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Italiano (Italian)
Tripping in USA with Viro was the title I gave in July 2004 to a kind of newsletter in which I informed my friends and relatives of my U.S. adventures. The trip lasted three weeks, was solo and using public transportation. This is the route I took from my google maps.
It was a time when there was no social media, nor the ease of being able to use the net that we have today. It was my first solo trip outside of Europe. The group of those who had asked to be informed increased as the postings went on. Writing gave an extra flavor to the experiences I was having.
As in the current blog, there are no prices and schedules, but feelings and emotions; entanglements and encounters. It is as if it was the seed of the idea that then sprouted and grew 20 years later. The biggest difference is that I often took the opportunity to respond to comments and requests from my readers.
I returned to the U.S. many years later, the world had changed; this is the link to the home of the stories of the trip I took in 2017: Traveling in the USA in the winter
Instead, this is the verbatim account on my blog(in Italian): In the New York parties
I’ll repost Tripping in the USA more or less as I wrote it
Here I am!
Only a few hours to go: everything is ready. My mythical backpack with which I have traveled half of Europe is saturated.
I drastically changed my look by shaving my hair almost to nothing and fixed some little work issues. So I’m leaving with nothing on my mind, neither hair nor work, I only have to think about the trip!
This email is the introduction to the ones I will be sending from the US during the next 22 days, they will be called Tripping in USA with Viro. So I begin with a greeting to all of you, including the only one who will in some way be participating in this adventure, Tania! You asked me for news, I am also doing this because going on the trip alone is a stretch, but better alone than badly accompanied and especially better than staying at home.
So it will be a way to share and communicate the many emotions and feelings, and then I have an excuse to write! The goal is to wear out my shoes; discovering and getting to know different things, situations, people and places than I am used to.
Tomorrow I am scheduled to arrive in New York at 7:30 p.m. local time. I hope to happen well with my traveling companion(s). The last 2 times I’ve flown, I had framed the most beautiful girl at check-in and focused hoping she would happen to be near me, and it had worked!
The minimum goal is not to catch an American big enough to occupy even my seat and splatter me on the window. Of course with my neck like this (inflammation with painkiller galore), even if I had Angelina Jolie on my left, I couldn’t look at her.
What about Janez Bamboo?
I still don’t know whether to get from Kennedy Airport to Manhattan by cab or by subway. I love subways, but by cab I might enjoy the little by little approach to the Big Apple. The biggest worry is that I”ve been told there are few public restrooms in the U.S. How will I do with my incontinence!?
The greatest hope is that during the journey I will not have to go searching under some bridge for poor Janez. In that case I would change the title of the story to In Search of the Lost Bamboo Janez.
For those who don’t know, Janez Bambù is a very dear friend of mine who is a bit peculiar who also left for the U.S. 2 weeks before me, wanting to do a different itinerary, but mostly less organized, with no phone, no credit card and $4,000 in cash. In short, I will meet a lot of abnormal people, but even at home I can’t complain.
The half-Polish violinist
The trip went well, my companion was not the prettiest, but nice and interesting. Half American and half Polish, she is enrolled in psychology next year, and most importantly she plays the violin, and she was returning home after going on a tour where she played Vivaldi’s Spring. Just the little music on my cell phone!
Although I had to strain my neck to turn around and talk to her, perhaps because of the adrenaline rush from this electrifying city, the pain in my neck passed, so all quiet at home.
I arrived at 7:00 p.m. and the entry procedures at the customs are not that terrible, they ask you silly questions like if you are a terrorist or if you steal children, just don’t laugh in their faces, although it was very tempting to say that I am a communist and therefore I not only steal children but also eat them.
The arrival in Manhattan, besides being spectacular, was very quick, and already by 8:00 p.m. I was at the hostel. Theoretically, after such a long trip I should have collapsed from exhaustion…tze, don’t you know me, at 11:00 p.m. I was still walking around nice and perky, despite the fact that it was 5 Italian hours.
In New York City without a paper guide
I started walking around New York City as early as 6:00 a.m., absolutely lively, despite having slept very little and badly. My room, shared with other stinky strangers, has a rather annoying cooling system: a squeaky fan that shoots a concentrated jet of air right at my left kidney every 8 seconds.
I jumped out of bed because I was fed up with the fan, because I was curious to see the metropolis waking up a little at a time, but also because I was very eager to make up for my glaring mistake.
On this trip where I’m super tech-savvy, with cell phone that takes pictures (but I can’t send them), electric razor (so I won’t be a bum), 2 credit cards, and organized for every eventuality…well, I left the guidebook at home! This is a major absence, not so much for the places to see-I know the itinerary by heart-as for the venues, schedules, and transportation: ahhhh! What a fool!
First impressions of tripping in the U.S.
So today’s day was devoted to finding the guidebook in Italian. First, however, I need to say what an impression New York made on me.
Walking around New York City gives you the feeling that many places are already seen. On every corner you find some scene that reminds you of a movie: the houses with fire escapes outside, the streets with yellow cabs, the policemen with sunglasses on. There really is the whole world here, both in terms of races and people.
A beautiful, American Indian man in his 50s, I think he had never cut his hair in his life. Not only did it all come down to his calf stubble, but he had also done a lapel on it, practically bumping the back of his knee with this package formed by his hair at every step.
Next stop Getting lost on the road, particularly in the Bronx
Trips taken, travel stories divided by continent
Anecdotes, divided by type in travel narratives
Countries visited in my travel stories
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