Same time, same place. Different weather, different bikes

Meeting friends in strange cities always makes us go through that stupid (but quite nice) feeling that we just got there but we already rule the place. We know that x is the trendiest zone, that y is more adequate for this or that and that if we cross through that tiny street we’ll get to the most wanted place in town. The first time I met with Martino I was eating a Milanese specialty while chatting with a Japanese couple. This couple was staring so lavishly at my camera (which, by the way, is also Japanese) that they were starting to fall on that stereotype of Japanese tourists and their cameras. Martino’s Napoleonic look delighted me so there I went and asked if I could take his picture. He reacted so naturally to my request that it was like I had asked him for the time of day or about a tourist info.

The second time was different. I was having lunch with a Danish girl that I had run into by chance at Via Brera and that I had met a few days earlier. She was drinking white wine like if it was water but unlike most women that usually don’t appeal to me when they get drunker than me, I was absolutely delighted with her and her enchanting drunkenness. She transmitted femininity through her every pore. Through the look (and her eyes), through the smile (and her lips), through the semi-naked shoulder and through the cleavage that she showed when she laughed. Even through her clumsy English that 48 hours earlier had seemed so perfect. When we find enchantment in all these details we run the risk of the person in front of us realizing the good impression that she is leaving on the other side of the table. So there we were, she was drunk but lucid enough to notice my growing surrender as she oozed femininity. Nordics are known for their practicality and this girl was no exception. At a given moment she reminded me that her availability was not proportional to the quantity of alcohol she had in her blood and that, although she was enjoying the moment, she didn’t want to make the wrong impression. I guess this was just a sophisticated way of saying, “just because it’s Sunday, we’re both drunk, we’re both reasonably attracted to one another and our apartments are close by, that doesn’t mean we’ll be having our desserts there”. I told her, with a mocking look that aimed at making her feel a bit ridiculous, that she had found more good reasons for that to happen than I thought were possible. By now, Gonçalo, whom I was waiting for, and that was not an imaginary friend (as she probably assumed), was finally arriving. I got up and reminded her that the only reason I hadn’t suggested taking her photograph was because if I did it wouldn’t be proper to write about her and that lunch. But Martino was different. When a friend asked him the purpose of those photographs, like any good Italian he raised his hands to the sky and mockingly replied something like “you know, me and fashion, fashion and me”.

So there we went still with that stupid (but always nice) feeling that we already rule the place