It had turned out to be a lot more difficult than we had thought. Once we got there, we realized that us “new Londoners” take the tube system in London for granted. Why do the Italians make things so difficult for themselves? And it didn’t help at all that we didn't speak the language. My two friends and I found our way to the large solitary machine labeled “biglietti,” and fiddled around our wallets for a few minutes to count the coins that were so unfamiliar to us. “How many pounds… I mean Euros is it,” I asked. It was two Euros and fifty cents one-way, yet it took us over five minutes to count the coins and purchase the tickets. The ending destination was Lake Como, Italy, but it would take us a couple more methods of transportation to get there. A girl that was staying in our hostel room said it was simple and that we would catch on to the system easily. Not entirely. We followed arrows that pointed us to platform A3, but once we got there the arrows that we relied on turned out to be utterly misleading. At one point the three of us were standing at the top of a plateau overlooking three staircases and two escalators, completely blocking the flow of human traffic, bewildered as to why we weren’t finding our platform. Finally, in broken Italian, we asked a man for help and he pointed us in the right direction.
The amount of people in the metro station was incredible. Overall the place looked larger than London’s underground, but not nearly as advanced. All types of people filled the vast passageways, families, school children, working men and women, and they all knew the metro like the back of their hand. I felt silly and useless walking among the crowd. It was obvious we were foreign to their lifestyle and we stuck out like a sore thumb. Encircled by a sea of bodies, we were swiftly led to our platform and funneled directly into the open doors of the metro car. I took a deep breath and couldn’t believe that I was hearing the sound of music. Since when do the underground cars play music? I soon realized that they didn’t, the music I was hearing was a cute little Italian man playing his accordion.
This man looked to be in his late sixties and was dressed in a wrinkled and somewhat filthy white dress shirt and jeans. Two leather straps secured the instrument around his neck, and his hands had a life of their own. As if controlled by magic, his fingers skillfully swept across the keyboard and his eyes lit up to express his passion for his music. His head moved side to side in harmony with the melody, and he slowly made his way through the congested aisle of the car. To as many people as he could make eye contact with, he smiled, and nodded his head to acknowledge their presence. This man was merely a mundane element of everyday life to these people, but to me he was the turning point of my ten-day trip. I had a reflective moment: I wasn’t in Menlo Park anymore, or California, not even America; I was riding the metro, listening to live and authentic, Italian music in Italy! I felt like I was a character in a black and white movie: American girl riding the metro in Italy. She stares out the window and ponders her life, as the sound of an accordion is in the distant background. The overly cliché daydream made me giggle out loud.
It was probable that playing the accordion was this man’s occupation. But the venue in which he performed was irrelevant; he had incredible talent. No, he was not performing in a concert hall or a music studio, but he was still effective in his performance, despite the time or place. I was soothed by the sounds he created from that complicated instrument and I temporarily forgot how anxious I had been before. The unexpectedness of such a show made me appreciate how touching performances can be even when they’re unexpected. The randomness and unpredictability of such a presentation made it that much more impressive and unique in my eyes. As we approached our stop and mentally prepared for the rest of our day’s journey, I thanked the man for relieving my unease and providing me with entertainment, by dropping euros in his coffee cup and we exited the metro car.
Alexis Bley
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