In November I took a trip to Italy alone for a week. While some might be nervous about how they’d pass the time alone or how they’d spend their days, I was beyond excited to get away and spend some QT time with myself.
I won’t lie-- I was slightly apprehensive about doing this especially since I don’t speak Italian and had simply never done it, but that was a big part of why I wanted to do it-- because I hadn’t before.
I had fantasized about the trip: the sites I’d see, how I’d spend my days, the people I’d meet. In some scenarios I fell in love with a tall, handsome Italian man. In some I galavanted around alone, gelato and a bouquet of flowers in hand, a scarf tied around my neck; Carrie Bradshaw in Rome. In some I sat in my hotel room alone eating the best take out pizza of all time (okay I never actually had that fantasy but it was my “worst case scenario” if the trip blew up in my face).
Trying my hand at traveling alone internationally was really important to me. I had traveled alone domestically but this felt bigger; things were just different abroad…. there was a language barrier, this required a passport, my cellphone bill would be absurd if I got into trouble and had to phone home for help. I had to do it.
The big pull was to see, well, if I liked it. I comforted myself (and others) by saying that if it was weird or lonely or I became flat-out miserable I could retreat to my hotel room and read the whole time (with that pizza…) Though deep down I knew that I would enjoy it. I had thought about it enough, I was at a point where I just needed to do it.
Happy, romantic, or pathetic fantasies aside, the point was that the whole trip held endless opportunities for me.
Which is why when I met a very nice Australian man on a tour of the Colosseum who was also traveling alone I wasn’t quite sure exactly how to feel.
He was very nice, bought me a delicious meal and then my dessert of choice in Italy (gelato). But after the first fifteen minutes of being around hime I was reminded why exactly I went on this trip by myself: to be alone and to do literally whatever the hell I wanted to do.
Doing whatever the hell I wanted largely consisted of me wandering the streets, taking photographs, looking at fine leather goods I couldn’t afford, looking at cheap leather goods I did not want, trying to rationalize buying the fine leather goods, then later deciding against it rather rationally over a bottle of wine. I also spent a lot of time finding outlets to charge my phone and free wifi to look up restaurants on TripAdvisor then eating the best pizza and pasta of my life in these restaurants in blissful solitude.
I would walk the city streets for hours. I got lost in the tourists and the history of the city. I did a lot of tours at the big sites like the Colosseum and The Vatican, but mostly I wandered, got to know the area of town where I “lived”, and fluttered around.
I am a quite social person but really love my space so when I met this young man who was traveling alone on my tour of the Colosseum again, I wasn’t quite sure how to react. He too was alone and was excited to meet someone else -- a girl at that! -- who was in the same boat. I told him my plans for after the tour and invited him to join if he so desired, trying my best to exude the very truthful air of “I literally do not care one way or another if you join me but I will be sticking to my plans.”
He decided to come along and it wasn’t an hour later that he was driving me crazy.
Ultimately this was unfair of me. He did nothing out of the ordinary, wasn’t specifically annoying, never made a pass at me or even suggested anything of that nature. Simply it was his presence and the fact that I had to now decide with someone on what to do. Simple actions like where to get off the bus, which street to turn down, should we stop into that shop or the other, where should we eat. This all drove me nuts.
I held it together for a couple of hours but ultimately I just could not maintain the facade. In a way I was beating myself up inside-- I should be kind to this person! He was a fellow solo traveler! He was young and kind and bought me dinner! I was being a rude American and may be hurting his feelings.
Then I remembered my intention of this trip: to be alone. I had left one of my best friends in London to come to Italy for no bigger reason than to just be own my own. What I wanted for that week of my life was to be able to stroll the streets aimlessly, to be able to dine and shop wherever and whenever I wanted, and to be able to meet a nice man, enjoy and afternoon, then never see him again.
I said goodbye to him after declining his invite to meet up at a bar late that night. I told him I had to be up early, hugged him goodbye, and turned down the side street of my hotel. Then after he had been out of eyesight for a good thirty seconds I turned around and made my way back to the wine bar I had eyed earlier in the walk and ordered a glass of wine and a small plate of olives. I sat and watched passer-byers on the street for an hour then left and walked for another thirty minutes before retuning to my hotel.
Maybe this was rude but it was my vacation and I was going to enjoy it the exact way I wanted.
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