by Christine Hinrichs (Little Rock, AR)OVER OUR FREE WEEKEND, I traveled with several of my classmates to Venice. On Saturday, another student and I decided to take an early train back to Pesaro so I could take some photos for the story I was working on and so we could spend some time at the beach. What was supposed to be a leisurely day turned into a slightly stressful experience of attempting to get directions by communicating with individuals who spoke a language that was foreign to me.
Between trying to find the train station again after getting lost in Bologna and trying to find Matteo’s hair salon in Pesaro, I ended up asking many different individuals for directions. It seemed like each person would communicate a different direction. It wasn't until later in the afternoon that I figured out why following directions had become so difficult for us and why we had trouble finding the correct location.
I asked a woman, “Dov'e via Verdi?” She responded in English. “Go right,” she said, while emphatically gesturing to the left with her hand. I pointed to the left. “Si,” she replied. The woman was attempting to communicate in my language, but she had her words for left and right confused. Because there was a difference between what she meant by right and what I meant by right, it led to an experience of cultural mismatch.
