Jetting Educated

"I'm sorry, I don't know what you're saying" I admitted, and automatically, my face contorted in to an expression of confusion and I gave an over exaggerated shrug.  My mumblings and body language were sure to tell him I was a confused foreigner, and indeed, the Italian man accepted his mistake and continued down the Roman street. My heritage pie chart: Guyana, Britain and a little bit of France In Italy I was often mistaken- natives and tourists alike were asking me questions or for directions. One one occasion I said "Hey, I'm new here too, but lets go," and then we ended up going to a science museum together. When meeting other travelers, a game of "guess my ethnic background" has ended with: Greek, Turk, Iranian, Spaniard and Italian among many others. I guess my actual roots from South America is a bit far to consider when people play that game in Europe.  While I am proud of this heritage, once you talk to me I...

Its day 32 on my first backpacking trip through Europe, I'm in Firenze and looking at my diary. I'm seeing how many tally marks I can put to faces. No, not like that. Let me explain. In the back of the diary I have a list of countries, and a mark for each person I've met from that place. Specifically, its people that I've sat down and talked to, rather than having briefly met, otherwise the list would be difficult to manage. And besides, I'm mainly interested in recording the nationalities of people who Ive made friends with, even if they have only been 'single serving'. Birds and bins in Firenze The stats so far are 21 nationalities, 12 being from the EU, and the others from all over the place, including Israel, Argentinia, Oz, South Africa and Vietnam.         As of today, 120 tally marks are on the list. I think I could recall nearly all the faces if I tried. In the 'lead' is Australia whose people have taught me much, but ...