Florida!!!

While a quantity of curly and cottony snow crystals cloaked the beautiful, old Milan, we begin the dream cherished for decades and take care not to sanctify in a canonical manner the very upcoming Christmas holidays, abandoning relatives and acquaintances to set course for Florida, the Sunshine State, the land of the shining sun that we see ourselves reaching after having booked everything with only ten months' notice.

A nice minus 9 degrees makes us go completely crazy as we leave the Lombard tundra to board, with almost a two-hour delay, the Delta flight bound for Atlanta, with hostesses so icy as to appear to be stars of films like Poltergeist or Nightmare, and we carramba for the announced surprise of meeting three quarters of the Gallarate royal family, in anxious waiting to embrace in Miami the Emperor of the Placemat, still morbidly attached to his little factory.

Almost eleven hours pass unnoticed for me, the three films screened absolutely ignored while we tastefully appreciate the first time of a pizza at very high altitude, before setting foot in the capital of Georgia with the scheduled long stop before the connection, just for a take a look of the town.

A twelve-lane highway spur takes us into the heart of the city, characterised by an enormous garden square facing the headquarters of CNN, of the museum of the greatest invention of humanity, that mysterious greenish medicine marketed at the end of the nineteenth century that then became the vintage par excellence with the controlled denomination of Coca Cola, and of the extraordinary aquarium where we remain astounded and fascinated by the elegance of the rays, by the majesty of the whale sharks, by the ferocity of the piranhas, by the enchanting colours and by the marvellous sensations of countless species of finned and gilled beings.

Like Zombies we drag ourselves towards the next check-in where big Nic identifies himself as a perfect Miami Vice-style cop in the presence of a kleptomaniac who, right before our eyes, tries to appropriate Tommy's jacket, and we crash through the mattresses of the Red Roof In Hotel in Miami that welcomes us with pool and breakfast included at the exorbitant price of 65 euros per family group.

Skilfully mixing heartrending lullabies of Montana cowboys and melancholy melodies of Cuban exiles we stoically endure the hangman's speed limits that condition us in the very slow advance towards Key West, the last inhabited outpost in the south of the United States' eastern coast: mindful of the nervous tensions accumulated on site by the legendary Teo, we arm ourselves with the holiest patience and, in order to avoid immediate arrest due to the multiple presence of highway patrols thirsty for drivers' blood, we take almost three hours to reach the point closest to Cuba that is exactly 90 nautical miles from freedom, development, democracy, wealth.

A typical example of how one can attract thousands of suckers into the absolute middle of nowhere, we nose around among little houses in pseudo-nineteenth-century style, typically fake little shops, and end the promenade in the much-lauded Mellory Park, a cluster of stalls facing what should be the stage for the most famous sunset in the world, today closed for holidays due to an accumulation of cloud layers.

Return to the very cute Sea Dell Motel in Marathon after a hundred kilometres of islets, reefs and lush inlets between the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean, where the infinite gifts of Signora Passoni allow us to dine in perfect Italian flavour with raw materials and preparation methods that will become objects of study for the coming millennia.

Like salmon swimming upstream, hoping not to encounter the ravenous fisherman Nico, fascinated by every type, shape and size of fishing lure, we head back north, bound for the mainland, leaving the sea to both our flanks and all the various keys behind us, clusters of little houses, motels and small restaurants that, although without remaining indelibly etched in our hearts, will nevertheless stay in our minds for a long time for the simplicity, ordinariness and soberness of the various Islamorada, Marathon, Cayo Largo, with the only exception of Duck Key, extremely chic, refined and snobbish to the point that we met a very glamorous family, obviously all white, beautiful and very blond, who have rented an entire beach, artistic crew included, as a photographic set for their Christmas calendar.

We reach Homestad, a useless little town of gas stations and fast food which nevertheless serves as the entrance gate to the Everglades national park, very pleasantly visited among mangroves of every kind, birds of every species and alligators of every type that shock us for quantity and size, we have to be careful not to step on them, they are more numerous than the shitting pigeons of Piazza San Marco, even though we are less than half an hour from the crazy Miami that we still leave to simmer for a few days in the broth of desires.

We penetrate towards the centre of Florida, we head straight for the heart of the swamps where, in the face of all the rumours of the case, we experience one of the most suggestive emotions of our life by taking a very long tour of the wetlands with the air boat, a flat-bottomed boat with an external propeller engine that, skimming the water, makes us brush at crazy speeds past reed beds and lake plants of this immense pond that stretches for hundreds of hundreds of kilometres towards the south of the state.

The encounter, more than close, not to say glued, with the sharp big teeth of countless alligators and with the colourful feathers of unidentified birds leaves us speechless to the point that the little pile of bones called Tommino draws the conclusion that Mother Nature is Santa Claus's wife, so extraordinary is everything that surrounds us.

In the early afternoon we stop at Naples, theoretically not recommended by previous suggestions from various sites for curious hikers, instead we must underline the great elegance of the town, very organised, excellently structured, exceptionally built with a series of breathtaking single-family homes and sumptuous condominiums on the stupendous beach of powdery white sand where we witness a solar splash that brings a tear of emotion.

Chapter on the natives: there's no denying it, these sons of Obama, or at least fans of the tanned president, are exceptional, each one more helpful than the next, even if one worse dressed than his neighbour, they are extremely easy-going, courteous, polite, observant of every form of rule and instruction, they leave you with bile in your mouth at the thought of how much we will find again in the Belpaese.

If one overlooks the fact that everyone speaks with a big hot potato in their mouth making practically every voice note incomprehensible, where will we ever find shop assistants who recommend discount cards we didn't ask for, strangers who wish good morning to anyone they meet, firefighters who go around the city handing out sweets, with an Oscar to the prototype stars-and-stripes super hyper over size good-natured grandpa, all white beard and big belly, who acts as our driver on the aquatic tour of the swamps, making us understand that we are surely doing something wrong in our Italian life.

With the Hollywood-style mansions of Naples still in our eyes, a most elegant Côte d'Azur transplanted onto the Gulf of Mexico, and our gastric juices grateful for the extraordinary Pizza Hut consumed in the most classic and cinematic of motels on the road, we cross a couple of green headlands to reach Sanibel and Captiva, two islands as lauded as they are skippable if only one makes an exception for a beach covered, in all sincerity and truth, by millions of shells that truly make unique

With the Hollywood-style mansions of Naples still in our eyes, a most elegant Côte d'Azur transplanted onto the Gulf of Mexico, and our gastric juices grateful for the extraordinary Pizza Hut consumed in the most classic and cinematic of motels on the road, we cross a couple of green headlands to reach Sanibel and Captiva, two islands as lauded as they are skippable if only one makes an exception for a beach covered, in all sincerity and truth, by millions of shells that truly make unique and unrepeatable the stroll along the waterline crunching under our steps.

Given the practically absolute absence of human bipeds throughout the urban territory of Fort Myers after nightfall, we vent our instincts for social contact by meeting shop assistants, sales clerks and personal assistant shoppers in every kind of commercial establishment with notable signage where, thanks also to the beloved stratospheric power of the euro, we manage to buy two pairs of Vans for sixteen European coins, three Ralph Lauren polos for 60 big dollars and two Tommy Hilfiger jeans for the equivalent of a pizza at the Monza-style Bodega, while the indispensable stop at Abercrombie & Fitch, well aware of the kilometre-long waits in the new Milan boutique, is resolved with a solitary visit to a store absolutely neglected and undervalued by the local trend setters, now crazy about Aeropostale.

The height of dietary villainies we reach by gulping down 16 pieces of variously cooked chicken that we extract from a trough the size of a washing machine porthole, surrounded by extra large boxes of Russian salad, boiled green beans, macaroni cheese and mashed potatoes, all washed down with litres of Pepsi under the KFC sign.

We head north without delay, we play with the splendid white sand of the beaches of Fort Myers, also variously dotted either with little wooden houses painted in bright colours with direct access to the refraction of the waves or with ultra-exclusive enclaves with breathtaking villas, each different from the other, in any case in a very pleasant and photogenic combination.

We cut the city of Sarasota in half, obviously dissected by the typical kilometre-long bridges, we see passing by in photocopy the usual expanses of palms and the usual tanned, serene and sedentary old folks, and we manage to get lost at the intersection of a very banal crossroads in the suburbs of the tiny Bradenton.

We let the tyres cool just long enough for a brief lunch and off towards Tampa which appears to us in the most absolute, total and worrying pre-Christmas desolation to the point that in the whole Downtown and Business District adorned with mirrored skyscrapers we cannot find a single, I mean a single, walker on the sidewalk.

Here we are in Orlando, obligatory fun factory for hordes of turkey farmers from Iowa and escorts of very fattened heifers from South Dakota, we look around a bit and decide to take advantage of further price drops on prices that are already quite convenient in themselves, with a further fall in receipts assured after Christmas, with the Premium Outlet that really has its reasons in this regard.

The crowd is immense, after a week of peace and quiet among pleasant beaches and relaxing bucolic landscapes the mass is even annoying, for the first time not only from the geriatrics ward, not daring to think about what awaits us in the amusement parks.

Breakfast at Dunkin Donuts is a real stab to every nutritionist and dietitian and even the simplest of pastries appears glazed, filled, coated, coloured, all to give us enough calories for a week of forced labour.

We enter very very early into Epcot, the entertainment park chosen after months of careful analysis, precise evaluations, definitive exclusions among the many alternatives offered by this Las Vegas for the poor: as the immense Teo would say, inspirer of these twenty years of travel descriptions (I will never stop thanking you, relatives and friends perhaps a little less), I could have found a better way before throwing 200 euros into the bowl and pulling the flush, but it was absolutely impossible to declare a sudden forfeit.

Nothing hyperbolic, nothing astounding (if only they were available...) but the technological worlds recreated thanks to munificent donations from giants such as Siemens, Kodak and Hp, who, among other things, would do much better at this point to invest more with Condè Nast, are exciting, thrilling, excellently structured and far more appealing compared to Disney Paris or Gardaland-style entertainment resorts, always and in any case provided that your identity card does not profess more than twelve years.

We stay there a whole day, leaving well beyond nightfall, with Annie and Nico completely KO, who, fearless and disdainful of danger and tension, think it well to want to redo the aerospace simulation, this time however in the original version almost in the absence of gravity, with guaranteed intestinal twisting and unfortunately then confirmed.

The recreations of world realities such as Mexico, France, England are simply chilling, making us greatly miss the Minitalia of Seriate Bergamasco, and so off we dash to the Days Inn which allows us our first swim, taken yes in a heated pool but certainly no less appreciated, finding ourselves under the stars with the calendar marking 27 December.

We cross Orlando like a hot knife through a pat of butter, we leave behind no particular emotions or regrets, indeed, and we put our nose and above all our sea-anxious behinds back on the eastern side of Florida, reaching with unanimous enthusiasm of the group Cocoa Beach, a typical resort that could be the emblem of the American way of life, all perfect, all spotless, and a pier stretching out towards the Ocean, surrounded by dozens of wave riders, just waiting to be photographed from every perspective.

Final apotheosis at Ron Jon, a shop the size of one of our shopping centres with everything knowable and imaginable for surfers, open 24 hours a day, with customers depositing their boards in the outdoor racks and entering, obligatorily barefoot, for any need related to their sole existential pastime.

My stubborn reluctance towards technology must clash against an inescapable fact: the Nasa base at Cape Canaveral is something monstrously fascinating that leaves me flabbergasted, astonished, dumbfounded: nothing could be more illustrative than the rockets and space ships here present to explain the evolution of the human species and its eternal, insatiable search for innovation, to the point that, brushing against the Apollo that allowed us to plough the lunar surface, one perfectly understands Armstrong's words recalling how every kind of dream can become reality.

This yes is a spectacular day and thinking back to the time and the pile of money wasted in Orlando we understand more than clearly what there is to advise to those present and to posterity.

Afternoon in Vero Beach, yet another postcard of this practically perfect reality, with boats parked in the home garden tended with small scissors and perpetual disbelief about the existence of such a world, in any case always "no country for young men" as the Coen brothers would partly say.

We have the target in our sights, by now we feel the sound and the taste of Miami, the temperature is rising from every point of view, Palm Beach is extraordinary, the villas are to die for, the climate is amazing, but before getting a liver attack with gallbladder involvement in the presence of such brazen wealth we continue south, after an unforgettable swim in the ocean on the 30th of December, we pass without even photographing them Boca Raton and Pompano Beach to arrive at Fort Lauderdale, an endless mountain of beachfront buildings that leaves us rather baffled as to the criteria relating to town planning and building permits.

We find a neighbourhood called Little Venice and it doesn't take long to understand why: a series of countless canals stretches towards the sea with a small characteristic, namely that of having real yachts right next to the garden veranda where one sips the aperitif, with a standing ovation to the two paesà who think it well to call their floating cathedrals Bella Contessa and Fratelli d'Italia!!

Today we see the two faces of the same coin, black and white, the yin and the ylong of the same reality: as soon as we wake up we begin to bask in the sun at Hollywood Beach in absolute isolation (if one excludes having free wifi on the beach despite being a couple of kilometres from the nearest dwelling) to the point that we feel we are in a strip of Caribbean territory, while in the afternoon the pulsating centre of the same coastline, just a couple of miles to the left, is invaded by thousands of little men, almost all of them incredibly scruffy, dull and forgettable.

We also make a quick stop at North Miami Beach, having more than a little difficulty in trying to measure the millions of tonnes of concrete used to build these barracks-block buildings all glass and balconies above thirty floors, a well-diversified mix of Las Vegas school architecture, tackiness found in Cancun and Dubai technology university, all in any case always in the greenest green of the vegetation in front of the bluest blue of the ocean.

And New Year's Eve has also passed, we are in twenty ten, far from the sequins, the paillettes, the trumpets and the excesses of European style, we live the fateful stroke on the roof of a hotel on Ocean Drive together with the textile magnate admiring the fireworks at South Beach, under the stars, with almost thirty degrees after a more than appreciated dinner on the most famous seafront of Miami for the pharaonic bill of 80 big green ones for four, in the midst of a crowd neither merry, celebratory nor overflowing as we would have supposed.

Curtis, a black model with perfect teeth and a statuesque physique torn straight from the A&F billboards, welcomes us at the front desk of the Sofitel Miami Lagoon, making us understand the level and quality of our next resting place: for the last three days in Florida we will see as our roof