Culture Shock in Rome

When I was 22, my sister and I learned the hard way about the Italian festival surrounding Assumption Day, which takes place on August 15th and continues throughout the rest of month. Two days earlier, we had arrived in Rome, having moved there so that my sister could study art history at John Cabot University. I had gone with her because I spoke a little Italian (very little, in fact), and she was only 18 and leaving home for the first time. The problem was that we had no place to live when we arrived. Ah, the folly of youth.

We had gone with the intent of staying in a hostel for a week while we explored the city and looked for a reasonable room to rent during our stay. We arrived early in the morning lugging all of the belongings that were to last us for the nine month stay. My shoulders bore strap-shaped bruises for a week afterward as though I were wearing permanent suspenders. Dead tired from the jet-lag, we dragged ourselves along the cobbled streets to a sort of welcome center for English speaking tourists where they recommended a small, inexpensive albergo nearby--the Hotel Castelfidardo. And then, as we were leaving, they gave this ominous warning:

"By the way, the Ferragosto holiday begins tomorrow, so most everything will be closing down for at least a couple of days. You may want to get some food to last you because you'll be hard-pressed to find a restaurant or even a market open until Friday." 

She might as well have told us that the zombie apocalypse begins tomorrow and good luck with all that. We had arrived in a new city with no place to live only to discover that it would be functionally shuttered for the next several days. We didn't even know where to find a market to buy food, let alone have a refrigerator or a stove to cook it. While all of Rome would be celebrating Mary's bodily assumption to heaven, our own bodies were in grave danger from lack of sleep and a scarcity of food.
In the end, it turned out to be not so bad as all that. We found a little place where we bought a crusty baguette and some jam, which was what we ate for six meals running over the next two days, much of them spent in a jet-lagged stupor. 

We tried to get our body clocks on track, but we still woke up at 4:00 in the morning on the 17th, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Most businesses remained closed, but, thanks to Mussolini, the buses were still running on time, and so we caught one to Vatican City and Piazza San Pietro, which was completely empty for the first and only time in all of my visits there. My sister and I strolled around, taking in the ancient old city and, of course, scrounging about for food.
Then a miracle occurred. 

At 5:30, a gentleman appeared on the horizon of the Via della Conciliazione. He was whistling, I think; I imagine he was whistling, anyway. He stopped at a food truck, opened it up, and began preparing for a long day of selling overpriced snacks, soda, and water to unprepared American tourists. My sister and I had never run so fast in our lives. We each bought a terribly expensive and unimaginably hard pastry coated with fat crystals of sugar. 

Oh, how those crystals sparkled in the morning sun! I felt like Bella seeing Edward in the sunlight for the first time. 

Now, the Italians can make pastries like nobody's business. Even the French have trouble keeping up, in my opinion. This, however, was not one of those pastries. Despite its lovely shape, it was a hard-hearted breakfast and the sound of each crunching bite echoed off the sacred walls of St. Peter's. I would not have been surprised, in fact, if Pope John Paul II had not been awakened in his private bedroom by the noise. I can hear his valet apologizing on our behalf: "Scusa, Signore, but the Americans have got at the pastries somewhat early this morning." 

It cost nearly $7.00 to boot. Nevertheless, under the circumstances, I've never tasted anything so delicious in my life.