Week 2 Reportage 1

Boarding the train from Rome to Spoleto at the last second, I move from car to car in search of a seat. In one car stand two nuns, baby blue habits covering most of their bodies. At the next stop I continue my search, squeezing myself between the rows of people already comfortably seated. In the small compartment past the seats is a group of Italian high schoolers. They speak in much softer voices upon my arrival and glance at me with raised eyebrows. Their clothing is distinctly different from the nuns I had seen earlier, the young men dressed in polos and shorts while the women are wearing skirts with skin-tight leggings and tops that show off their bronze shoulders. I become self conscious as I realize I'm an American lugging around a large McDonald's bag with the remnants of my lunch. Deciding not to ride with such nosy passengers I move even further down the train once we reach yet another station. Frustrated and tired from searching for an open seat I give up once I reach the next compartment and decide to ride out the rest of the trip with an Italian mechanic, still in his work clothes, and a quiet Italian woman content with watching the scenery and listening to her music through headphones that disappear beneath her raven black hair. At the next stop both the young woman and the mechanic disembark the train and leave me the small fold-out chair to myself. After the train had reached full speed I tried to make myself as comfortable as possible on the inadequately cushioned seat and enjoy the rest of the train ride. Several minutes had passed since the train had left the last station and two girls in their early teens enter the compartment. I hastily remove my headphones once I realize they're trying to talk to me but removing the earbuds does not help as they're shooting Italian at me so fast I can't keep up. I tell them, blushing with embarrassment at my inability to speak the language, that I'll try to work with them in English if they speak it. They decide to attempt to communicate with the oversized foreigner and we converse in an odd mixture of terrible English and even worse Italian. Slightly annoyed they tell me they'll ask someone else and walk through to the next car with a friendly "hello." I'm both embarrassed at my lack of language skills and amused at the fact they just bid me farewell with a word that can only be used in greeting.