The City That Changed Everything
“It’s hard to put life-changing moments into words.”
That’s a sentence that I used over two months ago in my first ever post on Home Is Where The Suitcase Is. Although the context was slightly different, the intention still remains the same.
I want to tell you about Rome.
When I track my personal growth over the last two years, nearly every decision I’ve made has traced back to one point in time when a seed was planted. The seed of an idea that maybe I didn’t want to be an actor at all anymore. Maybe I was done with that dream.
Maybe it had taken me as far as it was supposed to.
Every corner of this city was breathtaking...
It was raining when Rose and I landed in Rome. And not the light drizzle kind of rain. I’m talking about the hard, wind-driven, don’t-bother-taking-out-your-umbrella kind of rain.
Which is good. We forgot to pack ours anyway.
We dropped our bags at the hostel and made our way to the bus station to meet one of our other friends, Arielle, for dinner. Between the hostel and the restaurant, Rose’s wallet got stolen. Although we suspect it was taken on the bus, we didn’t find out until we went to pay the bill and she couldn’t find it anywhere. Instead of taking our time to walk around the streets of Rome after dinner, Arielle got Rose and me a cab so that we could go back to the hostel and use their WiFi to try and Skype call Bank of America before they closed on the East Coast.
It was a mess of a situation.
We made quick goodbyes and got in the cab. Our driver spoke no English. Rose and I spoke no Italian. However, the driver and I both spoke enough Spanish to be able to have a fairly comprehensive, if basically worded, conversation.
He asked us where we were from. America. I asked him where he was from. He grew up in Italy, outside of Rome. The conversation continued in that manner as we wound through the streets.
Then we passed the Pantheon.
For reference, this is The Pantheon
It was a sight we would be seeing tomorrow on our tour, but hadn’t been near yet. I had been prepared for the beauty. The history. The overwhelming sense of awe.
I wasn’t prepared for the tanks. Or the guns. Or the fear that immediately blossomed in the pit of my stomach at the sight of it.
I mean, I was raised in America.
“¿Que pasando?” (What’s happening?) I asked our driver, as Rose and I both stared out the window.
“Hm?...oh...las terroristas…” our driver responded.
Terrorists.
We learned that military police were stationed outside all of the major historical landmarks in Rome, with the tanks strategically positioned in front of them to slow down a truck.
You know, like the ones that drove into the German Christmas markets less than a year ago.
A second, more artsy shot
Believe it or not, what struck me the most wasn’t the sight of it. That part lasted maybe 60 seconds. What surprised me the most was the complete nonchalance in our driver’s voice when he explained it to us. He didn’t even immediately process what I was asking about until he looked back in the rear view mirror and saw where we were staring.
We may have been shocked by the sight, but this was just what he considered his daily life.
I didn’t completely shift my five year plan right then and there, and I’m glad I didn’t. To make such a massive decision took months of planning and soul searching and asking myself if this is what I really want.
But at the end of the day, I kept coming back to that moment. To that city that changed everything. When I told my parents and my American friends about what I had seen, they were equally as taken aback as I had been. I struggled for months with the fact that I felt like I had been raised in a bubble.
I knew that I wanted to tell this story, but I didn’t know how. I mean, how could I even begin to put all my thoughts about it down on paper when I myself haven’t even parsed through all of them yet?
But here’s what I do know - my mission, if you will:
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I want to travel. I want to see what else exists in this world that I can’t find out from my history books and I want to share it with you.
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I want to use this platform to tell not just my own stories, but the stories of people like our driver. Because, holy cow, I would love to know his story.
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I want to share the tricks that I use to afford to travel with my readers so that they don’t have to just experience these moments second-hand through me; they can have them too.
Like, this is just an average bridge...how?