Naive

I've had a few requests to write about my second memory of Rome. It mostly has to do with being young, naive, and very stupid. In college I sang in a women's trio. We sang acapella and had a pretty nice sound. The two girls I sang with were the Seaman sisters. Since my last name started with "A", we called ourselves ASS (not really, but we always alluded to the fact that if we used our initials this would be our name). The hotel where we stayed in Rome was very close to the Spanish Steps, and we walked down there several times. One evening as we stood at the top of the steps looking at the beautiful view one of our friends said, "Why don't you sing a song." So we did. A few people clapped appreciatively. So we sang another song. A small crowd began to form. Performers like an audience, so we thought that was good. We sang a few more songs and then began to realize that the crowd was getting REALLY big and that it was mostly men and that they were standing very close to us. When they started to touch our hair and skin and say words like bella and amore we figured out that they weren't talking about our music. It was time to get out of there! It's hard to escape when you are surrounded. We finally got back to our hotel, but not before we were really frightened and realized how stupid we had been. So, if your kids are going off on semester abroad, you might want to have the "don't call attention to yourself" conversation before they go.