New city, dead phone, and a cathedral you swear was right here a minute ago. Time to stop a stranger and find your way.
You've been in this city for exactly one afternoon, and you've already fallen in love with it — the narrow lanes, the washing strung between the balconies, the smell of coffee round every corner. There's just one problem: you have absolutely no idea where you are.
You wanted the old cathedral. The map on your phone said it was five minutes away, then it spun in a slow circle, then it said "no signal", then the battery gave a little sigh and died. Somewhere behind these rooftops is the thing you came to see — but the streets curl and double back, and every alley looks like the last one.
Coming towards you is a local — unhurried, at home here, the kind of person who'd know these streets blindfolded. You have about three seconds to stop them nicely. And when the directions come, they won't come slowly. The real skill today isn't asking — it's making sure you actually understood the answer.
Curious, a little jet-lagged, phone stone dead. You'll happily admit you're lost — but you're determined to leave this corner knowing exactly where to go, not just nodding and hoping.
Knows every lane, bakery and dead end by heart. Friendly, quick, and gives directions at the speed of someone who's given them a thousand times — landmarks flying past faster than you can catch them.
Here's your toolkit. You don't need to memorise it. Read each phrase, say it out loud once, and pick the ones that sound like you. You'll have it open while you practise.
Draw a card and say what you'd say, out loud, in one or two sentences. Use your own words or the toolkit. Then peek at one possible answer.
Done a few rounds? Try again with the toolkit covered. When it flows, you're ready to hear them in a real conversation.
Read it out loud, one role each, then swap. Spot as many phrases from your toolkit as you can. Listen for the moment the traveller stops nodding along and actually pins the answer down.
1. The local gives the route twice. What went wrong with the first version, and what made the second one so much easier to follow?
2. Two specific warnings will save the traveller from going wrong — one about a turning, one about a door. What are they?
3. The traveller never simply nods and walks off. Find the TWO things they do to make sure the directions have actually gone in.
No script this time. You'll have a real conversation with a real person. They have their own mind, and you have a goal.
Say each step once, out loud, in your own words. No writing, no peeking at the phrases.
Pick your situation. Your partner plays the other person.
🏆 You win when you know exactly where to go and the stranger is glad they stopped.
Start the scene first. Partway through, draw a card. Whatever it says, it just happened.
Now you're on the other side. Your partner takes your old part.
Draw another twist whenever you like.
Tick what you actually did, in either seat.
Run it one more time. Draw a twist before you start, and try to reach a good result faster than before.
Around 1271, a teenage Venetian named Marco Polo set off east with his father and uncle — no phone, no map worth the name, just rumours, star charts and the kindness of strangers who spoke languages he'd never heard. He was lost, in the biggest possible sense, for the better part of twenty years.
He crossed deserts, mountains and cities no European had ever named, and every step depended on the same skill you just practised: stop someone, ask the way, and — the hard part — make sure you've actually understood the answer before you commit to it.
Your cathedral is five minutes away. His Cathay was three years and a couple of continents. Same instinct, different scale.