Italy. Beautiful, romantic, laid back, peaceful, inviting, all words to describe the intriging country of Italy. Our stay in Italy was much longer than our stay in France. We visited Piza, Rome, Pompeii, Florence, Sorrento and Capri. The story I want to share in this article has to do specifically with Florence. Now, I spoke a fair share of French but absoluetly no Italian. The people in Italy are very friendly, but they don’t speak much english. My best friend Chelsea and I (Chelsea on the left in the picture and I on the right) decided to do a little shopping before we went back to the hotel. We had 45 mintues till curfew and thought we knew the way back to the hotel. Turns out, we really didn’t. We tried to find our way back and had no idea where we were going. Thankfully for some strange reason, I had taken the card from the hotel with its address and phone number on it. Unfortunetly, we did’nt know the street names and couldnt work the pay phones. We asked other hotel managers where the hotel was and one lead us in the wrong direction, the other didnt speak english, and the other told us he would take us there but he was drunk. That didn’t help us any because he was really out of it and taking nowhere so we slipped away very quickly and very scared. The luckiest thing that happened to us was a police car drove past and we flagged them down. They helped get the drunk hotel manager away from us but they said they didn’t know where our hotel was. Oh, and they didn’t speak english. My friend Chelsea was in a panic and crying so I had to pull through. I asked if he spoke french and he said yes. Now, Im not a very good french speaker, I can write and understand what they are saying if I listen very closely. French spoken in Europe is very different from textbook french. The man starting speaking and I understood him perfectly. I told him our whole situation and about how we were extremly late for our curfew, all in French. They understood us and did their best to calm us down. We finally got to our hotel with the help of the police. We were about a hour late for curfew and our teacher was just happy to see us back and safe. This was one of the scariest events in my lifetime. I was in a foriegn country, late at night, with no italian and no cell phone. This experience made me stronger as a person. If I got lost in Italy and made it through I can do just about anything.
Dear Reader: This page may contain affiliate links which may earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase. Our independent journalism is not influenced by any advertiser or commercial initiative unless it is clearly marked as sponsored content. As travel products change, please be sure to reconfirm all details and stay up to date with current events to ensure a safe and successful trip.
