Cecilia Bartels was born and raised in Melbourne by her mother, from Bergamo in Italy, and her Australian father.
Her mom started immediately to talk to her in Italian and, even if her father didn't know the language since she was a child, before going to bed, he would read her stories in Italian.
"As a child, I was surrounded by Italian women, my mum's friends, in fact I thought Italian was a language only spoken by women. When I went to Italy for the first time, I said: mom here also men speak Italian"
Cecilia has never studied in Italy, but attended the VSL (Victorian School of Languages) course in Melbourne.
The most interesting part of the language course? The focaccia from the Italian supermarket nearby she still remembers fondly.
