Why I Enjoy My Job These Days
When you suffer from an extreme fear of heights, riding in a hot air balloon 500 meters above the rolling Tuscan hillside is akin to having a tryst with that tattooed-and-pierced girl at the end of the bar, the one your friends have been poking you in the ribs all night to approach because they’re too frightened to do it themselves: the build-up is terrifying, the actual event leaves you with a cold sweat and shaking knees – but afterwards (stumbling around in the early morning sunlight) you feel curiously alive.
Our insane pilot yelling in Italian over the lion roar of the balloon burners, a grill-like wash of butane-scented hot air crisping the top of my head as I exert a death-grip on a nearby railing. Floating over the villa and the woods beyond, dipping near the highway and the American cemetery…eventually settling, after an hour, on one step of a terraced field, said pilot having negotiated some sort of compromise with a bemused farmer seconds before actual touchdown. More Italians from the balloon company sprang from nowhere to wrestle our chariot back to earth; an SUV rumbled into the field from the road, its sides heavy with workers clinging to the doors, to pick us up. Our pilot, meanwhile, spread a checkered tablecloth on the overturned basket and popped open a bottle of champagne. Thus begins my first morning in Italy.
This coming after a private plane ride from Frankfurt that, after Florence denied us landing due to a short runway and high headwinds, ended up zipping like a $30 million mosquito over half of Italy, eventually settling at Bologna. ‘Story coming late diverted to different airport stop cannot figure out punctuation button on this borrowed blackberry stop must drive 150 km to firenze stop article will be late stop send wine,’ I wrote on the aforementioned device as we waited for the car to pick us up.
A few days later, we ended up at the vineyard of one of the region’s major chianti producers, who offered us lunch after a tour of the winery. Beef-like meat served along with plates of grain and 30-year-old proschutto and bottles of wine that, thanks to their sulfide content, left me sober despite my usual non-tolerance for things alcoholic. Someone at the table inquired about the animal we were eating; our host informed us that it was a deer he had shot in his vineyard the previous week. “They are pests,” he said. “I hunt them at night.” Apparently Tuscany is overrun with them.
Swung by Florence, four years after I’d arrived there the first time. To my own amusement I still remembered where to go for food.
School’s Out
Four years ago to the day, Dean Boyer handed me my degree, whispered ‘good luck’ into my ear, and then all but planted a shoe in my rear to send me off the graduation stage and into the bright light of a new world. Three days after that I visited Italy for the first time, then ended up in DC working for a couple years as part of the War on Terror’s propaganda machine while freelancing for the City Paper and the Post. Wrote a screenplay, which almost sold. Wrote a book, which might sell. Traveled to Halifax, Turks & Caicos, and Tulsa. Then moved to New York.
Our insane pilot yelling in Italian over the lion roar of the balloon burners, a grill-like wash of butane-scented hot air crisping the top of my head as I exert a death-grip on a nearby railing. Floating over the villa and the woods beyond, dipping near the highway and the American cemetery…eventually settling, after an hour, on one step of a terraced field, said pilot having negotiated some sort of compromise with a bemused farmer seconds before actual touchdown. More Italians from the balloon company sprang from nowhere to wrestle our chariot back to earth; an SUV rumbled into the field from the road, its sides heavy with workers clinging to the doors, to pick us up. Our pilot, meanwhile, spread a checkered tablecloth on the overturned basket and popped open a bottle of champagne. Thus begins my first morning in Italy.
This coming after a private plane ride from Frankfurt that, after Florence denied us landing due to a short runway and high headwinds, ended up zipping like a $30 million mosquito over half of Italy, eventually settling at Bologna. ‘Story coming late diverted to different airport stop cannot figure out punctuation button on this borrowed blackberry stop must drive 150 km to firenze stop article will be late stop send wine,’ I wrote on the aforementioned device as we waited for the car to pick us up.
A few days later, we ended up at the vineyard of one of the region’s major chianti producers, who offered us lunch after a tour of the winery. Beef-like meat served along with plates of grain and 30-year-old proschutto and bottles of wine that, thanks to their sulfide content, left me sober despite my usual non-tolerance for things alcoholic. Someone at the table inquired about the animal we were eating; our host informed us that it was a deer he had shot in his vineyard the previous week. “They are pests,” he said. “I hunt them at night.” Apparently Tuscany is overrun with them.
Swung by Florence, four years after I’d arrived there the first time. To my own amusement I still remembered where to go for food.
School’s Out
Four years ago to the day, Dean Boyer handed me my degree, whispered ‘good luck’ into my ear, and then all but planted a shoe in my rear to send me off the graduation stage and into the bright light of a new world. Three days after that I visited Italy for the first time, then ended up in DC working for a couple years as part of the War on Terror’s propaganda machine while freelancing for the City Paper and the Post. Wrote a screenplay, which almost sold. Wrote a book, which might sell. Traveled to Halifax, Turks & Caicos, and Tulsa. Then moved to New York.
posted by NiK @ 4:02 PM
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