Tre: Villa Borghese

"Miss Hien, Italy is such a beautiful country with warm & welcoming people... 

You are going to fit right in. You are going to have an amazing time. 

You should take Kasorn's advice & make a side trip to Spain. 

Travel safe, travel often, bring back pictures... we'll wait here. Have fun!" 

--Tracy Love, in my going-away card from the UWMC Service League.

(I love how the streets look like they can go on for forever.)

As much as I loved the message that my manager gave me, my picnic to the Villa Borghese on Saturday, March 26th made me question Italian kindness.

The day started out with a brief visit to the supermarket to grab a sandwich and a juice box. Not without making a thorough sweep of the store to look for Nutella & Go!, though. It's a snack pack that has a smidgen of nutella, grissini (long cookie sticks), and lemon estathé all conveniently together in a compartmentalized container. By the way, this is the real reason that I'm in Italy. I'm actually on a mission to collect as many of these snack packs as possible for a really good friend of mine who is like a loveable little brother to me. Forget studying Christianity and learning more about myself, this takes priority!!

Anyway, with my lunch all packed and a map in hand, I finally set out for the three square kilometer park. As I sat at the base of a tree watching people zip by in golf carts and segways (no, I really wish I was kidding) and listening to the delighted screams of children playing with their parents, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a bike getting dangerously close to me. In fact, the bike was heading straight at me! A man in his mid-thirties got off of the bike and asked me, "Parla inglese?" Before I knew it, we started having a conversation in a combination of English and Italian. His name was Antonio named after the saint and I introduced myself, but that he could call me Lucia. We talked about nonchalant things -- I told him that I was studying sociology and he told me that he was on his day off from his job in the public transportation system. He asked me if I liked to bike and remembering that one time I fell off a bike in Tokyo, I said yes, but I'm not very good at it. Then he asked me if I liked to swim so I told him that I flail and then sink like a rock but offered that I know how to ski and snowboard. He didn't bother hiding his shock. It seems like my inability to swim and bike is unacceptable in Italy as well, everyone. Baffled, he wondered out loud how I was so piccola! I forgot how to say that I go running so he came to the conclusion that I must naturally be slim. Following that, he also pointed out my 'interesting eyes.'

Ah, it all made sense in that instant. 

Let's face it. I'm an asian in Europe. Of course I'm going to stand out quite a bit. But then things started to click in my head. All the stares and confused looks I had been getting wasn't because I was doing anything offensively American. No. It was my hair, flat nose, and eyes that I can't hide drawing in the attention. Unfortunately, I began to wonder about the Italians' intentions behind any friendly gesture. Are they actually being nice? Is this their commitment to quality service? Do they regularly behave this way? Or is it because I'm "exotic," different, an alien to their country? This may just be one of those unanswerable questions that I'm going to have to learn how to live with.

After spending the day roaming around the Villa Borghese, I was starving. So I flipped through Rick Steves’ book for Rome to see tried and true restaurants in the area that I was staying, the Termini – I was still a little tired from all the traveling and didn’t have the energy left to be adventurous with my dinner. I ended up choosing Ristorante da Giovanni (San Antonio Salandra 1) which was written as having solidly good pasta at a decent price without making concessions to tourism.

Upon entering, greeting the owner, and bumping into the bustling waiters, I saw that ol' Ricky wasn’t kidding. However, I also saw that many other patrons of the restaurant had read the review as well, since they were speaking English and blatantly waving his book around. Seeing that made me disappointed with myself. I was reminded of a vignette from the film Paris, Je T'aime where a woman from the United States visited Paris all on her own for a couple of days (be sure to turn up the volume for the youtube video, it's really quiet). The introduction suddenly started playing in my head and I saw the hotel room with the unfinished burger and fries and her asking for directions in English for chinese food – things that she could have done at her home in the states. In that instant, I compromised with myself to have my own adventure and that I do not need to read another’s experience to have fun in Rome. All of these thoughts peaked after I finished my dinner and I asked the owner for the bill in Italian. Within the next thirty seconds, the words that I learned from my Italian textbook over the summer on how to conduct oneself in the restaurant came to life and became tangible in my brief exchange with the waiter.

It was exhilarating to hear the dialogue that I fumbled through with classmates come from the mouth of an adorable old man with a red bowtie.

Hien, but you can call me Lucy.