Travel in the real world

You know how everything is wonderful and amazing in the travel blogs you read? Or on social media, with flawless pics? This is not that.

Sometimes travel is hard, frustrating and lonely, especially when you don’t speak the language. Sometimes you have to joust with your demons. No matter where you go, you have to take yourself, no?

The unexpected can throw you. A tooth might start hurting and you suddenly feel very insecure and a long way from home.

A few days ago one of my long-term opponents turned up, the vile inner demon that scoffs and says “Why bother?” He (she?) has been around since I was a child, with a pair of tall-poppy clippers in hand. “Who do you think you are?”

I was struggling to translate something in the middle of my twice-weekly Italian lesson when this apparition surfaced.

I’m in my early 60s. Shouldn’t I have learned another language by now? How can I expect to learn enough to ever have any depth of conversation in Italian?

Starting from high school, I have learned a fair bit of Latin, French, Japanese, Indonesian and now Italian, but I’ve never become fluent in any. A year after high school, a postcard arrived from my former French teacher, Mr Tate, from Italy: “You must learn Italian – this is such a beautiful country,” he implored. Forty-something years went by and here I am. Too late? Stuff that.

I batted that pernickety fiend away and went back to my verbs and definite/indefinite articles.

If I really want to torture myself – and I do, because I want to learn – I go to what’s called the “tandem” sessions held at Anghiari’s local biblioteca for an hour on Tuesday nights. Here I submit myself to an attempt at conversation with an Italian-speaking person who is learning English. That is, the person sitting opposite me speaks English and I “speak” Italian back. I’m becoming accustomed to the humiliation of realising what it must be like for the 12-year-old schoolboy Luigi or the 70-something Florentine Roberto to endure my tortured Italian. Their English is more than fine to me.

It’s a humbling experience, and I can’t help thinking of the many migrants who have landed on my own country’s shores without a word of English and managed to make a life there. I hope people were kind to them.

Certainly Anghiari is a great place to learn the language as not many of the locals speak English. This is called immersion. Sometimes my inability to speak like an adult embarrasses the hell out of me; other times I just dive in with the best I can do and trust that some meaning will be exchanged. Or at least some good will.

Just now I had a stilted conversation with my elderly neighbour Maria as we puffed and panted our way back up the hill from my teacher’s place. We say buongiorno to each other most days and have established that she knows my teacher Elisa.

Maria had been to il cimitero (the cemetery) at the base of the hill to take flowers to her husband’s grave. He died 20 years ago. This much I understand. She asks what I am doing tonight and I say I don’t know. “Televisione?” But the television is in Italian and I don’t understand enough, I say. “Okay.” But I do watch Netflix on my computer. “Okay.” (“Okay” is understood in both languages, as is “fake news” and “check-in”.)

Unfortunately there’s no quick way to learn a language. It’s a long hard slog, and ideally a daily pursuit. When your sense of humour is working, it has some hilarious moments of misunderstanding. I heard a few giggles behind me after I had ordered a coffee one morning and thought I’d said I’d have it outside – al di fuori – but I’d actually accidentally said I’d have it in the flowers – ai fiori. Honestly, I really do know the difference – I do!

The empathetic barista at the cafe kindly assures me that Italian is even difficult for Italians. I wonder if it could really be harder than English for non-English speakers. American Dream, French-speaking Gad Elmaleh’s very funny standup show on Netflix gives a good account of this. “What’s with all those ‘had been/had have beens’?” he says of the complexity of English grammar. “And what about ‘one tooth’ and ‘two teeth’ but ‘one fish’? Why not ‘two foosh’?” You get the idea. (By the way, check him out if you watch Netflix; I love him.)

Thankfully I have met several English speakers who either live in Anghiari or come here regularly, so if I am needing to talk at length for a change, I can. I’ve met Greg and Amy from New Orleans, Steve and Cathy from Phoenix and now Ashley and Romaldo from South Africa. Then there’s my friend Ann from Australia, English Meryl who runs the library, my teacher Elisa and a few others. So, there is relief.

You won’t believe this, but Anghiari has a couple of things in common with Port Stephens, where I was living before I left Australia. It has a large retired population for a start and the population similarly multiplies considerably during the holiday season. I guess the comparisons end there. Today is Easter Monday, or La Pasquetta, which is a public holiday. Both yesterday and today the restaurants are full to overflowing with people who have taken the opportunity to have a day or so in this famous historic town. They wander the narrow alleyways, reading the signs on significant buildings, pop into the churches where they will see great works of art hundreds of years old, and visit the museums, giving the town a much-needed boost.

Primavera has sprung, the days are sunny and the evenings cool; red poppies are raising their heads on the medieval stone walls that hug the historic centre; spring lamb is available at the macelleria and fresh carciofi, piselli and fave – artichokes, peas and broad beans – are in plentiful supply.

The one nagging concern I have in all this is that my top left back tooth has become quite sensitive to heat and cold, even aching occasionally. I’m now eating on one side of my mouth, trying to avoid it, and my dentist is on the other side of the world… I have a feeling there will be more on that later. Ciao for now!

Top, from left: The road to my teacher's house; season's eatings; poppies popping.