After all, few things reflect a man’s nature more than food, and as Andre and I sit there in front of the Italian menu for a highly recommended bistro in rural Siena, we are suddenly face to face with our barbarian wasteland entering on the provincial dilettante. In other words, we are fucked.

Some of the words make sense but those only tell me that whatever it is has cheese and everything has wine. Some things look like pastas and the expensive things (hell, they were all expensive) are rounded out in two lines of calligraphic text that might make it hard for locals to comprehend.

We tell the waiter we are American. That we don’t understand the menu. That I have some idea what a few of these things are, but my friend would like some lamb. That I wanted some water. My friend wanted some wine. He can’t understand a word we are saying. It is the end of a day that has been a long haul through the Tuscan countryside in search of wines that fit the bill Andre has in mind for such a place. We have struggled time and time again because outside of the metropolitan regions, the penchant for speaking English diminishes tenfold.

I ordered something for Andre. I ordered two small somethings for me and we waited.

The table one over was a woman talking quickly and repeating everything three times. It wasn’t “Si” but “Si, Si, Si” and “Non, non. non.” The world was a slew of repetitions and in these beautiful and somewhat perfect nether regions outside the tourist drenched Rome, you found the world much like it was at home, only older. The buildings seemed more naturally involved in the surroundings. Where Rome had pinpointed landmarks with postcards and signage, Siena and the smaller villages and towns of Tuscany left it to you to determine the age, the value, the essence of the buildings. I am sure there were tours, but these were buildings people still used.

At night, I walked Siena and got lost on purpose through its narrow streets. Inside the city walls, you felt a small city that was stuck. And in being stuck, it was crude and kicking sand in hopes of propulsion. The hotel staff didn’t speak English at all, like the waiter. Getting laundry done was a terrible task fostered by a cantankerous local who must have seen us like two Big Macs with Cheese threatening her tiny town. They all did, in some way. I am sure they have a tourist season, and perhaps we were the odd foreigners this time of year and perhaps, like us, they were tired. Tired of explaining things slowly, of getting that confused look, of asking people why they can’t take the time to learn the respected language instead of expecting everyone to know English like all of us Americans expect everyone does.

The reality is skewed once you leave the tourism spots that American money has affected - and here in a small laundry, the world gets very angry and confusing. This woman does two loads of laundry and charges us over thirty bucks. We pay it, having exhausted my own patience trying to get the hotel staff to unleash some info about a coin operated Laundromat (later I would find out there were four) which they said Siena did not have. She gives Andre a receipt for forty dollars that he finds later and begins to steam. Upon return, it becomes (or so I hear from Andre) a shouting match between two irate people moving beyond language (since they couldn’t communicate that way) and she eventually has to reimburse him the money (which she overcharged us anyway).

You see, we are disruptive. Our waiter looks completely clueless as he brings out both the small meals I ordered (more like meal elements - one pasta and one vegetable). he does not bring Andre’s entrée. he sets one in front of me and one in front of Andre. we look at each other, and I know he is confused. I apologize to Andre and he lets me eat.

The woman continues on and on. She looks at us and it is painfully obvious we have interrupted her as well, in spite of her prattling on and on (maybe it is different in a different language but even Americans on cell phones sound foreign)…we feel so unwelcome.

This is so different than my nightly strolls through the Sienese city - and almost a 180 degree turn from our first night when a local guy Andre met online takes out to pizza in the rural backwoods of Tuscany. In a small hoveltown (maybe condos for the rich in spring, but now looking weatherworn and gray under moonlight), there is a place that makes pizzas on stone ovens (he is a cook and explains the significance of stone ovens versus conventional ovens). Locals eat here this time of year and the owner is a sweet guy. Five guys are huddled in the entrance near the TV watching something. They gather here often, you can tell. Perhaps they don’t have a TV - perhaps this is the local theater. The food is incredible and Marcello, Andre’s friend, speaks English enough to explain concepts of growing up there and how he loves the gardens and farms and the world when it is just him and the countryside. How being gay there is rough but worth the sacrifice for his yard and home. I have felt these same things of late - the sweet smell of distance.

Only, in the center of the city, we are targets. I feel like that. As we wait. My food long gone, another 30 minutes before Andre decided he has had enough. He packs up and we prepare to leave - his meal unserved, his patience at an end. I can’t blame him, but know he must be hungry. We head to the cashier and he is ranting. he begins to try and explain the problem in English. They can’t understand him and pull a waiter that understands English to him. This infuriates him further because, after all, why didn’t they give us to him once they found out we were American? Why didn’t the make more effort to make sense? Why did the waiter tell his boss that Andre ordered the meal 20 minutes after I ordered the small courses? It was all such a mess and we were so tired.

We left the restaurant and I took off to walk around the city at night. Andre went to find food and head back to the hotel - only half-hungry, completely burning.