Why You Shouldn't Take Meat from Strangers

This is one of my favorite travel stories, mostly because it is so ridiculous. But before I get started, a little background information.

Spring quarter of my sophomore year of college (so a little over three years ago) I studied abroad in Siena, Italy. I spent three months living in the most beautiful place on earth soaking up the Italian language with some of the coolest people I have ever met. We spent all morning and part of the afternoon at the Universita per Stranieri (studying Italian) and the late afternoon at the AHA office (studying Art History and Italian Culture.) Fortunately for us, Italy is a Roman Catholic country; this meant quite a few days off for religious observances. We used these long weekends (and our week-long break between class sessions) to travel around Italy.

On one of our breaks, Andrea, Kate, Megan, Jess, Ali and I traveled south for a visit to the famously picturesque Almalfi Coast. Honestly, just the bus ride along the coast would have been worth the trip. I am not joking people, it was one hell-of-a panorama. It looked a lot like this. [Note: I did not take this picture, I got it off the internet.]


On the trip, we stayed in a cute cabin at a camping hostel in Sorrento. The bathroom was kinda funky and a tail-less lizard lived in it, but overall it was perfect. The best part was that the cabin was only a short, steep walk away from the hostel’s private beach.


I could write an entire book using only stories from this trip as material. Regardless, I am going to try my best to stay focused on the story at hand and leave the other pieces for another day.

Ok. The story. So somewhere around the third day of the trip, we walked from the hostel to these castle ruins that were a mile or two away. When I say ruins, I mean it. There was really nothing left that you could recognize as castle. But, it was beautiful and right next to the ocean. [*Note: from this point forward, all photos are courtesy of Andrea, as I cannot find my own from this adventure.]

It was a gorgeous day and we weren’t in any hurry, so we sat down on the ruins and tried to take in all the incredibly blue sky and ocean for a bit. We hadn’t been sitting long when a young (ish) Italian man with a backpack strolls up.

One thing you should know is that I LOVE speaking Italian, especially with honest-to-god Italians. While I was in Italy I jumped on any chance to talk to strangers because it meant I got to practice my language skills. Another thing you should know is that I had at least a year more language experience than anyone on that trip, so I tended to assume the role of interpreter.

Anyway, the guy approached us and we started talking. Turns out he was a refrigerator repairman from a nearby hilltop town. He seemed nice enough, but in retrospect I should have noticed some troubling signs. For example, after stunted introductions our “conversation” went a lot like this;

Random guy: Barca. [“boat,” as he points to one in the water]
Me: Si, e una barca. [“Yep, that is a boat”]
Random guy: Cielo. [“sky,” as he points to, you guessed it, the sky]
Me: Si, e il cielo. [“Yep, that is the sky”]
Random guy: Mare. [“ocean,” again with the pointing]
Me: Lo so. [“I know”]

At first I thought that he was drastically underestimating my Italian skills. But as the conversation continued and he answered my syntactically well-constructed questions (I was using congiuntivo for heavens sake) with object labels I became suspicious. Right about here is where he asked us if we were hungry. Before we could even answer, he opened up his backpack and pulled out kindling, a metal grill rack and a Tupperware of marinating meat. At this point, my companions and I are both fascinated and completely sketched-out.

Talking amongst ourselves (safely, as it was clear he did not understand English) we decided there was no freaking way we were going to eat meat that had been taken from a stranger’s backpack and cooked on top of castle ruins. The novelty of the situation kept us sitting there watching him (and in my case, journaling,) despite the fact we were wary of his meat and had no intention of eating it. So, with us watching, he built a fire.

Which turned into a raging flame.

Then it burned down and he started grilling the meat.

As it cooked, the most amazing, mouth-watering, meaty smell you could possible imagine surfaced on that castle-top. I don’t even like meat that much and I was practically drooling. We talked amongst ourselves some more. Ultimately, we decided it was probably safe to eat just a little bit, but only if he ate it first because somehow that made it okay.

When the meat was ready he divided it up into small pieces (necessary, as there were six of us) and then reached into his backpack. Turns out, he still had a box of vino and two plastic cups hiding in there. He graciously offered us the two cups and the whole box of vino and then ate a small piece of the meat. We looked at each other, shrugged, passed around the box wine, and grabbed a piece of meat.

Here is a direct quote from the end of my journal entry from that day, written moments after the picnic was over to immortalize the moment.

We were weirded out at first, but that was some really, really good meat.


So anyway, after we had eaten this stranger’s meat and drank his wine we decided to explore the area a little more.
Too summarize, the guy got weirder and weirder after the picnic. The worst part was that I was the only one really talking to him so no one else had noticed just how strange his one-word-utterances-with-creepy-smiles had gotten. However, once he started asking us for American money it became more apparent.

Another thing you should know. One Italian word that we used a lot, was “andiamo” which can mean “we are going [to someplace]” or “let’s go” depending on the way you say it. In our group of travelers, it had become something of a battle-cry, capturing our excitement for whatever it was we were going to do next.

Anyway, eventually he got too strange for me to be comfortable with, and I signaled the sentiment to the group with a very definitive “andiamo” (as in “We are leaving, now.”) So we jumped up and headed out at a brisk walk.

Long story short, he managed to get even more strange, following us back toward the road labeling trees, bugs, plants, animals and anything else in his field of vision. When I started ignoring him, he began singing “American Pie” at the top of his lungs. Once we got to the road I firmly told him something along the lines of “Thanks for the meat, but we are going now.” He crossed the street but kept following us, still singing, but also managing to intermittently label things. For instance, the big piece of steel he picked up, which he tried to mail by pushing it into a big red mailbox.

Never fear, the story ends well. I am a little fuzzy on the details, but I am pretty sure we lost him before we got to the hostel and that we told the hostel desk guy about him in case he came looking for us.

The moral of the story: Don’t take meat from strangers, especially when it comes from a backpack.