I’m sitting in a former monestary, now a bed and breakfast, in a village near Milan. It is quiet, one kilometer away from the village center and I like that. Except last night when I went out to find some dinner. There was some sort of street fair going on down by the river and there were families out walking everywhere. It was very nice. I’d had about 8 hours sleep in the last 48, and all I wanted was something to eat. Driving was interesting. There are streets in this village that a horse drawn cart would find to be a snug fit.
In general, driving here is interesting. When you wind the rental car up to 160 kph, it starts to beep at you. And when you slow down to a more sedate 140 kph, you get your doors blown off by everything except a Yugo. Lane markings are seen as a mere suggestion of where one should drive. I saw many cars straddling lanes on the autostrada. In the village yesterday, a car came right down the center of a street where there was no reason for him to drive in the middle of the road.
Back to finding food. It was 3 in the afternoon and the only thing that was available was ice cream. Bars on street corners also serve ice cream and ices. I found a place that also served sandwiches, sort of, and had a tortilla with mozzarella and salame. Gut bomb. While waiting for the food, I watched the service staff. There was a rather incompetent waitress who was being continually berated by a young man who was somehow related to the matriarch. The waitress, a pretty young woman, was eating a plate of food when I arrived and had left some number of open tickets when she took her break. Or at least that is what I think was happening. The young man was making various ice cream concoctions behind the counter and flourishing the tickets in one hand, fanned out like playing cards. I had no idea what he was saying, but I can recognize bitching when I hear it. The young woman brought a bottle of Beck’s to my table and knocked it over, spilling the beer on the table and the floor. She left and didn’t return to clean it up. After 10 minutes, an older waiter, say mid-40s cme by and cleaned it up.
I’m in the breakfast room and the waitress just came by to check on the food line that is on a counter by the wall. There is a nice arrangement of fresh fruit and rolls, a toaster oven with a moving rack that squeaks rhythmically, juices, bottled water. She speaks very little English and I haven’t taken time to learn that much Italian. She was asking if I wanted things and she said “bacon? speck?” Speck is the German word for bacon. She was doing what I do when I encounter someone with a different language. My first impulse is to speak German as it is the only other language I know.