The Long Haul

My first impressions were – you’re too big, too fat, you’re carrying way too much weight and there’s no way you’re going to move.  No, I wasn’t surveying the damage done by seasonal indulging but looking at the shiny new Qantas A380 that was going to transport me back to Australia for yet more seasonal indulgence.  I’ve made the longest of long haul journeys so many times now to have become almost blasé about the whole thing. Of course there is always a pang of excitement when stepping aboard a plane ready for another adventure.  While there is glamour to traversing the globe in a matter of hours the truth is for those of us consigned to cattle class there isn’t much in the way of glamour.  In fact after the excitement of take off you really need to put your head down and just get through the next 20 odd hours of transit.

Australians are used to the notion of long transits (it takes about 5 hours to fly from one end of the country to the other) and being so far away from anywhere you know that most trips are going to take the best part of a day.  To most of the Europeans I have met the thought of more than four hours in a plane is an unendurable endeavour.   It’s by no means fun but it’s really not that bad if you prepare and after twelve years of travelling between hemispheres I've got this long haul thing down to an art.  What type of book to choose, what clothes to wear, and given that upgrades are as rare as hen’s teeth, where the best spot in the economy cabin is.  In a strange way I actually look forward to the flight as my life is usually so hectic and disorganised that the enforced sitting and doing nothing for twenty hours is a welcome break.  

I have often thought how the act of travelling is a state of mind and atmosphere all of its own.  Over the years I have been through many airports (I think about 30) and the atmosphere in them is always the same.  Once you get past the security check to the airside it feels as if you have already left whichever country you are in and entered the country (or absence of country) of travel.  The transit lounge is full of people waiting wearily for the time to board the aircraft that will take them to an exotic location or back home to familiar surrounds.  Duty free is full of the same bottles of Bombay Sapphire and Chanel No5 that you saw at the point of departure.  There is always the one store stocked full of things that supposedly reflect the culture of the country you have just been in – Harrods in London, Ken Done and boomerangs in Aus, leather and dulce de leche in Argentina, and so on.

Once finally up there in the atmosphere looking down at the world below the clouds I can’t help but imagine that the plane has somehow escaped time.  That by merely taking off and joining the system of invisible airborne highways and byways, that are unmarked save for beacons planted in the middle of nowhere, has taken us out of the earth bound concerns of morning, afternoon and evening; of going to work and what to cook for dinner. Up there all that matters are hours; how many since take off and more importantly how many to your destination.  Watching the oversize plane make its painfully slow progress across the onscreen flight path becomes a small obsession.  The little plane flies over such exotic places as Tashkent and Samarkand that I long to set down in these mysterious places to explore.  At times plane travel seems brutal in picking you up in one place and setting you down on the other side of the world with not a thought to the wonderful places in between.  I’ve long harboured a dream of travelling over land from Spain to China, making the trek from Mediterranean through Central and Eastern Europe across the point where Europe and Asia meet and then over the steppes of central Asia and into South East Asia.  I’m curious to see if I notice the faces, food and cultures changing or if they gradually blend from one into the other – one day perhaps I'll  get round to it.

When at last you do set down in your destination you have to then recover from the flight and the fact that you have gone from one time zone and season to the opposite.  A swim and a shower in my experience is the best way to get over the flight as for jet lag, well that takes a bit of effort.  According to the experts you need to give a day for each hour of difference to come to terms with the new time but for me that’s way too long. The only effective solution I have found is just to force yourself to stay awake until a time deemed reasonable for sleep in your new location.  It’s tough for a couple of days but then you’re right.

    

So very suddenly I am back on the other side of the world in Australia and back in Melbourne.  Back in familiar surrounds where beer comes in pots, people smile and the footy (Aussie Rules of course) is a religion.  There have been reunions aplenty with more yet to do.  As I write this looking out the window at the brilliant sunshine listening to the comforting sound of a tram trundling past I wonder about my funny little life in Treviso half a world away – I wonder if my life in Treviso even exists.   

I give up

It’s a micro climate I’m told, the strange combination of factors that has resulted in this part of the world being meltingly hot in the summer and blisteringly cold in the winter with ridiculous levels of humidity throughout the year.  The hot and humid weather never really bothers me but cold is something I live in fear of.  Get temperatures into single figures and I become the kind of person that lives up to the whinging stereotype that me adopted home holds of British people.  Winter in the Veneto has always been this looming event whose inevitable arrival I have dreaded.  Not just for the cold and humid temperatures that bite through you or the bitter winds that smack you in the face but the knowledge that I can either suffer stoically through the event or start dressing for the weather.  And here lies the problem.

Melbourne gets pretty cold and normally the arrival of the winter months is seen as a opportunity and I look forward to the twice yearly ritual of the wardrobe turnaround when you put wash and put away the t-shirts and summer dresses and pull out the jumpers and thick socks that you haven’t seen for the last five or six months.  I see the cooler months as an opportunity to dress better given that you are required to wear so many more clothes.  When I say Melbourne gets cold I mean Melbourne gets cold for Australia and here with the ever lowering thermometer suddenly my winter clothes look stupidly thin.  Recently everyone seems to be concerned with my preparedness to cope with a Trevisan winter.  I’ve often been asked if I have a warm coat and you know I actually thought I did.  But of late my usual Melbourne winter coat while being ultra stylish in its modern minimalist aesthetic is proving painfully inadequate and I have been forced to consider alternatives. 

When the first signs of cold weather appeared Trevisans en masse (I’m not sure if there is a set date for this or if the Trevisans have some kind of sartorial telepathy) pulled out their puminos.  A pumino is a big puffy, padded coat that while keeping you snug does run the danger of making you look like the Michelin man.  For a while it seemed as if every shop window was full these monster coats.  If like me you don’t particularly like the pumino there is a popular alternative – fur.  Here there doesn’t seem to be any stigma or controversy about wearing animal pelts and I’ve never seen so many women in fur.  Now obviously I’m not going to wear fur so it looks like the pumino is my only option if I’m going to get through the winter.  Unfortunately being short (I make pygmies look tall) and svelte not being an adjective you would use to describe me I look pretty stupid in one of these big puffy numbers.  I also think they’re pretty ugly so the prospect of owning one is quite distressing. 

Winter 2011/2 Big, puffy coat and gumboots

Get one, wear it through the winter and then put it at the back of your wardrobe and forget about it until you need it again was the advice I was given and it was with this in mind that I went out in search of a pumino.  I quickly realised that if I was to be warm I would have to give up any notions of style – these coats just look stupid on me.  They’re not cheap either and when push came to shove I couldn’t face the thought of spending 100+ euros on something that made me look like a cross between the stay puft marshmallow man and a sleeping bag.  I’ve never really thought of myself as a fashonista preferring to dress for comfort and mood rather than the latest trends yet I surprised myself by being prepared to suffer the cold to avoid the marshmallow look.  That was until the temps really started dropping and I soon realised that I am prepared to sacrifice a bit of style to the greater good of being warm.  I was hoping to ride it out until the sales kicked in post Christmas but no luck, it’s just too cold to wait.  Still being tight fisted or prudent enough not to spend my hard earned money on something that will render me a visual joke I’ve borrowed one from M.  Yes it’s super warm and puffy and yes I am giving up on style – for the next few months at least.

He was only a cruise ship crooner

the award for headline of the year goes to The Daily Telegraph

Since my acquaintance with this country a certain Mr B has dominated the political landscape, so much so that it seems strange to think he’s no longer there.  While many an Italian was rejoicing at the demise I wonder if the countries satirists were thrown in a pit of despair at the loss of such a rich vein of material.  But then again Mr B had become such a parody that there really was no need to add satire.

I have always wondered how Italians came to elect (three times) a man for whom the word buffoon seems to have been invented.   Italian politics are a complicated and opaque world and certainly not one that I can begin to sum up in a superficial blog nor would I have the arrogance to suggest I am qualified to do so.  Given that he first came to power after the reigning government was exposed as having its hands in so many tills that the prime minister fled the country perhaps he did seem like a breath of fresh air.  The fact that he owns several television stations and newspapers did help PR matters.  Or were the Italians seduced by the narrative of the vacuum cleaner salesman and sometime cruise ship singer pulling himself up to be a media mogul and one of the richest men in the country?  Who can blame them for thinking that maybe some of that magic would rub off but once in power things where a different matter.   There’s a quote attributed to Pope Leo X which I’m often reminded of when I think about Mr B and his time in office.  From his seemingly endless partying, appointing a string of MPs whose main qualification for the job was a pretty face and breasts, to the changing of laws to suit his business interests or avoid prosecution the cynicism of Pope Leo to me perfectly sums up the last few years of Italian political life - "Since God has given us the Papacy, let us enjoy it." – substitute a couple of words and I think you’ll have it.   

Once in power and, at least in my opinion, showing himself to be at best hopelessly inadequate and at worst corrupt he was voted back twice to form the longest serving Italian government since Mussolini.  Why?  You could argue it was a lack of an effective opposition or it could be the appeal to self interest or did all the favourable media coverage lead the country to think he was doing a good job?  Well the reason was – Oh hell search me I have no idea, it really is mind boggling that he was voted in once let alone three damn times.       

At the end of it all Mr B wasn’t brought down by any one of the number of personal, political or business scandals that became so common that one didn’t even raise an eyebrow but by the enormity of the European financial crisis.  Once the crisis turned towards Italy his demise was swift, watching his leaving I got the impression that B is genuinely bewildered as to how events turned against him.  From being the astute media player suddenly the populist touch deserted him.  Many Italians were angered by his glib assertion that everything was ok as the bars and restaurants of Italy were full without a mention of the growing hardships caused by austerity measures.  B has left the country with one hell of an overdraft, rising unemployment and the (temporary) suspension of democracy – the current and polar opposite Prime Minister Mario Monti was appointed to the position by the president.  The country like much of Europe is in a mess and one that will most likely get worse before (if) it gets better.

As for Mr B have we seen the last of him?  Will he be happy to retire to his villa or is he plotting a return.  He has kept himself busy releasing an album of co-written love songs just a week after leaving office.  Given that now he is out of power his immunity from prosecution has gone and that his party is still the biggest in Parliament it’s hard to believe this is the end of him.  I personally don’t think it will be too long before the perma tan returns – just long enough for the public to blame the current government for the continued economic hardship that’s my guess.  “Men are so simple and so much inclined to obey immediate needs that a deceiver will never lack victims for his deceptions.” Machiavelli