Sunday, March 10, 2013

Hidemi’s Rambling No.458

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We got back from Orvieto to our hotel in Rome by a charter bus. When we were getting off the bus, my father abruptly stopped at the exit of the bus. He stood by the bus driver and looked at him resolutely. It seemed that he was about to make a significant action of a lifetime. There was a tense moment of silence and other tour members were also looking at my father. He opened his mouth and said, “Grazie.” He couldn’t speak any other language than Japanese and had hardly ever spoken to foreign people in his life. He wanted to speak to a foreigner just for once and mustered courage at this moment. I supposed he chose the moment in Italy because his all-time favorite movie was ‘Roman Holiday’. He dared, and there was no answer from the driver. My father thought he didn’t hear him, and repeated it louder, making his smiling face closer to him. The driver ignored him. My father nodded in disappointment and got off the bus. Overall, he had bad luck with transportation in Italy. We took a cab and when he paid the fare, he noticed a shortage of change outside the cab. The shortage was huge because he paid with a bill in a high denomination. It was apparently intentional not a mistake by the driver. My father panicked and babbled “Isn’t it wrong change? It is, isn’t it?” while he was showing the change in his hands to me like a child. The cab ran off. The amount the driver overcharged us by was more than what I had my pocket picked in Spain. But unlike in Spain, my mother didn’t get furious at him as she did at me. She reacted as if nothing had happened. I wondered what the difference was…

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