Straight Ahead: Chocolate

Things come to a head on our way to Babbi (pronounced “Bob-bee”). I mean an argument. A spat.

Babbi is a chocolate manufacturer in Cesena. Their products are all over Italy. Wherever you find chocolate, you’ll find Babbi (which could be a Babbi slogan or tagline, “Ovunque trovi cioccolato, troverai Babbi”).

We’re on our way home from Ravenna. Today we came to see, among other things, the Domus dei Tappetti di Pietra, the house with stone carpets, which means 4th century Roman-empire era mosaic floors. It wasn’t easy finding it. No one I asked on the street knew where it was. When I said that the ticket lady at San Vitale told us it was right around the corner, first the older man I asked, then the older woman, both of whom looked like residents, then both the young storekeeper and the older storekeeper, all four shrugged and said they’d never heard of it. Never heard of it? It was right there on the Ravenna website, a three-minute walk from San Vitale. Was I mixed up? Was I mispronouncing words? Was my Italian no good?

“It’s gotta be around here somewhere,” I said to Tizi. “Ticket lady said turn right, it’s on the left.”

“I don’t see it,” she said. Which sounded more like a slightly impatient question. Where are we going?

I asked three more people before we found it. Third ask, the nice lady in the coffee bar takes my elbow and leads me outside to the corner. Not on the left. On the next street to the left. Then at the end of that block, on the left. And it isn’t a house. Or it is a house, but with the church of Sant’Eufemia built on top of it. Anyway, the 5th century mosaics were cool, we got to see them, and after that we see more mosaics, in the baptistery and the arcivescovo museum, and then we have a decent lunch.

***

Leaving Ravenna, our thoughts turn to future pleasures. Chocolate. Tizi thinks big. The Babbi we’re going to is not a store. It’s a warehouse, a distribution center. All chocolate roads lead to Babbi in Cesena. Tizi’s not looking for a candy bar. She’s shopping volume.  

We’ve been to Babbi before, twice. I should know the way. I sort of know the way: somewhere around Cesena. I think I know where we’re going.

In general, driving has felt different this trip, more frenetic. I’ve discovered I need to wear my glasses. That way I can read road signs. Night driving has been nerve-wracking, due to foot traffic, due to bicycle traffic, due to scooter traffic. Also frustrating, I’ve struggled this trip at the automated pay stations on the autostrada, which repeatedly reject my credit card. For years I had to talk to the guy, the actual pay station guy smoking a cigarette and talking too fast to me or talking on his phone with a friend. Then came credit card pay. It was easy, it was fast.

“It always worked before,” I say to Tizi at Rimini south.

“You must be doing something wrong,” she says.

Automated pay station lady voice says, “Take your card out and insert the other end first.” I do that. Automated lady voice repeats herself. I take my card out and turn it again. Is it chip first? Is that the problem?

Tizi translates, “Turn your card.”

“I understood that.”

“Put it in the right way every time.”

Oh. That’s genius. I tell her I thought I knew the right way.

Two or three times I flip, turn, rotate my card before automated lady finally says, “Hang on a sec, the transaction is in process.” There are six pay stations, two of them credit card pay stations, at the Rimini south exit. Every time I pay there, we have this conversation, me and automated lady voice, and me and Tizi.

“Remember which way for next time,” Tizi says, “which way to insert your card.”

I remember. “I do remember,” I tell her. “It doesn’t seem to matter.”

Finally one morning, on a website I stumble upon called “Mom in Italy,” I realize that I don’t need to insert my credit card at all. It’s a tap-friendly system.

“I just need to tap,” I say to Tizi next time.

She nods.

“All that frustration. The tap icon was right in front of my face.”

She nods.

Another driving annoyance: we’ve been pulled over by the Carabinieri. Twice.

Pulled over is the wrong term. It’s the American term for the transaction that begins when you see a cop car in your rearview mirror, the menacing flashing lights. Here it is different. At checkpoints at the side of the road, a uniformed officer stands, holding a wand that Italians call a lollypop. He waves you to the shoulder, invites you to pull over and stop. Unlike the traffic event in the US, this feels civil, almost friendly. Hey, stop in and see us. They work in twos. But you better stop.

There’s two cops, one with the lollypop, the other with a big gun, standing at the rear of the cop Fiat, the trunk open, operating the mobile information system.

“Documenti,” the cop says.

I hand him my Michigan driver’s license, explain what it is. I hand him my $30 International Driving Permit I acquired at AAA before leaving the US. I hand him the rental car documents. I also tell him, with some trepidation, that I have a photograph of my passport on my phone. Would he like to see that?

“That won’t be necessary,” he says.

Why did you pull me over? I would like to ask him, but it seems impertinent. The stop seems totally arbitrary. Did I do something? Are you looking for a car like this one (gray late model Hyundai, four-door economy model)? Is there a miscreant or a fugitive that I resemble on the lam?

“Where were you born?” he asks, before joining the cop at the trunk.

“Don’t offer stuff they don’t ask for,” Tizi says.

She’s right.

“What if he wanted your actual passport?”

She’s right. I tell her I read somewhere, photograph your passport. And she should remember that the photo of my passport was sufficient in Rome, when we lined up for tickets at the Forum.

“This is different,” she says, “Don’t offer stuff.”

We wait ten minutes while the Carabinieri look for what they’re looking for. Tizi says she wonders if good looks is a requirement in this line of work. It’s the boots, I think, black leather knee-high boots, fitted pants, waist-length jacket. These cops are stylin’. And there might be a height requirement. I could never be a cop over here. She tells me not to say anything else. She means don’t engage in conversation, which I am inclined to do, testing my Italian on anyone who will listen.

He comes back, hands me the documents, says we can go. No explanation.

Lots of checkpoints this year. They’re on the lookout. There’s an Italian expression: Non c’e’ due senza tre. Meaning bad shit happens in threes. I might get stopped again.

***

The road to Babbi is a state road. Italy is well along in the process of eliminating stoplights on state and provincial roads. Between the Cesena south autostrada pay station, where I happily tapped my credit card to pay the toll, and the Babbi warehouse, there are more than a dozen roundabouts connecting a confusing network of roads, streets, and lanes.

“Do you know how to get there? Tizi asks.

“Not really,” I say. “But Google Maps does.”

This suspicious Hyundai I’m driving was manufactured before CarPlay appeared and became ubiquitous. We can connect my phone, but the “screen” on Hyundai’s dash display is the size of a stick of gum. It is not a SatNav buddy. So Tizi holds the phone, watches, and helps with directions.

Italians love their roundabouts, and so do I, but a stoplight has its merits. For example, you have to stop. When you stop, if you’re wearing your glasses you can read road signs. You can consider your options. On a roundabout, on the other hand, you’re sharing space with other cars and other drivers, most of whom want to go faster than you’re going. There’s multiple lanes, there’s free-flowing counterclockwise traffic fading toward the exit or moving toward the center. It’s easy to miss your turn. And right now Google Maps lady has gone silent. She would be telling me what to do, but I did something and shut her up. Tizi doesn’t know how to get her to talk. So she has to tell me.

“Just tell me,” I say. “Tell me what to do next.”

“Here! Left!”

“Give me a little lead time.”

“We’re being re-routed. Wrong turn. Can you go back?”

Next roundabout, we go back.

“Tell me what to do.”

“It’s hard to tell.” She swipes at the phone screen, thumb and forefinger, trying to enlarge the image.

“Don’t look at the map,” I say. “Just tell me what it says. At the top of the screen, it says what to do. Just look at that.”

She’s swiping. “Go right, HERE.”

Babbi closes at six. We’re close. We’re very close.

“What next? As soon as we turn, tell me what’s next, how far we go and then left right or straight.”

She’s swiping. I realize what’s going on. She wants to see the map. Tizi is visual. I’m verbal. I want to hear “2 kilometers, then right turn.” She swipes too hard and closes the app by accident.

We pull over and open it. “Don’t look at the map,” I say. “And don’t swipe. Just tell me what it says. How far, then what. As soon as we turn, give me the next distance so I know.”

We do a mini-tour of Cesena, taking a very roundabout route to Babbi, getting on each other’s last nerve. It’s supposed to be fun, being here. But sometimes you don’t know where you’re going or you don’t know what you’re doing. When we park the car at Babbi, the smell of chocolate is in the air. That helps. They’ve got the dark chocolate wafer fru-fru Tizi likes and palates of stuff we don’t want. We’re here late in March. The warm months are coming. Chocolate is a cool weather delight, so the inventory is depleted.

“Big box or little box?” she says. “Or two little boxes?”

“You decide. I’m just glad we’re here.”

Back home, I mean back in the States, we’ll be glad we came to Babbi. We’ll have Italy on our kitchen table. While she decides, I click Google Maps on my phone, activate Google Maps lady. It’s ten minutes to the autostrada. At Rimini south I’ll exit, tap, and pay. Then we’ll be home free. 

Photos by Rick Bailey