I was waiting at the Orange Line bus in North Hollywood yesterday, when a man and a woman approached me. The man was young, wearing a trendy t-shirt and surfer shorts. The woman was tall, statuesque, fashionable.

“Do you know where I go to reach Valley College?” he asked.
“Yes. Follow me,” I said.
I offered to give them a lift to Valley College if they rode the bus with me to my parked car at Sepulveda and Erwin.

We got on the bus. He told me that they were from Verona, Italy on their honeymoon. His name was Fabrizio, she was Irma.

“I love your country. It’s so beautiful here,” he said as we neared Van Nuys Boulevard. “So much energy, the competition, the business. Since I am little, I adore America. My mother, she studied nursing at Valley College in 1964. I take the pictures for her.”

They had been all over the US, from New York to San Francisco. They were in LA for three days and planned to see Long Beach, Universal City and of course, Valley College. The next day, they were flying to Polynesia and then back to Italy.

“In Italy, the car is so expensive. They take the taxes so much from your paycheck. I cannot afford a house. Here in America, you have everything. It’s so wonderful.”

He showed me his high end digital video camera that only cost “$900 US dollars”. In Italy, it would be $3,000.

He asked me about politics, and said that Italy’s current prime minister, Romano Prodi, is “horrible”. He talked about Italy’s college students who learn to hate the US and love communism. He was unabashedly a lover of the USA.

This was his first visit to America, a land he had adored since he was a little boy. He didn’t seem too eager to return to the city where Romeo and Juliet lived……..