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In brief, this story is about my first international travelling experience in Italy and the first encounter with an unknown language spoken by 97% of people there. As you guessed, I am talking about the “Italian language - the language of romance”. I landed at Bologna Airport, Italy in December 2017 to study International Marketing, making some European friends and visiting some exotic locations like Venice, Puglia and last but not the least Amalfi Coast. However, these dreams just got hit by the language barrier at first. When I started interacting with local shops like “Tabacchi” (as popularly they called) and normal people in the surroundings, I shocked to find out that Almost nobody was able to speak ENGLISH. Definitely, I had a lot of concerns regarding my present and about the future there. After lots of research and from the support of fellow Italian students, I decided to learn the Italian language and travelling only after learning some common phrases. So, I enrolled in “Academya Lingue” (Italian Language School) and learned rigorously for about 3 months. I knew it wouldn’t be enough time to learn all the necessary things but quite helpful for conversation starters. After gaining some confidence, I made a plan with my 2 Indian friends (obviously, TRIBE is important) to explore Italy. I also consider the fact that the University will be closed in Easter break from the 1st of April to the 15th of April and manage the bookings accordingly. Talking about the plan, We started our journey on the 2nd of April from Bologna and reached Rome on the same day in the evening through Train. We explored some heritage sites like colosseum, Trevi Fountain, National Museum of Rome. During our visits, I asked local people regarding routes, did shopping and made some connection with travel guides there. From there, we reached Florence on the 4th of April and explored the city by visiting lots of art museums which tired us at the end. Finally, we visited Puglia on the 8th of April. The only special thing about my memory of Puglia is our bus journey from Florence to Puglia. We booked the “Flixbus” for our trip as we were going over the budget and as a student and especially “Indian Student”, it’s quite tough to spend in EUR and then explaining family about expenses in INR. 😅😅😅 Coming to the point about my bus journey, I never expected to see “washroom” inside the bus! It was a boon because our journey was about 6 hours long. After reaching Puglia, we find out that it is impossible to explore the city without a car. Frankly, we also didn’t plan anything regarding visiting the beach or places there. Trip to Puglia was horrible but I enjoy the location, ambience, people and last but not least, the Airbnb host. During the entire trip, I tried to communicate with every local in Italian. Though I miserably failed but still I was able to explain in that broken accent and honest smile. This story is not just about “leap into the unknown” but my honest attempt and learning from that encounter with the unknown!