The lessons I've learned while living abroad are so many and so vast that I feel compelled to share them on a monthly basis until they become too mundane.
1. There is no 'y' in the Italian alphabet. I work with half Americans and half Italians and started my job during August when all of the Italians were on vacation. When they came back, I'd been here for a month already and was starting to get involved on projects and sneak into meetings and things and they all couldn't figure out where I came from. "There's a girl in the office! Have you seen her?" I put my own name tag outside of my office door to help explain who I am and what I do and tried, though I wasn't entirely successful, to introduce myself to as many people in my office as possible. So flash forward to mid-October. I've been here just over 2 months and have daily conversations with my office mates about their love of Speedos, how I dress really fancy at work and most importantly, the art of Italian food. (We'll get to that in a minute) At this point, I know most of their names because I have a diagram of the office layout on my cork board and check each person's name before I wander about. Diego, Silvio, Pamela, Silvanna, etc. Yesterday, I sent a document to the printer and heard a great deal of buzz from that side of the office when I went to retrieve it. "Miss, who is this person 'Linnay Kaenan?" (I spelled that phonetically so you can see that my name is 'Linnay' here). "Seriously? I'm Lynne. Lynne is me. Mia chiama e Lynne." I guess we aren't as close as I thought we were.... sigh....
2. Italian Perceptions of Global Food. Diego is by far my biggest fan in my office. He's super sweet and LOVES to talk about Italian food. Tomatoes, pasta, bruschetta, different cuts of meat. He makes me maps of the best places to go out in our neighborhood and a map of where to drive in Tuscany and a map of where to go outside of Rome to "feel the open road." In our discussions, breakfast came up. Here is our breakfast discussion:
Diego: "What do you eat for breakfast in America? You don't eat cornettos, so what do you eat?"
Me: Cereal or bagels or eggs. We have bigger breakfast on the weekends with pancakes and sausage and eggs and things. But, before work, just something small and fast.
Diego: And this coffee cup of yours. It's huge! Do you know that your coffee has more caffeine in it than our espresso? Because it goes through the grounds more than one time.
This fact has been repeated to me by just about every Italian in my office. When I don't join them for their thrice-daily caffe break, because "I already had my coffee today" they remind me that if I had a caffe (read espresso), I would not get the jitters because the water only passes through the grounds once when making espresso. "Si, si, si."
3. Mistakes I've made with Italian phrases. I took an Italian class when we first got here and really thought that when you are leaving, when you want to say something like "Have a good day tomorrow" it was "buona giornale." That actually means "good newspaper." No wonder I got so many looks of "what the hell are you talking about?" So here I've been, telling people about good newspapers for a few months, looking like a complete fool. The correct phrase is "buona giornata." Which means "have a good tomorrow."
Gianni, not our gas station attendant but a guy at the front desk of my building, always yells "CiaoLin!" when I walk by. He is actually saying "Ciao, Lynne" but he says it so fast and with such fervor that it always comes out like one word. "Ciao, Gianni!" So, after the pleasantries of "CiaoLin!", Gianni yelled something after me as I was leaving. I thought he was saying "tra poco" which means "shortly" or "up next." I didn't understand. In reality, he was saying "tutto posto" which means "is everything ok?" The answer is always "si" but I sometimes still make the mistake of responding with "va bene" which means "It's good." I guess that works too..
4. My head has gotten unnaturally large. Now, let's not confuse this with the jokes about my freakishly large head as a child. To this day, "Big Head" is a name I fear I won't live down, but I digress. My Italian office mates have been way too friendly with their compliments and I fear that I may have a hard time going back to America and realizing that I'm not actually as beautiful as Heidi Klum. For example, Mena is the receptionist in my office and asked me yesterday if I was in beauty pageants in America. Haha, no... Franco and Diego in my office started clapping on Friday when I walked into the office in my fancy Zara blazer from Germany and my new Michael Kors loafers. "Brava, Linnay, you look Italian today!"
5. My American curling iron will work on a converter. This is perhaps the least exciting news, but it was a valuable lesson as my hair continues to look atrocious most days of the week and will likely be snatched up by birds soon to make their nest out of. By adding both heat and product, I hope to improve the situation but have obviously not met positive results. On the plus side, I found out that my beloved American curling iron will in fact not fry to bits when plugged into a converter. Great success.
Also, it is with great sadness that I learned today that Ella, the adorable dog who lives at our gas station/parking lot, was hit by a car this morning. When I came home, she had a cast on her hind paw and was being lead over to our car by one of the gas station attendants because they know that we keep treats in the glove box. I gave her about 10 of them, as my heart melted for the poor girl and the elder gas station attendant played "Oh Susannah" on his harmonica. And then I thought, this is really strange that we're having a little Oh Sussanah party in the parking lot.... He told me, I think, that he learned it for the Americans (read Tom and I). It made me smile and I gave them all a big air kiss. "Buona giornale!" I'm just kidding! I said the right thing... I think!
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