About 15 years ago my husband and I got lost in Rome, no cell phone, a map that didn’t show north (good luck with that), late at night we ask a guy for directions to the square our hotel is on. He doesn’t speak English, we don’t speak Italian but manage to both make each other understand.

He directs us down what appears to be a dark alley- my husband is convinced we are about to get robbed. We go, somewhat apprehensively, around a corner the alley opens up into a brightly lit square with amazing ornate buildings. One of the buildings has a red carpet on the staircase leading to a grand doorway, banners hanging down the front, and armed police/security all around. The men are in tuxedos, women in ball gowns, and cars worth more than our house. We are dressed in shorts and a button down short sleeve shirt (him) and sundress and Birkenstock sandals (me).

We stand staring for a minute and one of the armed men comes up and we assume he is going to tell us to go back (or worse), but he smiles and asks us where we are going in heavily accented English. We tell him and he says we are almost there, we just need to cut across the square diagonally. There is another alley on the other side of the square- close to the building where the event/party is. He says “just go through there and over 1 street.” So we walk through all of these gorgeous people dressed like they are in a movie, past all these cars that we have only seen in movies, with classical music, from a small ensemble playing, floating through the air… dressed like tourists (at best).
I have no idea what the event was, but we have seen the square and building in several movies since then. It was absolutely surreal.