After 2 months of being in Europe, I headed to northern Italy. I stayed with a family of four who lived in a valley with gorgeous mountain views all around. My “job” there was to help the family with English, and while I don’t talk too much about my time there, I had a wonderful time and many wonderful stories. I probably don’t talk much about it because it was the most relaxed and normal I’d felt since arriving in Europe. Especially since I was off grid in Spain just prior to coming here.
Here are just a few of the stories I have about my time in Northern Italy.
“Count”
One thing we often did after dinner was play games. Usually they were card games and I had so much fun learning them. One night we finished up a game and started on another, a card game. I told them to count the cards.
They both tilted there heads at me. “Count? What is count?”
I tried my best to explain it to them. “You know, to count things. Like…. 1, 2, 3, 4.”
The wife, Chiara, looked at her husband. “Ahhhh, contare! And you say this how?”
I repeated it back to them a few times. I cannot tell you the joy I feel when adults learn things for the first time. It was adorable to watch them repeat it back and forth to each other.
“Count. Count, cont, coont, c*nt, c*nt, c*nt.”
I was shocked at first when I realized they were no longer pronouncing “count”, especially because their young daughter was at the table with us. But obviously I was the only one who understood it in English.
Eventually I burst out laughing. It was hilarious watching two grown adults repeating c*nt to each other in a very joyous tone. After a few seconds they both stopped and asked why I was laughing. I explained to them that “count” is a verb and c*nt is a highly offensive insult in the United States. So much so that I’ve only heard it used a handful of times.
Obviously they had no idea, so it was hilarious. But that’s just part of learning languages.
It gives me the same vibe as learning Spanish, and realizing that most people say they have X amount of anuses instead of X amount of years (age).
You Want to Buy a Goat?
Me and Chiara, the wife, went on hikes together a lot. Sometimes we drove somewhere into the mountains and sometimes we just hiked behind their house, since they lived on a mountain themselves. One day we took a route behind their house that we had taken a few times. It started off hard because you had to hike up into the mountain. Then after a little incline, it was mainly a slow decline down the mountain, into the town, and behind peoples homes. There was one home the trail passed that I especially liked. This was because it was the only house on the trail with goats, sheep, ducks, geese, and chickens.
This particular day, we were hiking past it when the owner was in the pasture with the sheep and goats. He stopped us on the trail and started speaking to Chiara. I obviously couldn’t understand anything because they were speaking Italian (specifically a northern dialect), and after a few minutes they said “Chao” and we continued on.
“He ask me if I want goat.”
I gave a little chuckle. “He asked if you wanted to buy a goat?”
“Yes. He asked me if I wanted to buy the goat. One had babies.”
If you know anything about me, you know I love goats. So of course I wanted to buy a baby goat, but I couldn’t. I don’t know if they would let me on a plane with one.
She had never met the old man, but had seen him outside. When we returned home she told Christian, her husband, about the old man trying to sell her the goats, and that remained a joke for the remainder of my time there.
Die!
One night Christian asked if I played volleyball. I said yes, but I was nervous because I hadn’t played in years and had no idea what level he played. He told me he played every Thursday in a league and I am more than welcome to come. As much as I didn’t want to because I was nervous, I said yes. So often you have to force yourself to say yes when you’re nervous, especially in a foreign country.
We drove to the next town and arrived at a small building with a larger section on it (the gym). I walked in with him and let him explain to everyone who I was. I was so nervous. I was the youngest one there, but the average age was probably 35. A few people asked me simple English questions, and seemed eager to show off and/or learn English.
Then this one guy, with red hair and a beard, walked up to me and started talking fluent English. I forgot his name, but this man was so smart. He was fluent in English, Russian, Ukrainian (Native), Italian, and French. All of which he learned while living in the respective countries.
Anyways, to get back to my story, I played the following week and there was a different team there. From my understanding, this was a league and the other team was there for a scrimmage. The other ream was short a player, so I was sent to play on their team and no one knew English. We started playing and all the guys on my temporary team started yelling “Dai” (pronounced as die).
Every time they hit the ball, “Dai! Dai! Dai!”. Eventually I asked Christian what “Dai” meant because in English it means “to kill”. I emphasized this with a hand across my throat. He, along with a few others, started laughing and the red-haired guy told me it means “lets go” or “come on”.
Molveno
One day I was helping clean the table after dinner and my hosts asked if there was anything in particular I wanted to do while I was in Italy. I told them I really wanted to hike the Dolomites before I left Italy, but I could do that on my way to Germany.
They were both confused about what I was saying, because Dolomites is the English word for Dolomitis, but eventually we figured it out. Chiara looked at me and questioned my statement. “You want to go to Dolomitis?”
I told her yes, and she said “Ok we go tomorrow.”
As an American, that blew my mind because it would take me anywhere from 12 to 16 hours to reach mountains. And it would take a couple of days to plan. But unbeknownst to me, my hosts lived at the south end of the Dolomitis mountain range. I also didn’t know the Dolomitis were a mountain range; I thought they were just the famous peaks often associated with the Dolomiti name.
I was very surprised the next day when we were only on the interstate for 15 minutes. Then we turned left and headed up the windy mountain road which took us about 35 minutes. Eventually we ended up in Molveno; a beautiful town nestled in the mountains with a lake. To keep the story short, we took two different lifts up the mountain to the base of the hike. We could’ve hiked from the bottom, but I’m glad we didn’t.
After returning home to the US, I saw numerous Instagram posts about “the most beautiful town in Italy” which I recognized as Molveno. Talk about an ego boost.
Most Beautiful Dog
This isn’t much of a story. But I saw this beautiful dog while hiking with Chiara. Apparently the breed is normally this spotted color, or black. They are still used as working dogs for farmers, and family dogs for people in the area, but otherwise they are practically non-existent. If I had the money. . .
There are so many other stories I could write about, but I don’t think anyone would appreciate them as much as I do.
If this was of interest to you, feel free to check out some other stories of mine from when I was in Europe
