While Italy truly is a magical place, there are a couple of things from the States that I admit to missing quite desperately at this moment: air conditioning and American mosquitos.
You didn't see that one coming, did you?
So here's the rub. We're in Florence right now, and while it is wonderfully comfortable weather for walking around looking like a schmuck with a camera around his neck and following a boisterous woman with a brightly colored foam finger, it is a bit toasty in the hotel room at night. I like a chilly room, all the better for snuggling or cocooning oneself in the blankies.
Well, too bad for me because the hotel I'm staying in does not have air conditioning. The funny thing is that I'm pretty sure they do, but they are not allowed to turn it on. Perhaps this is a government thing? Is there a law against air conditioning in November in Italy? Have dictators suddenly come into power here? What gives?
No problem you say. Open a window you suggest. NO! I don't know what happened in this country, but the mosquitos here are not normal. Perhaps there was a radiation leak? Maybe they thrive on pasta-gorged humans? Maybe the dictator grows them in a lab with biological adaptations so he can control the population?
These things are beasts. I would swear that the Italian mafia would cower under their power.
It also just so happens to be my misfortune that I am delicious... I didn't ask to be this way, it's just how I was born. But misfortune or not, I am clearly the equivalent of a plate of dry aged ribeye with a side of s'mores and a dash of crack cocaine, to a mosquito anyway. Stop laughing at my suffering. This is serious.
At 3:30am, I gave up the fight and hid in the bathroom. I wish I was telling a lie for comic purposes, but no, my dumb ass was hiding in the bathroom.
To paint a more vivid picture for you, I stayed in there long enough that I started getting tired again. The boy scout in me had the solution: toss every towel and soft item in the tub and settle down for a cozy nights sleep.
Funny thing about bathtubs: sleeping in them is possibly the dumbest idea ever conceived by man, or at least certainly by me. I held out for 2 hours of fitful sleeping and finally succumbed to the crick in my neck that will be my days reality.
Not knowing what else to do, I put the lid of the toilet down and sat there. That's right, I just sat there. You'd be surprised how few thoughts one can have in the wee hours of the morning whilst sitting in the bathroom hiding from killer mosquitos. I was strangely at peace for a good while.
I'm unsure of what happened to break the romantic mood I had going there, but I finally decided to throw on some clothes, which are probably on backwards, and drink some espresso in the lobby, which is by the way, air conditioned.
Irony stings more in Europe, I swear it.
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