Me no speaky de English

My first day in Rome was a beautiful nightmare. I began my day walking to the Colosseum and exploring the ancient city. It was amazing to see buildings that were thousands of years old, and even though most of them were falling apart and unrecognizable, it was easy to still find beauty in them. I enjoyed wandering around, but it was unbearably hot! The kind of heat that makes you sit down on the sidewalk and cry, which I am not ashamed to admit that I did on a number of occasions throughout my time in the country. As I walked around the city downing bottles of water left and right, I got lost probably about a dozen times, but no matter where I was I always ended up finding some place interesting. Case in point, Piazza della Republica.





It was the middle of the night and I was trying to find my way to the Spanish Steps and I got completely lost, but ended up at this beautiful fountain. I was so entranced by it that I decided to buy myself an ice cream and sit and enjoy the scenery. A man came and sat next to and I was hoping that he wouldn't say anything to me, but because he was Italian, of course he did!

"Ciao bella! Che è il suo nome?"

The only thing that I know how to say in Italian is "Parla Inglesi" (do you speak English) so I gave him a blank stare and repeated my only known Italian phrase that I must have said at least 47 times during my vacation.

He replied, "Oh me no speaky de English. You speaka French?"

Ok, finally we're getting somewhere! My French skills are really embarrassing, but I know key phrases so I figured I would be much better off trying to muddle my way through French than trying to muddle my way through Italian. We sat on the fountain together having a "conversation" about where we were from, what we did for a living, and how we liked being in Rome. My little Italian friend's name was Mijad and he was originally from Tunisia but had been working in a pizza shop in Rome for a few years. It took me about 20 minutes to figure out all of that because like I said, my French skills are embarrassing. I was going to just politely say goodbye and walk away because the language barrier was starting to give me a headache but then he said, "Aller au diner?" A dinner invitation? Absolutely!

We walked to a nearby restaurant and all of a sudden I was regretting accepting the invite. How the heck were we going to communicate with each other for the next hour? I had already asked him the four French sentences that I knew at least two times already, and he knew just about as much English as I know Arabic, so it was really awkward sitting there with him. The waiter was kind enough to translate for us for a while, but it got kinda weird and uncomfortable so after he gave us our food he left and never came back. So me and my little Italian/Tunisian friend sat there eating dinner. Silent. For one hour. Because the only thing that I had left to say to him in French or Italian was "I am American. How much is this? Where are the toilets? Where am I?" None of those phrases were going to get me very far in this situation.

I finally had a good idea. After dinner, I decided that since we couldn't actually talk to each other that I would just point to places on the map that I wanted to see and have him take me there. My own personal tour guide! I know, a little selfish, but he seemed to be a nice guy and once I pointed to the Spanish Steps on my trusty map he was all too willing to take me there.

As we were walking to the Steps he leaned over and put his arm around me. It creeped me out, but I figured it was a small price to pay for dinner and a tour. Then he leaned over again and said "m'embrasser?" Now, my French is really rusty, but I was pretty darn sure that meant, "kiss me." Sure enough it did because a few seconds later he was leaning over to give me a kiss. I jumped away from him and said "no, I'm sorry I'm not interested." I was speaking in English because I had no idea how to say that in any other language, and I knew that he should have some idea of what I was saying because the word "no" sounds very similar in every language except Russian and Norwegian. So I repeated again "No. Not interested." He stepped back, gave me a dirty look, and said in perfect English, "Well fuck you then. Bitch!" and then he stormed off down the street. I was on the verge of getting pissed off but then I thought about the ridiculousness of this entire scenario and starting laughing out loud. Yeah. So I guess my little Italian/Tunisian friend speaky de English after all!