How Learning French Saved My Life

So Venice, oooooh Venice. Basically when I asked our tour guide for directions to the airport (I was flying back for my stupid poetry exam that afternoon. . . sorry. . . not stupid, just annoyingly timed), he told me directions. I made sure it was for Treviso and NOT Marco Polo. He said yes.

He was wrong. It was definitely directions to the Marco Polo Airport. First I was trying to find the bus stop that went to the "airport"and I got to this random bus stop looking area and I asked if it was the bus stop (for bus 15) to Treviso Airport. Not knowing Italian, and them not knowing much English, they said that they didn't know or something like that. One of them basically ended up driving me to the Marco Polo airport, where he sort of explained to me that bus 15 goes to Marco Polo (I also checked where it went, but at this point, I thought maybe it stopped through Marco Polo and then went to Treviso or something, since I trusted the directions), but maybe I could figure things out from there. So nice! So then I asked an English speaker at the information desk how to get to Treviso. He told me that there was pretty much no way to get there, and maybe I could take bus 15 further to the train station and take the train to Treviso and then take a bus from there? He advised me to take a taxi, since I only had 4 hours until my flight.

So then I started panicking. I did NOT have money to take a taxi. So I thought MAYBE if I hurried and took bus 15 I might make it and someone might know where to go. So I did. Then I got to the station. No one knew. So this is when I started BAWLING. I could NOT miss my flight or I would fail my exam (they don't allow make-ups).

Then this woman found me. She couldn't speak English and I couldn't speak Italian, but she asked, "Parlez vous Francais?"
I said, "Un petit. . ."
So she took me on the right train that went to Treviso and explained to me that from Treviso I needed to take the taxi to the airport. She told me that I could relax and I would make it on time. I can't believe how AMAZING people are. Then she asked if I had enough money for a taxi. I showed her my wallet and she flipped out (I only had a few coins as I had been told that I could just take the bus to the airport >(). Apparently no taxis take credit cards, and you can't really get around Italy using a credit card.

She had her husband come and PICK ME UP and DROVE ME TO THE AIRPORT! Then she tried to give me 15 Euros! I was like, NO! I can't accept her money! I gave her one of the Belgian chocolates I had intended to give as a gift to people at home and she tried not to accept it. Eventually she did. Anyways I aged about 70 years that afternoon.

But honestly. . . I don't know WHERE this "Italian people aren't nice" thing came from?????? I don't know where these people went where they experienced people being mean because I've had NOTHING but great experiences from people in Italy! NO one gave me problems because I couldn't speak Italian, and when they couldn't understand me, they would lead me to someone who DID know English! In case you can't tell, I LOVE Italy.