Fresh Pasta, Genoa sauce, Gucci & Milano: I am gonna miss you, for sure!

Lazyweekends, hushed up weekday mornings, bright sunny afternoons, long endless days, heavy workloads with unwinding walks in the Piazza. The Italian trip was quite a mix of emotions for me. An interesting cultural experience.. so much like India and quite unlike like India!
There will be things I will miss. Those lazy weekend mornings for instance and a walk to the neighbourhood Pasticcerria to buy fresh pasta and geneoa sauce. The Italian food is perfect for Indian taste buds. But not quite the strong cappuccino. So between those long work hours, every time I would miss the Indian tea and long to have a sip of the same, I would ask the local café guy to serve dark masala tea with scuma milk(creamed milk). The unwitting look on his face told explicitly, there was something definitely un-Italian that I was doing in the heart of Italy! And that’s Italian frankness, a clear heart! If they don’t like you, they let you know. But some people do like you. The vegans for instance. My vegan friend who was so much in love with everything Indian, specially the Indian spicy food, that is ideal for an Italian taste bud. And our long cultural exchanges learning to cook each other’s meals. It was fun!
The Christmas eve had a special aura. Meeting perfect strangers on such a special evening touched my soul with a sense of déjà-vu. I must have known them in some life. Such a special evening is for ones you know, not ones you have never known.
This year, thanks to looming crisis and austerity measures is one of the most difficult that the world’s seventh largest economy has seen in recent times. It was sad to see the sinking spirits on the X-mas evening and my ears longed to hear the usual Buono Natale e Nuova Anne! that one is used to hearing in this special time of the year in all shops across Rome, Venice, Bologna, Florence. But the sinking spirits haven’t dampened a bit of the Italians. The magnificent red in the windows, the glittering swarosky’s, the guccis and the well-lit shops on the high end streets of Milano, Italy will for a long time be place for vita qui e bella! N am gonna miss it for sure!