Attenti Al Cane

“You can always come back. You may decide you don’t like it after a week or two, and you can come right back. We can’t help you there. You don’t have rights there. Are you sure you want to go?”

These words met a deaf ear; I boarded the 747 United Airlines jet on August 27, 2007 to begin a life changing adventure. I was scared…

….no, not of Italy, of the flight. What if I miss my connecting flight? What if I lose all my bags and have nothing in Italy? What if my debit card doesn’t work? What I should have feared was who, or better to say, what would I sit next to for the nine hour flight.

My neighbor’s air conditioning whisteled, the cool breath on my neck warning me to bundle up. I reached for the thin felt blanket and began burrowing like a squirrel preparing for hibernation. I lifted my knees to my chest and cradled my head between the crevice of the head rest and the window.

 I then noticed the intruder— crusty, bandaged and blistered– bare and exposed— feet. Disgusting! They buried their way between my seat and the window, the toes and decaying finger nails wiggling at me as if they wanted to talk. I immediately jumped to the other side of my seat, but moving closer to my neighbor, my nose wrinkled and my stomach churned to the stench of curry and body odor. Trapped, I caved my back, rolling my shoulders foward and crossing my arms and legs. I hoped to shield myself from the inevitable doom but to no avail.

Never have I been more excited to step off a plane! I arrived…and I survived! A bus drove me directly to my apartment. The bus driver provided me with the keys and explained how to use them, in Italian. “Si, Si, grazie. Si, Si,” I responded with a smile; I understood nothing.

Taking the cold brass key in hand, I swung my blue bag over my shoulder and nudged my green suitcase into the doorway with my hip. I looked up, daunted. My apartment was at the top of five flights of slippery marble stairs. And, I could not go alone.

“Kerplunk. Chadunk. Kaboom,” my suitcase’s defiant screams echoed into the darkness, one stair at a time. I finally reached the top, but an iron gate barricaded what seemed to be the entry to the top floor apartment. “Attenti al cane,” I read in the bright red letters. I translated quickly “Yikes! Run Away! Turn around.”

Using my cell phone as a make-shift flashlight, I read the name labels at each door on my way back down the stairs. Which one was mine? Who lives in these apartments? I started to feel nervous. I climbed the full staircase with my luggage three or four times in the August heat, before Anna rescued me.

She greeted me with a big Southern hug and a welcoming smile. There was no killer dog and no scary man, just a happy and bubbly Anna. I had talked to her frequently that summer before arriving, and we decided to be roommates. 

From our previous conversations, I guessed that we would be great roommates, but meeting her in person and seeing her genuine, kind smile, I knew she would be so much more. She would become a dear and close friend, a fellow adventurer, my “little mother”…or as she might tell you a “teacher” to a naive “paragon of virtue.”

Most importantly she was the perfect friend, a fortress of strength and comfort, to help me through what would be some of the toughest but also the most beautiful times of my life. So, our first day and our adventures in Italy began with smiles and enthusiasm.