Our love story: Part 21

The next two days we drove around San Piero in Bagno, exploring the mountainside and driving into Fiesole and Ancona.

I wouldn't learn it until several years later, when I was taking geography courses, but Ancona, a city that sits along Italy's eastern coast, is the starting point of an imaginary line that goes all the way to the western coast of Italy. That line divides the northern and southern parts of Italy.

Now, there is one thing all Italians agree on: there is a vast difference between those from the north and those from the south. But, depending on who you're talking to, those cultural differences are seen very differently.

My mother-in-law, for example, sees southern Italians as lazy and abusers of the welfare system. But then, she even thinks Rome is located too far in Italy's south and doesn't want to visit it (Rome is basically located in central Italy). She also thinks northern Italy is the only place people could willingly live and is full of hard-working people.

Let's just pause here to mention that I really hope the above paragraph didn't come across as mother-in-law bashing. I'm only trying to prove a point by using someone I know well as an example. Also, I defy any reader here to find a better mother-in-law than the one I have. She's the best and I cannot find one thing wrong with her.

But if you talk to someone from the south, or so I'm told (all of Marco's family members are from the north), they'll tell you how much better life is in the south where southerners understand how to enjoy life instead of focusing so much on money, like their northern counterparts.

Liz and I in Fiesole

Anyway, so there we were, in Ancona, and I had no idea how geographically significant it was. All I knew was this was the headquarters of Toby and Marco's mission and it wasn't nearly the dull town I had imagined it to be. It was on the beach! It had a cool globe/statue thing that Marco and Toby thought was really strange to take a photo of! In fact, Liz was the only one who would pose with me for this photo (again, proof of an awesome friend) even though she probably didn't get nearly the kick out of it that I did.

On Thursday it was time to leave San Piero in Bagno. Uncle Marco showed up, loaded our luggage in his car, and drove us to the train station.

Me, Uncle Marco, Marco, and Liz

The first leg of our train ride was sad. We had thought we'd have a more days with Toby, but he had decided to leave a few days early and see some sights on his own. It wasn't until we went our different ways at the stop, him on his own adventure and the three of us riding on to Udine, that I realized how much I'd grown to like him. Toby was a fun guy to hang around and someone I now considered a friend.

But no one else was tearing up about things, so I wouldn't either.

Toby went on one train and we waited around for ours. Our next stop was Udine, a little town I'd only ever read about in "A Farewell to Arms" and even then I hadn't paid much attention to it.

Little did I know then that Udine would become the place in Italy I would come to love best and one that I would return to visit again.

But on that day, I was nervous. Meeting Marco's laid-back uncle was one thing, but now we were going to his grandparents' house. At the beginning of this trip, when I considered Marco a mere travel companion, I had known we'd be staying at his grandparents' house. But now, when we were verging on boyfriend-girlfriend status, the thought of staying with them brought on a whole bucket full of different feelings.

Would Marco's grandparents like me?