IX.iv. The Grand Tour

"Travel is not compulsory. Great minds have been fostered entirely by staying close to home. Moses never got further than the Promised Land. Da Vinci and Beethoven never left Europe. Shakespeare hardly went anywhere at all—certainly not to Elsinore or the coast of Bohemia."
- James Morris

When they stepped off the bus, they looked a little bit worse for the wear but happy at least to have finally arrived in Bologna. Simon, is his usual dandy style, was wearing a linen blazer with a ruffled pink and white pocket square. Mila, his companion now for almost five years, looked pretty as ever, skipping along even with the heavy luggage they had brought along with them.
    It so happened that on this Tuesday afternoon these two worlds of mine collided. I had long anticipated this day, actually, when the first of my long cortege of friends would arrive in Bologna, taking advantage of my apartment and its free accommodation, tasting Emilia-Romagna for all it was worth, braving my often too earnest expatiation on the subject of unappreciated grandeur, underrated gelato, or ecclesiastical art.
    Simon and Mila, two of my greatest friends, were at the beginning of a European sojourn that would include stops in Bolzano, Paris, Antibes, and London. I had been used to spending time with them, spending inordinate amounts of time together doing nothing, since high school, when life was simpler and richer in a naïve sort of way. I hadn't seen them for eight months, but they looked roughly the same, except that Mila had finally convinced Simon to change his mop-like combed over hair for a more up to date tousle that matched his impeccable flâneur-like style.
    "How are you ever going to come back?" Mila said to me several times, first on seeing my apartment, then on setting foot in Piazza Maggiore on our initial stroll through the city centre. I answered that it would be difficult, I knew it would, but that it wasn't something I needed to face for some time, and that my long lonely months in this still foreign country had made me long for some of the most banal aspects of North American life.
    It's true that the quadrilatero, the tangle of streets that are home to Bologna's most upscale and beautifully presented food shops, opening onto the great russet-toned square are seductive to the point of disbelief. My apartment too, in its brilliant white, minimalist, and recently cleaned state, looked worthy of a stay extending far beyond ten months. My friends though, those with me along with others I wouldn't be fortunate enough to see before my return, made me long for other, plainer places. Culturally, academically, even socially, I was an honourary Bolognese, but in truth I was still a visitor, still just passing through, and still far, far away from home.