Lessons From the Kissing Booth

The last couple of days, everyone has wanted to know about two things: food and men. So, fine. Food and men it is.

The food, of course, was amazing. I love Italian food and would be perfectly happy to move there and eat until I died. There was a memorable round of bruschetta with giant chunks of crab and olive oil running down my arm. In Siena, I had some wild boar in a Chianti sauce that could end wars. If it were legal to marry the seafood risotto in Venice, I would commit my life to it in a heartbeat. And people, Naples invented pizza. Invented it. Pizza. How bad could a town be if it is where pizza comes from?
Most of the people I met on the road were students on a break from their study abroad experiences, and they were all eating on the cheap, which meant a lot of picnics. And that's a terrific idea for lunches and things--oh, the different kinds of meats and cheese I ate--but I am not sorry to have blown my budget on food. The memory of that seafood risotto will stay with me long after the credit card bill is paid.

And, men. I kissed people all over Italy, certainly, but all of the attention eventually made me uncomfortable. Part of it came from being a redhead, because Italy loves a redhead, but it's also just the culture. I got tired of being shouted at after a while.
But the men that I met were very...forward, I guess. Aggressive. Not in a creepy way, although that was tough for me to realize because here you have to suspect men who are that complimentary of being up to something. They're just very demonstrative, and while I like a good Gesture as much as the next girl, I kept thinking nostalgically of being romanced subtly. Curing my hiccups late at night in a bar with acupressure grew increasingly attractive in the face of eloquently empty declarations or refusing to bring me my check so that I'd have to stick around. I started to feel pushed in Italy, and we all know that the best way to make me turn stubborn is to try and make me do anything. By the end of it, all of the attention started to feel vulgar.
Although, the kissing itself was largely worth it.