Bella Roma

Boarding my flight from Chicago to Rome was the first time it actually felt like I was going to Italy. I found a woman who didn’t speak English sitting in my assigned airplane seat sitting next to possibly her sister. I pretty quickly realized that they wanted to sit together and offered to switch seats, which led me across the plane into a seat next to a very chatty young Roman man. He was flying alone too, on his way back from Chicago where he was preparing to get his Masters. He was dressed like the most stereotypical Italian I could have imagined, white button-down shirt, some chest-hair sticking out, nice pants, nice sunglasses, lighter brown hair though and a little shorter than me. He told me his name but it had a million vowels and I forgot it about a second after he finished saying it syllable by syllable for me to understand. We became friends right away because we are both at similar and opposite points in our lives, studying in the other’s home country. We also probably became friends right away because we realized we were stuck together for a seven hour flight. The flight was fun, we pulled out maps and he showed me where I need to go in Italy (everywhere) and I showed him where he needed to go next time he was back in the U.S. I practiced my Italian on him – he understood. He told me interesting Italian facts such as the fact that the metro in Rome only has two lines because every time they try to build a third line the builders find a part of ancient Rome under the city and the archeologists stop the progress. There really is an entire world under the city of Rome.

As the plane was nearing landing we started to discuss what my best route out of the airport, though Rome, and into Siena would be (Did I really need to take a taxi? Why not take the metro?) “Here,” he said, “the beginning of that is on my way too – I take you.” I was sure I would lose him after we had to separate because I had to go through customs and he just had to go through the Italian citizen line. But even after all the time it took me to get through, there he was, still waiting on the other side. He carried my very heavy bag for me and I carried his much lighter one as collateral. He brought me right along the path I needed to go and bought my train tickets. It was very nice.

At one point he mentioned what a shame it was that I was going through Rome and wasn’t going to see a single monument. I agreed that this was very true but that I would be back. “But you are here right now! This is life. This is now. You are in Italy, just relax. Do as the Italians do! Come see Roma with me.” It really felt like the beginning of a movie. I just wasn’t sure whether that movie was a romantic comedy or a horror movie. I absolutely declined although he was very persistent. But I did agree to get off the metro at one point with him and walk over to a monument (which he pointed out on the map was right on the path and right off the metro line) just to see one monument while in Rome. It was the Pyramid of Cestius, built around 18BC – 12BC. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyramid_of_Cestius It really was amazing to see. He explained why there was a pyramid in Rome to me like this, “In Ancient Rome, the Romans got whatever they wanted—they see a pyramid, they say ‘I want that’ Boom. They have that.” So that is how the pyramid got there.

We parted ways soon after that. He needed to go south, I needed to go north. He still told me he could take me further but I decided we should leave each other now because it felt weird and unnecessary to have him follow me around anymore. He double kissed my cheeks, we said ciao, and he gave me his number in case I got into any sort of emergency within the next few hours in Rome. I’ll never see him again but he was a wonderful escort/personal tour guide into Italy for me.

About 20 minutes after leaving him I got so lost. I completely literally was walking around in circles (big huge lopsided circles) for two hours. I kept walking up to the ticket offices asking where I was and where to go. Although it should have been a very stressful situation I was in such a good mood I just thought it was so funny. I got to try my Italian again but I think I have an extremely heavy accent and am making up a lot of words right now because half the people couldn’t understand me. One of them paused, looked at me, and broke out this almost Texan accent of English back to me as a joke making fun of how mid-western American my Italian sounds. I almost fell over laughing. I think I was definitely still in my euphoria stage of realizing I was actually in Italy.

I was lost my first hour in Siena. I ran around with a map asking people on the street, who didn’t speaking English, where I was. “Chi sono? Chi sono? (translation in my head: Where am I? Where am I?)” I kept asking in Italian while pointing at the map. An older lady gave me a strange look. I went into a gelateria and asked the same thing to a younger man. He repeated my phrase back to me. “Chi sei?” “Si! Chi sono??” He started laughing and said back to me (in English) that I just asked who I was. Haha, so I was walking down the street pointing a piece of paper asking people, “Who am I??”. That is the first impression I made on this city.

The photo in this post is from Siena although most of the post is about Rome. I didn’t take any pictures in Rome and I feel like this is boring without photos. So, there you go. Also, I actually wrote this a while ago but couldn't post it due to technical difficulties.