“Where is she?” she asked me.

“Los Angeles,” I replied.

“Oh. Ah! Yes, my daughter is in Santa Barbara,” she offered. 

Santa Barbara, Los Angeles not exactly the same but close. I will give this stranger credit for attempting to relate. I have to come up with something nice to say about her considering that she was standing about 6 inches away from me peering into my laptop while I was talking to my mother on Skype. What’s even better is she has a friend, and they both want to say hi to mom. 

So let’s refresh. There’s myself, my mother, and two nameless Italian women. Oh my. 

“Can she see me?” asked the same women. She is clearly the spokesperson for this duo.

“Yeah!” I pointed to the little box in the left hand corner of the window. 

“Oh!” she said. She started to laugh at the sight of her miniature reflection. 

Her sidekick soon followed suit and again asked me, “Can she see me?” Still, yes. They exchanged greetings with mom and went to sit down and smoke their cigarettes. This, you see, was the initial motivation behind their pilgrimage outside. All the while they are still asking me some questions, while I’m talking to my mother. She and I had said our goodbyes and I had picked up my laptop to leave. I hadn’t even reached the threshold of the door before the ladies stopped me and grilled me for information. Yes, I’m American. Yes, I’m a journalism student. No, I’ve never been to Italy and the only other city I’ve seen so far is Pesaro. Would you like my social security number and bra size too? With all of these questions I began to wonder if the Carabinieri has 60-year-old women working for them. If so that’s quite clever. 

Back to the point.  Even more strange than the fact they were taking such an avid interest was the fact that I actually didn’t mind that much. In fact, it’s kind of nice to have someone take an interest. There I was minding my own business and these two women breached the space bubble that we Americans grasp onto fiercely. However, it didn’t bother me because I actually got to meet someone new and find out something about them rather than letting a person of interest pass by like I have done so many other times.