Allora oggi . . . it was bound to happen. After two months of travelling, dozens of emails in foreign languages – cities, towns, and bed and breakfast locations with similar spellings and names there was “non prenotazione” at the inn. When we arrived at our bed and breakfast yesterday afternoon the proprietoressa says she does not have a reservation (prenotazione) for us. WHAT?! Anyone who travels knows the anxiety provoked by those few words. Yikes, now we have to negotiate this mix up in two different languages. AND the two of us with primary responsibility for the negotiation only speak one language. As luck would have it, and luck has been a frequent friend of ours through out our travels this summer, an Australian guest who can negotiate two languages AND again buona fortuna for all involved, he speaks the two languages we need for this circumstance. So here’s what went down. First thing I get my computer and show proprietoressa the email about the reservation. She says she never heard back from me and that I didn’t confirm the reservation. I show the second email sent which confirms that I want/confirmed the reservation. She says she never received that email . . . in my head I said “oh yeah that’s easy to say” we all know how that excuse goes “I never received your email” blah, blah, blah . . . Before I could find her response to my confirmation email where she says “Gentili, noi vi aspettiamo portate il mio numero 555/555555 contattatemi nelle vicinanze o per qualsiasi informazione
Buon viaggio
Arrivederci a presto
By the way, the subject line for this email says “conferma”. I don’t know about all of you but this looks like a confirmation email to me. Anyway, while I was looking for this third email message from our proprietoressa she says she will “make every thing right” via our Australian interpreter. In order not to make a long story longer I will get to the resolution. After several passionate phone calls in Italian, our hostess walks us down the street a few doors and says we can stay in this “casa”. The house belongs to her friend and is where she goes when she has dinner and socializes with family and friends. Instead of a bedroom in a bed and breakfast we end up in a centuries old Italian house carved out of the cliffs of Matera. Seriously! Restate sintonizzati . . .