I don't know where my love affair with shoes came from, but I can state with certainty that it began when I was very young. My first stand-out pair were lilac Mary Janes - I was six years old, and the shoes were a reward for starting school. They stood out among the greys and browns both in the store and in my classroom, and while I loved them fiercely, I didn't want them to attract attention. Fast-forward 28 years: I continue to dress fairly eccentrically, and still cannot stand to be looked at.
Over the years, some memorable pairs include a pair of white mini heels with a bow at their open toe for First Communion, the sneakers that I lived in throughout my teens (velcro high-top Reeboks in the early years, switching to grape-coloured Converse mid-way) and the silver wedding sandals I found two years before Filippo asked me to marry him. My favourites were always the jackpot specials: vintage Nikes from the thrift store near my Uni, multicoloured espadrilles propped under a rack of sundresses in a consignment store on Main Street.
I have been moderately successful at suppressing Shopping Mania while living in Italy - of course, my previously super-tight budget helped reign in spending. But now that we're living off of two salaries for the first time in the history of our relationship (!) Filippo and I are loosening the purse strings and making up for lost time. The sparklies above come from a small shop hidden in a tiny town on the edge of northern Italy's agricultural heartland. We were passing through on the way to visit Filippo's family and former neighbours in Torre de' Picenardi (pop. 1,821) last Saturday, and dropped in so that he could find some work shoes that would match the linen suits he had purchesed earlier in the day. We made the rounds of Torre, starting by paying our respects to Filippo's dad and neighbour Bruno, and ending with dinner at Agriturismo Corte Sant' Anna, where five of us enjoyed two-course meals and wine for a total bill of 60 Euro.
Family visits continued through Sunday, offering me the chance to run through all of my residency documentation with cousin Federico, who had set up a meeting for me with his friend in the Bergamo Provincial Office on Monday morning at 8:15am. The appointment was to get a a crucial part of my residency permit sorted out: a "permesso di soggiorno" (literally: permit to stay) required before the city will register me as a resident. This is the same elusive document that I (unsuccessfully) tried to collect nine times in Bergamo in the course of 2007.
"Bergamo?" you say, squinting your eyes and frowning. "Why fly up north and take a day off work to get the permit when surely you can zip into the Roman HQ and get it resolved lickety -split?"
Rewind one month: I had high hopes for the immigration office in Rome because, unlike in 2006 and 2007,I finally had all the "right" documents: marriage certificate, proof of employment & self-sufficiency, etc. On the day I set out to submit my paperwork, of course nothing went as planned - from a transit strike in the morning to verbal abuse when I finally got there and found someone who would speak to me. So I wasn't even able to start the process in Rome after wasting an entire day in 35-degree heat.
Resourceful Filippo looked into all his networks and found that he wasn't even a zillion degrees of separation from anyone who could help me at this immigration office - hence the decision to fly up to Bergamo and accept the help of Federico's friend.
And so we're back to this past Sunday, where I spent the night vividly dreaming of plane crashes, and jumped awake more than an hour before the alarm was due to go off. The appointment lasted no more than 15 minutes: I nervously filled out the final paperwork while Filippo charmed everyone in sight, then accompanied me to get all parts of both hands electronically scanned. I have apparently been fast-tracked, so will fly back up in early September to collect my plasticised card...and deliver a case of wine to the guy who helped us out.
I believe that this will be the perfect occasion to break out the sparklies.