The city is packed to its limits with tourists this summer, thanks no doubt to the dollar’s international value being equal to fish wrapping. I see the look on the tourists’ faces as they swarm the designer boutiques and pricey restaurants. I know that look because I wore it in Italy back in 2002 when Husband and I visited Daughter studying abroad in Perugia. It was the year Italy switched its lira to the Euro currency and you could buy a Euro for 85 cents. Now it would cost you about $1.50.
On our arrival in Perugia, a magnificent mountaintop village in Umbria made entirely of medieval stone, Daughter took me aside and gave me this quick language lesson based on the principal laws of Italian culture. Spring was coming and rules of fashion required all stores be emptied of prior season goods. I was to keep in mind these two phrases and look for them on shop windows: Saldi (sale) and Meta Prezzo (half price). She then taught me my shoe size in Italian. I don’t know what people without daughters do.
I’ve been in and out of the city numerous times this month to support Daughter in her battle with the recurring mono virus EBV and I’m happy to report that the Naturopathic doctor I wrote about in Back to Hell and Intake Info has proved to be invaluable. My visits have also been enlightening in that they’ve revealed to me just how much of a die-hard Manhattanite Daughter has become.
She crosses busy intersections before traffic has completely stopped in the pedestrian hedged bet that buses won’t run a light. She looks at me with stern astonishment when I politely step out of someone’s way on the street telling me we’ll never get anywhere if I keep doing that. She studies a menu at the Second Avenue Deli musing what a bargain that pastrami sandwich is for $17.95. The same girl who taught me meta prezzo in Italian.
In my walks to Penn Station on my way home, I cannot believe how many sightseeing buses I count, each one filled to capacity. The city is pulsing with these visitors, studying their maps on street corners and asking the line at bus stops if the bus we’re waiting for goes to Chinatown. The bus drivers are unusually chatty and informative, inspired to be helpful by this massive population of guests. On a crosstown bus the other day, the driver’s unmistakably Noo Yawk voice intoned over the speaker, “Ladies and gentlemen, you’ll notice how smoothly this vehicle is traveling across the city and that’s because of the new ‘buses only’ lanes which are designed to keep traffic flowing freely and unobstructed. Until some jerk pulls in and screws it up.” I looked around the bus to see the tourists oblivious but all the New Yorkers smiling.
Daughter’s Featured Fotos unfold in a city Made for Visiting
boombox
maybe it’s a loose wire
some sky
night gold