Bienvenuto a Milano

September 8, 2018

Sleeping on the Plane (Finally)

It’s been 12 years since I set foot in Italy, but in just over an hour I’m going to be back in Milan. To say that things will be different this time around would be an understatement. I can still picture the city in my head — my apartment on Via Eraclito (now renamed Via Privata Eraclito), my favorite kebap shop and pizzeria at Loreto (almost certainly not there anymore), my favorite brewery (which has since relocated) — but I expect that seeing the city I love again will be jarring in light of changes that I can’t even imagine. When I left, there were two metro lines (red and green), now there are four. The last time I was here, it was my city. It was where I lived and what I loved. I spoke the language well. By contrast, this time I’ll be a visitor, and the vestigial remains of my Italian are about as significant as a snake’s back leg bones. I still think I know my way around the city, but who knows how much of that is based on false and modified memories? This trip is a lot more luxurious, and most of the places that I spent so much time at aren’t on our itinerary (largely because they are 20-40 minutes from the city center). Regardless, I couldn’t be more excited about being back in Italy.

Ever since I came back from Italy 12 years ago, my mom has been talking about how she wants to go to Italy, and how she wants me to show her around. So, when I started thinking about what to do for her 60th birthday, Italy was the logical choice. I’ve been formally planning this trip for two years now, but I’ve been planning it in my head for far longer than that. Things have certainly changed over the last two years, and we’ve had to adjust. Truth be told, I’m a bit anxious about the trip for a number of reasons. Primary among them is the fact that I’ve never traveled internationally with a toddler (besides to Canada), and this is a big foreign trip to be Witten’s maiden voyage to Europe. The flight from Charlotte to Milan was great...until they turned off the lights and we told Witten it was time for bed. Even though we had a whole row of seats to ourselves, Witten adamantly refused to lay down on her nap mat and go to sleep. We heard all of the normal refrains:

“Pee pee!” “No, you don’t need to go pee pee, we just got back from the bathroom.” 

“Hungy!” “We just tried to feed you dinner and you didn’t want anything.” 

“Mommy!” “Mommy’s going to go to sleep too. 

“Go go go!” “No sweetie, we’re on the plane, we can’t go anywhere.” 

Kati finally just told me to lay down across the seats and go to sleep so one of us was rested. Thankfully, when I woke up, Kati and Witten were both passed out and sleeping (though Kati certainly didn’t get enough sleep).