Ciao, ya'll!
It's been a busy week so far in Montepulciano. Classes are becoming more involved; Italian is getting progressively more difficult! While I still find myself in confusion or distress at least once a day, I am finally settling into the pattern of daily life in town. In fact, just yesterday we got our first junk mail - I think that makes us official residents!
I have an unhealthy infatuation with languages; for as long as I can remember I wanted to learn all of them! Spanish was first, but by high school I was interested in only Latin and French. In college I had to sing everything from Gaelic to Swahili... and now I'm in Italy - where, of course, nobody speaks any of these! Fortunately, we have daily Italian classes for all of the American students, plus I picked up some on the plane from watching Star Trek in Italian (with no clue that channel 2 was playing in English).
Having sung Italian art songs and opera has helped a little, but I haven't yet encountered a moment quite dramatic enough to call for any of those lines! For now, I only try to get by without offending anyone or staring blankly at them for a long while as I calculate the words... converting them to English or French, even Latin, then back to Italian. I've also invented some Italian/southern words, may favorite being "ciaowdy!". It's bad enough I actually asked an Italian local what they do here for Thanksgiving. :[
Equally amusing are the misunderstandings between the American students and the Italian residents. One local friend Lorenzo insisted on calling the girls, well, a name that Americans don't consider polite unless you're actually referring to dogs. He asked us what we wanted him to call us, and we said “ladies”, to which he paused, and thought a moment, and said in a grand, announcer voice: “LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!!”.
I just want to know enough to buy things, make small talk, and understand the screaming lady that lives next door!
I'll be adding some photos of last weekend's day trip to Cortona... quite an adventure!!
Much love to the states an'all ya'll!! :)
amanda june
Next:
Rome Thursday through Sunday!!
PS – My luggage was found in NYC (hooray!), but was missing a few things when it arrived... among them was my battery charger. My wonderful family is sending one over, but for now, no more original photos! The good news is that there are 30 other camera-happy people who will take enough for all of us, and of course I'll borrow some to post on here. :)
