The Internet Personified: Don't stop me now, I'm having such a good time

Dear friend,

I'd rather be lying on this delectable orange sofa with a sea view and reading my book right now, than writing to you. I haven't written a word this entire trip--no columns, no articles, no working on my book, which has now become capital letters BOOK, which looks a bit like DOOM if you squint--and I've become a lazy writer. Which is to say, not a writer at all. I keep thinking of stories I'll add to this newsletter, and then drifting along, as my days do, into doing not much of anything. I'm like a teenager, in that sense. All I'm doing is hanging out. Today though, today is the day I promised myself last week, worn out (but in a good way) from all that tourism/walking/partying, I said, "When I get to Sorrento, I'm not going to do anything, I'm just going to chill and write." Here I am then. Sorrento itself is not all that--it is a fancy Baga beach, full, full, full of tourists, but white ones, who are not much better than brown ones about becoming homogeneous blocks of their own countries. The English and American ones I can understand, so I loathe them on a higher level than I do the rest. French tourists are somewhat charming, non, I say to myself. Italian tourists are exploring their own country, isn't that nice? The Germans are intense, but they keep to themselves and look faintly worried.

No, it's the English and the Americans with their carrying, entitled voices that I sneer at, their casual rudeness (in Florence, I overheard one such set, talking behind me on the bus. "They're [the Florentines] not very friendly, are they?" asked the older English woman to the American exchange student she was chatting to. So loudly! Their voices rang through the bus, and I sat there, in a puddle of irritation, that are they just clinched it for me. She wanted to be rude, but she wanted us all--all of us English speakers, who may or may not have been listening to her conversation--to agree with her. I knew if I turned around and looked at her, she'd be a Type A Tamsin type person.) (No offense, if you or someone you love is called Tamsin, it's my go-to English annoying name.) (In Delhi, it's Neharika, but again, some Neharikas are lovely) (hashtag not all tamsins, hashtag not all neharikas)

But we are not in Sorrento. Our "we" has also expanded to include K's college friend and all-round excellent travel companion, Tom. Tom is the one who booked our rooms from when we met him in Naples to our one night in Pompeii and now, in this little village of Santa Agata, we are in a flat with the sea view and the orange sofa. The boys (isn't it funny that when we become a collective--two women, two men--we start referring to each other as "the boys" and "the girls"?) have gone off to a beach, which involves a 700 step climb down (and then up again) AFTER a long walk to get to the steps. I balanced my beach needs with my need to sit still for one whole day, and the latter won out over my FOMO. Oh well. I might regret it when I'm old, but I think not.

***
When I last wrote to you, I was in Florence, which was so charming, I was sad to leave it. I couldn't understand how anyone could not be charmed by Florence, the little lanes, the ancient history everywhere, but when we got to Perugia, I realised there was more Italian history that hadn't been totally invaded by tourists than stuff that had. Perugia is the capital of Umbria (an Italian state) and hosts the Umbrian jazz festival every year, which we sadly missed by just one day. However, this meant that prices were down and we managed to get our Airbnb, a little cave like dwelling set into an ancient wall, for cheaper than it would have, and it was the most central place we had stayed in thus far.

Perugia is also famous for the Amanda Knox murder case. You may or may not have followed the case (the Netflix documentary called Amanda Knox which I immediately watched, our first night there, is excellent) but the gist is: one night in Perugia, which has a bustling, international student population, a young woman called Meredith Kercher was found murdered in her apartment. The Italian police, in a bungled investigation worthy of some of their Indian counterparts, arrested her roommate, the American Amanda Knox and the roommate's recent boyfriend, Raffaele something. They were sent to prison, and there was a LOT of media around it, especially since Meredith Kercher was English, and the Daily Mail did a whole series, calling it a sex thing gone wrong, etc etc. Amanda Knox is now released, here's an op-ed she did about what it feels like for your life to be viral content.

"That poor girl," says our landlady, shaking her head. I'm unsure whether she means Meredith or Amanda, but I nod along, hoping she'll give me more information, because I am a ghoul. But it's true. Those poor girls.

After that, Perugia sort of picked itself up, crime was abolished completely, and now, the landlady says, "it's a really safe place to live." She should know, she grew up there, and she adds, "If I was born anywhere else in Italy, I would move to Perugia. In fact," here she pauses to consider her young daughter, twining herself around her mother's leg, "I wish I had come to Perugia as an adult, to see it like that would have been wonderful."

It's a historic town, set on top of a hill, so there's lots of stairs, but we discovered, totally by accident one day, a large old fortress within which is several layers of escalators, just set right into the hill, to go down and up as you please. It also has what it calls a "minimetro," a driverless cable car which takes you up the hill from the bus stop, and which is WONDERFUL, at least for me, the public transport fan that I have become. From several viewpoints in the town, you can see the vast Umbrian landscape, there are bits with a sort of semicircle compass map from where you can identify various places of interest. A little away from the old historical centre is the student stuff, Taiwanese restaurants next to Chinese and Indian. (We did have a Taiwanese meal one night and it was good.) This is also close to the aqueduct, underneath which is a pizza place, run by a man from Hapur, who was so pleased to meet me that he joined us for (discounted) drinks, and was calling K jija-ji by the end of it. Turns out his sister married an Italian she met at India Gate, and as a result, her entire family emigrated. Parents, brother, brother's small son. Brother is still waiting for his wife and other son's visa to be approved, but he's in Italy for the long run, having sunk most of his savings into his little pizzeria. "I'm not even a high school pass," he told me, in wonder, "In Hapur, I was a salesman with LG." I made the mistake of complaining about how hard visa processes were, and then he gave us advice for the next two hours. Had to make a quick escape, but it was sweet how at the end he gave me his card and he's like, "Next time, you're staying with us." I thought he had the best parts of his small town--community, family etc--with the mind opening experiences of living abroad. It made him nicer, easier, more friendly and open-minded than he would be back home. (In my opinion, of course, but he could've just generally been a nice guy also. Some things you're just born with.)

***

Naples was Bombay. There's no other way to describe it. Teeming, crowded, dirty (lots of garbage piles everywhere) but full of that vibrance and I don't know, urban energy that makes Bombay so amazing. I was watching the Mary Beard Pompeii documentary on YouTube (while also reading the Mary Beard Pompeii book which is SO GOOD but SO LONG, so I still haven't finished it) and she said modern day Naples was a lot like ancient Pompeii would've been. People living above their shops, graffiti and a mix of rich and poor rubbing shoulders everywhere. We had a flat room bedsit type place right in the heart of the Spanish quarters, which was where all the best (and cheapest) bars were. In fact, Naples was the best food I had all through my Italian trip so far. Lots of seafood, there was this fish market right outside our house which had a kitchen attached so it would sell fresh fish and cooked fish to customers, something I hadn't seen before! Excellent pizza, lovely pasta, even lovely sandwiches, which I am slightly bored of by now, being our usual lunch meal. If I could see myself living and working anywhere in Italy, I think it would be Naples. I can see it now even, from our seaview apartment, it's across the bay, to the left of Vesuvius (!!!) and it twinkles hard at night.

***

As for Pompeii, it was a Bucket List thing I had to do. I'm wary of Bucket Lists in general, things to do before you die sounds so dreary, like you have a to-do list and you're checking everything off. Where's the adventure or spontaneity in that? But I've wanted to go to Pompeii for as long as I can remember, one of those ancient historical things that just calls to you. It was an extremely hot day, sadly, and even though we got inside at 10 am, we left by 2.30 (the site closes at 7) because we just could not go on any more. Worth it though. Like I said, I'd been reading Mary Beard, so I picked up on a lot of the littler stuff which I otherwise wouldn't have noticed. Cart ruts on the road. A pedestrian-only area. Little holes where people would have hitched their horses to a pole while waiting for service. A lot of it was closed off for reconstruction or whatever it is they do so we could only look in through rope barriers, not go all the way in like I thought, but it was just... you know. STANDING THERE. Realising that if I were a Pompeiian who accidentally time-travelled to Pompeii in AD 2019 I'd still be able to find my own way home. And that was incredible.

Some links that are not travel-related as promised!

You might have already read this piece about watching cranes after your marriage is over but it's worth a look if you haven't.

Did When Harry Met Sally do a disservice to women?

Does my cat want me to lick her back?

What it's like to be Super Environment Man and how awkward it gets in the world.

Have a great week!
xx
m

Where am I? The Internet Personified! A mostly weekly collection of things I did/thought/read/saw that week.

Who are you? Meenakshi Reddy Madhavan, writer of internet words (and other things) author of seven books (support me by buying a book!) and general city-potter-er.

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