meg + milano.

So leading up to my trip, I had purchased some 10 grammar-practice books for what was about to be my first experience speaking/learning Italian. I was also lucky enough to have taken some 7 years of spanish in my day....but it SHOULD be noted that there are just some words which are irrevokably different in the two languages, and I definitely spent the first week and a half of work calling the office the "officina," . . . which actually means the autobody shop. So all of my new friends were like... Hm. You look pretty clean to be working in an autobody shop.

Well, of my new friends, there is a girl who has done the erasmus programme in England, and we try to speak a mish mish of italian and english. She's very nice, and one day we went out for 'aperitivo', where a person buys a drink and is then given free range to the buffet of fabulous italian appetizers. It was on this day, that i was trying to say 'trust me' which i thought was figa ti...well, it turns out that I definitely told her to 'eat me' (.. yes , in the worst way possible) and she almost had beer coming out her nose cause she laughed so hard, "I can't believe you said that!, i cant believe it May-gaan!" .... but i swear, 'figa ti' & 'fida ti' are the same to me after a beer or two. Note: she's the boss' daughter, and undoubtedly she has related this to him.

But all in all my italian is getting seriously better. My initial strategy was to use only infinitives, since i had no idea how to conjugate anything... the english equivalent would be something like this: "Last night, i to-go, to-buy a pan to-cook, to-eat dinner with my friends who to-want, to-eat with me when we to-watch the game of futbol". I'm sure it sounds like i'm retarded, but it gets the message across and sometimes that's what I need. It's only extremely embarassing when i have to talk to the boss, in which case i try to conjugate somethings, but it's inevitably useless... and we never understand each other. The good news is that i have to eat lunch TOGETHER with everyone else EVERYDAY (how.... so very not like my nyc life....really) and i have to participate in conversation, and tell what i did yesterday, and listen, and understand and laugh at the right times... oh man. it's really hard. It's the most hard when i'm tired, and then it's not like i can zone out and still hear what's going on like i can in english.... but... you really really have to pay attention when you're not familiar with a language. I can understand so much better why my non-american friends had trouble speaking to me when we were working late at night on architecture projects at Cornell. 2am is no time to be trying to speak a non-native tongue... unless that is, you're charming foreign boys. :)

OKay. So, of those foreign boys, catching my eye right now, i've got a brazillian, a dutchman and a canadian. Mm. The canadian can speak italian, english , and the canadian version of french, and he's ridiculously attractive and friendly like a black labrador. And (AND!!!) he's an industrial designer....finally, I have things to talk about and a language to speak it in (THANK GOD, i'm not actually retarded... it just feels that way here). However, we will see how it all pans out, since right now we're all just acquaintances. Oh, and by the way, speaking English on a sidewalk in Italy is a major turn on to those ridiculously stylish italian boys. They think that all americans are just like the movies, and suddenly i'm an easy reese witherspoon, and i have four boys trailing behind me. ...Not like i mind, it's just something to be aware of, and use only as strategy in case i really want to get the attention of the fabulous Dolce&Gabbana Model standing next to me on the metro. :)

Part II will continue with physical pain and ridicule!! (a crazy woman included!)