Lost In Translation

Here in Italy I am just a bit special. You can walk the whole stretch of coast from Terracina to Circeo – 30 kilometres – and you will not find a single soul like me. Yes, that’s right: I am the only English person in the village (or on this part of the Lazio coast anyway).

I haven’t, in my month of being here, seen a single British person. Of course, this does sometimes make me feel very foreign and a little bit lost, but on the whole it’s an escape. Never before have I been thrown so far into the deep end and had to swim so vigorously to keep afloat; however it’s this constant effort that is teaching me so much about the country’s culture. For example, just from sitting back and listening I have learned many useful Italian phrases (well, commands…commonly aimed at misbehaving little children) such as:  ‘guardami’ (look at me), ‘aspettami’ (wait for me) so I just need to learn ‘stop jumping on that bloody bed and get your arse over here’ and I’ll be just fine.

Finally, I have a perfect little anecdote to symbolise how I’m feeling here in this very Italian part of Italy. A couple of days ago I was with the children round one of their friend’s house. Now this little Italian friend is four, he’s called ‘Eduardo’ and he has the most sincere little face you could imagine. For some reason or another his mother was explaining to him that fairytales are not real life and the conversation went something like this (translated into English of course):

Eduardo: Is Spiderman real?

Mother: Nope

Eduardo: Sleeping Beauty?

Mother: No, she’s made up too

Eduardo: Robin Hood? Peter Pan? Ben Ten?

Mother: No, no and no

Eduardo: (with the utmost sincerity) An English person?

Now I don’t know why he would ever question the existence of the English and it took a lot of convincing for him to finally accept that una persona inglese was alive and well and sitting next to him at the table. So that’s how I feel – lost within the cast of Grimm’s Fairytales – and you know what? I kind of like it.