This tiny little snowman almost had me in tears this afternoon. Partly because of how cute it was, perched on its park bench, but mainly because the tiredness of the 1,200 drive from Shoreditch to Northern Italy has finally caught up with me. It's stranded me on the wrong side of vulnerable, which is fun. Like being stoned, but cheaper. As I strolled idly through Parco Lambro, chain smoking Malboro Lights from inside the hood of my Parka, the heady mixture of exhaustion and the culture shock strangeness of a new country/city/language turned the emotional volume up on everything. Thank goodness I didn't see any puppies or kittens!Don't get me wrong, the drive down was beautiful and epic... but, if I'd had any sense at all I would have spread it over two days, instead of getting all Jeremy Clarkson about it and hammering through France, Switzerland and the Italian Lakes in one mad day of driving. An experience heightened by the fact that I had with me all of my worldly goods. Yeap, after all those years of boring people at dinner parties rigid about downsizing, I had now set off for my new life in Italy with nothing more in the way of possessions than could be stuffed into the MG.
However, coming here to Milan first was a good idea and I'm so incredibly grateful that my good mate and fellow media hobo "Clive - aka Lagos Mondeo" offered me the lone of his Milan gaff, whilst he and his perky girlfriend research some weird documentary about bat farming somewhere in Eastern Europe. He told me I'd need an Italian base-camp to adjust to the changes before hacking out to my new, and as yet to be restored, home in the mountains... he wasn't wrong.
Oh, my first tip for anyone thinking of coming to live in Italy... learn all the Italian numbers before you arrive. Made a tit of myself in three shops and a bar today.
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