L-H-U-T

by Laura Hutchinson
I walked into the piazza for what seemed to be the 10th time today. It was still fairly mellow and not much commotion was happening. I saw Janay and Laura sitting at Caffe Commercio and decided to join them.

As we sat there talking about school, Cagli, and photography Mimi and two other locals jumped up and began asking for the three of us to come into the caffé. We were confused, but followed their command. Seconds later we were behind the bar taking large group photos together. There was roaring laughter and an instant friendship. Immediately following the photo, one of the gentlemen at the bar asked me to tag him when I post the photo on Facebook. I was instantly reminded how similar we all are - it was comforting. He grabbed my hand and pulled me behind the bar again to show me his Facebook page and asked me to connect with him. I placed my hands on the keyboard as usual and in my fast fashion began typing away. L-H-U-T... WHAT? Strange characters and letters appeared that were not supposed to be in my last name. I could swear I placed my hands correctly, but maybe I was mistaken. I tried again, making sure my fingers were where they were supposed to be. I look down and realize in all our similarities, there are differences I was not expecting. We do not share the same keyboard. I was confused by something that was so familiar to me. I was taken back to my third grade typing class using my pointer fingers trying to find one letter at a time.

The man laughed and in our inability to verbally understand one another, I gestured my email address to him so he could help me find the right keys. In my time here thus far I have found an array of similarities and differences, however this one I was not expecting. We were all able to laugh about it and have an understanding of each other through my misunderstanding of something so simple as a keyboard.