A Semester Abroad Read Online Free

Americans.
    “Olivia,” I shouted. Olivia looked up at me and then, like some sort of long-lost siblings, we rushed to each other and embraced. I couldn’t believe how happy I was to see Olivia, to hug a girl I barely knew. She was smiling, too. I was something not quite known but familiar. The last time we saw each other was over coffee in the student union, and now we were standing in a medieval town. It felt like a miracle.
    Olivia told me where her hotel was. She used the Italian word for hotel, 
albergho,
 giggling. The hotel was further down the street from my apartment. She and her group would live there for three weeks before going on to Florence. She introduced me to four people from her program, and I forgot their names immediately, my brain was already full of the people on my trip.
    “We have to meet up with our group,” Olivia said. “Do you want to meet up later at the Barone Rosso?”
    “Sure,” I said, trying not to sound desperate. If I could have, I might have held her leg and dragged along to keep my eye on something familiar. “Where is that? What is that?”
    “I’m not sure where it is.” Olivia laughed. “It’s a bar. I’ll give you the address.”
    When we said goodbye, I was thrilled to have a plan for the evening with someone I barely knew.
    I turned into the Piazza del Campo, the town square surrounded by stores and restaurants. Inside the piazza, there was a narrow pink tower, Torre del Mangia. It was the tallest thing around, nothing beyond it but gray sky. There were steps to the top. Arturo told us that it was bad luck to climb the tower as a student; you must wait until you finished your studies to climb. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like in five months at the end of May when I could climb the tower. I wondered if I would be able to make any sense of this language by then.
    After the tower, I looked to the shell shape of the piazza fanning open and up. It was there on the sloping ground that everyone sits or stands and gossips and watches. I walked up, looking for people. I was looking for Jonas for some reason, thinking there was a chance he could be among these strangers, even though he was still across an ocean. But maybe if I sat down and waited, he would eventually some day pass by.
    Instead of Jonas, I ran into some of the people from my group by the white fountain directly across from the tower. They were sitting on the pink tiles in spite of the weather. I joined them and felt the chill through my jeans but decided to stay. Of all the people in the cluster of them, I only remembered Lucy’s name. We all reintroduced ourselves. Lucy told us about her apartment outside the walls of the city. For some reason Arturo couldn’t explain to her, she was not matched up with anyone from our group or a family. Maybe it was because she was older. She was way into her twenties with the oily skin of a teenager and a kind smile. She lived with other 
stranieri
, a Brit and a Greek. There was something reserved about Lucy that I liked immediately. Another guy, Tim, was also older; he had been in the army before becoming a student. Pam was from the Midwest, and she spoke in non sequiturs, pulling out a menacing shot of adrenaline, that she instructed me to plunge it into her heart if a bee ever stung her.
    “Are there bees here in Italy?” Pam asked in her friendly accent. I shrugged and looked to see if anyone else knew. Pam didn’t wait for an answer. Instead she asked, “Do you know where to get some hash?”
    The piazza was the meeting place. Another bunch of the kids from the group showed up. We traded names again and information. Where we would take the placement test for the university? How hard was it going to be? Where does someone shop for food? What about toilet paper? The climate eventually bested us, and we decided to go to a café for panini. It was Lucy’s idea. Lucy spoke with an authority about this city that I envied.
    My 
panino
 was delicious. It