Achtung Italy

Today, I have the pleasure of hosting Kristin from Taming Insanity.

She's super neat and entertaining, so hunker down with a giant burrito because she's going to tell you a story.

(If anyone needs me, I'll be over at her place, sharing a different version of Mother's Day in the "Spelled Without an H" household.)

In high school we had to take a foreign language to graduate. Being the rebel that I am, I refused to take Spanish because everyone else took it. French seemed like it would be full of romantics which was clearly unacceptable. So I went with option #3: German.

I found I was surprisingly interested in the language and went on to take more classes in college. These included German Feminist Writing and German Poetry. Lest I sound like a brainiac let me clarify: there was only one teacher in college. We were at her mercy and learned whatever she chose to teach.

Our German Feminist Writing class was my least favorite. We primarily read short stories featuring women forced to overcome horrible men. Often, the class would devolve into a debate on whether a particular scene depicted a romantic gesture or rape. The class could never settle the argument. It's kind of ruined my idea of feminism. My idea of romance was already pretty low.

Even so, I had visions of taking Europe by storm. One day, I planned to live in Germany and eat chocolate all day. I would party so hard and comment on the many different types of sparrows.

One summer I went on a trip of southern Germany and Northern Italy with my mom, sister and a tour group. It was quite the whirlwind...we barely slept and visited 4 countries in 10 days. Ironically, my German did not serve me well while in Germany. It did, however, save me from wandering the streets of Venice for the rest of my life.

As teens who can finally drink are wont to do, when we hit Venice we immediately danced our way straight to the discotheque. Naturally, one of the group got wasted. Being wasted was the primary way to get yourself sent home early, so my sister and I determined we would smuggle him back to the hotel. Little did we know, Venice shuts down completely at night. To the point where even the storefronts close their displays. All landmarks are hidden. It takes tourist trap to a whole new level.

We walked for approximately forever before we determined we were officially lost and with a drunk guy. Then we started popping into every hotel we saw to see if we could get directions. Imagine our surprise when not one person in all of Venice spoke English.

I began to suspect they were lying to us during the following exchange:

Me: Does anyone speak English? We need directions.
Lady 1 (in German): What does she want?
Lady 2 (in German): She wants to know if we speak English.
Lady 1 (in German): Tell her no.
Me (in German, proudly): Wait! I can speak German too!! We need directions, please.

They very grudgingly explained how to get back to our hotel which we had passed two miles ago. We wandered back there while I tried to steer a drunk and maintain my composure. But, I was pretty sure I had just taken Europe by storm. My German skills thwarted Venetian scheming!

And to boot, I finished the trip without being romanced or raped.