Florence and Stereotypes

It was so absolutely wonderful to visit Florence this past weekend! I LOVED getting to see friends and places I love with all my heart and even meet new friends. It was also very surreal. It felt perfectly normal to be there hanging out with Harding friends, even though it was a completely different group from mine three years ago. Either way, I was so happy the whole weekend I could hardly contain myself. There was lots of giggling. Apparently that’s what I do when I’m extremely happy these days.

I got to worship with the church in Florence, go to a classical concert with the HUF group. And obviously I got a cappuccino from Café Mario. I wandered around Florence and Scandicci for a long time. I was a little disoriented after being away for three years. Plus they changed the transit system since I was last there. The end of the bus line wasn’t where I left it so I had to find where they put it in addition to figuring out the new tram system. But I loved just being there. And I didn’t even mind the blisters I got from all the wandering. I also visited the Villa for a devo in the dungeon (this group’s first of the semester) followed by pizza and ice cream. It was classic Sunday night at the Villa and I was beaming the whole time.

So you know those ridiculous movies where boy meets girl, they spend one day together and then are madly in love for all time? That kind of happened to me on the train home. One sided. An Italian guy sat across from me for the 3.5-hour train ride from Florence to Rome. After almost an hour of both sleeping we woke up so the conductor could check out tickets. The typical traveler’s small talk started via a mix of broken English and very very broken Italian. He was 25, from Florence, just visiting Rome for a few days. Eager to make friends we exchanged numbers with discussion of exploring city center sometime this week. Seemingly cool, seemingly normal. Then it got weird.

I guess because he has three sisters he thought it would be ok to braid a strand of my hair. He must not of realized I, like most Americans, have personal space requirements and this was clearly an uninvited breach of those. From there the compliments started. He liked my eyes, and my laugh (I was laughing because I was shocked and dumbfounded by the ridiculouslessness of the situation but unfortunately I think he interpreted it as flirting). Then my blonde hair made me as beautiful as the sun. And lastly he said he liked my lips because they looked soft. All of this went on for about an hour and a half.

Willing with all my might for the last hour to be over, it didn’t happen so quickly. He couldn’t understand why I kept denying his requests for “just one kiss,” and my response of not knowing him didn’t seem to be logical as it was a very minor detail to him. “Piano, piano” meaning slowly, slowly we’d get to know each other. When I further denied his request for me to move to Florence (don’t worry, he offered to get me a job at the restaurant he works at), he offered to come to Rome. With laughter I said, “yeah, maybe” to which he replied, “no maybe, yes!” Luckily, when we finally got to the train station he was meeting a friend and I had to get home for work. I don’t really feel guilty to say that three ignored phone calls and two non-replied to texts later, I think the almost unbelievably stereotypical Italian guy and I are through.

Note to self: EXTREME caution and stinginess with passing out that phone number. And probably establish a cap for the small talk.