On my voyage from Siem Reap to Battambong in August 2014 during my vacation, I met an Italian guy with his couple. They were also on the boat.
At first, I was talking with an Australian man, and he was on the trip all alone. He is almost 50 years old, I think. He is still single, he come from a city in southern of Australia that is really small in the number of citizen, and it is a good city that produce Apples and Wines.
When we were talking, the Australian, he asked two young Europeans sitting next to us for where are they come from? The man replied that, he is from Italy. When I heard that they are from Italy, I was trying to communicate with them with my level A1 of Italian language. Let imagine, I still manage to talk in some basic Italian and of course greeting as well. The couple were amazed with my little knowledge of Italian. Well, in Asia if you find someone could speak Italian, you should be amazed, even in Europe, since not that much people speak Italian out of Italy, except the Spanish speaking people.
After they were smiling of my capability of basic Italian, they asked me, how do I learn to speak Italian. I told them that I did my master's degree in Politecnico di Torino, in Torino, Italy, and I just got back last year. The man said that he was born in Torino and also living in Torino, but he did his bachelor of management in other city. He asked me which part of Torino that I used to live, I said that I used to live in the southern part of Torino, the city center and also the northern part of Torino, Lingotto, the industrial area of Fiat automobile. He said that his home is in the eastern part of Torino, it is the area that I rarely went there. His parents are still living there.At that moment we were talking in English, of course not Italian, I don't speak Italian this much, haha :D
He was asking me if I like living in Torino? I replied that I love Torino, and since the size of the city is more or less the same to my home city, Phnom Penh. More or less 2 millions citizen including the suburban, the great thing is that there are not serious traffic jam and accident like my city. The mose pleasure thing is the public transportation there. The next are the ancient building and the history of Torino which last for more than 2 millennium years. Torino was one of an important Roman city from the 1st century BC and it was the first capital city of Italy before moving to Fiorente and finally Roma. There are more than 40 museums in the city, which is really attractive to a museums hunter like me. The other great thing about Torino, is the Mole Antelliana, the highest stone building that house the Film Museum of Italy. The unforgettable things about Torino, were the great time with so many of my friends there ;) Miss all of you so so much! Ci vediamo da subito i miei amichi :)
He got such a shock that he know that I studied in Politecnico di Torino, he said that it is one of the top rank universities in Italy, which is switching being the 1st or the 2nd rank with the Politecnico di Milano. He said that event Italian citizen are hard to enter to study in the university. Well, well, well, I could imagine that :/ I graduated my master's degree there, even not with a very good score, but at least with a not bad score :D yeh yeh yeh! La vita è bellissima ;)
It was really nice to meet someone from a city that you used to stay for a really long time :)
The two Italians