Stranger in a Strange Land

Living somewhere is a lot different than visiting. From the very moment we set foot in Rome this time, I felt remarkably different than I had on our previous visit. First, it was no longer entirely novel. There was some element of familiarity now: I knew the basic lay of the land and the feel of the place this time. More importantly, I was now concerned about how I would live, how I would fit in, if I could make friends – all things that never crossed my mind as a visitor.

As visitors we stayed in the heart of Old Rome – just a short walk from the coliseum. This time, we were moving into a truly Roman neighborhood. We wanted to experience the authentic city and the real people who make it their home. We wanted to live somewhere where we would actually live and not vacation. We knew this would mean the most dramatic adjustments – as our outsider status would be glaringly obvious to everyone and our caveman’s grasp of the Italian language would make communication very challenging. They don’t get many tourists around here. No one really speaks much English.

Although I moved around so much as a kid – and continued to do so as an adult – I must admit it’s still a little jarring feeling like an utter outsider. A stupid outsider with absolutely no clue about anything. A mute outsider without the most basic tools to make myself understood. Basically, a hopelessly confused, bumbling ninny. At least, that’s how I felt constantly.

Sometimes, I’d approach a counter and actually find myself tongue-tied. How should I greet this person? Is it time to say buonasera, or is it still buongiorno time? Would it be too familiar of me to say Ciao? So, I’d just stand there like I swallowed a goldfish, gulping and panicked.

I would rehearse my gelato order over and over in my head, only to spit out an incomprehensible garble with the accent always on the wrong syllable, the vowel sounds completely wrong – and then get confronted with confounding, unexpected questions. It took me five visits to figure out they kept asking me if I wanted whipped cream on my gelato – and that was only after the poor girl went over to the cream and held up a scoop and repeated, “Panna?” It took me a couple more visits to understand that they also were asking if I wanted a second flavor on the same cone. And then to understand solo and tutti were the same and they both mean all or only in this context. I still haven’t gotten down the exact pronunciation of my one and only flavor, fragola (strawberry). Every time I order it, they have repeated my request, making it plainly obvious that I’m saying it completely wrong – and still, I get too panicked to listen properly – and come back the next day ordering it all wrong again.

My first day on the bus, I headed out alone with just a destination in mind. I didn’t have a bus route map, only a vague idea how to buy tickets, and about three words of Italian in my entire vocabulary. I felt pretty sharp remembering that bus tickets could be pre-purchased at the tobacco shops and even managed to request them using the first word that popped into my head, autobus – luckily a Spanish word that also happens to be the Italian word for bus. That, and the four fingers I held up, got me four bus tickets. Hooray!

The triumph was short lived as I proceeded to the bus stop with absolutely no idea of which direction I needed to go – further confounded by the buses in both directions having the exact same destination signs. I took a look at the rather explicit signs at the bus stop – and wouldn’t you know it – they could be interpreted in two totally opposite ways. It was a total crap shoot. I just jumped on the first bus that passed.

For 15 minutes or so, I sat staring out the window and studying each bus stop sign trying to deduce if I was going the right way, or the completely wrong way. I desperately wanted to ask someone for help, but for god’s sake, I didn’t have the words to do it… and I was completely beaten down by all my previous failed attempts at communication. I was also thinking that if I were heading the wrong way – or even if I were heading the right way – everyone on the bus would know that I just spent 15 minutes not having any idea where I was going. Then I realized, if I spent the next 2 1/2 months worrying about what people thought of me, I was going to have a pretty lame time.

And then, it came to me, one magical word: direzione. It means direction – and combined with my destination (Termini station) – and some pointing and exaggerated question inflection – I just might be able to ask if I was going the right way before I reached the end of the line. I looked at the intimidating, confident looking woman across the aisle from me and said, “Direzione Termini?” and pointed the direction the bus was traveling. “No, blah blah blah blah,” she replied, pointing the opposite way and shaking her head.

I’m chalking that up as a victory, because I got off the bus, crossed the street and got onto the right bus, heading to the correct destination. Another hooray for me!

During our first week, it seemed like we had scorn heaped upon us at every turn. I felt like people were actually disgusted by my ineptitude, my foreignness and my utter out-of-placedness. On my first trip to the big supermarket in our neighborhood, I got up to the check stand and the cashier freaked out because I didn’t do something right with my vegetables. She was totally freaking out like it was the end of the world. Jose paid for the rest of the groceries and I went back to the veggie department with my bags of vegetables desperately trying to figure out what I’d done wrong. I looked at all the signs and couldn’t see any evidence of directions I’d failed to follow. I looked for pencils and tags – maybe I needed to write down bin numbers or something… but nothing. Finally, I walked up to the deli counter, and was immediate shooed away and redirected to the vegetable department again.

Up walked what seemed to be the store manager. She saw me bumbling around with my bags with a deranged and clueless look on my face – and proceeded to yell at me and then moved on to just yelling about me… for the next several minutes… eventually from across the store. The only thing I understood, besides that she was super pissed off and terribly bitchy, was that now that I touched the vegetables, they were garbage. In Italy, touching produce is considered unsanitary. There are mittens everywhere to pick up the veggies. That I’d understood. There were signs explaining that.

The vegetable guy came up and started mutter about me / to me. I couldn’t understand a word he said, but it was clear he was completely unsympathetic to my plight, but he was going to help me anyway. Turns out, you need to weigh your vegetables on the scales and punch in the code that corresponds to the vegetables, and the machine prints out a barcode that the cashier scans. A rather slick system, really.

It soon became clear that they all had their panties in a bunch because the store was about to close. I’d heard that this was the general attitude about the end of the working day in Italy. Store’s closing – get out. Now! But that didn’t make me feel any less bummed out. I’d really wanted to throw the vegetables on the floor and tell everyone to fuck off. But, for all I know, making vegetables garbage by touching them and then not buying them could be a crime in Italy. And besides, I couldn’t even say “fuck off” in Italian. And furthermore, this was definitely the best grocery store in the area. I wanted to come back so we could buy Kelloggs Crunchy Nuts again.

Being yelled at and unable to defend myself left me with a bad feeling for several hours. Finally, it occurred to me that it was like being a kid and getting yelled at, but not being able to say anything back. Next time someone yells at me, I’m just going to yell back, in English.

Of course, the next time I got yelled at, just a few days later, I did not yell back. Turns out, I’m not really a yeller. Especially at old ladies. Old ladies that I fall onto on the crowded bus. Really, I practically tackled her from behind. If I had known Italian, I might have said, perhaps if you would make room for someone carrying heavy bags to hold onto the hand rail too, people wouldn’t be falling on you. But instead, I just let her yell at me while I comforted myself by trying to remember the Italian word for “dried up old cod” that my grandma used to say.