Levelling Up Italian and Dissing Ancient Heroes: 5 Days in Rome - Part 2

by Alex in Europe, Italy

While we've been in Rome, I like to think that I've been steadily leveling up my Italian speaking skills. When we touched down in Ciampino airport a few days ago, my Italian skills were basically non-existent - I have properly studied Italian in the past, but not since, well, kindergarten. Needless to say, in the intervening 19 years, I've gotten a little bit rusty.




Coming out to the Colosseum on our second day, I was ready and psyched to put my language skills to the test - a test which was on the lowest difficulty setting, but a test nonetheless. Since the Colosseum is a major tourist attraction, everyone working there - from the ticket vendors and security guards to the ever-present selfie stick salesmen - assumed that we didn't speak a word of Italian.

Every request, from "Can I check your bag please?" to "Do you want an audio guide?" was in English. It gave me no small measure of satisfaction to see the surprised looks on various faces, when I responded with a simple "Si, prego" or "No, grazie."

Nothing I said was particularly complicated, and the one time a security guard tried to carry on our conversation in fluent, rapid-fire Italian I was completely lost - but small victories are victories nonetheless.

Inside the Colosseum itself, we took full advantage of the lack of crowds. There were still plenty of people, sure, but we weren't being dragged through the monument like leaves in a river of tourists - which would definitely not be the case later in the day. Instead, we were able to go at our own pace, Tash ever-watchful for a vantage point from which to take a good photo, and me studying the Latin inscriptions, and only occasionally getting distracted by nearby small birds.

While we there, Tash and I couldn't help but feel sorry for the multitudes of animals who were kept and eventually killed in the arena, sacrificed to the crowds to boost the careers of so-called heroes.

Directly across from the Colosseum lie the ruins of the Roman Forum, the commercial centre of the ancient city. The site is huge and has dozens of different ruins spread throughout its cobblestone streets, although most of those ruins consist of little more than red brick walls or solitary columns.

It created a strange effect, that at the same time there is so much and so little left. Passing by the ruins of a temple dedicated to the mythological twin brothers Castor and Pollux prompted our conversation to turn to the heroes of Greek and Roman mythology, strolling hand in hand through rows of columns, arguing over who was a bigger jerk, Jason or Hercules.

...it's totally Jason, by the way.

From the Forum, we set out to find the Bocca della Verita, the Mouth of Truth. This proved to be level 2 of my Italian challenge, as the Mouth is a few blocks away from any of the more famous sites, meaning that the amount of English being spoken dropped dramatically as we walked.

Without having to speak to anyone, though, our main challenge was navigation - Italian streets are only sporadically labelled, and when local landmarks were labelled in English on our map and Italian on the street, it was up to us to translate and figure out where the hell we were and where we were going. We managed to find the Mouth of Truth while only getting a little bit lost, so I'm going to call that a win. Level 2 completed!

Dah dah dah daaaaah!!

The Mouth of Truth itself sits on a wall just outside an old church which is still in use. As I've mentioned before, it always makes me a bit uncomfortable to visit a tourist attraction at a religious site which is still in active use - a feeling which was doubled in this case, since after you take your one photo with the statue, the only way back out to the street is to go into the church and then back out again.

As we entered the church, they were in the middle of a service, and the sight of dozens of tourists milling about in the naves taking photographs made me feel sorry for the locals who were just trying to worship in peace.

Now was not the time for us to rest on our laurels, though - with 2 levels of Italian soundly conquered, we were about due for a mini-boss battle. Specifically, trying to order gelato from a woman whose English was about as good as my Italian. We struggled for almost 10 minutes, first through figuring out the flavours, then asking for them. That was the easy part.

The hard part was asking for some of the obscenely delicious-looking chocolate truffles in the display. None of them were named, and the saleswoman didn't know their names in English, so after a lot of very confused back-and-forth, we ended up just buying one of each.

We walked away with 2 scoops of gelato and a dozen chocolates, though, so I count it as a win. For the record, we ended up with a scoop of vanilla slice gelato (with real puff pastry in the icecream!), and dark chocolate and red wine. Yes, wine ice cream, which was exactly as amazing as it sounds.

After our miniboss challenge, we wandered down the river to the park surrounding the Castel Sant'Angelo, the setting for the famous barge scene in location scavenger hunt. We sat for a while, resting our feet and watching the two larger pigeons bully the smaller ones, then set off again, this time for the Spanish Steps, our final location from Roman Holiday.

Along the way, we passed the elaborately statued courthouse, before getting horribly lost and finding ourselves in a piazza filled with fountains. Fountains, and yes, more selfie stick men. Making our way to the Piazza di Spagna, however, proved to be our next level of Italian challenge - trying to find our way through winding back streets, following signs that seemed to point to everything except the Spanish Steps. Finally, though, we made it.

We arrived into the Piazza, took one look at the 135 steps, and wordlessly agreed that, yeah, we were perfectly comfortable at the bottom of the stairs, thanks.

Finally, our day done, we climbed aboard the Metro and went back to our apartment. Little did we know, the day still had one surprise in store for us. Our Italian challenge still had a final boss battle - facing an Italian Chinese restaurant.

Here's what I wasn't expecting about a Chinese restaurant in Italy - the menu was in Italian. Yes, I know, obviously the menu would be in Italian, but it still took me by surprise - although not as much as seeing Chinese food that I'm familiar with being translated into Italian terms. For instance, dim sims, simple meat-filled dumplings which are basically ubiquitous in Australia, were referred to as 'Chinese ravioli'. And the noodles in a stir fry were 'rice spaghetti'. Rice spaghetti! For some reason, I found that absolutely hilarious.

Reading the menu was the easy part, however. The hard part, it turned out, was ordering. Our waiter, it turns out, does not speak English. That, in itself, wasn't unexpected. What was unexpected, was while I also don't speak Cantonese, neither of us could speak Italian particularly well.

 In the end, I faked it - reading off the menu in an Italian accent and trying to make it sound convincing. It must have worked, though - we got all of the food that we ordered (it was excellent, by the way), and it wasn't until dessert that I realised I had thanked the waiter and asked for the bill in fluent Italian. Over all, I consider it a successful meal.

Stage 1 Italian: Cleared!

First...basic Italian....Then the world! *muhahaha*

If you'd like to read more of our 5 days in Rome, click here!
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