Sunday is my first real day off from tours, classes and parties. I wake up and roll over the words I know I will need to use in order to ask for the correct bus to get to the town of Fermignano. I say out loud, “cuento costa il bigliete di bus … to go … a Fermignano?” I shake my head and think, “god this will be an adventure today getting around with my crappy Italian, I hope I don’t make the locals mad,” especially since this will be the first activity I will be doing on my own; no classmate to get lost with nor a translator.   

I make it to the bus terminal and catch the #18 to Fermignano. I get off the bus and walk up to a group of cigar-smoking old men and ask, “dove sta la Via industriale?” The men answer in rapid fire Italian, I grimace and say “non capisco.”

They then point down the road and say “tre kilometro.” I smile with a grazie and head down the road.

I walked for 30 minutes and thought; “Damn, I am going the wrong way, this is taking too long.”

I come upon a young man resting on the front of a pizzeria and ask “dove sta via Industriale?” He then shakes his head and begins to say no, but asks me questions. Again I say “non capisco.”

He enters the pizzeria and shows my slip of paper with the address that I have been holding for an hour in my sweaty hand, to his three co-workers. The four workers gather to look at the slip and they ask me who I am looking for,  I try to say not a person but, “Testimoni di Geova.”

“The two women and young man begin to chatter, and I understand the woman wants to drive me. I begin to feel happy yet embarrassed that I am inconveniencing these people.

I say, “No, you don’t have to take me, you’re doing too much.”

“No” says the woman, grabs her car keys and motions for me to follow her. The two women and I hop in the car and speed down the road. We arrive at the building and it’s is closed, however, I feel accomplished because I found the building. We get back to the pizzeria and these women even find me the number to a Jehovah’s Witness (after three or phone calls to others they know.)

I feel fortunate to have met such helpful and friendly people. I think about my time and how stingy I am with it; now I begin to feel shame at how I’ve behaved in the past with strangers and even my own family in regards to sharing my time.

This experience has made me feel that the Italians here aren’t as fast-paced and impatient as we are in the California Bay Area, and it has caused me to realize how I need to change my ways when I get back home.