The bump from the man was enough to almost knock me off my feet. I had been walking towards the Ponte Vecchio (a bridge that has dozens of jewelry shops) when he and I made contact. The moment my eyes met him I instantly realized, he was just like me. He was short in stature, a bald patch could be seen only from behind, and he wore the proper attire: near knee high white socks and sandals, khaki cargo shorts (with all pockets buttoned), and finally a dark blue (perhaps navy to some) Boston Red Socks shirt along with matching hat. He stuck out, not as bad as a sore thumb, but perhaps more like an odd looking index or middle finger.
This was not the first time I had seen a man dressed like this during my stay in Florence, nor would it be my last. Florence nearing the end of May is a madhouse. You have people cascaded all over the streets from sidewalk to sidewalk and many of them aren’t even looking at the way they are walking. Instead they are glancing up at the beautiful architecture that the city provides. Or maybe they are gazing into the various shops that line every street. Either way I could not blame the man for bumping into me for he and I were one in the same, an American tourist enjoying what Florence had to offer.
On my second day in Florence the group I was with had woken up at the crack of dawn to go climb to the top of the Cathedral. The previous night I had stayed up far too late exploring the nightlife that the city had to offer, so I was not feeling very cheery when my alarm went off at 6:30 in the morning. Once I was out of bed and on the streets, headache pounding with each step, I looked around to see another group of Americans wandering around as well. They dressed very similarly to the man that had bumped me the previous day (clearly American).
Growing up on Folly Beach really helped me in the whole tourist game. I could spot one with my eyes closed and by the time I graduated high school, I could do it with ease as I walked down the main strip of the island. I think of Folly as I walk by the group of people discussing if the cafe they were about to enter was a “tourist trap”. It was at that moment that I realized these people could have been walking on Folly as well.
Americans have a way of always dressing the same anywhere they travel (I too am no exception, I dress obviously American just like the rest of my nation). They are loud, they seem to complain about most things (although that may be biased because I can actually understand what they are saying), and they are, contrary to popular belief, very nice. The same goes when they are abroad or within the country. We all try to fit in and the only way we feel that we can is with, to quote most Presidents, “My fellow Americans”. However, while the locals can be mean in some cases, most locals welcome us with open arms.
In any case, being a tourist is never a fun time. You are in a place that you are unfamiliar with and around you are people who are comfortable. By the time my group and I reach the Cathedral, we discover that it is under repair and we are unable to do the climb. In a mix of sadness and joy, I began to walk around the surrounding streets. Everywhere I looked I now saw Folly Beach, my home, in Florence through the people. I am the same as them and they are the same as me, strangers just trying to find our way through a strange place.
This is a promising approach–the comparative tourism thing–but I felt like I wasn’t able to sink into it fully. I like the initial character sketch–kind of like looking in a mirror, but after that, the writing gets more general as you sort of think through the tourism comparison. I’m left with some questions: you can spot the tourists at Folly, but how do you feel about them? You seem quite accepting of tourists generally, so they don’t seem to bother you. Similarly in Florence, you sort of embrace the idea of being a tourist, and take comfort in the presence of other Americans that somehow take the edge of this strange place. Is that sort of what you’re getting at? You say “being a tourist is never a fun time,” but then why travel? I didn’t sense a critique of tourists in Florence, so I was a bit confused by that. In some ways, I just never settled in to the tone or message here–something just didn’t stick. Perhaps you need more concrete action to focus the narrative. One key tenet of the personal essay is to “give your character something to do” — balancing action and reflection, the concrete and the abstract. There’s a nice casualness about the essay in its style and voicing, but it lacks a certain sharpness of vision and observation. I think the writing could be a bit tighter, and the details expanded. You need some representative moments to really ground this piece.