T A B L E_T A L K How did you learn a second language? Discuss immersion, classroom and other methods in the Wanderlust area of Table Talk ___________________ Are you dying to go to Italy? Read all about it at barnesandnoble.com ___________________   R E C E N T L Y If you film it, they will come By Steve Rushin A passionate sports fan begins his cross-country pilgrimage with a visit to Iowa's Field of Dreams (12/18/98) Christmas in Germany By Deanna Hodgin A family visit to Nuremberg's Christkindlesmarkt turns into a lesson for adults and children alike (12/17/98) Brahmaputra: Tales From the River By Tiziana and Gianni Baldizzone Extraordinary photographs portray a mighty river's journey through Tibet, India and Bangladesh (12/16/98) The yuckiest food in the Amazon By Mary Roach What tastes even worse than rodent knee and saliva-flavored manioc mash? (12/15/98) Ryoanji reflections By Don George At a Kyoto temple, a simple plot of sand, rocks and moss makes visitors stop -- and see (12/14/98)   Browse the Wanderlust Feature archives     Wanderlust's Official Travel Book Partner		---------A n   i n n o c e n t   a b r o a d [ P a r t  O n e ] ------ A SEMESTER IN FLORENCE SHAPES A YOUNG WRITER'S LIFE. BY BILL BARICH | I am on a cruise ship bound for Italy. I am 20 years old, a wayward student escaping from a small snowbound all-male college in upstate New York. I have never seen so much snow before, in fact. It starts falling in October and continues through the winter and into the spring. Our classrooms border a frozen quadrangle students must reach by hiking up a steep, icy hill. Only young men desperate for a formal education make the climb on a regular basis. I am in rebellion myself, desperate to be educated but in a different, less punishing way. Maybe I can find out what I need to know by exploring, through trial-and-error. The world is big, and I want to see it. I imagine my future as a great romance. I have read too much Hemingway and not enough Dostoevski. The sea has been very calm so far. I stand for hours at the rail and watch the wheeling birds and the spume-dappled water. There is nothing else to watch. We haven't seen any land for days, not since leaving Manhattan. This creates a curious sensation of being outside time, without a particular destiny. When the Azores appear on the horizon at last, every passenger comes out for a look. The islands are hunks of rock in the ocean, nothing more, but everybody looks and comments. One man even sighs. He will write a postcard home that begins, "Today we saw the Azores ..." Lisbon is our first port of call. A beautiful beach at Estoril, actual Portuguese people on the boulevards. That excites me. "Yes, I've been to Portugal," I say to myself, practicing. We stop in Morocco the next afternoon, in Tangier. Huckster merchants in fezzes ring the shore, shouting and waving. Oranges, parrots, a tempting strangeness. I wish I could follow them down a dank alley to taste forbidden pleasures, but I am too wary, still too American, unwilling to commit experience. Not so Gregor, my roommate. I share a cabin with him and two other guys, all of us headed for Florence and a semester abroad. Gregor grew up in Chicago. He is hip to the streets and the first truly cool person I've ever met. He has a wonderful voice and sings wherever he is, performing gorgeous front-stoop doo-wop tunes. In Florence, he will sing to the swans in a park one evening, and the swans will rise up and flap their wings in tribute. Gregor smokes marijuana. It is 1963, so he keeps this a deep secret. He will later turn me on in Arezzo, after our failed attempt to see some famous frescoes by Piero della Francesca. I will ask him, accepting the joint at a crummy pensione, "Am I going to become an addict?" I am still too wary, too American, etc. I don't know about the marijuana yet, not in Tangier. I do know that Gregor is unaccountably happy and singing his brains out as we sail away. He has made some friends among the crew, fellow druggies, and he invites me to join them at a party that night. The prospect thrills me. I, too, am dying to be cool and need all the help I can get. The crew deck is down below. Gregor leads the way. As we descend, I hear dance music echoing from a portable record player, some kind of rumba or cha-cha. It's a merry scene, all right. The crewmen have hung colorful paper lanterns from overhead cables and put out a cut-glass bowl of punch. They have swapped their uniforms for casual clothes, Hawaiian shirts and neatly pressed khakis. They dance with women in slinky dresses, who have elaborately styled hair and painted, doll-like faces. I move closer and see that I'm mistaken. Those aren't women. Those are crewmen in wigs. In drag! I've been at sea for less than a week and already the scales are falling from my eyes. Life in its amazing fullness is reaching out to me, so I grit my teeth and try not to run. Beer bottles clink, the engine rumbles. The indigo sky is alive with stars. When a tall sailor in a Rita Hayworth-style wig asks me to dance, I decline politely. I expect to be tossed out for being a spoilsport, but instead the sailor pats my cheek, calls me "honey," and urges me to enjoy myself. And I do. This worries me a little. It goes against my upbringing. My mother, through her psychic powers, can probably see me now. I sense her disappointment. A man in a dress is supposed to be depraved, a monster. So why am I having a good time at a party where half the men are wearing dresses? Because it goes against my upbringing? Yes, it's possible. Fun may be had in new and unexpected places. That is the traveler's first lesson. N E X T+P A G E | In Europe, women are part of the deal   ILLUSTRATION BY JOE MORSE - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Become a Salon member. Click here.