August 28, 2018
I’d taken a year of Italian during my second year at UCSD, and in the year following, tried my best to keep the rust at bay with Duolingo. It’s a hell of a beginning to my final year of college, I’m ready for Italy, invigorated from the recent hospitality. I board the train southbound—a full day’s journey.
On the train to Milan, I realize I’m finally gonna speak the first Italian I would speak to Italian ears that don’t belong to a professor or TA. I get that pulsating nervousness you get when you’re about to talk to a pretty girl you don’t know very well, but instead it’s some dudes in their mid-30s, and I ask them:
“Scusi, pensate che il treno sarà pieno?”
“No.”
I sit back down pretty elated about all the Italian I’m going to use for the next four months.
The bliss ends with an adrenaline rush. The train is arriving late, like—risking missing-a-transfer late. I gun it alongside an Italian family and a handful of others to the platform to Termini station. We all laugh in relief when we actually make it. I’m quickly realizing, however, that it’s getting really difficult to pick up the bits and pieces of what passersby are saying. I perk up again at the sight of the red-tiled roofs of Florence. Finally, I catch a glimpse of a hilltop city. I’d later learn it was called Orvieto—and I’d have a lot of memories to be made there.
When I step outside Termini station, however, it’s a sad but honest sight. It’s full of refugees trying to make a living, some quietly and some aggressively, juxtaposed with tourists upon tourists, all crowded and cramped together. I’m happy I didn’t over-idealize Rome so far, but I’m unsure what the near future holds.
There are very few places open for food in Italy 24 hours a day. Just one in close proximity — the McDonald’s of Termini Station. Even though it’s late, there’s a line, and I’m thinking hard about what I say. The cashier looks at me with two hands out:
“English? Or Italian?”
“Italiano”, I reply.
But it’s quickly becoming apparent that I’m not saying something right, he’s getting exasperated, and I get flustered.
“English.”
Defeated, I eat my sad, cold Gran Crispy McBacon® in silence and shame.
