at St. Peter's Square

In her Introduction to "The Smiles of Rome," Susan Cahill describes travel and tourism: "Travel and tourism, it must be said, follow different rhythms. Travel means finding yourself through a journey, and letting it change you. Tourism means making a journey with enough cushioning and filtering and microscheduling to assure that it won't change you."

I'd like to think that after almost 2 weeks, I've passed into traveler status, or maybe even (hope of all hope) that I never really had tourist status. Regardless, I have discovered one of the most enjoyable things about living in a new place is watching other people discover the place. First, it makes me feel like a native - and funnily, you can be a native in a city like Rome after not very long at all. I learned this yesterday when I assisted an odd couple in the Jewish Ghetto, our own little neighborhood. A middle-aged woman with a cane, and her youthful companion with "Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater" t-shirt, were entering our piazza with that desperate lost-tourist look. When I greeted them and the woman asked if I knew English, she seemed terribly relieved when I said proudly "I do!" (I even think of myself as reasonably fluent). When I told them I had been here 2 weeks and just figured out how to consistently get to my flat, the older woman said sincerely "Oh, so then you're a native." Not really, but I was able to direct them toward the river and went on my merry way. I can tell you where the water is but don't ask me for any addresses!

As a traveler, you also get to take pictures of people rather than buildings - or more specifically, people with buildings behind them. Usually, people can be counted on to do more interesting things than buildings, plus buildings pay you the courtesy of standing there while you document the people. It is possible (even likely) that I find mundane things inordinately interesting, but it is funny to watch people enter a space they've seen only in 2-D and realize it exists in the same 3-D world they inhabit. Some people like to stop and look for a minute, before walking into the space and having a family member take a posed picture of them. Others meander through, taking in the space at 2 miles per hour. Then there are the true natives, the Vatican employees, who pass through like they would a parking lot. Here is a collection from St. Peter's Square.