Italia
When I was 12 I started to date Italy. It was really more of a blind date, I never knew her. I traveled there with my parents as part of a grand European tour. The kind that sent us blasting by train from capital to capital and recalled the seminal movie of European tourism, If It's Tuesday This Must Be Belgium. At one point we spun the dial and landed in Rome. It was a chaotic place compared to the other grand European cities I had seen. It was also ancient. London was wonderful, Paris grand. Vienna was regal but only in Rome did I feel like I was stepping toward antiquity. Monuments a testament to time and civilization stood in stark contrast to the lines of traffic and the occasional modern building. I don't remember a lot from my time there but I do think it was a taste of my future. I remember horns honking, Vespa's whizzing by and the smell of diesel in the air. I remember my father's frustration as he struggled to pull flimsy luggage carts over cobble