Sans Salle-Climatissé
by Lindsay Rotblatt
I was coated with tiny beads of sweat and dust as I slowly woke up. The sun had just begun glaring into the cold cabin of the train since 5:00 am and my eyes seemed to be sealed together with that awful yellow crust one gets around the eyelashes after contracting a vile strain of pink eye. Leaving the sweet and familiar French train station in Nice, I had been pressured into a one-day trek into Florence, Italy by my schoolmate Dina, my roommate Maria, and “the new kid at school” Carlos. With my friends explaining to me that seeing Florence, if only for a day, would be worth my missing class, I shook my head in reluctance but packed my small beige Longchamp bag (the fashion-obsessed French Culture had got to me) with a toothbrush and 300€ in case of emergency and left for the trait station.
* * *
I live on an unassuming road, hidden in the eastern hills above north Berkeley. Nestled at the bottom of a nook, you wouldn’t just happen to find my house; you’d have to be searching for it. You would first think that you were entering a campsite or some remote area of the woods where only those who play golf and hike reside during the day. You would notice as you approached that the only signs you saw would be labeled Tilden Park and Golf Course. I live in between two grand redwood trees, far above reality. Some people think that living above it all at times can be relaxing, Zen-like. However, in my eight years of living in Park Hills, a small, homogenous community between north Berkeley and Orinda, this seclusion has been limiting for me. When all the parties and action seem to be down the hill, living up in the fog can be unfavorable at times. I found myself in a similar situation the summer before my senior year living in a hostel atop a hill, in a remote area of Nice, France.
Living in “the Villa” as we called it, though it was really a hostel whose name “Villa St. Exupéry” was a complete misnomer, was like living back at home, in terms of its remoteness. It would take a solid hour-long bus ride down the hill to arrive at the bright orange buildings making up Les Galleries Lafayette, a famous shopping center in France. From the shopping center I would have to walk down the long cobblestone pathway past “BMP Paribas” ATM machine, where if you’d look to your right you’d notice my favorite boy in Nice. I never knew his true name but to me he was, “Le garçon avec le lapin,” or, “the boy with the rabbit”. Sitting atop an empty milk crate in the same spot every day was a 13-year-old Algerian boy (as there were many immigrants from Algeria in Nice) who played the accordion and had a pet white rabbit that cuddled up against his legs. I had never been much of an enthusiast of the accordion living in America. I had always found it tacky because the only time I ever heard it played was at places like Disney World or bad Italian restaurants. Something about this accordion was different though. The way the boy with the rabbit played the accordion made the romance of living along the French Riviera for a summer all more realistic as he illuminated my journey to school each morning. As he played, the melodies of the songs conjured up images of Parisian women with baguettes in their Chanel bags on mopeds speeding down the Champs E’lyse and because of this brief moment of fantasy I created, I gave one euro ever day to the boy with the rabbit as I passed on my way to school. After my detour and brief lapse of consciousness, I would then walk down Place Garibaldi until I hit Avenue de Felix Faure. I’d bear right on Felix Faure and head toward the beach. Left onto Rue Meyerbeer and one block down I found my alleyway, the inconspicuous location of my school.
For four weeks I attended the EF School in Nice where I took classes in air-conditioned rooms from 8:30 in the morning until 2:00 in the afternoon. From classes on pronunciation, grammar, and reading comprehension, my schedule was grueling and even though I was able to obtain a decent bronzed glow by the third day, I picked up the habit of skipping class to go on adventures with my friends to fully explore what the south of France had to offer.
At nights I would adventure into Vieux Nice, the less attractive, older, and much more booze-heavy quarter where all the EF students and backpackers alike would meet for their nightly libations and excitement. On the steps of Le Palais de Justice (the old town courthouse) hordes of students gathered and after much debate over which club everyone was to go to (this often occurring in multiple languages as the Swedish girls preferred the American pubs and the Americans preferred the French discothèques) we often ended up at Wayne’s Pub because the drinks were cheap and the dancing occurred mostly atop tables. Clubbing aside however, I was in France for one simple purpose, to learn French. I hadn’t flown over three thousand miles to go clubbing, and it seemed that I was one of the only students at EF who was attempting to take their education seriously. While the Dolce & Gabanna clad girls from Germany and Switzerland seemed to me to be frivolous about their schoolwork and consequently more focused on their partying, I was constantly in combat with my own conscious. Was I to party every night with the EF students in order to experience France, or was I to go to sleep at 10:00 pm in order to be fresh each day for class? My philosophy in life had always been such: work hard, play hard, and I was to do just that.
* * *
Eight of us traveled together to Florence, having only known each other for a couple of weeks. It was enough to make any good Jewish mother (like my own) tense with worry. The timing of the trip seemed appropriate though. With only one week left in the south, I was exhausted of the overly opulent beaches of St. Tropez, tired of the topless women in Cannes, and sickened by the excessive wealth along the shores of Monaco. The smoke from all of the Gauloise that surrounded me constantly irritated my delicate Californian lungs and I needed some fresh air. After returning from a weekend in Paris for Bastille Day, the thick humid air of France paired with its’ less that charming waiters and pushy tourists provoked a need for new scenery. As many love the glamour of Los Angeles, eventually the smog will get to you and you’ll need to escape. This feeling was akin to how I felt about France. One day in Florence wont kill me, right? Of course not, I would be like Blair from Gossip Girl, escaping the hearsay and glitterati of the French Riviera in exchange for a relaxing day in Northern Italy.
* * *
“Carlos you look absolutely hilarious!” I teased. “Your hair looks like you’ve matted cod liver oil in it and your face has silly red lines all over!” His cheeks had been pressed cold against metallic windowpane for most of the night.
Carlos Ramirez, a native of Mexico had grown up for most of his life in Texas attending prep school and catholic mass. His grandfather had invented municipal lighting in Mexico causing Carlos’ family to be well endowed. Carlos, 20 years old, attended Duke University, drove a Porsche, and owned a Chanel watch. He had a way with words and often used his intellect to poke fun and argue.
“Thanks, Lindsay,” he spoke derisively, “you too look lovely at 6am in the morning!”
I knew I wasn’t truly the one to poke fun; we all had spent the past 6 hours together cramped in an 8-person sleeper car aboard an Italian charter train marked Trenti-Italia. Perhaps the French and the Italians had hard feelings toward each other (after all, Italy had beaten France in the World Cup only days earlier), but the advertisement of a “train avec la climatisation” (air conditioning) had none. The air in the cabin was sticky with the smell of stale bread and sour wine from the night before, and the sweat from our 8 bodies coupled with the heat from the Riviera had created a sauna of our tiny room. With a thin film of dust covering our bare skin and exhausted, sleep-deprived minds, we arrived in Florence.
“Oh my goodness!” Dina squealed.
“Oh my goodness” had been her signature line for the past three weeks, but the shrillness of her child-like voice was now less endearing than it had been weeks earlier and only sounded sharp and cacophonous.
Dina Solomon of Daytona, Florida had become like a sister to me. With a flare for British-styled clothing and oversized sunglasses, her 5’2” frame always was made noticeable. She enjoyed arguing just as Carlos did, but was more likely to find the positive in most things. Dina believed in adventure as Carlos believed in the Bible. She held strong to the conviction that life without adventure was not worth living, thus Dina was the reason for my leaving France.
“Do you all believe it? We’re actually in Italy! Isn’t this just so exciting?” Dina said vibrantly. Unfortunately her attempt to pump everyone up, similar to attempts made by counselors trying to get campers excited about lice checks, had little effect. Sure, it was exciting, but no place in the world could be that exciting to me at 6:00 am without any sleep. Not even Italy.
Perhaps it was the lack of espresso in my system or just the heat of the early Italian morning, but as soon as we disembarked, I panicked. It was like that tingly rush of blood one gets up their spine while seeing a scary movie but instead, this rush was a rush insecurity and nervousness. “Arête! Attend!” (Stop! Wait) I blurted out in a horribly fractured French accent. I must have looked ridiculous to the hundreds of Italian businessmen passing by, but I could have cared less. “You guys, where are you going? Don’t we have to buy the tickets back home?”
In my first minutes in Italy I had given all of my friends the impression that the only thing on my mind was to go back home to Nice. I had just mastered the Côte d’Azure bus line and learned how to use my fake ID to get into exclusive French nightclubs; I had left France for a strange and utterly different place called Italia. According to Dina, Italy was more romantic than Paris, and my romance-novel loving soul had great ideas about this wondrous country of Romeo and Juliet.
“Oh yeah, about those tickets…” My travel-mate Nina spoke. Nina, one of the two Nina’s that I traveled to Italy with was Swiss and as the Swiss stereotype goes, Nina spoke over 6 different languages and was almost sickeningly neutral and diplomatic about all subjects. She and Carlos were the only members of our group who spoke Italian fluently and subsequently Nina had the pleasure of purchasing 8 tickets back to Nice for that night.
“Bongiorno! Vorrei comprare otto biglietti per il treno a Nizza, Francia per l'oggi più tardo!” (Hello, I would like to purchase 8 tickets for a train to Nice, France later today). Nina spoke friendly, or so I assumed. I realized with the train woman’s next remark that it was hard to determine the inflection of ones voice in a different language.
“Non ci sono otto biglietti disponibili per oggi. Abbiamo soltanto quattro.” The woman behind the window explained with a charmingly melodic tone. Roughly translated though, what she said was that only four of the eight of us could return to Nice that night. As Nina translated this to me I looked around. Which of the four of us would be going home? Who would be staying? Where would they stay?!
“I definitely need to get to Nice today. I have to get credit for this course!” I exclaimed. I was freaking out. I had gone to France to attend school, not to skip it. I had been convinced by Dina to go to Italy just for the day, as I would only be missing a small amount of class. My innocent one-day journey into Italy was quickly turning into something much more.
“No, I really need to go back,” chimed in Jesus from Chihuahua, Mexico. Jesus, one of Carlos’ closest friends and my own classmate was the culprit in charge for inviting the three other girls. Dina and I had originally planned on the trip only including Carlos, Maria, and us.
“Me too, I really can’t stay, sorry,” whined Julia of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Julia, though a sweet girl, was spoiled and had a way of wanting things only her way. Her stubbornness made it difficult for any negotiating to ever occur and Dina and I both wondered why Jesus invited her along in the first place.
Following Julia came Nina from Switzerland and Nina from Cabo San Lucas who both apparently, “had to go back to Nice because it was very important.” The reason was never discovered. It was then settled. I would be staying in Florence for the Night with Carlos, Maria, and Dina. So it’s an adventure. I had to convince myself that all would go well. Relax Lindsay, it’s just one night. There was no way I was going home so I took a deep breath in and accepted the result.
Because we were to stay the night in Florence, we all needed a place to sleep. Even though we could have afforded a decent hotel, we opted for a hostel. I discovered that summer that Europe is much more tourist friendly compared to the United States. Trying to book a cheap motel in Los Angeles for a night for many non-English speakers could pose as a daunting task, but in Florence the Office of Tourism had a woman who could book us our own hostel for the night. I, at times, can be highly cynical and the idea of spending the night in a cheap Italian hostel was less than amusing to me, but I went along with it because what did I have to lose at this point? As we headed toward the cue inside the Office of Tourism, Dina had another fantastic idea.
“You guys!” she yelled allowed, “Since we are in Italy already, why don’t we go to Venice tomorrow?”
Brilliant idea Dina, truly brilliant. At this point I was pissed and was not going to be pushed around any further.
“No, Dina we are not going to Venice tomorrow, I’m sorry, I can’t.” I said firmly. Unfortunately though, as hard as I tried to maintain an air of seriousness, Dina’s description of Venice made it all too hard to turn down. I acquiesced. We bought four tickets to Venice for the next morning and returned to the cue for our hostel.
The woman who booked our hostel explained to us that it would be 20€ a night per person, but its close proximity to the Duomo and train station would be worth the high price. High price? This did not seem high to my American intellect, in fact it seemed too cheap for it to be anything worth getting excited about. With phone number and reservations in tact, the 8 of us headed out onto the streets of Florence.
The scenery of the streets was similar to those pictures one sees in tourist magazines. There were tall buildings with red-shingled roofs everywhere and at all corners were cafés, small artisan shops, and gelato stands. Walking through the streets of Florence was like walking through a dream, it was surreal. With street markets everywhere, the air smelled of fresh leather and wool. Dina and I were almost left behind because of our innate fascination with handbags, fortunately we noticed the group had left us only minutes after and we were able to catch up. For hours we explored the city. Past the Pontevecchio and Uffizi Gallery, we arrived at the Duomo. Like America has McDonald’s, Europe has cathedrals and as astonished as I was when I saw Notre Dame in Paris, nothing had prepared me for the beauty of the Duomo. Shadowing over most of the piazza, the Duomo was covered in tiny colored marble tiles of pink and green. I didn’t want to just look at the Duomo; I wanted to experience it. So, the 8 of us waited in the heat in a long line to enter.
After 20 minutes or so waiting we arrived at the entrance to the grand cathedral. Inside was much cooler as the concrete building prevented most of the heat from entering. The floors gleamed of 14th century marble, and as I looked up, I noticed the ceiling was painted in an ornate fashion complete with your typical angels, Christ, and devils mural. I had heard that the view from atop the Duomo was spectacular and worth the hike, so I convinced the gang that we should go all the way to the top. We hiked over three hundred steep steps to arrive at the top, but once there, I understood why people summated mountains. The majesty of seeing an entire city from above was beyond breathtaking. From atop the Duomo you could see all of Florence. Every coffee shop, pasta shop, and gypsy was colorful and glowed. The sunlight gave everything a pinkish-orange tint that made the city appear ethereal. Something hit me as I gazed over the Italian rooftops and bustling mopeds. I realized that this was what life was about, why people traveled and why people gave up certain things to experience life.
Later on that day we saw Michelangelo’s statue of David and listened to a string quartet in the Piazza della Republica until 10:00 pm. It was thrilling to be in a foreign city. You had complete anonymity, seclusion if you wanted to, and peace. Our hostel ended up looking more like a nice hotel in America, complete with a shower, toilet, phone, television, and breakfast in bed, and our trip to Venice the next day was just as interesting as Florence, and much less dramatic.
It had always been a struggle for me to move out of my comfort zone and not always do the right thing. I left Italy two days later, feeling years wiser. I learned that now and then you had to escape the isolation of a hostel or ill-located house to get to experience life, and sometimes, it’s that seclusion, like sitting at the top of the Duomo staring over a city that makes you feel even more alive.
I live on an unassuming road, hidden in the eastern hills above north Berkeley, and every time I look outside my kitchen’s window and see rolling hills, I realize, that sometimes it is within this seclusion that we find peace and experience.