Bella Italia 4: Pisa My Heart

When we were planning our trip to Italy, I wasn't shy about pushing a side-trip to Pisa specifically to see the leaning tower. "At least one tiny peek of the tower," I begged. H wanted to see the leaning tower too, but he wasn't sure if he could find the motivation to drive so far just to see a sloping belfry. In the end, curiosity got the better of him and Pisa was back in the itinerary. Yiha!

From Verona we took the Fi.Pi.Li highway and broke off a little later to drive by the small roads that wound through little Tuscan villages with their own little secret treasures.

Because we were tired and had very little time to make Pisa by daylight, we decided to skip the renaissance town, Lucca. But our detour had rewarded us with this red-bricked curio in its stead.

Sunflower fields and vineyards, hillside olive groves and overgrown cypress trees that framed modest farmhouses all glowed in the golden fire of the Tuscan sun.

And was it also the fierce sun that caused these people to become petrified, with their arms suspended in the air?

You know why.

It's the spot where Galileo purportedly experimented on free-fall acceleration. Of course it's famous! Incidentally, it leans too!

After years of wishing, I'd finally seen and made dutdot the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

It was one of the places I'd hoped to visit when I first came to Europe in '07, but I only saw the red tiled roofs and the marigold-yellow houses of the Tuscany region from the air as I jetted from Rome to Florence. All I could think when I was finally face to face with it was, "At last, at last, at last."

 

 At last I have someone to hold the camera for me while I pose like a twit.

Hurray for marriage!

We had coffee in front of the cathedral while watching the worst ventriloquist performance on earth - and I wish we had a choice. An aging woman took a video of the ventriloquist for some reason, and the man pointed at her and called her a thief for not dropping a coin in his hat first. Sheesh.

H checking if the food is edible. This is how we decide where to eat.
Not too discreet, I know :)

It was a relief to walk around when we'd finished our drinks, so we could see some of the splendor of this old city.

Pisa is a maritime canton, providentially blessed with two intersecting rivers that empty into the Mediterranean Sea. In its prime, it was a force to be reckoned with. Its fleets controlled the Mediterranean and their bounty was used to build the impressive Piazza Del Duomo.

We were having a lovers' tiff so no one was in the mood for taking pictures when we got to the Arno. But the gothic churches were delightful, and the mostly romanesque buildings were striking to behold.

The typical Tuscan apartments were charming, too.

 

Before dark, we found a camping site at the Pisa marina, just behind the woods. To go to the beach, we had to pass through a posh Bali-style bar with cushions and candles in the sand. 

The waves crashed violently against the breakwater. While we were changing into our swimsuits, the waiter came by and told us not to swim past the man-made cove because the sea could suck us in and spit us into the rocks.

Point well taken. It's a good thing he came over because H was in a sporty mood.

After the swim we pitched the tent and started on dinner.

I took out the stuff we bought in the supermarket that morning, after we dropped my cousin off at the office. Surprisingly, there was still some Boy Bawang left.

It was a tiring day for H; he drove from Milan to Verona to Pisa. I took a peek at the milage and we'd traveled almost 2,000 kilometers since Tuesday. I could feel the toll it was taking on him. We had been on the road for a week; and when he's not driving, he's walking with me the rest of the way. I didn't even ask him to do all of this (aside from groveling about passing by Pisa of course), he just thought it would make me happy. And if by staying happy I make him happy, then logically, wedded bliss should not be so hard to come by... but it is. It really is. Because after a year of living with him, I've realized that logic has no place in a marriage.

Thankfully, the petty argument in Pisa didn't last as long as some of our previous squabbles. After a year, we've begun to learn how to give way. I noticed that H was trying hard to work on his temper, and I was trying to be patient and understanding. I think our fights last longer than they need to because we are both too proud to relent when we get emotional. Older couples told us someday we'll be too tired to care who's right, who's wrong, and who said what in the first place.

The trees in the campsite mournfully hunched away from the sea, after a lifetime of being pushed away by cold mistrals and violent squalls. They lean just like the famous tower in Pisa, bending from its heavy load, sinking lower to the ground with each passing day... While I do think sometimes you have to give in to someone when the fight is just not worth having, I hope we'll never be too old or too tired to argue -- because when you bend, you just don't care anymore.

Up Next: Florence + The Machine

Related Posts:
A Year in France Celebration (The Aftermath)
Sizzling Beach 1, Sizzling Beach 2, Sizzling Beach 3
Bella Italia 1, Bella Italia 2, Bella Italia 3

A Year In The Life

 

One of the things I remember from waking up this morning is the mole on my husband's back slowly coming into focus. I have been sleeping and waking up next to this person for a year, and sometimes I feel like I don't know him - take that mole for example, it's the first time I've noticed that. 

There are also his mood swings that I need to get used to.

And his strange foreign ways.

Last night we had dinner at 16 Haussman. The maître d' took us to the champagne room while they readied our table. I was already a little drunk because we had pink champagne at home while exchanging anniversary gifts - cotton shirts for the first year. So I started the dinner heureuse or "happy," as the French would say, and through the course of the meal I had more wine so I only got happier and happier. 

The place was almost empty by dessert time, and the oddly quiet retired Japanese couples were beginning to file out, the drunk woman realized her date wasn't coming, the man behind us proposed to his girlfriend, and H and I clapped.

As we wound down after desserts, the maître d' gave us each a plate of financiers and chocolate truffles with two tiny candles to congratulate us on our anniversary.

So we made it through the first year. The candles said it. It was hard, but we made it. 

By some standards we were hilaw, we did not spend more than 3 weeks every 3 months together for almost 2 years before we decided to get married, so how were we to know this was going to work out? Well, we didn't. It's the bravest thing we've ever done in our lives. We are both still mysteries to be unraveled, and who doesn't love a good mystery? It's like being married to the Rosetta.

People wait their entire lives to find someone to love, much less someone to love forever, and we found each other by luck. And some people fall in and out of love so capriciously, or turn and run at the first sign of turbulence, which is also smart, so I respect that. There were many times when we were on the brink of calling it quits because our personalities and our cultures clashed - but our vows turned out to be much stronger than our stubborn pride. And we learned the power of the words "sorry" and "respect" and finally truly understood "love."

Some people love themselves more or have yet to grow more to fully commit; but what I've learned here, if I learned anything at all, is that there is no state of being "ready" or "able" to love. No matter your stage of emotional or intellectual enlightenment, when you love, you love; that's it pansit. We chose to grow more together, and hopefully grow old together. Paris or Pinas, these are just addresses. Whether it's in the mountains of Kilimanjaro or the deeps of the Sulawesi - where he is, I want to be; where I want to be, he'll be with me.

The first year was for discovering each other.

The second is for discovering the world.

The third year is for creating a home.

The next hundred years is going to be interesting.

6 months baby, yeah!

We've made it through the half-year mark!

And already I feel nostalgic.

My lovely nanay.

G, in her equally successful blue and piña motif.

C reads for us at the chapel.

H's mom can't contain her tears. Neither could H.

My brother and cousin, shouting "Mabuhay ang bagong kasal!" through the streets of Gigouzac.

Our flight attendants announcing that cocktails are over.

And dinner would soon be served.

J oversees passport and ticket check.

And although I know I'd be hunted down for this, I can't help but wonder who's next?

V & A?

J & A?

Or my cousin and his movie idol? 

Chika lang, A and J!!! There was a bevy of awesome twosome pictures :)

First-Ever Post-Wedding Pre-Winter Project

At last, one IKEA table has made it out of the box!

Yesterday we worked together to make the dining table I've dreamed of for so long. Our place is very small and packed with his old stuff already so we had to find furniture that could be set aside after use. Enter frame well-known Scandanavian furniture store, purveyor of Nordic-cool dreams!

We went to the cavernous outlet just outside Paris two weeks ago. H's friend, Olivier M, told us IKEA may be the ultimate test of a marriage. If you get out without going into a fight then you're a lucky couple indeed, and if you do fight and patch up after you get out then you have a good thing going. I bet if you look up reasons for divorce, you'd see IKEA up there with cheating and hogging the remote.

Amazing

Well, I'm not going to lie to you. We bickered through the whole maze. It's amazing how individual tastes and the idea of seeing furniture that "just isn't you" in your house forever could really start some friction, and how simple suggestions about where the TV could go could escalate into frustration, tears and physical exhaustion. If they have a kid's play area, they should offer couple's counseling too. And because of all that time we spent in the upper floors psychoanalyzing each other, we had to run through the lower floors that had all the cute knicknacks so we could get to the counter before the store closed. If you like pretty stuff and you've been to IKEA, you would know how much that hurts. All I got was an apron and a wok.

But we survived the IKEA test, and it made us stronger.

And now, the second test. Assembly.

The smart, retro-chic of the store's philosophy extends to their manual, on the left. Being a global brand, they've done away with words and returned to man's first language: the pictograph. Never since Babel has man spoken so universally. Even aliens will have no problem assembling our table. Notice also the second and third panels. H had fun explaining this to me.

1 person: NO!
2 persons: Yeees (with a nodding grin)

On the floor: NO!
On the carpet: Ouiiii (with a nodding grin)

Screwed

As anyone who's ever assembled any D-I-Y project would attest, it is best to start by making an inventory and, like the old Batibot song goes, "pagsama-samahin ang pare-pareho" or "put that shit next to that shit because they look alike."

This was easy.

Then we followed the pictures.

That was fun.

But then on step 3, I put in one metal peg the wrong way, and I mean no screwdriver or jedi mind trick could ever have gotten it back. I knew H would have fun with this (and he was about to!) so I immediately pulled the peg out with the Totoro magnet from the fridge... THAT he didn't expect.

And then H had an asthma situation.

It didn't last long. We were both sick anyway, so I made him sit down and I did the hammering on the drawers.

That was really really fun.

I imagined every dickwad who ever screwed me over.

And tah-daaah! Drawers!

That look like coffins.

H finished off the table top and had a shower because we were hungry and we wanted to eat a bit of something before going to a friend's house at the 15th Arrondisement (very near the Seine and the Eiffel Tower, you could see their neighbor's windows sparkle every start of the hour).

And we were REALLY hungry. We had some bread for breakfast and then rid the closet of his old stuff (some for charity, the rest for recycling), threw out the junk that had been collecting next to the door for a decade, and assembled the table without having lunch.

Now, pre-IKEA we would have hemmed and hawed for hours about what to eat. Post-IKEA, we threw ideas around but immediately decided on chicken nuggets at the McDonald's across the street.

Did IKEA save this young couple?

We still argue a lot, sometimes I'm surprised because he seems to freak out about the most simple things and I'm the one with the tissue hanging off her nose wondering where it all went south. It all boils down to communication and understanding. As a mixed couple, we have to navigate cultural differences on top of gender and personality differences.

When the building custodian saw my husband carrying the IKEA boxes up he said: "Just got married, huh?" Like it was THE THING newlyweds just do. In a way, it is. You come from two different worlds and then you merge, and you want it to be the world you want to live in because what you see outside just makes no sense. That's all there is to it: You want to create a world with your partner that makes sense. But then you realize your husband wants different things, he has different ideas, and then you are afraid of abandoning who you were, the aesthetic that defined you, your process of doing things. It's the scariest thing in the world, losing yourself.

We saw this on the way to the 15th Arr. that night. Ironically, I saw a similar poster on a truck while we were at McDo (a fridge in the forest)... Apparently, Parisians like putting their unwanted furniture, appliances and now bathroom fixtures out on the street for anyone who's interested.

Anyway, when he saw it he said I could use the toilet in the street if I wanted to. I said I didn't feel like going yet, but I said it so innocently that he didn't catch the sarcasm... and he had to ask, if I was really serious, like really really serious that I would pee in the toilet if I felt like it.

We have a long way to go, baby.