Is This Real Life? (Answer: No)

“Rome!”

“You guys. You guys. We’re in Rome.”

“Holy crap, we actually made it.”

This is it. Italy. Standing outside St. John’s, blinking back the glare of the sun as it overheats the pavement beneath my feet, I can scarcely convince myself that what I’m seeing is Europe—not just some extraordinarily tropical tourist attraction in the states. The eight hour flight across the Atlantic hadn’t been a dream (especially since, as I’d dreaded and expected, I hadn’t been able to sleep on the flight) but had instead brought us here, jet lag and all, to stand in front of the multicolored university, looking like a Lego palace in the midst of so many lush trees. I challenge the surveillance camera to a staring contest, only to lose interest and, in doing so, lose the contest as I slowly turn around and eye the car-lined streets, the walls of teeming vines that grow into trees, and the buildings that loom overhead. My eyes itch with sleep, reminding me that I’m too tired to be asleep (but could be hallucinating), but I can’t even complain. This is Roman fatigue. With every new place we’ve gone to—the airport, the bus, now the university—everything has felt distinctly Italian, and that’s no less true now. Massachusetts just doesn’t have colors like Italy does.

“All right, guys,” Dan announces, trying to capture our ceaselessly wandering attention. “I know you’re all very excited to be standing in the middle of the street—”

“We’re in Rome!” Jackie burst out with her natural exuberance, throwing her arms up in the air and laughing. Standing clustered in the alley, we burst out again into enthusiastic chatter, the nonsensical hum punctuated with triumphant fist-pumping and high-fiving. I, at least, have stopped jumping up and down.

“Okay, okay, settle down, guys. We’ve got a lot to see and a tight schedule to keep, so let’s get moving!”

“Where’re we going?” I ask.

Dan raises an eyebrow. “Well, if you’d read the itinerary—”

Jordy, leaning forward, interrupts excitedly, “Will Paolo be there?”

Muffled titters of laughter swell up and die down quickly.

“Nope. While we were on the plane I sent out a bulletin to the pope, warning him about the looming corruption of the Italian youth. Frantic mothers everywhere are now hoarding their sons away in their villas. Not a motorino in sight, ahahaha.” Dan claps his hands, rubbing them together. “But who wants to see an open square filled with a bunch of vegetables?”

“Aww yeah!” Gia shouts.

“What are you saying?” Jackie laughs incredulously, shaking her head. “C’mon, everybody, it’s Campo di Fiore time!”

We set out, down the alley checkered in a varying shaded-not-shaded pattern, shadows of leaves trailing over my toes and ankles. It’s almost without warning that we’re thrust into Italian life—I had expected a kind of toes-first wading in, from quiet residential calm to the steering and veering panic of Italian driving, but as soon as we exit the alleyway parking signs glow blue at every available sidewalk, and cars weave recklessly around tight corners. Passersby are common, hands on their bags or in their pockets, and as we march our way down the sidewalk in an amorphous, excitable mess of chatter a passing woman gives us a puzzled glance as she goes.

Nevertheless, the area is beautiful. Trees form a tunneled canopy overhead, guiding shade onto our sweating shoulders, and I can’t stop gaping at the villas we pass. “We’re in Rome!” I whisper to Nicole, unable to get over the seemingly obvious fact that we have left JFK in the dust. The night sky and city screeching has long since ebbed away, leaving only arching palm trees and pink-blooming flowers in its wake.

“I knoooow!” she says, hands clapping together excitedly and then hastily returning to cradle the camera around her neck. “It’s so beautiful, I can’t believe it!”

As we pass down what seems like a maze of roads—and I’m silently relieved that Dan and Jackie arguing up ahead apparently know the area perfectly, because I would be hopelessly lost on my own—I keep eyeing the villas on either side of us. They’re the kind of houses I envision myself living in in my alternate life, where I marry a multibillion-dollar heir who is also the love of my Victorian-novel life. They’re extravagant, expansive estates, yawning across acres of lush and greening lawn. They’re gated, and I’m almost tempted to cool my hands against the iron rods and press my face close, trying to see what wealthy European life feels like, but I value my lack of criminal record. Even the hedges are trimmed into perfect geometrical figures, not a twig out of place. Such houses are fit for modern-day Caesars, and I suddenly want to live like this, here, spending my adulthood lounging in the perfect sun of an Italian spring. Hell, I would live in a cardboard box if it meant staying in Italy (actually, probably not), but a luxurious villa wouldn’t be half bad either.

“Just to let you know, what we’re walking through right now is actually one of the 22 rioni you studied. Trastevere. See? Relevant. Guess class didn’t suck so much after all!”

“Whatever you say, Dan!”

The group bursts into laughter again, and again we attract curious stares from pedestrians.

The roads bend and break into more roads until finally we turn into a wide, two-lane street, scarred with crosswalks and trolley lines. Cars are everywhere—stuck snug against the base of lampposts, parked side by side in alternating positions like two shoes in a shoebox—using the kind of parking that would get them arrested back in the states. And the trees. They seem to sprout up right out of the pavement, brushing the clouds with the heights of their treetops and rivaling the height of the buildings around us. We walk beneath their shade, wide-eyed and ignorant of our staring, as around us the street fills up with the busy lives of pedestrians.

Not so far ahead a group of young men cross the street, heedless of traffic, their rapid-fire Italian mangled every so often by bursts of laughter. A mixed group of adults sit at a café to our right, smoking their cigarettes as they lounge in comfortable conversation. Three elderly, floppy-hatted women, their shopping bags clutched tightly in their hands, give us strange looks as they edge past our twenty-something ragtag group, no doubting making comments as soon as they’re out of earshot. I feel painfully and obviously American against the splash of Italian culture, wearing my scuffed tennis shoes and favorite jeans, but I can’t keep the smile from my face regardless. I barely remember to keep my eyes forward, trying to avoid stepping on people’s heels—too distracted by the markets that line every street corner, boasting no-doubt tourist paraphernalia.

“We need to go shopping,” I blurt out suddenly, shaking my arms excitedly. “I don’t even like shopping, but we seriously need to go.”

“We do!” Nicole replies, and Emily retorts with a laugh, “I hear that.”

As we keep walking, the heat becoming more obvious despite the shade, I keep my eyes on the street and the various merchant tents. Every now and then as we walk, Italian drivers perform parallel parking maneuvers that would make the Olympian gods quake, and I remind myself to never mess with them. Ever. So we go, sometimes jostled by busy men on their cell phones hurry past but most of the time just astounded by the sounds and the colors and the smells. My feet ache, the sweat clinging to my neck in a desperate bid for shade, and my heartbeat is starting to throb in my eyes as my jetlag catches up to me, but nonetheless I’m enjoying the trip. I only wish I hadn’t forgotten my water in my room. Being a tourist is thirsty work.

After what finally seems like hours (but in reality was probably only an hour, maybe less), Dan stops and pulls Jackie with him to the edge of the sidewalk. Following his lead, our group tries to squeeze as tightly as possible up against the edge of the curb, huddled in an overheated—but no less excited—group.

“Well, we still have a ways to go before we hit the Campo," he says, "but since it’s our first day in the city and you’re not yet used to the heat, I guess we’ll allow you a twenty minute break. Feel free to check out a café—or, if it’s your preference, la gelateria—and we’ll meet back here when you’re done. Andiamo, Romanissimi!”