When I moved to Italy, I spoke three words of Italian.

1. Ciao
2. Pizza
3. Spaghetti (which I later learned I was pronouncing and cooking incorrectly.)

So really, I didn't speak any Italian at all.

There were so many times that year that I found myself dying to let the language saturate my tongue and spring forward in beautiful full sentences. This did not happen in my time abroad. I learned enough to get by, but I never really felt accomplished and a little learned in the language until I had been gone for 7 months later.

I had flown back to Italy for a quick vacation last February. I was more than excited to get back in my Bella Italia and eat all the pasta and gelato my heart (and jeans) could handle. One of my best friends, Astrid, was studying in Spain and flew to the little city of Bergamo to come visit while I was there.

My phone wouldn't connect to the WiFi, nor would hers. I waited in anticipation as I scanned the crowds from the train station for meine lieblingsmensch.

I saw her across the busy street. We started jumping and waving and the second the little walking light turned on, we were hugging in the middle of the street talking excitedly about what we had been up to.

The Airbnb was a few blocks away and we decided to get bus tickets. Nervously, I approached the woman at the counter in the café.

“Parlo Inglese,” I asked, not sure anymore if I even had the right conjugations.

“No,” she replied sharply.

I smiled and took a little breath, mentally searching for the words.

“Posso due bigletti per il autobus?”

Now, I can’t remember exactly how she said it in Italian, but very quickly she responded in Italian to the effect of, “Of course. Two bus tickets but where in the city do you want them to go?

My brain hadn’t caught what she said, and I was too nervous to ask her to repeat herself so I simply said, “Si.”

She stared back at me blankly for a moment. I looked back and in a split second, it was like I understood the whole conversation even though I had missed what she said. I wanted a bus ticket, she wanted to know where I wanted to go.

I felt a happy bubbling growing of pride in my chest as I said, “Tutta la citta, per favore.”

The whole city, please.

Funny thing is, Astrid and I never ended up using those tickets. Instead, we took every street by foot, gawking at the beautiful piazzas and stumbling over the uneven cobblestones. We soaked in the chilly February air and spent hours in warm shops eating pastry and looking at the latest Italian fashions.

For a year I struggled with feeling like I should have known more Italian, but it took a 7-month break to show me how much I really had learned and the confidence I had picked up along the way.

You’ll never know how much you can accomplish if you never try. Learn the language. Try new foods. Meet new people. You might just surprise yourself with how much you can do that you never knew.