Under the Tuscan Smog

We left for Rome at dawn. Actually no we didn't we left more around noon, due to Giulio having an appointment with the ear doctor. We got up early, loaded the car, shut up the house and drove to the appointment with the car all set for the trip, but due to a back up on the highway we decided after Giulio's appointment to drive back down and get on the interstate further along. In the end we practically drove by our front door to get to the highway, and added another hour and a half to our journey. It was hot, well, very warm at any rate, and rather alarming considering that we are only in the first half of April and one already has to worry about the heat. Within minutes of getting on the highway we opt to turn the air conditioner on and roll the windows up. I turn it on, cupping my hand over the vent, waiting for the warm air to turn cool. Nothing happens. I turn the air on and off and then back on again. Nothing, we will have to make the trip with the windows down. Which you really can't do on the highway with cars zooming past at eighty miles an hour, so in the end we leave the windows closed but crank up the fans, letting hot air blow through the car. I can't take my eyes off the thermostat that we have inside the car, it gauges the temperature inside and outside. Apparently outside it is a pleasant 72, inside it's an uncomfortable 82. I keep staring at the rising numbers, as the temperature slowly goes up, and then, like in one of those prison movies where the guy decides to make a break for it and runs to the fence, even though he knows he's a goner even before he touches the wall, I turn to Lorenzo. "I'm sorry, I can't take it any more!" and roll down my window, letting the wind come roaring into the car. We drive the whole way to Rome with the front two windows rolled down about four inches, the only part of us feeling better are our hands when we stick them outside.
The first part of the trip is uneventful. The DVD player is a huge success, Giulio is glued to "Babe" and then later on"The Curse of the Were-Rabbit." I don't make any suggestions that he do anything but watch movies. He is quiet and occupied. Livia sleeps. I do my usual flight attendent bit of serving drinks and sandwiches around the cabin, then settle back to watch the ride. The roar from the windows makes any conversations seem like we are two eighty year olds who have left our hearing aides at home, lots of huh? and whats?? Lorenzo is also prone to want to concentrate on the road when he drives rather than gossip and rip large chunks out of the people we know, making me wish at times that during our road trips he would get more in touch with his femine side, the side that makes him want to discuss how much weight our friend has gained since she had her last baby. Perhaps driving on the Italian autostrada, playing leapfrog with the trucks and moving in and out of the passing lane leaves little room for anything but the most brutal testosterone.
For me the trip is always divided into three stages, from Milan to Bologna which is flat, open highway, Bologna to Florence, which is nail biting twisting highway that goes through the mountains, and then from Florence to Rome, when the drivers become more agressive and risk taking.
For many Florence is the art capital of the world, the cherry atop their long awaited trip to Italy. For me it is the halfway mark between my home and Rome, a place where I can really figure out how long it is actually going to take us to get to my in-laws. The trip is supposed to take 6 hours from start to finish, if there is no traffic and we have no children it can be done in under 6, however all we need is two trucks to have a fender bender somewhere south of Bologna and we are looking at eight hours. Throw in Giulio being car sick and throwing up, or a wailing baby for unidentified reasons and then you could be looking at 10 hours. My mother did the trip with us once. "God," she said, as the Tuscon countryside whipped past our windows, "This trip takes FOREVER." We make it to Florence in the usual three hours and find the usual backed up traffic. Florence sits in a kind of basin, someone told me that they have their own micro-climate. When it's cold in Italy, it's freezing in Florence, and when it's hot everywhere else, it's boiling there. We come flying down the hill and into the long lines of backed up traffic, the outside temperature shooting up from a pleasant 68 while in the mountains to 82 the moment we are in the vicinity of the city. If I lean all the way over to the left I can just make out the dome on top of the Duomo. We lower the windows all the way down and creep along. Once when Giulio was really small we found ourselves completely stopped there for a good half hour there on the highway so in the end I decided to nurse him. I wasn't the pro I am now about nursing in public so I snuck a look around to make sure that no one was watching, but seeing that there was only an empty tour bus on my right, I had him latch on. It was only later that I realized that the bus was not only full, but that I had accidentally flashed the whole left side of it.
We finally push through Florence but it is here on the other side the Livia starts to lose it. She wails, her head soaked with sweat, the bottle of water I manage to get into her mouth doing no good. It is times like these I wish I had a Mr. Gumpy type breast that I could just stretch around to the back seat so she could nurse without us stopping the car. In the end we get off at the nearest rest stop and I go around and free her from her carseat. The minute she is out of the car she is cooing and smiling again as if nothing had happened, she was just sick of sitting in the car seat, that's all.
One advantage to Italy are the rest stops called Autogrill. Here you find cafes loaded with fantastic sandwiches, snacks, ice cream, coffee, cappucinos, water and soda. In addition to these well stocked bars there is always a store which sells all kinds of salami, cheese, mortadella, crackers, cookies, candy, magazines, CDs, t-shirts, and cigarettes. There is also an enormous gas station and of course, bathrooms. It takes the word "rest stop" to a whole new level, a far cry from the American version with a bathroom, a pop machine, and map of the interstate pinned up on the wall.
We get ice cream and Livia gets a jar of meat. We also try and convince Giulio that he really does need to go to the bathroom. He insists "I just fine!", and while it is really tempting to say that if he announces in 10 minutes time when we are back on the road that he needs to go it will be his problem. Except that it won't be just his problem, but ours as well. And it will be completely and truly our problem to clean up the pee aftewards and try and remove the smell of urine from the car. So we keep trying. Giulio keeps saying no, finally when Lorenzo goes into the bathroom alone Giulio waits just long enough for Lorenzo to be possibly out of sight to go tearing in after him. I start to follow, Livia in my arms, but some strange looks from the men coming out of the bathroom stop me. Lorenzo and Giulio are back in a moment, Giulio beaming. He has gone pee. The next battle is to get him to wash his hands, which we make him do by force, and then the hand dryer which he finds fascinating and stands below it, extending both arms up into the air stream, his eyes closed. We have to eventually tear him away from that and head back out to the car. I try and nurse Livia who doesn't seem all that interested and after a few minutes I stop and announce that we can go. It is pointless to tell Livia that is she doesn't nurse now it will be her problem once we are back on the road. I start "Babe" up again on the DVD player and the next 45 minutes are quiet as Giulio watches his movie and Livia dozes. However about two hours north of Rome, and Christ is it really 6 o'clock?!! Livia starts wailing, an ear piercing-we're-not-gonna-take-it-anymore kind of cry, which from the my place in the front seat, I can do little about. The sun has shifted, so at least the car is not as hot, Lorenzo has that concentrated look as he expertly passes a truck loaded with cows and is barely able to give more than one word answers to any questions I ask. Livia keeps wailing, Giulio remains oblivious, fascinated by the world of pig sheep dog trials. I eye the back seat, seeing how little room there is between the two car seats, then start to clear out a little space for more possible leg room. Lorenzo has the car in the slow lane again, his eyes are glued to the road. "I'm going over." I say, now in a cold-war era movie about the Berlin wall. I take a deep breath, unfasten my seatbelt and vault over into the back seat, squeezing in between the two carseats. The middle seat belt is suprisingly easy to find and fasten and in a moment I am in place. I have done it! Livia is so suprised to see me back there next to her that she stops crying for a moment. I rummage around and dig out from under my leg a baby yoghurt. Upon seeing the yoghut Giulio announces that he wants a baby yoghurt too. I deny his request, as I only have a limited number of these babies, and ignore his whining as I start spooning up the yoghurt with a slightly sticky spoon I found in the bag along with the baby food. After awhile I find myself drawn to Giulio's movie, wow, this DVD is a good idea, I can't look away from a movie I must have already seen 50 times over. With Livia chewing on my left hand and Giulio clutching my right, Lorenzo still mono-syllbic in the front seat, we complete our driving to Rome in the dusk. "God," I thought as we got off the exit for Roma Nord, "This trip takes @#@! forever!"