of an earlier glorious artistic era. Furthermore, as we found out later, the promotion of these arts was kept alive at local schools, which were considered one of the most prestigious in the world, a good place to live in, if you loved history.
But I was more pragmatic. I preferred the technology with all its advantages. The wide and straight avenues, where you could move with your vehicle from one place to another in a short time, without having to walk up and down the cobbled streets.
A different way to see and consider life. I preferred big cities, where it was easier to access all the services in minutes. I had never thought that anyone could live in such a particular place.
Getting up in the morning and seeing all that, seemed quite unheard of and disconcerting to me. I could not imagine living there as a young man, for me it would be like permanently living in a museum, knowing that everything that I touched was hundreds of years old.
Although as far as the people, the differences with us were not that many. Some of them, however, looked at us with faces that showed surprise and mistrust, which made us feel foreign there, almost as an occupying force
Maybe it was just a perception; maybe it was because our clothes were different from what you would usually see around there.
No matter what it was, with the chagrin we experienced with the theft we had in the morning, we were careful not to get into any other disagreement or similar issue, now that we were a smaller group.
Perhaps our journey had been a bit too rushed, taking into account the socio-political circumstances of that time, but it was a sign of goodwill from our academy, a sign of cooperation and exchange.
I do not know if any group of Italian students were scheduled to visit our country. I guess that would the proper thing to do, but I did not have that information.
Maybe it was part of a policy of openness with the rest of the world, I do not know. What was clear to me was that I had never visited this country, and that this was a great opportunity to do it, so I did not want anything or anyone to spoil the trip for me.
If the classmate whose wallet had been stolen had told me how much money he had missing, I myself would have given him that amount, to be able to continue our excursion with peace of mind.
I cannot imagine what other valuables he could be carrying in his wallet, because as far as documents, we left them all at the embassy. To move around the city they gave us a card with our data, the address of the hotel where we were staying and the embassy’s phone number. Despite being in the middle of an early spring, it was quite hot, we were not used to such high temperatures for this time of year, and we found it difficult to find water fountains to drink.
And those we found we were not sure they had water that was safe to drink, even though people drank from them without any concern. We, out of prudence, preferred only to refresh our hands and head, for a fountain that had been operating for so many hundreds of years could not be as clean as we wanted.
Perhaps it was the contrast, but those people seemed quite unassuming to us, away from the big cities filled with the smoke of nearby factories, to which we were used by now. On the other hand, probably they thought the same about us, when they realized we were amazed at things they saw on a daily basis.
We liked so much what we saw, that some of my classmates started to draw what they saw in their notebooks, so as not to forget anything, sketching silhouettes, more or less well rendered, of the most significant and important buildings. On the other hand, others seemed to be more at ease writing, and they stopped on every street attempting to describe in a few paragraphs the wonders we were seeing. Only of a few of our colleagues were taking pictures with their cameras.
Incidentally, I do not know how they could pass the cameras through customs. Before leaving, we received very detailed instructions to take no technology out the country. Probably when they dropped the name of their parents, that weighed more than any written rule.
So, occasionally they asked us to stop to take pictures of the whole group with one of those buildings in the back.
Maybe as far as travelling I was not as expert as others, because I had only brought my notebook, where I intended to collect every day what was most remarkable, without trying to capture in those few lines the admiration that the city produced on me at every turn.
One of the aspects I found most curious, in contrast with what I knew, was the way women dressed. Older ones used a black scarf or handkerchief on their heads and they dressed in black. Younger ones dressed with discreet colors but sported scarves of striking colors.
I was used to see women in my country with make-up, large flight skirts, and short sleeves showing their arms, and only some of them wearing a scarf as a decorative detail.
It also seemed to me there was a clear difference between the sexes as to what they could or could not do. That way the men strutted down the streets with clothes that looked were their best galas, except those at work that wore a simple shirt because of the prevailing heat. Now, in an attitude somewhat funny for us, men seemed to be the ones in charge, whereas women, in a modest and shy way, seemed to try to be totally unnoticed, as if they had nothing to prove or to contribute.
That seemed quite surprising to me, it was as if everyone had become stuck in time. The way they dressed, I mean, because I do not think there was a religious reason, as it happens with the Quakers, a community that had isolated themselves from the rest of the world, keeping their culture and not wanting to progress, showing this in the way they dressed, not very different from what we were seeing now.
Well, those were my impressions at the time. Later on I would be able to understand that culture. It was all the result of my inexperience, since as my classmates that had traveled in Europe told me, on each country there were totally different traditions and dressing codes.
Even the way men and women treated each other was quite different depending on the country where one went. They told me about the liveliness of French women, who exhibited their charm without much modesty, so they did not wait the man to go after them, but they chose the one they found most gracious.
Even in places with a common culture and language as ours, they still seemed to keep rather peculiar traditions. That way, unlike what it happened in our country for some time, women there had not managed to have enough level of economic and political independence. This even happened in England, where the first movements to obtain voting rights for women started. That is, that women could vote to choose their representatives and thereby had a recognized series of rights equal to men. Apart from the political considerations, however, many women still did not work, except in minor areas or at home.
Those comparisons kept astonishing me, perhaps this part of the world was evolving more slowly than I thought.
At least in my country there was an important effort to share its culture with the rest, and we had integrated in our society those migrants who had recently come from all countries of Europe, political refugees, immigrants, or just relatives, which that way were reunited.
Quite a few had come fleeing political systems they did not accept, others looking for better living conditions and job opportunities. All of them had been welcomed, regardless of sex, race or religion.
Before long, they embraced the culture of the country without losing their own, so it was difficult to differentiate them at schools or at their jobs.
Perhaps what was most noticeable was the color of their skin or some of their features, but since there were already so many who had been in the country for generations, this was no sign of any special condition.
What
