Language barriers and becoming local celebrities [Backpacking over 60]

Tour 2006 – en route to Rome 11

This is the next instalment of Libby’s awesome European adventure… To read her previous post, click here.

Again we had been very lucky: we had found the most amazing hostel right on the boundary of a big national park.

The building was amazing very environmentally friendly with gardens all bearing food of all kinds. When we stepped inside it was quite cool compared to outside and the fellow that greeted us could speak good English unlike us who could speak any Italian.

We got a room that had two bedrooms and a mezzanine floor that was a sitting room and you could see for miles. A lot of photos were on the walls and obviously were some of the people we had met here, only younger versions. They had been to Africa and looked to be building wells etc. – peace corp?

The next thing I heard was my husband on the mezzanine floor asking “Where are we staying exactly?”. My answer was, “Not sure of the name here, but definitely in Italy”. He said “No, I don’t mean what country. I mean here, this place?”. When I asked why, he said “Come up here and look at this”. I looked out the window and there were people in all states of undress working in the fields. Apparently we were staying at an artist retreat and you could pay for your stay by doing work on the farm. Obviously some of these people didn’t think clothes that necessary!

It didn’t bother us and it definitely did worry them so all was good. We went downstairs to find out about dinner…guess what? The only day they don’t do dinner was Tuesday and we had arrived on Tuesday! Story of our life.

We were told about a little restaurant about 20km away that the owners use and they said was very good. They drew us a mud map and we were off.

Almost exactly 20km away, we drove into a parking lot of a restaurant. It was a verandah off the back of a house on a working farm. The owner came out and it became obvious that they couldn’t understand us, even less than we could them! We could see lots of fresh food everywhere and literally gallons of red wine in flagons but we couldn’t understand them. Next thing the lady trying to understand us put her hand in the air in “a stop sign” and walked inside we thought there wouldn’t be dinner tonight, but as she had poured us a drink we thought we’d drink this and get going. Not long after her disappearing she came out and pointed to a neighbouring farm. The next thing we saw this little car kangaroo hopping down the driveway heading towards where we were. The car pulled up in the carpark and out hopped a young girl about 11-12 years old. The owner hugged her and gave her a kiss and brought her to our table. The young girl said “Good evening and how are you?”. She could speak English!

It was easy from then on; she explained the menu to us and even to this day we laugh about how she explained everything on the menu starting with “And dis is”, the only thing she couldn’t find an English word for was an eggplant! She overcame this with a giggle and running to the kitchen and brought one out to show us. By the end of the night the restaurant was full to bursting – everyone had come to see the Australians! We spoke with the young girl that said she was learning English at school and thanked us very much for letting her practice on us. It was a highlight and we still wonder if they still think of us the same we do of them? The bill at the end was ridiculously low, we gave them a massive tip and also tipped the young girl to the stage where the owner was almost in tears and very grateful. So pleased we got lost that night otherwise we would never have been to such a beautiful place and met such lovely people!

We got back to our hostel without any problems and fell into the bed, sated with food and wine.

Tomorrow Rome…I wonder what it has in store for us?