Trip to Italy

We're walking back to our hotel from the Sistine Chapel of frescoes that I've seen on television and in books. Inside I'd wished that there were less people and more light. I remember thinking that it looked better on television. I feel blasphemous even though it was only a thought, I didn't say it aloud. The Vatican is such a strange place. Standing in the center, I feel tiny and insignificant. And hot. It's so hot this summer and I only brought one pair of shorts. Outside Vatican City there are street vendors selling t-shirts. There's also a gift shop that sells postcards of the Pope and miniature figurines of buildings. There are so many buildings, and it seems like they're all important. Farther into the heart of Rome are more street vendors, but these ones sell fake Prada handbags and fake Gucci sunglasses. In a way, I covet these more than the real thing, maybe because the real thing is so far out of reach. But also because it's a kind of joke like, I went to Italy and all I got was this fake designer purse. And then there are the shops, the shops I don't think I can afford to go into, as though they have a cover charge, as though I know what a cover charge is.

I'm thirteen years old and I'm wearing khaki shorts and a green t-shirt. My curly hair is long and blonde and fuzzy from the heat. From the street, I look into a coffee shop. It has a gleaming espresso machine and the Italians come in and drink their coffee standing at the counter. I feel like an outsider who's not dressed right. But I'm about to start high school, I'm uncomfortable in my skin at home too. Geography doesn't change things. I think about a few days before this when we ate dinner at a small restaurant outside Florence. Today, I can't even remember what we ate. It was memorable for different reasons. It was the pride of the waiter and the chef when they invited us into the kitchen. It was the ritual, the simplicity, the slow pace, like molasses that can't be rushed. In one of those tiny towns pasted into the landscape of Italy, we sat at a table outside, and we were the only customers there.

I save silly things like the labels from water bottles, brochures I can't read, train passes, tickets for museums I won't remember visiting. My dad thinks I'll be able to read some of the Latin because I've just finished my second year. But I can't even make out the letters we find in the Colosseum, much less understand their meaning. There is a pizza place next to our hotel. The pies are oblong in shape, and they cut you a piece and wrap it up in paper. We walk through a gate. Ahead is a small courtyard, and we sit on the ground with our packages of pizza and bottles of sparkling water, and eat in silence. On the right is the elevator to the hotel, one of the old ones with the metal grate you have to close before you can go. We ride up to the hotel, and we walk past the nice man who gives us chocolate croissants and coffee in the morning.

I buy postcards of the artwork that I've seen, but I never mail them. When I get home, I put them on my wall along with the labels and the brochures and the tickets, and one day I don't remember how or why I collected these things. But I remember standing outside of the Uffizi with the river to my right. I remember the abundance of advertisements for calling cards. I remember listening to a cassette of a ridiculous Italian pop singer. I remember the man selling produce and his basket of red currants. I remember taking pictures in the underground photo booth. I remember the Chinese restaurant we never went to. I remember buying a scarf and a suede coat in the middle of July.

This is what I'm thinking about as I sit in my bedroom with the window open. New York, I'll be there in two weeks. Don't let me down.