You know that kid who cranks her voice up 10 notches in lecture each time her \totally amazing"" spring break trip comes up?
Well, I am not that kid, and this is not that story.
I should have been in charming Venice-but that's not what happened.
Two days, four flights and one train later I was stranded in Rome in the middle of the night, smelling and looking like a wet dog.
""OK, so we just need to find a hotel for the night,"" I nervously tell my travel buddy.
But none of the dozens of hotels along the lit Roman sidewalks had a room for a few clueless American tourists without a reservation.
Suddenly, a portly woman in red appeared from around the corner, ranting in Italian and pointing to our cumbersome luggage.
So, we followed her.
We followed her all the way to two 20-foot tall doors that appeared to be the entrance to either a dungeon or gothic nightclub.
And we went inside. So what if we may get chained to the walls? If this frantic lady had room for two college students who missed the last train to Venice, it would all be worth it.
But after realizing she wanted us to leave our bags in the lobby of the medieval apartment, we bolted back to the intimidating dark alleys.
And that is when we met Franco.
""Trust me,"" he said in a heavy accent of broken English. ""You stay at my apartment. You be OK.""
My friend and I mirrored eyes full of hopefulness and fear to one another as the stranger began leading us down eerily placid Roman streets. I rushed to keep up with the lightning-fast Franco, hauling huge suitcases around mysterious corners.
""Take me back to Madison!"" I think, ""because Franco is going to plunder us for our 30 Euro, knife us and leave us in a dumpster. This is the end.""
But he didn't take us to a dumpster, a mob of cannibals or any other obscene place I conjured in my tired head.
Instead, he led us blocks away to a damp, cold, authentic Italian apartment. Probably older than wine, the tiny apartment came with dulled keys, cracked walls and an indecipherable odor. After heaving our luggage up the narrow, steep staircase leading to our nightly sanctuary, we left the bags in the insecure apartment to have a beer down the street at Franco's obscure bar.
There in the peculiar little business, my heart finally stopped pounding in anguish.
Yes, I had missed a ""totally awesome"" night in a quaint, crisply clean Venetian hotel, but I had stumbled upon something much better.
Culture by accident.
I realized this night would be the only time I'd sleep in a genuine Italian abode and drink at a hidden local pub. I had conversed with Italians who were untutored in tourist courting, people beautifully unmarred by a system that allows Americans to see the Sistine Chapel with a side of fries.
In shocking contrast to the diet culture I'd soak in for the next week, this was real. The night in a foreign stranger's apartment was void of predictable, comfortable consumerism. In fact, it was downright terrifying and bordering painful.
But that's the world.
And if the best way to look honestly at a culture is through a dangerous accident, I'm willing to take my chances.
ewinter@wisc.edu.
