Italy from a Backpack. Mark Pearson

its entirety.

      The central statue, of the legendary Roman sea-god Neptune, seemed supernatural above the horses half-immersed in frothing water beneath him. Omniscient and powerful, the mythological god rose highest in the fountain, riding his shell-like chariot with his gaze fixed on the square around him, as if he controlled its movements. Surrounded by tall orange and yellow buildings, his majesty’s appearance was fantastic in the bustling square, and he invited us to believe there was magic in the fountain’s splashing turquoise pool.

      A steady stream of people flowed around the fountain’s edges. Tourists followed Roman legend by tossing wish-filled coins into the water. If the thousands of coins covering the fountain’s floor were any indication, countless travelers had trusted this frozen Neptune to alter their destinies for good, and guarantee them a return to Rome. I found myself imagining centuries of these wishers, clad in different apparel, carrying different burdens than mine or my fellow travelers’, but admiring this marvelous sight just like us. Through all this, the fountain stood. In that moment, I sensed that Trevi wasn’t becoming part of my history; I was becoming part of its.

       I found myself imagining centuries of these wishers.

      A child I know recently mentioned how far away we Chicago natives lived from New York. His innocence made me laugh, but I suppose, at his age, I viewed places like New York as infinitely distant, too. I thought Third World countries and war and violence couldn’t be important if they were that far away. I thought of England and China as being other planets entirely, and when my dad traveled overseas, I couldn’t comprehend his inhabiting a place so far away the same way he would inhabit our house on our street in America.

      That was a time when I thought that my world was the only world; when I thought that the way people in my world acted was the way everyone else in the world acted. Now, my travels have landed me in a sea of human beings who speak languages foreign to me, who live differently from me in a million ways, and whose lives are completely unconnected to mine. I no longer feel so important or big. But maybe by connecting myself to timeless places like Rome, and joining the invisible register of visitors who have stood where I stand, I enlarge myself. Maybe by being part of a massive whole, I’m not so insignificant after all, and as my perspective grows, so does my world.

      As I watched the crowd in front of the Trevi, a group of tourists gathered by a tall lamppost to take photographs. A few young Roman men perched atop a raised stone step, laughing about the passing characters. Two suited businessmen wandered through the crowd, immune to the surrounding noise.

      People spread through the three intersecting roads that lead to the fountain. Some peered through camera lenses, moving continually backward as they tried to capture the sculpture in one frame. Some moved beyond the landmark to nearby streets, in search of gelato, watercolor paintings or souvenirs. All this, under the same perfect, deep-blue sky I have seen at home, the one that graces every country and city on Earth.

      Long after we’re gone, the fountain will remain, and future visitors will come, remark on its grandeur and snap photographs. And many more will throw coins loaded with wishes into its waters, to barter with destiny under Neptune’s steady gaze.

      SHANNALEE T’KOY is a twenty-something graduate student living in the Chicago area. She enjoys expanding her horizons through school, travel and reading.

       Rome

       Night Bus

      brad o’brien

      the Easy Internet Café in Rome’s Piazza Barberina was my office. I was working as an online writing tutor and hoping to find a job teaching English, so that I’d never have to leave the Eternal City. Every night, I would work from 9 p.m. until the café closed at 2 a.m., then walk back to my hotel. But after a few weeks, finding neither a teaching job nor a more permanent residence, I moved my bag of clothes and books into a cheap bed and breakfast about 30 minutes by train from Piazza Barberina.

      Then I remembered that the commuter trains stop running at about 9 p.m. That meant I had to skip work; spend the night in Stazione Termini, the city’s main train station; or figure out the night bus routes. I liked none of these options. My online tutoring job enabled me to live as a drifter, and I didn’t want to risk losing that. I wouldn’t have minded sitting up all night reading and drinking coffee in the train station, but I didn’t want to spend the next day sleeping.

      Trains gave me no trouble. Their stations are clearly labeled, so I always knew when I’d arrived at my stop. But buses confused me. I’d board knowing which street I wanted, but unless I could read the small street sign as the bus came to it, I was apt to miss it—or else I never knew where along a street to get off the bus—so I’d usually end up in places I didn’t want to go.

      My aversion to buses started in Dublin. I’d spent my last night there in a pub with new friends, then caught what I thought was the last bus of the night back to my hotel. I sat next to a window watching carefully for my stop, but I missed it. I climbed off at the end of the route, in the middle of some neighborhood 45 minutes’ walk from the hotel.

      I’d forgotten this experience when I stepped off the plane at Marco Polo International Airport on my first visit to Italy. I assumed I’d have no problem taking a bus to my hotel in Mestre, a small industrial town next door to Venice, and that I’d be exploring the city of canals within an hour. I boarded what I thought was the right bus, and then looked out from my window seat for the train station that was across the street from my hotel. I was still looking when my bus reached the end of its route, in a parking lot opposite the entrance to the Grand Canal. Chagrined, I rode back to the airport and boarded a different bus. A few hours later, when I finally arrived at the hotel, all I wanted to do was sleep.

      In Rome a week later, awake and over my jet lag, I tried catching a bus from Piazza Venezia to an area called Trastevere. With no idea where to get off, and not wanting to annoy the bus driver or anyone else by asking questions in broken Italian, I stepped off in an area

      that looked interesting. But it wasn’t Trastevere. After wandering around hoping to stumble upon a restaurant my guidebook recommended, I gave up, caught a bus back to Rome’s historic center, and resolved not to ride buses any more.

       If I wanted to keep my job and still sleep at night, I realized, I had to learn to ride buses.

      But if I wanted to keep my online tutoring job and still sleep at night, I realized there was no way around it: I had to learn to ride buses. So I bought the most detailed map of Rome I could find and located the night bus stops near Piazza Barberina. Matching street names on my map with the names on the signs, I traced what I thought was the route to the bed and breakfast, and identified the number of what I hoped was the right bus.

      That night, I finished my tutoring session just before 2 a.m., walked down Via del Tritone and over to Via del Corso, and waited for the bus. It arrived within 10 minutes. I sat down and prepared to watch the street signs closely. Within a few minutes, the driver pulled into Piazza Venezia, parked and turned off the lights. Assuming he was simply saving energy while waiting for more passengers, I kept my seat. The buses run between two end points, making several stops along the way, and Piazza Venezia was one of these stops.

      The driver told me to leave the bus. Sensing my confusion, he pointed out another bus that followed the same route. Apparently, his shift had ended, or perhaps he was simply taking a break, so I boarded the other bus and waited for its driver.

      About 15 minutes later, the new driver showed up, started the engine, and pulled into the dark streets that I hoped led to my temporary home. If I hadn’t been so concerned with reading the signs blurring past my window, I would have enjoyed the ride. As the bus made its way to the outskirts of Rome, it circled ancient ruins, sped past Baroque churches, crossed the Tiber and turned down atmospheric, tree-lined streets. At the end of one of these, the driver finally had to stop for a red light, enabling me to read a sign that confirmed I was on the right bus. Now I just had to figure out where to get off.

      On my map, I could trace a clear