Interactions with Strangers on the Streets

My friend Leza just posted photos from last semester.
I love them all, they're bringing back such great little memories.
Couldn't help but post one or two.

1.
Today I gave a small group of Canadian tourists directions to get to the market.  As I left they congratulated me and told me, "Wow! Your English is great!"

This shows that either:
A. I'm starting to really blend in here.
B. Those tourists lack some observational skills.
C. All of the above.
D. None of the above.

After I explained to them that I'm American and asked where they were from, I told them that I would really like to live in Canada at some point during my life.  At this point in the conversation one of the Canadians who had been looking at a map on a bench, not engaging in the conversation, suddenly popped up and said, "Great! I'll sponsor you!"  We all kind of laughed as if the joke made sense and I went on my way. 


2.
I was eating a cone of gelato about an hour ago, leaning on a little wall looking at a view, when a German family came up and asked if I could take a photo of them. I had the gelato and couldn't really take a one handed photo, so I just said "Sorry .." and kind of pointed at my gelato, thinking they would ask someone else.  Instead the dad said "No problem, no problem, I take the ice." and before I could answer, snatched my gelato cone out of my hand and put his camera in the other.  Then, as I took the photo, he decided it would be funny to balance my gelato cone on his daughter's, then wife's head.  All I have to say is: that was all a little invasive, my German tourist friends. 


3.
One day, as I was jogging on the fortezza, I noticed a guy walking around up there in a white suit.  Not a white jogging suit, a white suit suit, like he just finished prom or something, except that he was probably thirty.  When I jog around in the fortezza I generally jog the whole thing about 3 times, so I pass the same old men on picnic benches and mothers and babies playing in the grass about three times each before I leave.  So I just kept running past this strange man in a white suit. The first time he said, "Oh, um, ciao!" and I said, "Ciao." and continued running.  The second time, he was waiting for me and said, again, "Oh! Ciao, um, signorina, Mi scusi -" I again said, "Ciao.", waved a little, and kept running.  I checked to make sure I hadn't dropped anything, in case that was why he wanted my attention.  I hadn't.  The next time I see him I'm leaving the fortezza and have to pass him to get out.  I run past him and as soon as he realizes its me, he starts running after me, again with the "Um, ciao.. "  Literally. He was running after me, in a suit, in the streets of Siena. I do not like being chased by strange men so I just kept running.  Good news, I can out run possibly mentally unstable men in dress suits. 


A few days later I was walking through the piazza, dressed in normal clothes with my hair down, when I see a man in a black suit who reminds me of the man from before.  He turns around and I realize that's because he is the same man, in a different suit.  He sees me and suddenly comes to life again, "TU! La ragazza dalla fortezza!! CIAO! Um -" (It's you! The girl from the fortezza! Hi!") I said, "Si, ciao." and kept walking again.  He clearly has something he feels he urgently needs to tell me but I'm pretty sure he just wants to ask for my number. And as none of the things he's done so far seem like normal behaviors to me (the suits, the chasing ...) I plan to avoid him until I leave.


4.
I was sitting in a cafe, writing for class, as old men slowly come in one by one, meeting each other for coffee.  They were laughing and gossiping and sometimes even whispering to each other about other people in the cafe.  I heard one say to the other as they both stared at me, "Lei e una bellina." (She's a pretty little one.)  One man came in later than the rest, assisted by a woman in her thirties, and of all the open places in the entire cafe, he chose to sit down right next to me.  Everyone laughed.  The old man was very well-dressed in such a way that it looked like he never left the 1940s.  He looked at me and says, "Ciao," then scooted closer.  The rest of what he said was garbled old man Italian and I missed most of it but I caught the end which was "siamo vicini."  (He either meant, we're close or we're "neighbors", which I took figuratively.) so I just smiled as said "Si, e vero, siamo vicini."  All of the old men laughed, "ha capito tutto! lei ha capito tutto!" (She understood everything!)  


It was a lot of fun. It all reminded me of so much of my grandpa and how he used to always go to coffee with his "coffee buddies", and had a woman helping him, and how if there had ever been a young woman sitting alone in the coffee shop that he thought was pretty he would have sat next to her to "flirt with" her just the way this old man did to me.  


That is Siena currently for me - sometimes strange but never boring. 

Maybe not the most flattering photo I could ever find,
but such a great memory. Dancing in the apartment with my
roommate Mollie on one of our final days last semester.