Verona

28.01.2012 - 29.01.2012

Verona. In case it didn't come to you immediately, Verona is the setting of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. ...And what a city of romance it was!

There are a few traditions that travelers to Verona follow can only be described as... unhygienic. The most popular tourist spot in the city is the supposed Capulet balcony of the famous R&J balcony scene. Of course, Romeo and Juliet is a work of fiction, and so it would follow that the balcony is not really the balcony of the famous love scene. When entering the Capulet garden to view the balcony, there is a tradition to put a piece of gum on the archway that leads to it.

(romantic, I know)

There is also a tradition of rubbing a certain anatomical part of Juliet. According to the Italians, it brings some sort of good luck or romance. Whatever it brought me, I was happy I had hand sanitizer afterwards.

There is one special story I want to share about Verona. Tom and I had slipped into a buffet-style restaurant for lunch and to take a break from our touring. While we were eating, there was an elderly couple that sat across from us. The woman kept glancing over at me and smiling and then turning her gaze back to her food. Once she was done with her meal, she came over to our table. She looked at me, smiling, and started talking to me in Italian. Of course, I didn't understand a word, so I just smiled politely and looked between Tom and her, searching for comprehension somewhere between them. Tom replied with something in Italian and the woman continued to talk with him for a bit, meanwhile still smiling at me. Her husband came up and said something jokingly dismissing about his wife which I didn't understand, to which Tom laughed. Then they walked away, the older man offering his arm to his lady.

As they were walking out the door I asked Tom what had been said. He said that she was telling me that we reminded her of her husband and herself many years ago, when they were young. He also told me that as she was talking she realized I wasn't understanding anything, and so broke off to say, "...and you aren't understanding a word I say, are you?"- which was the point that Tom has stepped in to translate. The husband apparently had chimed in jokingly and said that she was a crazy old lady.

As Tom was telling me this, I just couldn't stop smiling. For reasons every woman who reads this entry will understand, it meant the world to me to hear this older woman, who looked so happy with her husband, tell us that we reminded her of them many years in the past. And in that moment I realized how lucky and blessed I felt to be able to travel the world with my best friend.