Sharing Stories - A Glimpse into Another's Life - just an Intro, taste it!
ITALY | Friday, 19 April 2013 | Views [302] | Scholarship Entry
My Italian blood is from my father´s side, from somewhere near Napoli and they are farmers…at some point they started to have one of the best extra virgin olive oil in Italy. One of my cousins told me that in our family, we all have a green thumb, so I decided to accept that year´s invitation for the harvest and I went all the way from Venezuela to Italy for it. My first approach to ´real Italians´ was in the airplane, the fly had a late departure with all passenger already inside, all started to sing and clap, of course the song was in Italian but at that point I was not fluent at all in my father´s native language, so in the beginning I had no idea of the lyrics, then after a while I started to sing along. We were asked to stay calm but that is useless if you are an Italian in a closed space with nothing else to do but waiting. Once in Italy, I was supposed to take a train South but I got distracted so I took one North with NO stop to Paris. I found out about it because I started to walk inside the train and I met a guy in a wagon intersection, who asked me about my trip to Paris, he said it was his first trip there. Well, I don’t have the Italian citizenship -at least no yet- but that´s another story…“I must get out” was my answer to him, and he said the train wasn’t going to make any stop at all until getting to Paris, so he offered me help. Giorgio said he was a famous Italian cook going to a contest to Paris, he has 12 sisters, and one of them couldn’t make it to the trip but by mistake they brought her passport along, so I could use it. I first agree and went to meet his sisters, the older one was no happy at all about the deal and argued with him about it while the other ones stayed with me. They offered me food and drinks, we were talking about the excitement of traveling to another country when suddenly the train started to slow down and I ran to the door where Giorgio was with his older sister. I said “the train is going to stop” and he said “no, it is only slowing down”, so I started to walk fast looking for a door to open and Giorgio followed me “what are you doing?” he yelled at me, “I am going to get out of this train” I said, “it is too dangerous, stay with us I will help you in everything” he replied to me, and then I found an door that I could open…
Now, if you want to know the end of my story PLEASE CHOOSE MEEE!!! well, after that I actually got to my family´s farm just before the harvest only to find out I am allergic to olive trees.
Tags: Travel Writing Scholarship 2013
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