Photographs: Travel Writing #23

Roma

They say you do crazy things in Europe. I believe them. I stepped off the plane just this morning, but already I am risking my life. We barrel into an intersection. How does the elderly woman in the front of the bus not even flinch? Taxis stop inches short of a disaster, and their near collision pushes the air from my lungs. I gasp, but to my left, drivers are unphased, seemingly unaware of any problem. No horns. Horns are for more important things, like when someone is stopped at a green light. Traffic is not the same here. Even at a stop light, scooters weave between parked obstacles to make it to the front of the line, dodging fellow riders and rear view mirrors. Always movement. Lanes are hardly a suggestion to Roman drivers, and yet, somehow, amidst the chaos, the bus makes it to the curb. My stop.

Italian traffic

is not simply stop and go;

movement all the time.

Firenze

Florence is at once a change from Rome. A change from the noise, the scooters, the stress. But not from the tourists. They must have followed me: it is a curse. Everywhere I go there are people, always trying to get in front of me, always trying to be in my pictures. My only personal space must be bought from the front desk, and even when I lay upon my hotel bed, my peace is interrupted by the knock of the cleaning lady. Outside, leather dealers hassle passersby, their accented English somehow heard amidst the sounds of the city. Where would Florence be without the angry German boys or the bubbly Spanish women? Without the English language? Later, the wooden carts are packed up, even as tourists continue to finger through the soft leather. They are piled into nearby buildings, and stowed away until tomorrow morning.

Even Tuscany,

peaceful, ageless in beauty,

cannot escape us.

SS Lazio

Italian football fans are a sight to behold. The stadium is not even halfway filled, but everyone is crammed in our end. Safety in numbers. I’m glad we picked the right section. The players have not even taken the field, and yet we are standing and yelling. We yell and even spit at Torino; their pack is small, but just as dense on the opposite side. Organized anger. Our demeaning Italian language starts together and ends together. Somehow everyone knows the silent invisible cues. Perhaps we start at the wave of the enormous blue and white flag. And maybe we end on the twirling of the inscribed Lazio scarf. How should we know? We’re just soccer fans at a football game.

Is football soccer?

Although the rules are the same,

the fans change it all.