Letsgoooo

Bidding my parents farewell, I flew back to Milan and reunited with Strom. We took a brief sojourn into Switzerland, where flawless roads wind through a symphony of snow capped mountains, lush meadows, and quaint towns, as if following the undulations of a conductor's baton. This marked the westernmost extent of my journey, and like the tip of the wand as it pauses expectantly at the apex of the maestro's wave, there was nothing left to do but come thundering down. To the east. To adventure. To Piogre.

In Swiss folklore, Piogre is an imaginary, impossibly remote town; Timbuktu. All I knew of mine was that it lay far to the east, across continents, deserts, mountain ranges, and inland seas. And wherever it was, I needed to get there before the brutal winter would stop me in my tracks.

Back to Italy, I made for Varese, where I was to meet a debonair crew for the Distinguished Gentleman's Ride. The DGR is an annual worldwide charity ride which anyone can attend, so long as they arrive in a dapper outfit atop a classic motorcycle. I put a disguise on Strom so that nobody would suspect he was really just a street bike. There was no hiding the fact that I was a dirty, uncultured adventure rider - but they let me in anyway. From there I rode east with haste, still taking time to enjoy the endemic flavors of Emilia-Romagna, like parmesan, culatello, and balsamico.

After yet another lengthy ferry, I landed in Albania and quickly cleaved my way east through the countryside, waving to all the babushkas laden with enormous bushels of hay on their aged backs. I doubt it seemed so bucolic to them.

As I approach the boundaries of an older, more pastoral world, I would do well to remember that my motorcycle travels at relativistic speed. A postcard to some might be a prison to others. Then again, they might be perfectly content. I should be careful not to exotify strangers for the sake of poetry. We are all the same, subject to the vagaries of existence.