Scenes from an Italian life*

Technology:

Student delegate: IT person, the internet is not working in our computer lab.

Italian IT person: Yes. The internet is not working.

Blank stares.

Silence.

Blank stares.

Comprehension:

Student 1: What is the professor drawing on the board?  Is that a graph?

Student 2:  It's lines and squiggles.

Student 1:  Oh.

*I have a fun life, all things considered.

I have returned to Italy for the fifth time.  This year finds me away from the sea, and instead on top of a hill which has 217 steps leading you up or down from the tram line into the city - preferably down, but wondrous things start to happen to your legs once you've gone up enough times.  I come home for lunch these days and make crazy huge salads with corn and ceci (chick peas), provolone chunks and pepperoni (red pepper) and shredded spanish coldcuts, and then I head off to work and class again.  

My job is teaching a sweet two year old boy how to speak and think in English.  I think he knows a lot more than he lets onto.  He surprises me every once and awhile by randomly starting to count in English or repeating oddball words like "kitchen" or "sticky."  I take what I can get, and then repeat them into infinity . . . in fun ways, of course.  We play with noisy cars and colored play-doh together - but they call it "pongo" here.  Or rather "PAAAWHN-go," as the Italians have a love affair with dragging out vowel sounds.

I'm supposed to be taking something like eight classes, working three times a week for one (possibly two) jobs, and writing a thesis in the next few months.  The amount of posts you find upon here will be a measure of how much thesis writing I'm actually getting gone.  But hey, blogs are communication, aren't they?  It's part of my studies . . ..

For some reason I cannot upload photos from my computer, so until that is fixed it will be a much more visually boring blog.  

It's good to be back in Rome.  B3 is back again.

Translation. Post Office: Post-a. Definition: Slow-a.

Dear Laura,

Thank you so much for the card you sent . . . hmm, let's check:



November 15.

I'm sorry that it was "Missent to the Phillipines." I had nothing to do with that. I've been looking out for this thing for months, and had given up on it ever ariving. Well, there's a blessing! Maybe the package you sent will show up in another two months. It being twice as thick and all.

Thank you for the Thanksgiving wishes!! I think I told you about my Thanksgiving two months ago, so I won't get into that here.

With lots of love from the third-world-country known as Italy,
Adrienne

Italian Hour

I arrive at the train station ten minutes early and approaching, see a train on the tracks. Thinking the 9.10 came early, I race down and find myself a seat. Five minutes later, still at the station, the conductor passes by looking at every seat and overhead shelf, asking if anyone has seen a black purse. Niente.

Next station, ten minutes later, the same scene is repeated. Niente ancora. We stand for another ten minutes. Trains are passing by on the over side at an alarming rate. Don't they run every half hour?

We get to the third stop. The conductor passes. A caribiniero (police officer, misspelled) passes through. Ten minutes pass. Same caribiniero passes through again. Wait. Wasn't he walking in the same direction he walked the last time? Did he walk out of the train and start at the bottom again?

Gypsy band members outside are showing their oversized, unvarnished instruments to curious stragglers. The giant cello has only three strings, and one of them is light green. That's not normal. Never noticed there were so many mountains in this particular area. Thank God the kid across from me, wearing a Dolce and Gabbana dog tag around his neck, has started listening to music I recognize. Under the Umbrella, eh eh eh?

My last analysis assignment for the year is now being used as journal material. The cell phone in the pocket of the man standing next to me just went off in my ear. I'm still estatically happy that the hot water and heat came back on last night. But maybe setting the temperature at 80 was a little extreme.

The train has started moving. As far as I know, they never found the purse.