the italian language
Three times today I was totally confused all because of my inability to speak/understand Italian fluently.
#1 Le Poste Italiane: The post office is just down the street from the SUF campus so I left early for school and ventured down in that direction. Well… after 5 minutes in the post office I left and STILL had the package that I intended to send… let’s analyze what went wrong…
I spend 3 minutes trying to PULL open a door that is a PUSHer (strike 1). I walk through the door. I look around and realize that Italian post offices are nothing like American ones… crap. I notice that the crowded post office is full of Italian people that all look like they’re in a hurry (and don’t have time to help an American girl figure out how the system works). I try to figure out how the place works myself and begin to look for any signs (in English OR Italian) with directions on them… there aren’t any (strike 2). I sit down in a chair and spend a few minutes watching people trying to get a hint as to what I’m sposed to do. It’s so busy that I can’t understand (strike 3). I start to feel like people are looking at me, and KNOW that I have no clue what’s going on so I pull out my cell phone (something I do EVERYTIME I start to feel insecure). I text Marilena saying that I’m at the post office and look like a total idiot. I finish texting, put my phone away, put my backpack on, walk out the door, and walk back to school.
I guess I’ll have to wait til tomorrow to mail my package; sorry steph!
#2 Il Palestro: Marilena and I have decided to join a gym (since my foot is finally almost 100% better!) and after asking our friends which one they go to we set out to sign up. After walking well over the “2 block” walk our friends said it was we finally came across a “palestra.” We were slightly confused because the word that we learned for gym in Italian class is “palestro” (masculine ending). We figured it was close enough to what we were looking for and ventured down the driveway to the door… after seeing the door had a poster of dancing girls (think about it) on it we realized that the word “palestra” and “palestro” probably don’t mean the same thing… needless to say, we did not accomplish our mission of signing up for a gym today.
#3 La Pasticceria: Feeling defeated on our walk home from the “palestra,” Marilena and I decided to stop in a really cool looking pastry shop. She decided to get a little fruit tart and ordered it from a lady who spoke no English… the lady started saying things that neither Marilena nor I understood. To explain herself she started holding up various forms of packaging; a paper bag, some fancy butcher paper… Marilena kinda pointed at the butcher paper and assumed the lady would just package the pastry in it and we could go. Well, the lady proceeded to wrap up the pastry as if it was going under the tree as a Christmas present; literally there were bows and ribbons involved. We realize now that we have NO clue as to what she was asking us…
AH – WHY CAN’T I SPEAK FLUENT ITALIAN?!?!
Today in printmaking we started doing “dry point.” It’s a really cool technique – basically we carve an image into plexi-glass with a sharp tool then squeegee the glass in a thin layer of oil-based ink and rub the ink off so that the only part of the glass with ink is the area we carved. Then the glass is stamped in the press and voila (!!!): a really really really cool looking print!
I chose to etch a sketch I did (hahaha, “etch a sketch”… but seriously though) of the Leaning Tower of Pisa (since we saw it only a few weekends ago). I didn’t completely finish etching it but did a sample print to see how it would sorta turn out and everyone that saw it said it was really good, so yay! I’m happy I chose to take printmaking… at first I really didn’t like it OR the people in my class, but now I’ve really grown to appreciate both.
Other exciting things: I bought plane tickets for a trip to Dublin, Ireland coming up in about 3 weeks (yay!); I also bought tickets for my trip to Amsterdam with Amelia coming up in December (Ah!); congrats to my little brother for pledging Phi Psi… I’ve been to a few of their parties with my friends and it’s always been a good time; I talked to Pete twice over the past few days and for the first time in a long time it was really nice to talk to him: hi home friends - I miss you guys!!!. Ok, enough for today.
Wait, just kidding! I thought that it is worthwhile to mention that tonite at dinner the “Cuss Cards” (playing cards that have 52 different bad words in 7 different languages that my mom bought me) came out and Marilena, Manuel, and I had an awesome time teaching each other all of them in our different languages… I love Kike and Susana but when they go out and leave us alone at night, it’s priceless.
#1 Le Poste Italiane: The post office is just down the street from the SUF campus so I left early for school and ventured down in that direction. Well… after 5 minutes in the post office I left and STILL had the package that I intended to send… let’s analyze what went wrong…
I spend 3 minutes trying to PULL open a door that is a PUSHer (strike 1). I walk through the door. I look around and realize that Italian post offices are nothing like American ones… crap. I notice that the crowded post office is full of Italian people that all look like they’re in a hurry (and don’t have time to help an American girl figure out how the system works). I try to figure out how the place works myself and begin to look for any signs (in English OR Italian) with directions on them… there aren’t any (strike 2). I sit down in a chair and spend a few minutes watching people trying to get a hint as to what I’m sposed to do. It’s so busy that I can’t understand (strike 3). I start to feel like people are looking at me, and KNOW that I have no clue what’s going on so I pull out my cell phone (something I do EVERYTIME I start to feel insecure). I text Marilena saying that I’m at the post office and look like a total idiot. I finish texting, put my phone away, put my backpack on, walk out the door, and walk back to school.
I guess I’ll have to wait til tomorrow to mail my package; sorry steph!
#2 Il Palestro: Marilena and I have decided to join a gym (since my foot is finally almost 100% better!) and after asking our friends which one they go to we set out to sign up. After walking well over the “2 block” walk our friends said it was we finally came across a “palestra.” We were slightly confused because the word that we learned for gym in Italian class is “palestro” (masculine ending). We figured it was close enough to what we were looking for and ventured down the driveway to the door… after seeing the door had a poster of dancing girls (think about it) on it we realized that the word “palestra” and “palestro” probably don’t mean the same thing… needless to say, we did not accomplish our mission of signing up for a gym today.
#3 La Pasticceria: Feeling defeated on our walk home from the “palestra,” Marilena and I decided to stop in a really cool looking pastry shop. She decided to get a little fruit tart and ordered it from a lady who spoke no English… the lady started saying things that neither Marilena nor I understood. To explain herself she started holding up various forms of packaging; a paper bag, some fancy butcher paper… Marilena kinda pointed at the butcher paper and assumed the lady would just package the pastry in it and we could go. Well, the lady proceeded to wrap up the pastry as if it was going under the tree as a Christmas present; literally there were bows and ribbons involved. We realize now that we have NO clue as to what she was asking us…
AH – WHY CAN’T I SPEAK FLUENT ITALIAN?!?!
Today in printmaking we started doing “dry point.” It’s a really cool technique – basically we carve an image into plexi-glass with a sharp tool then squeegee the glass in a thin layer of oil-based ink and rub the ink off so that the only part of the glass with ink is the area we carved. Then the glass is stamped in the press and voila (!!!): a really really really cool looking print!
I chose to etch a sketch I did (hahaha, “etch a sketch”… but seriously though) of the Leaning Tower of Pisa (since we saw it only a few weekends ago). I didn’t completely finish etching it but did a sample print to see how it would sorta turn out and everyone that saw it said it was really good, so yay! I’m happy I chose to take printmaking… at first I really didn’t like it OR the people in my class, but now I’ve really grown to appreciate both.
Other exciting things: I bought plane tickets for a trip to Dublin, Ireland coming up in about 3 weeks (yay!); I also bought tickets for my trip to Amsterdam with Amelia coming up in December (Ah!); congrats to my little brother for pledging Phi Psi… I’ve been to a few of their parties with my friends and it’s always been a good time; I talked to Pete twice over the past few days and for the first time in a long time it was really nice to talk to him: hi home friends - I miss you guys!!!. Ok, enough for today.
Wait, just kidding! I thought that it is worthwhile to mention that tonite at dinner the “Cuss Cards” (playing cards that have 52 different bad words in 7 different languages that my mom bought me) came out and Marilena, Manuel, and I had an awesome time teaching each other all of them in our different languages… I love Kike and Susana but when they go out and leave us alone at night, it’s priceless.
posted by tera a firenze at 12:28 PM
1 Comments:
Your blog is the coolest blog in all the land. I love the way you write and describe stuff. I feel like I'm there with you. Hey, soon I will be there with you.
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