Massi took me to Tuscany.
Massi took me to Tuscany on a motorcycle.
Massi took me to an acro yoga retreat in Tuscany on a motorcycle.
...
This is all my dreams. Coming true. Simultaneously.
...
We left Cadempino Thursday night at around seven thirty, getting a much later start than planned. On account of putting off the packing until last minute (like the mature adults we are), and of... err... slightly misplacing my passport.
I have NEVER misplaced my passport. Not in the seven years I've been hobnobbing around the world. NEVER have I even come close to losing it, I thought as we vainly searched his tidy apartment. And now, poof, it's just gone? The Canadian passport I worked so hard to get and that still has eight years left until I need to replace it?
Fuck. I don't even have a picture of it. I had to give my copy of it to border control in Mexico. And didn't bother to make another one.
"We can go to the embassy and figure it out," Massi tried to comfort me. "I'm sure this stuff happens all the time."
But not to ME! I wailed on the inside (and a bit on the outside). I'm better than this. How could I let this happen? How could I be so forgetful? So absentminded? So stupid.
"Maybe we left it in your friend's car," I whimpered my final feeble hope. "That's the last place I remember seeing it. After we spent the night at your mom's house and then went shopping in Carrefour. It was really dark when we unpacked the car, so maybe we didn't notice it and we left it in there."
"I don't think so... We probably would have seen it since then," Massi squashed my feeble hope with his cold logic. "But we can check before we go to Milan."
So with my American passport in tow (the passport that is almost expired, nearly out of pages, and is lacking the very important entrance stamp into the Schengen Area...), we blazed off to check the back of Massi's friend's car.
I leapt off the motorcycle when we arrived (making sure to ask first. You never leap off a motorcycle willy-nilly, without asking. Ever. Bad things happen. Like motorcycles falling over) and rushed to the back of the car.
"It's HERE!" I gleefully whooped (sometimes you just have to whoop. This was one of those times), happily dangling my nearly-lost Canadian passport for Massi to see.
"But... it doesn't make sense that it would be there," my boyfriend's logical brain struggled to compute the mad world in which I live.
So, feeling about a bazillion times better, I hopped back on the motorcycle (after asking, of course), and we sped away towards Milan. We'd hoped to get much further that night, but after the passport/packing fiasco, we decided to have dinner and drinks with Massi's friend Lucas in Milan. And then just not leave.
Which, to be altogether honest, I was thrilled about. The road from Cadempino to Milan had been mostly highway, and riding backseat (or frontseat, for that matter) on a highway on a motorcycle is zero fun.
Zero. Fun.
The wind buffeted my face as we hurried down the highway (Massi is.. not... err... a slow driver), and I found myself having to duck my head to keep from straining my neck. But my neck strained anyway (it's a very thick and stubborn part of my body), which ended up giving me a raging headache.
And we've only been on the bike an hour. We have another four-five hours of biking tomorrow... how will I manage?
I will manage somehow, I thought, as I sipped a shockingly strong Negroni (a typical northern Italian cocktail comprised of gin, campari, and sweet red vermouth) and snacked on a piadina (which is Italy's answer to the quesadilla).
Lucas kicked us out of his apartment at seven am the next morning (he had to leave for work, the jerk), so Massi and I loaded the bike and began our journey south. With the slight mishap of discovering that during our mature, last-minute preparations the day before, we had forgotten to pack the charger for the GPS.
Massi seemed quite upset by this. But I'm so used to not having technology and just making do (I'm a hobo, damnit. Making do is what I do), that I didn't quite realize how formidable traveling through Italy without a GPS was (because I'm a hobo, damnit. I don't normally ride around on fancy motorcycles on scenic roads. I ride around on cheapass trains and flixbuses and with nice people who pick me up on the side of the road. Who usually take the fastest roads, not the nicest ones).
"We have another couple hours of highway before we come to the nice roads," Massi told me as I stalwartly clamored onto the motorcycle (after asking, of course). "But we can take a break in about an hour for breakfast."
"Super," I said on the outside. On the inside I said something more akin to, Holy fucking bananas, two hours of highway on the back of a motorcycle? My head will explode.
But the morning was cool, the day was new, and I'd learned a thing or two from the highway yesterday about relaxing and keeping my head low (also, Massi slowed down a little bit. Which helped). So when we stopped for breakfast an hour later, my head felt relatively normal.
Which isn't to say that other parts of my body weren't complaining. Namely, my ass. It was complaining. Rather loudly.
"You can stand up on the bike, you know," Massi kept suggesting. "Just hold onto my shoulders."
"Oh, I know," I would yell back through the wind. And then keep sitting. Although my ass was desperate for me to stand, the rest of me was quite insistent that I stay sitting down. And the rest of me won. Definitively.
So I rubbed my poor, ignored ass while I drank my breakfast cappuccino and ate my breakfast pastry. Whilst standing.
Massi spent a few minutes checking the route on his phone, and then we hopped on the bike and returned to the loathsome highway.
And after another hour of hanging on and keeping my head low, we found ourselves careening along winding mountain roads...
... which were pure bliss on a motorcycle (just don't ask my backside about it. My backside might still have something different to say).
So. This is where the fun begins.
The fun lasted another hour or so, and then we found ourselves on a highway yet again, near Florence. In the blazing heat. And humidity. In our heavy motorcycle gear. In achingly slow traffic.
Soaked in sweat and excessively smelly, we stopped in a small sandwich shop for lunch, stripping ourselves of our jackets and helmets and sitting in front of a heavenly fan.
Massi looked up some final directions to the yoga retreat, and we reluctantly donned our reeking jackets and gingerly sat ourselves back on the bike.
One ice cream later, several minutes of being thoroughly lost, and a couple more stops to pull out the phone and figure out where the hell we were, we arrived at our yoga retreat.
Oh no... I thought as I glimpsed a man wearing extremely flowy pants. I hope... I hope this place isn't too hippie/spiritual. For me and for Massi.
We finally found the reception (there weren't any signs directing us there. We were probably just supposed to use our intuition), and were presented with several papers to sign. One of which said that we were not allowed to bring meat, eggs, coffee, dairy, chocolate, alcohol, cigarettes, or black tea into the ashram. And that no sensual contact was permitted.
That's bullshit, I glowered ferociously at the long list of "don'ts", and everything I dislike about yoga. Also, it's entirely unfair to blindside us with this.
Upon finding out that we had accidentally been put into separate rooms and that the poor receptionist was too overwhelmed to help us sort it out, we decided to just book a cheap room nearby.
After everyone had checked in, we all gathered outside for a briefing and warmup. And it immediately became abundantly clear (even through the language barrier) that although the ashram was uber hippie/spiritual, the teacher and the other students were completely easy-going and delightful.
Yes. This is the yoga community I know and love.
At nine pm, Massi and I went to find our room in a nearby village, unpacked, showered (thank GOD), and then found a gorgeous little restaurant wherein we enjoyed all the prohibited goodies. Like wine, cheese, and wild boar.
I like this way of doing it. Attending a yoga retreat, but staying outside. So that I can still have food autonomy and not live off of quinoa and soy milk.
After a rather sleepless night (due to a veritable legion of famished mosquitoes), Massi and I made our way back to the ashram and joined the other students for the morning warmup. Which was exhausting and wonderful and awkward. As I don't speak Italian and just had to look at what other people were doing and try to follow along.
Which could have gone a lot worse. Also could have gone better.
Then we moseyed back into town for a breakfast of cappuccino, orange juice, and pastries.
The next day and a half continued in the same strain. Wonderful yoga classes, slightly awkward moments with the language barrier, delicious Italian food, and sleepless nights full of ravenous mosquitoes.
Why. WHY don't Europeans use screens on their windows? This makes NO sense to me. Most homes don't have air conditioners, so the apartments are hot. So they have to open the windows. Which ushers in all the mosquitoes.
...
It would be so easy to fix this problem. So why not fix it? Do Europeans ENJOY being attacked by mosquitoes all night long?
Ugh.
I was sad to leave the Ashram Sunday afternoon. Massi and I had grown a lot as acro yoga partners during the three day course, and I would have been very happy to stay there with him for weeks. Getting better at the thing I love with the person I love.
I'm so happy and excited be able to share this part of myself with someone.
So with a sad heart and very sore muscles, I hopped onto the bike (after asking, of course) and we continued our journey towards Siena.
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