Last year, about now (if you discount the extra day in February, or if you are splitting hairs, then yesterday), I was sitting quite uncomfortably by the window on a flight to Dubai and then I'd fly on to Rome. It's been a mixed bag of things, this past year, living in Italy - a short walk away from the Leaning Tower (which, by the way, has to be the least impressive 'Wonder of the World'). Bear with me, or skip this, while I rant, wax eloquent and try to playback the last 365 days in my head.
I landed in Pisa knowing exactly one classmate from college - who has long since moved more or less permanently to the United States. Language was the biggest problem - it is still a problem, but I can speak a smattering of Italian now. I can still clearly remember the first visit to the supermarket to buy bread, milk and eggs. I located the milk and the bread, but I could not find eggs. I tried very hard to explain in English that I was looking for eggs to the store attendant, but with no results. Finally, I had to mime a chicken laying an egg and then breaking it and making a fried egg when she exclaimed, "Aaah! Uova!". That was my first lesson in Italian.
It took me a while to get used to finding my way around. I used to be terribly scared to walk out without a map - not because I was scared of getting lost, but worried because I couldn't ask for directions back home. Eventually, I learned just enough to ask for directions in Italian. Then to order food. But, I never got around to learning to speak fluently because it was just too hard to have a technical conversation in Italian and almost everyone at work spoke reasonable English.
The first six-months of research was fun. Fiddling around with the comfort of knowing that even a negative result was acceptable - now, we know that doing X or Y this way is a bad idea. I managed to write one silly paper that was accepted at an equally silly conference. I guess half my joy was writing six-long pages in two-column text in Latex as opposed to the three years of writing in 10-point Comics Sans. Then Berlusconi decided to make life difficult for academia and the group that I work with started breaking up and so did my desire to continue on to a Masters course here. I disinterestedly applied to universities in the US (if you are counting, I applied to six and two have already politely told me to take a hike. I am waiting for the other four).
The bunch at the lab was good fun. I started playing football with them Italians. And I scored two goals in the handful of matches that I played. I stopped for a long time in between for various reasons - all of which in retrospect seem silly, but then hindsight is always a bitch. I have two more Tuesdays and I intend to play both of the matches if they happen. Chris aka NastyBoy, Juri, Azzy, Cosimo, Claudio, Symone, Ghibo, Stefano, Matteo, Giulio, Pellix, Estebagno, Bertogna, Enrico, Antonio Sr., Manfroni, Secco, Pepe, Danielle and the other guys at the pitch were always quite tolerant of the cricket-familiar-Indian-idiot. BBT with Nino, Gianluca, Bertogna in the middle of the week.
I moved into an apartment that I shared with three women. It shocked the conservative middle-class sensibilities of my family and made my friends conjure up and jibe me with jokes that could only be, very charitably, called risque. Fortunately or unfortunately, two of the women had serious boyfriends and one (the cutest of them all) now I realize did not really like boys. They all moved to different cities shortly and were replaced by guys - Alessio, Stefano, Raffelle and Lorenzo. In between, there was for a short while a slightly neurotic paranoid lady doctor - but thankfully my health held up during that time. All these four can swear reasonably enough in Hindi now and Raffelle is the only other Italian who knows the Indian National anthem - albeit he plays it on the guitar. At least, he understand the notes, while the other probably does not even understand the words.
I learned to cook Italian food. More importantly, I changed my ways of dousing everything with pepper or chilli powder. I will one day have my own Italian bistro in Bangalore. Nothing fancy like Toscano or Little Italy. Good rustic pastas and meat. And, if I can find a source, good cheese as well.
I traveled a bit. Not as much as I hoped to - it got quite boring to travel alone. I walked in snow with my mouth open to catch the flakes. I swam in the Italian Riviera, hiked in Liguria, kind-of-holidayed on the Cote d'Azur, drank wine in Provence, wandered the streets of Florence, ate pralines and waffles in Belgium, saw Al Pacino in Venice, traveled in Eurostar trains at 300+ kmph, gawked at the sheer opulence of St.Peters, got drunk at the Oktoberfest in Munich, walked along the East-side gallery in Berlin, went to the top of the Eiffel tower, spent the best four hours dancing in Barcelona - all in all not a bad time. I think the best I remember these trips is for the random people I met - everyone was interestingly different.
But the one thing that I will always remember this one year in Italy will have to be for the craziest and most impulsive thing that I've ever done (possibly, also, the one that I'll ever do). If not anything, it was proof for myself, that I do have a little sliver in my head that does not subscribe to logic, reason and academic thinking. That, I am thankful for.
In a couple of weeks from now, I pack my back to head back to Bangalore. Where next? God knows, but I am slowly learning to be okay with not knowing.
I couldn't make a tyre, but what the hell, it was still a damn good year!
