In Which A Tower Leans Over the Couchsurfers

But in a protective, not menacing, way.

Last weekend I took a train down to Pisa to meet up with a good college friend, Greer, near the end of her month-long senior project in Rome. We agreed on Pisa as our midpoint so neither of us had to go über out of her way to reach the other, and so she could test out this CouchSurfing thing. (CS is a free online network that allows travelers to stay in peoples' homes rather than hostels or hotels, "surfing" the "couches" offered by willing hosts, and has gained popularity in the past couple of years.) We found two beds in the apartment of five male graduate students located just five walking minutes from the Leaning Tower, and according to former guests' testimonies they had been fantastic hosts, so she and I had high hopes for the weekend. After ten months apart we were glad to simply spend some time together in Italy, checking out the small town with its Big Sight-- and it turned out to be everything we'd dreamed!

The boys were so kind and laid-back for the entirety of the weekend, beginning by meeting each of us at the train station. I arrived first, got acquainted with the apartment and its inhabitants, went out for wine and cold cuts at a great place called In Vino Veritas*, chitchatted in Italian about why I was in Italy, what they were all studying (biology, sociology, engineering), the clay models of mythical creatures that they make and paint and joked about someday trying to sell. Charming, good-natured people. Then we went back to the station to pick up Greer, and she and I defaulted into American Girl Mode, laughing, hugging, talking at top speed in twin excited tones. Clicking arm-in-arm down the cobbled stone streets while Pisan university students began to assemble for the usual nocturnal weekend piazza festivities. Met some people, drank different things, coquetted with young people from all over the world, all the while catching up on the past year of her life and mine -- all that we had accomplished and realised and missed.

* Check out these adorable directions from the "English version" of the In Vino Veritas website: If you arrive to Pisa from the A1 highway, you can turn into the A11 highway direction Pisa, way out Pisa center and then you can find. Oh, the clarity. I give it an A for Effort.

We went to bed late and woke fairly early, went out to take coffee and croissants on a sunny cafe patio and talk at length about deeper matters, about doubts and fears and disappointments. Just one year ago, in March 2008, I was exactly where she is now. Study abroad in Italy still freshly impressed on her brain and heart, outstretched fingertips brushing the tip of an undergraduate degree in literature, teetering at an ambiguous edge. Unsure not only of what lies on the other side of College Graduation, but of where and when and how to jump. Can we, in fact, jump without falling? From behind my oversized Holly Golightly sunglasses I made some lame attempts at wise advice, offering my two centessimi on how unnecessary it is to be certain about anything right now, how this is the perfect time to sit and think and absorb. Doing comes later, when we are sure of ourselves. She nodded, sipped her coffee. Wore her customary pearl studs and Banana Republic cardigan. No makeup. A woman.

We talked also of the small things, of the a cappella group in which we initially met, of a class we had taken together some years ago. The sun moved in the sky, warming the air, and we changed into dresses before visiting the Baptistry (famous for its extraordinary interior acoustics) and eating a picnic lunch beside the Leaning Tower itself. Our hosts showed up at the end of lunch with a five-string guitar, which we played in turns, heedless of the other picnickers around us.

The sun moved again and we moved out of the tower's cool shadow. In the late afternoon we went shopping, walking. I won a game of Scarabeo (Italian Scrabble), to my - and everyone's - surprise. Extravagant homecooked dinner, birthday party at a friend's house, karaoke, 1am scooter rides around the city. I lightly held the ribs of a handsome blue-eyed Croatian boy whose name I never did manage to pronounce and looked over at Greer, passenger on another scooter. We both smiles like idiots, giggling at the absurdity and beauty of our situation. Crossing a stone bridge that's probably older than my own country! Moonlight shimmering on the river! Is that the wind whipping past my ears, or the sound of the motor? Or the beating of four young hearts?

Her train left at 7am the next morning, mine at 3. We shared a bench on her platform, talked about Colorado. Hugged. There is a small fruit tree in Pisa, growing from a squat square pot to about hip height, that is about seven or eight kumquats lighter than it was before my arrival. The Croatian boy invited me to join him for his end-of-the-summer journey home to his island, four hours to cross Italy by scooter and ten to cross the sea by ferry. Every time I come back to Torino, I am different.

And when I come back to California...?