While the Renaissance has obvious important contributions to history of Italy, our tour guide at the Vatican Museums mentioned a unique reason it is still impactful today. The Renaissance taught the people of Italy to create and appreciate beauty and Italians will go above and beyond to make life more beautiful for those around them. I experienced this first-hand in Rome. On our last night, Kristin, Angelina, and I went to a restaurant called La Dispensa just a few blocks from our hotel. We were immediately greeted with a friendly smile and seated inside. After an exchange between a few waiters, however, we gathered we were pretty much blocking the space for the servers to walk through and were asked if we would like to be seated outside instead. We moved to the outside table and as soon as we sat down we were each given a glass of champagne for our inconvenience of moving tables. Moving outside really was no inconvenience for us, but we gladly accepted the complimentary champagne. Our waiter pointed out I looked cold and asked if I was okay. Even though I told him I was fine, he took off the suit jacket he was wearing and placed it around my shoulders. Since I was a bit chilly, I appreciated the gesture and left his jacket on through our entire meal. All waitresses ourselves, the three of us kept noticing differences between the workers at La Dispensa and those back in the States. It was the little things that impressed us the most like opening each individual wet nap package after we finished our plate of mussels. Angelina remembered what our tour guide had said that morning and attributed the exceptional treatment of us to the Italians trying to make our lives more beautiful.

Things I saw in Rome:

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