I got off the train at Rome’s Termini station fifteen minutes before my bus to the airport was supposed to leave, and I had no idea where to go. I ran down track twelve and hesitated, unsure of which way to turn. Left or right? I had no time to think. I went right and hoped for the best. Going the wrong way could mean the difference between making my flight to Budapest and spending the night at the airport.
I finally stopped where the station came to an end. I glanced down a corridor to my right, hoping to see a sign that said something even vaguely similar to “Terrevision.” Deciding to waste no more time dawdling, I approached a coffee counter.
“Dov’è Terrevision?” I asked the cashier.
“Dritto lungo il corridoio, dietro la farmacia,” she replied rapidly, pointing down the corridor. I silently thanked Domenico for going over directions in Italian class that morning. I was also pleased that the cashier didn’t respond to my extremely limited Italian in English, as so many do in Florence.
“Grazie,” I said, and ran off to find my bus. What I found instead was a complete mess. A mob of people swarmed around the entrance to my only half-full bus; the driver closed the doors on a woman while she stood in the doorway. The woman was forced to squeeze herself off the bus, and she began yelling in undecipherable Italian as the bus drove away. The guy next to me and I looked at each other in a mixture of amusement and bewilderment at the scene that had just unfolded before us.
“Do you speak English?” he asked.
“Yes,” I replied. And so began a conversation that would literally last hours, from the ten minutes we spent waiting for the next bus (so much for running through the train station) until my flight to Budapest began to board. He was a twenty-seven-year-old doctor from Scotland, leaving Rome after being there only one day for conferences. He found the whole concept of studying abroad for a semester foreign yet fascinating, and he was extremely jealous that I was just casually going to Budapest for a weekend. I found the fact that he was a doctor (and had been one for four years!) incredibly strange given his young age. I was very interested to hear how higher education in Scotland differs from higher education America: he, for instance, went straight to medical school at seventeen instead of going to a four-year university, graduated with his medical degree at twenty-three, and began practicing surgery. He, in turn, was very interested to hear about how healthcare systems differ in America and was completely baffled when I explained the concept of health insurance to him.
We talked about our respective trips to Munich, our experiences seeing the Red Hot Chili Peppers in concert, and our pity for Justin Bieber. It was one of the most refreshing conversations I’ve ever had—especially after dealing with men in Florence—free from any sort of expectations or ulterior motives. My flight was leaving before his, so when it began boarding, we just shook hands and went our separate ways, without exchanging phone numbers or e-mail addresses. It was only later that I realized that I never even learned his name.