Taxi! Smettere di essere uno strano uovo e concentrarsi sulla strada!* (Napoli, 23-27 April 2009)

Bustling, chaotic, anarchic Naples.  Jewel of Italy’s south.  Birthplace of at least three popes and a couple of kings and queens.  Sacked and invaded by the Goths, Byzantines, Normans and other long-forgotten races in times immemorial since its founding during the 8th century BC.  Glorious, romantic, dilapidated Naples.  Its history and virtues recounted and extolled by countless poets, writers, artists, bards and troubadours throughout the ages.  The subject of many a cautionary tale (“watch your bags – the city is full of pickpockets!”, “oh, and watch out for the mafiosi too!”) and of Northern Italy’s scorn (“it’s dirty – get out of it as soon as you can!”).

We stepped off the plane onto the tarmac of Naples airport, the Italian morning sunshine making us blink as it slowly thawed our English-spring frozen bones.  The April air was heavy with the scent of spring – common enough in Europe at this time of year – but deliciously overladen with the ripe, sultry lusciousness only found in a city of the south.

But despite the weight of history, of legend, of Hollywood myth, where would Naples (or Italy) be without its food, coffee, shopping, mad taxi drivers and peacocking males?  Or, in other words, where would Italy be without those things driving three girls to the Continent for  a weekend of fun?

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Ich Bin Ein Doughnut* (Berlin, 16-19 June 2009)

Seven years of living in Europe and I’d not once made it to Germany.  And I had concluded that for all intents and purposes, I probably never would, unless an occasion demanded it.

“But you can’t leave Europe without seeing Berlin,” a friend exclaimed, aghast.  “Berlin is awesome.”

I was unconvinced.  Germanic food had never really appealed.  During visits to Vienna and Salzburg, I had initially attacked the gulasch, sachertorte, sauerkraut and apfelstrudel with gusto.  But prolonged consumption of dumplings, stew and offal had left me nauseous, plump and err… longing for a Marks & Spencer salad.  And a country known for punctual trains, dour burly, efficient folk (permit me the stereotypes, please!) and the shrill synthesized electronic beats and heart pounding bass of techno was quite the antithesis of my ideal café (con leche/au lait/latte)-quaffing people-watching foodie-fuelled break in one of the laidback, emotionally volatile Continental nations.

Still, there was that undeniable slice of history that Berlin inhabited.  I’d been fortunate enough to visit Moscow, St Petersburg, Vienna, Paris, Versailles, Rome, Budapest, Prague, Amsterdam and London, of course.  It was time to venture to the Bundesrepublik Deutschland.

La Nouvelle Année and a few of my Favourite Things

So this is the New Year/And I don’t feel any different/The clanking of crystal/Explosions off in the distance

So everybody put your best suit or dress on/Let’s make believe that we are wealthy for just this once/Lighting firecrackers off on the front lawn/As thirty dialogues bleed into one

I wish the world was flat like the old days/Then I could travel just by folding a map/No more airplanes, or speed trains, or freeways/There’d be no distance that could hold us back

- death cab for cutie

The lyrics of emo/indie fencesitters and Seth Cohen pin-ups Death Cab for Cutie seem apt as 2008 and its events (natural, political, financial - it all seemed particularly calamitous) segues quietly into 2009.