It was colder than I expected. The skies were cloudy and grey. The streets damp from the rain. I could feel the wet gravel sneak into my dress shoes and cling to my feet. Walking hurriedly across a public square and down the cobblestone side roads, I felt my heart beating wildly. I was panicked. I felt out of place. Nothing was going according to plan. I had never been to Rome. But I had spent hours during the months before the trip researching and preparing – I felt I knew the metro system better than the Provo bus routes. But I hadn’t expected the construction, the closures, the broken metro-card machines. Or the cold and rain. As much as I loved traveling, I had made mistakes too many times to be comfortable in a foreign country where I did not speak the language. The other members of our group had decided to visit an archaeological site in another city. They were leaving later in the day and so most of them were sleeping in or touring other parts of Rome. We were not all in the