone speaking Italian. Weird bathrooms. Don’t understand the food.
For almost fifty years, thinking about Europe, longing for Europe, desiring Europe, craving Europe, the center of my universe, literature, art, music, philosophy, history, everything led back to Europe. At last to replace countless imaginings of Europe for the simple physical sensation of walking down a cobblestone street.
Tired, hungry, hung over, disoriented, but I was in Florence, of all places. My first meal of real Tuscan food, at Mama Gina’s in the Oltrarno. Then sleep, not sleep more like passing out, in our hotel off the north end of the Ponte Vecchio. No more dreams of Europe, no more anticipation of what it might be — look out the window and see it there below, open the window and hear it and smell it.
The first morning, in the hotel breakfast room. The coffee is different, different food, how does one eat this? and all around us are windows and beyond the windows are red-tiled roofs and steeples and television antennas and laundry hanging out to dry.
After breakfast, out into the streets, awake now and not hung over and marveling childishly at every sign, every passerby, every moto speeding past, the food in shop windows, fragments of conversations in another language. People going to work, greeting friends, talking on cell phones, setting up stalls in the markets, narrow streets and narrower sidewalks, and here I am in Europe stepping around puddles from last night’s rain.
We went into a tabbachi to get stamps and postcards. Ten minutes, so many cards, we must tell others about this place, how many stamps? Oh look at this one. How about this for Momma? Your parents would like this one. Here’s one for the kids. Fumbling with lira, how many thousands? Thank you, grazie, and back out into the street.
Still fumbling with the bag of cards and stamps and change, oddly shaped brightly colored bills each one with a bit of Italian history engraved thereon. Stop for a moment, crowds jostling by, let’s stand here for a bit until we get it all put away. Look up again, turn the corner to the right, and there it is. I stop.
But the world does not cooperate. The sidewalk is crowded, someone needs to get by, a tour bus pulls up and blocks the view, we must start thinking about lunch, the moment is gone. Or is it?
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