My parents panicked when I told them I wanted to study abroad in Italy. They were terrified that something would happen to their only child or I would fall in love and never come home again. To convince them to let me go, I made Italian pasta from scratch, as well as create a thirty minute powerpoint about why I wanted to ravel. After a month of begging, my parents finally caved, and three months later I was living my dream in Italy. My parents still worried me about traveling by myself throughout the country and would send me travel advisories the United States had sent out that often had nothing to do with Europe.
Traveling alone my seem intimidating, especially to parents who may be protective of their children. Luckily, the transportation system between countries in Europe is extremely efficient and can be relatively easy to use. In Sorrento however, the public transportation can be difficult to figure out on the first try. However, almost everyone speaks English in Italy, and the only challenge is working up the courage to ask for help. After I experienced getting lost firsthand, I began writing the location of where I was going into my phone and if I thought I was lost, I would show someone who may know how to get there. They would always smile at the lost college tourist and give me detailed instructions with hand signals and lots of pointing, on how to get where I was going. This especially came into my favor when I was traveling by bus to Positano and I was too tired to continually check where I was. The driver was more than happy to help me and told me when to get off the bus and where I should wait for the people I was meeting. That trip to Positano ended up being my favorite trip along the Amalfi coast and is one I want to do again.
This idea of helping extends all throughout Europe. Even outside of Italy many people speak English and are happy to help others. Since college kids have been coming to Europe to study and travel for decades, the idea of the ‘lost college tourist’ is well established in European culture. These were the first things I noticed when I began my big solo trip to Zurich, Switzerland. I got off of my train and immediately realized that nothing is in english or italian like I was used to. I was able to follow car symbols and found the taxi stand quickly. I walked to the stand but no one was there and it looked like they weren’t taking people anywhere. Next to me were a group of women who to my delight began speaking in english. I asked them for help, and within minutes they had taken on the role of helping me as well as acting as stand in parents. They got me water, a bar of chocolate, and a taxi within seconds as well as giving me their phone number so I could let them know when I was a my hotel safe. While this had never happened to me before, I was extremely grateful for their kindness and have experienced or heard of similar acts all throughout Europe.
After getting to my hotel in Zurich, I encountered my next obstacle, food. I was nervous about ordering food in a restaurant since I didn’t speak the language but to my delight, found that it's easy to order meals not only in Italy but in Europe as well. In Italy, since tourism is so popular, many restaurants will have English translations as well as pictures in the menus. While this is more efficient for hungry travelers, it can feel like you’re not getting a full international experience by ordering something without knowing what’s in it. While the mystery can be fun, I didn’t realize how much I had taken it for granted until I no longer had english translations and couldn’t speak the local language. This is when offline google translate became my new hero. I was able to type the menu into my app and within seconds had my order ready to go. When I was ready to order, I would point at the item on the menu and my waiter would understand what I wanted and also that I didn’t know the language. They would then begin the standard “Italian? Spanish? French? English?” To which I would happily smile and nod.
While I didn’t have all of these facts to put into my powerpoint for my parents, I am happy that I can tell them how amazing and easy it is to travel alone in Italy and Europe. There was never a second where I felt unsafe or lost and even if I did, I know I can always find someone who can help or point me in the right direction.
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