Have baguette, will travel 🥖
Fili-french-talian Travel Report 2024
🇫🇷 Bonjour! 🇮🇹 Bongiorno!
Hi, it’s me, the insufferable American back from her summer in Europe!
I’m grateful that, growing up, I got a chance to experience living in Germany (twice!) as a military brat and getting exposure to a different culture, a third culture, beyond America and the Philippines. I’m grateful now for purposeful work that brings me to the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity — in my second year attending, here was My Top 10 on LinkedIn if you’re curious:
After Cannes, I extended my trip in Europe and my partner joined and we got to slow down time for a while. We rented a car (Alfa Romeo Tonale - my first Italian stallion, vroooom) and drove the blindingly beautiful winding roads of the Côte D’Azur to St. Tropez for a few days. We walked a thousand steps up and down medieval villages in the French countryside and hopped over to the other side of the Mediterranean to Naples, Italy (thanks, EasyJet!) to visit Fil-Italian family. My cousin from California met a lovely Neopolitan gal while with the U.S. Navy assigned in Italy and now they have three beautiful Fil-Italian kids. Finally, a a pit stop in Nice (just as nice as its name) staying on the LGBTQ+-friendly Rue Bonaparte and chilling at La Plage beach before our flight home to NYC.
It’s been a transformative trip, with the perspective of seeing my own evolution as a traveler, wanderer, and seeker — from broke college backpacker years to the ballin’ on a budget party Instagrammer to, now, the time traveler and time bender.
See #30 from this list of 43 pieces of obvious travel advice:
#30: Time seems to speed up as you get older. And you wonder—is it biological, or is it because life had more novelty when you were a child? Travel partly answers this question—with more novelty, time slows way down again.
This trip was also a strong reminder of the arbitrary nature of cultural norms and how there is always another way to do things, sometimes beyond your own comprehension.
#31: My favorite part of of travel is the perspective it gives on “regular” life. Why do I live the way I do??
Why drink coffee instead of espresso?
Why have shower curtains instead of none?
Why eat processed foods & GMOs instead of not?
Why refrigerate milk and eggs?
Why bring laptops to the cafe?
Why not be allowed to linger at leisure at cafes and parks without being rushed out because you haven’t bought anything from the relentless machine of capitalism?
Naples surprised me. Everyone, from the B&B host to my cousin, asked us “Why would you visit Naples?!” Compared to its neighbors in the north — the glamour of Milan, Venice, Tuscany, Rome — Naples gets a bad rap as the gritty ghetto of Italy.
But Napoli was an experience like no other, another eternal city, like a New York with millennia worth of deep layered history in its bones, from the underground catacombs to the heights of Mount Vesuvius.
From the moment we touched down, in a visceral sense, it felt like the chaotic cacophony of Manila, the Philippines. The heat, the humidity, the din of friends and family all trying to talk over each other. The climbing vines and tropical foliage wrapped around crumbling Spanish cathedrals, the omnipresence of Jesus, the cross, and prayers to Mary. I kept expecting a Jeepney to round the corner in the endless stream of taxis and scooters , families squeezing in babies on the motorbikes, all without helmets, riding by the seat of their pants. The way you have to just step into traffic and trust the sea of wheels and diesel to flow around you.
Napoli Pride also happened to be there the weekend we visited, and we marched in the streets along with the “Pope”. The music: half American (Lady Gaga and Katy Perry got the crowd dancing the most), half Italia disco. The march: half party, half protest, with rainbow flags and Palestine flags sharing space in the call to arms for liberty, equality, and the rights of the people. My TikTok reel below for a taste of the vibe:
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
Eating
If anything, one must visit Napoli for the FOOD. My tastes are more street food than Michelin stars, so the streets of Naples were a dream, especially:
Pizza, any street pizza, in the birthplace of pizza. The proud Neopolitans won’t let you forget it! There are over 8,000+ pizza joints in the city and I barely saw any other cuisine. They also let me know pepperoni pizza is a FRAUD made up by the Americans - I just know the emoji makes them mad!! 🍕 If it’s not cooked in a wood-fired oven for 90 seconds max, it’s not pizza!
Il Cuoppo Fritto - let the rest of Europe have their french fries, the street food of choice in Naples (besides the wallet pizza - a regular pie folded up into a pocket wallet) is a paper cone of fried seafood: shrimps, anchovies, fish nuggets (cod), zucchini, potato croquettes, arincini (rice balls), and savory little herb dough balls, kinda like hush puppies. No dipping sauce needed. Just the crispy creatures from the sea and salt.
According to the Neapolitan proverb ‘meglio murì sazzio ca campà diùno’ — it’s better to die full than live hungry.
Watching
Killing time on the transatlantic flight:
Joker (A+) This was a movie I always wanted to see when it came out in 2019, but could never find the right vibe to sit down and watch it. But as a captive audience on a long flight, I gravitate towards movies with horror/thriller/dark themes to speed up time. Things are less scary on a small screen with hundreds of strangers around you. After a spell in the sunny south of France, I missed the gritty Gotham of home and boy did this film deliver. I was spellbound by the cinematography, the twisted storytelling, and the one-man tragicomedy of Joaquin Phoenix. (I almost watched It after this but decided that two movies in a row on killer clowns would be pathological 🎈)
American Fiction (A+). I haven’t watched a move like this in a long time — clever, cerebral, provocative, and damn funny — it was so refreshing, reminded me of indie films that came out in the 90’s. The film is an excellent parody of how white guilt stifles Black creativity. I so associate Jeffrey Wright with his character Bernard on Westworld, who NEVER breaks even so much as a smile, that this was a charming surprise role as Monk, a writer who pens a parody under a pseudonym that ironically becomes a runaway best-seller, My Pafology, from a runaway fugitive. Supporting cast were brilliant: Issa Rae (playing a Black author rising to fame with stereotypical books like We’s Lives in Da Ghetto), Erika Alexander (Pam from Living Single!), Tracee Ellis Ross, and Sterling K. Brown. Even the natural landscape played a strong supporting role: the sea symbolizing death and rebirth, filmed on location in Scituate, Massachusetts, on the south shore of of Boston. “It’s got deadbeat dads, rappers, crack, and [someone] gets killed by a cop in the end. That’s ‘Black,’ right?!”
Listening
Chappell Roan: Like Taylor Swift, but way queerer: it’s your favorite artist’s favorite artist. H-O-T-T-O-G-O!
Dope Stuff for Your Trip
🥵 With heat waves and temps rising everywhere (looking at you, Palm Springs, 124°!) here are two things that have saved my life, sanity, and hanger this summer:
The viral TikTok Sunbrella. My friend Raven put this to the test at a full day at Six Flags and confirmed it’s a lifesaver. I immediately put in Amazon cart and thank God it arrived exactly one day before our flight. I took this thing to the Roman Empire streets of Pompeii, the fancy beach clubs of St. Tropez, the gritty streets of Naples, and it was a wonder to behold. Just be prepared to endure a lot of Inspector Gadget jokes.
The viral TikTok Hand Fan. There’s more and more of these gadgets on the market, I’ve gotten a few as free swag, and they’re good in a pinch - you can plug them into your phone or use them on their own with little plastic fan propellers. Or you can invest in this version, USB-C rechargeable (same as iPhones/Macbooks), that packs a PUNCH and sounds like a jet propulsion engine about to blast off on its highest settings, but entirely capable of cooling down a sweaty heat engine that is my body. For a 1-2 punch, add one of those Evian facial sprays first, then cool off with the hand fan and it’s like instant AC personal cooling station.
One last rule of travel:
#33: If in doubt, assume people would rather hear less about your trips.
So, I want to hear about your trips! Where are you off to this summer?
🇫🇷 Au revoir! 🇮🇹 Arrivederci!
Ciao for now,
