Recently a friend living in Istanbul, who regularly visits her grown-up children in London, remarked on her shortest ever flight home.

This put me in mind of [cf. Alan Bennett’s Sermon] a story that I just can’t track down—I want to quote the original, but I’ve scoured my groaning bookshelves in vain. * Anyway, until I do find it, I’ll offer you a rough version, which I’m sure is more elaborate, as is the way with oral retellings:

An elderly Italian-American (I’ll call him Luigi) who hasn’t been back to Italy since emigrating to Chicago in his 20s, decides to take a short trip to see Rome again. Dozing off on his flight, he wakes up when the plane touches down on a stopover in New York; so in a daze, delighted that the time has passed so quickly, he gets off. Impressed by the smooth efficiency of Italian passport control, he makes his way to the cab rank, asking the driver, in Italian, to take him to a reasonably-priced hotel downtown. The cab driver is Italian, of course, so they chat away as he takes Luigi to his hotel.

Naturally the receptionist is also Italian, so after checking in he asks her to recommend a nice little family-run trattoria nearby. And so it goes on… In blissful ignorance Luigi spends a happy few days in New York like this, marvelling at how much Rome has changed. He pauses to admire a zampogna and piffero duo on the street. Somewhat surprised to see so much “I ♥ NY” merchandise in the souvenir shops, he puts it down to the relentless march of globalisation; but eventually he finds an “I ♥ Rome” T-shirt, and a cute little plastic model of the Colosseum (which he just hasn’t managed to find time to visit), buying them from the (Italian) assistant to take back proudly to Chicago with him.

So near and yet so far… I really must find the original. Sounds rather like David Sedaris, Beppe Severgnini, or perhaps George Mikes, but no luck yet. Please help, someone!

For more Italian jaunts, click here; and for a touring game, here.

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* Cf. the boring prophets in The life of Brian:

And there shall be a great confusion as to where things really are, and nobody will really know where lieth those little things wi- with the sort of … raffia-work base that has an attachment.