“They’re not trying to kill us, it’s just cultural”.

We did it.
We survived even though at times we thought our week of wrong-side-of-the-road driving would never end and even managed to navigate our way through Florence, tiny Italian country roads and huge scary three lane Autostradas.
Leaving Perugia the day before Christmas Eve, we packed up and headed off to Florence where we traded our much loved yet sometimes frustrating public transport for something a little more independent.
Originally we had hired a zippy little Ford Festiva to see us around our week long tour of Il Chianti in Tuscany where we hired a villa with some visiting friends for the week.
Instead the extremely stoic Hertz rent-a-car people informed us we would have to settle for the newest, biggest merc instead.
It sounds like a good thing, right?
But it turns out size really does matter on those tiny winding Italian roads.
Still, we persevered with our beast of a vehicle and after overcoming a natural urge to sideswipe parked cars (thanks to Alex’s yells of “GET OVER GET OVER”), we eventually got used to driving our very own diesel guzzling luxury truck through the battlefield that passes for the Italian road network.
At times it was a wild ride as we swerved to avoid the Italian drivers (who drive WITHOUT using the rearview mirror). We looked on with fear (and a little admiration) as they traveled 80 kilometres an hour on tiny stomach churning village roads, cutting corners and overtaking on blind turns. And we ignored our fellow drivers as they constantly tailgated us, chanting to ourselves that they weren’t being overly aggressive – “It’s just cultural, everyone drives 50cm away from the car in front here”.
We even made it out onto the dreaded Autostrada where we managed to tip 140 k/h and still feel like we were driving at a snails pace as the smallest Fiats and the latest European models hooned past us.
Driving Italian-style is fun, but Italians also have their own flair when it comes to parking. Kids run riot in car parks so it’s up to the drivers not to run them over as parents think nothing of walking a five-year-old (or infirm nonna) behind a reversing car.
San Gimignano is a gorgeous Tuscan hill town, but all we remember from this trip was returning to the car to find our next door neighbour had parked so close (about five millimetres!) Mantha was forced to climb across the passenger seat.
When it comes to Siena too, we now forget its elegant sloping Campo and elaborate Duomo in favour of the crazy underground car park where we scored the last space, which required us to gun the merc up a curb and almost straight into a brick wall with the result that we ended up parking half on and half off the footpath. We would never have thought it legal, but it was a marked out spot next to three other cars parked in a similar fashion.
Driving in Italy is not for the faint hearted, but we’d both definitely do it again, although maybe not anywhere near Napoli where apparently even other Italians won’t risk it.

Showing off in Rome … well sort of

It was supposed to be our moment to shine.
We were finally getting to demonstrate to someone, who we weren’t related to, just how well we knew the Eternal City.
Feeling confident about showing Alex’s good friends from Sydney - Punk and Keshev - a great first day in Italy and excited to see them, we headed to Rome.
We met at their hotel and after joyous greetings, took on our assumed roles of tour guides, albeit without the microphone headsets or bright red oversized flower to lead the way.
It was Keshev’s first trip to Italy so we made a beeline for the Fontana di Trevi.
Clearly quite a few other visitors to Rome had the same idea.
As we rounded the corner to the famous fountain we could barely make it out for the thousands of tourists packed onto the stairs and piazza in front.
We’d just finished telling our friends they’d picked an excellent time to come to Rome because November and early December are the quietest of the year.
Ahhh, the crowds must be here because of the long weekend, we could only shrug and smile weakly.
Still, we’re insistent travelers and we all somehow managed to elbow our way to the front of the fountain, avoid getting smeared with some precariously gripped gelatos, toss in a couple of coins and snap some photos.
Next it was around the corner and across the road to the Pantheon, ancient Rome’s best preserved building.
Not as packed with tourists as our last stop, the Pantheon was accessible, but unfortunately the winter refurbishments meant the draw card tomb of Raphael was out of bounds due to some heavy duty scaffolding and shade cloth.
No matter, we marveled at the nine metre oculus in the roof before it was time to check out one of Rome’s most lively sights, Piazza Navona.
Even though a long weekend Feast of the Immaculate Conception winter carnival, complete with massive merry-go-round and hundreds of screaming children, meant we could barely see the piazzas three stunning fountains, our friends still appeared to be enjoying the adventure.
But by the time we got to our next sight, Campo De’ Fiori, with its trendy bars and picturesque flower markets, the sky was definitely looking a little grey.
We reassured one another that our decision to leave our umbrellas and jackets back at Punk and Keshev’s hotel was the right one.
After all, the morning weatherman, who we’d watched on TV about five hours earlier before leaving Perugia, had told us there was no chance of rain and the mercury would tip an uncharacteristically balmy 17 degrees.
Alas by the time we were admiring the elegant Piazza Farnese no one could deny the weather had drastically changed.
It was cold, it was raining and advising Keshev to go out sightseeing in short-sleeves had been a mistake.
On the bright side, we were all freezing and wet together and even better, it was midday, we were on holidays and there were dozens of bars just metres away.
As we sat drinking beers and gossiping, the only downside to our day in Rome so far was that the awning we were sitting under turned out to be less than water tight.
It was going to take more than a bit of rain and some unexpected crowds to ruin our inaugural tour of Roma.
After enjoying a couple of very damp Peronis and waiting in vain for the rain to stop or die down, we decided to set off on the twenty minute walk to the charming pizzeria we’d expertly selected for lunch.
Ignoring the fact that we were all completely soaked and freezing and after a slight directional hiccup, which added an extra ten minutes to our rain soaked journey, we finally arrived, hungry and ready, at the restaurant.
Unfortunately the pizzeria wasn’t exactly ready for us, in fact it was shut.
Luckily plan B swung into action and we headed for “a great little enoteca” near the Spanish Steps, and not too far from where we now were.
Our hearts sank when we finally arrived and found the bar at the front of the restaurant was standing space only.
Pushing our way through the bar we found the maitre d and, to our surprise and delight, were seated immediately.
After a delicious late lunch during which we all had time to warm up and dry off it came time to pay the bill.
Aiming to enlighten and entertain and, all right, show off a bit, Alex was telling our friends that it is illegal for any commercial establishment not to issue a customer with a receipt, or scrontino.
It is also illegal for a customer to leave any commercial premises without taking their scrontino.
With that we paid, she pocketed the bill and we left.
With a spring in our step, everyone’s clothes almost dry and our bellies full, we almost felt like Rome locals until the waiter chased us down the street and shouted to us in English he needed the scrontino back.
And just when we thought we knew how things worked in Italy…..

La bella figura

Italians love fashion, but they often - how do we say this – don’t look all that fashionable.
Of course it’s probably our “stranieri” eyes that fail the fashion test.
After all, we’ve lost count of the number of times we’ve been disapprovingly looked up and down by discerning Italians.
And many of them really are incredibly discerning with both men and women often donning head-swiveling outfits that mix sophistication and cutting edge fashion and they usually just throw them on for the evening passagiatta.

Still, there remains some common classic Italian fashion choices that seem just a little strange to us – especially when they come from a nation that reminds the world of their fashion credentials at every turn.

1. The Italian preoccupation with colour - especially orange, but extending to bright green, bright blue, iridescent purple and various other busy multi-coloured patterns.
Now we love a bit of colour as much as the next ragazze, but have to draw the line at the guy we saw on Corso Vanucci last week who chose to team orange trousers with a green skivvie, an orange vest and a red jacket.
And just this morning we had to stop and gawk at a guy running along the same street. At first we thought he must be a tourist since it’s so very un-Italian to move at any pace faster than a stroll, but his fashion choice of red trousers, a white and red long sleeved top and red vest, convinced us he couldn’t be anything but Italian.
In our experience, it’s mainly the men who go in for the colourful look, but we’ve also seen some brave women give it a go too – a purple fur coat anyone?

2. At the risk of sounding like complete wowsers, “slutty” is probably the best way to describe another strong Italian trend.
The fact that children’s television presenters show more cleavage than most people do on a Saturday night probably has something to do with Italian women’s love of flaunting the flesh. Even though it’s winter outside, you could put money on the number of belt-like mini skirts and plunging necklines that will be out on the old town tonight. Oh, and it’s Monday.

3. The jeans tucked into boots trend.
There’s probably one ubiquitous trend here in Italy every season and this time around it’s the ole jeans tucked into boots look.
We are, of course, familiar with this fashion from back home, where it was popular (we both on occasion went out with jeans tucked into boots).
But describing this look as merely popular is a drastic understatement in Italy where everyone - from the 11-year-old coming home on the school bus to the 60-year-old mama slamming down her café macchiato - wears jeans tucked into boots ….. ahhh …..all the time. It’s so popular that it’s actually more difficult to find someone who isn’t wearing their jeans tucked into boots.

4. Designer labels.
It’s no surprise that Italians spend gazillions on designer labels every year. They are obsessed with Dolce and Gabbana, Gucci, Pucci, Miu Miu, Louis Vuitton and Chanel. But they also adore Puma and Adidas and snap up everything with a label from sunglasses and trainers to watches, caps, jeans and jackets no matter how “labeled” they are.

5. The Italian devotion to the seasons.
Italians stop wearing short sleeves at the end of August. They start wearing jumpers in October and huge coats make an appearance on November 1. We can only assume that Italians are brought up to have an incredible level of self-discipline because not a single one reverted to short sleeves despite unseasonably sweltering weather that persisted all the way into November this year.
We can only surmise that if they were to give in and start dressing according to the actual weather they might not get as much wear out of their seasonal wardrobes, which, it appears from the constant turnaround of styles in the clothes shops, they must update every year.

Tanti Auguri Alex

Cake for breakfast, cake for dinner and cake for tea.
If you’re still left wondering whose birthday that describes then you've obviously never met Alex.
To mark Alex's entry into the dirty 30s, we headed off to Italy's sophisticated north for a dose well.... wouldn't you know it ..... chocolate.
It doesn't matter that we already live in Perugia - Italy's capital city of chocolate - we also chose to spend our leisure time living it up in Italy's other premier chocotown - Turin.
Turin, or Torino as it’s also known, has had an amazing facelift in honour of the Winter Olympics earlier this year and as a result is now Italy's undisputed tourist friendly city (even better than Rome, Florence and Venice!).
Apparently people come here because they want to see the Shroud of Turin, but we came here because it is the home of the chocolate-hazelnut flavour marriage (famously commodified by Ferrero in Nutella), but also available for sampling in any one of hundreds of authentic Torinese cafes serving an amazing hot chocolate and hazelnut drink.
It's also the birthplace of icecream on a stick - called Il Penguino, which was invented in a Torinese cafe which still serves them.
In any case, there was no better place for Alex to spend her milestone 30th birthday.
And yes, it started with cake - a chocolate tart to be exact - followed by a custard filled doughnut (Italian style, none of that revolting American chain rubbish of course) for breakfast.
After that, the birthday gal (with sister in tow) headed off for some sightseeing - visiting the church housing the famous shroud (it’s not on display, so we had to take their word for it that it was in fact there), an exhibition of Rembrandt drawings and then the Palazzo Reale (for an hour long tour in ITALIAN!!).
Lunch was a French-inspired crepe accompanied by two pints of beer and followed by a very special white chocolate buona bar (an Italian staple).
Tonight, she's off to tuck into a seafood dinner, followed by pannacotta (I’m sure you’ve all had one, but did you know it was invented in Turin!)
So, chocolate cake, bombolone (that's Italian for doughnut), crepes, beer, chocolate bars, seafood and pannacotta. That's what I call a very Alex birthday.
Tanti Auguri!

Rolling mauls, rucks and scrums, Italian style

It started as a bit of a what-if game.
Alex got a text at 7am from Jason saying the Wallabies were playing Italy in Rome that afternoon.
She went back to sleep.
But we both kept thinking, well…. what-if we actually went to Rome today?
What-if there was a train?
What-if there were tickets?
What-if we could find the stadium?
What-if we went and there were actually people who turned up to a rugby game in Italy?

To hell with it, we thought as we made a mad dash for the 11.15 am train from Perugia (got ready in about ten minutes – a new record for us) and two-and-a-half hours later, rolled into Roma Termini.
No time for lunch or to check out Italy’s biggest Zara store.
No time to do anything, except run for the metro and the Flaminio metro stop (about 15 minutes from Termini).
Once on the metro, we realized the game was due to begin in an hour and a) we didn’t have tickets, b) didn’t know if it was sold out, c) saw loads and loads of Aussies, Italians and assorted English speakers on their way to the stadio (mysteriously, no Americans).
Thanks to a brief internet search about 15 minutes before we ran for the bus (to get us to the train station in Perugia), an old website page (featuring an Italy-England game from 2001) had given us moderately clear directions to the ground.
Metro to Flaminio, Tram number two to the stadium (Alex even saw a guy she went to uni with on the tram, although they both ignored each other!).
Turns out we’d actually almost been there before.
The stadium is just 500 metres from Rome’s Parca Della Musica where Manth had spent two days at the Rome Film Festival (Well, one day had been spent at the actual festival and the other was devoted to a prolonged negotiation with Italian bureaucracy in an ultimately successful attempt to organize accreditation).
So, we made it to the stadium and now just had to find tickets.
While there were lots of people at the ground, clearly Rugby isn’t THAT popular because there were dozens of scalpers touting their wares as soon as we stepped off the number two tram.
Around the corner, there was also an official ticket office with tickets still available.
After running the gauntlet through a group of extremely insistent, nay aggressive, scalpers, we purchased our tickets (legally) with 15 minutes to spare before kick off.
€25 a pop, on the try line and surrounded by Italian fans.
At first we were a little worried.
There were A LOT of Italians surrounding us, and we’ve heard the stories about how “passionate” they can get about sport.
But that’s “calcio” - the world game - and ummmm, this was Rugby - played well by three nations and ahhh, dare we say, moderately well by those in Europe.
As it turns out, we, and the handful of random Aussies sitting within a ten row radius of us, had nothing to worry about.
These were the best behaved Italians we’ve ever seen.
Almost overwhelmingly male, the Italian fans had donned the Italian Rugby uniform (maybe this was the uniform in Australia too, when it was still known as the gentlemen’s game). Collared business shirts, blazers, dress trousers, shining shoes and TIES. They were all wearing ties.
Sure they kept it lively by shouting and cheering.
But it was all so “un Italian” no one stood up and got in the way, no one invaded our personal space, no one even really gesticulated in a threatening way.
It was also unlike other Rugby games.
We also didn’t see a single person drinking a beer (or eating a TG Milner meat pie for that matter), although there were dozens of gelatos getting the once over (don’t think we’ll ever get used to middle aged men proudly licking ice creams at any time of the day or night).
Turns out they were actually selling beer.
It was just that no one was buying and we found out why when Alex went to score us a couple of Peronis only to find out they were flogging them for €5 a pop (for a can). That’s something like $AUS 8 each. Way out of our price range so it was a dry match for us too.
The good news was that Australia won the game, albeit unconvincingly.
Still, we had fun (and provided entertainment to our Italian neighbours) by screaming our support to Lottie, Matty and the other ones. We even got a laugh from the Italian guys in front of us when Matty scored a try and we shouted that we still loved him even though he’d left his wife and kids for a Jeans West model.
The game ended and it was time to head back to Perugia, where we arrived tired and hungry at 10.30pm after a three hour train trip.
Thank god the pizzerias don’t shut till 11pm!

How about this idea for a TV show.

Marty the monster meets bikini babes who then morph into Deal or No Deal contestants and engage in a battle to woo a very ugly man all set on an island in the Caribbean where each famous person is voted off every week with the survivors then entering a talent show where they have to dance with other celebrities while wearing clothes that are three sizes too small for them, while the scantily clad losers end up in a circus smoking lots of cigarettes before they all break into song, change into ever more revealing outfits before touting a revolutionary mattress and pillow set during the ad break.
Welcome to the weird and wacky world of Italian TV.
Here, anything goes, even at four pm in the afternoon.
A lot has been written about the peculiarity of Italian viewing habits and with good reason.
At any time of the day or night one can turn on the television and find a reality TV show full of Italian celebrities.
Just in the past month we’ve seen Isola Famosa, Survivor, Wild West, Dancing with the Stars and Celebrity Circus.
Then there’s competitive reality TV involving regular people.
There’s dozens of programs and all of them are almost unbelievably weird.
Sometimes at the start they seem completely regular.
But just as Deal or No Deal or Who Wants to Be A Millionaire is heating up, the host pauses, stands up, and then tells the contestant they will have to live in a house with seven other people for eight weeks.
Alternatively the host will pause, stand up and introduce an attractive scanitly-clad woman (whose age can range from a rather icky 16 to a deeply disturbing 50-something) who then performs a song and dance routine that may or may not feature Marty the Monster and is completely at odds with whatever has been happening in the half an hour previous.
Sundays are particularly entertaining with all the major channels rolling out a “Buona Domenica” or “Good Sunday” show.
But if you’re picturing an hour or so of quiet reflection with occasional crosses to a church service somewhere, well, you’re wrong.
“Buona Dominica” goes for hours…. it’s on every time we switch on the TV …. and opens with a big razzle dazzle song and dance act involving the main players (there’s about six hosts), before morphing into a truly bizarre dating show where (it has to be said) unattractive audience members are called onstage to do odd things to the programs male host (whose girlfriend is also one of the hosts).
As an example, last Sunday we saw a segment where the male host was hooked up to a heart rate monitor and the selected audience members had to stand behind him and touch him anyway they wanted (including rubbing their hands all over him) in order to get his heart rate up.
The show then segued into a very raunchy and dramatic dance segment where a woman wearing not much more than a black bikini gyrated to a Prince song.
Back from the ad-break and the hosts interviewed a weeping mother whose daughter had been murdered three years ago and her killer had yet to go to jail.
And we thought we had short attention spans.

Andiamo in Palestra

Yes, yes, you read it right.
We have indeed joined the local gym, or palestra, as such places are known here in Italy.
But before you come over all Fitness First and start picturing rows of sweaty Italians slogging it out on cross trainers, bikes and treadies; or pushing themselves to the limit in Boxing, Pump or Spin classes, let us put your mind at ease.
Olympic Palestra, as our little slice of fitness heaven is known, bears no resemblance to those McDonalds’ of gyms.
There are no nifty little swipe cards to get you in.
There’s no welcome pack with towel and water bottle.
In fact, there’s not even a bubbler to re-fill one’s water bottle.
And there was no sitting down with some pimply 21-year-old receptionist to work out one’s “fitness aims and objectives” (we thanked the almighty for that small mercy).
There are, quite simply, two bikes, one (evil) step machine, one very odd bum slimmer machine (kind of similar to a cross trainer except one moves ones feet side to side instead of up and down) and one treadmill.
That’s right folks, one treadie.
We should also mention that there are loads of weight machines and free weights as well as an upstairs area (where the taller of us have to duck when walking around) with some more, albeit circa 1985, free weight equipment.
Another interesting thing about Olympic Palestra is its size.
In the Italian tradition of championing the little guy (as seen in Italy’s devotion to artisanal shops, local butchers, fishmongers and fruttivendolos, instead of supermarkets) Olympic Palestra is a fraction the size of what we’re used to.
It could be fitted inside the group fitness area at North Sydney Fitness First about six times over.
We’re not sure how, but it does somehow manage to have its own group fitness area, which only fits about six people and makes for some “interesting” classes.
Best of all though is that Olympic Palestra is on our street about 200 metres from our flat, so we have no excuse not to go (those of you who knew where we lived in relation to North Sydney FF will not be surprised).
Okay, down to business.
We joined our Perugia gym in an attempt to reverse some of the kilograms of fun we’ve had since we left home and to make sure they don’t multiply.
So far, after a week and a day, it’s had no effect on the scales (weighed ourselves yesterday to find the kaygees are still attached), but it has made us feel better.
It’s also, quite surprisingly, turned out to be a great cultural adventure.
You see, Italians have a very different attitude to the gym, and exercise in general, than most Australians do.
Even before the temperature dropped to a high of seven degrees, one never saw Italians out in the fresh air doing vigorous exercise.
Sure they love the passeggi'ata, or the promenading stroll up and down the main street while holding a gelato at almost any time of day.
But you just don’t see power walkers or joggers.
Same goes for the gym.
When it’s packed, most of the goers are there, spending five minutes on the bike, then the cross trainer then the treadie. They then spend another hour-and-a-half gossiping as they move from weight machine to weight machine.
Of course there are some Italians who are there to train.
But it’s sometimes hard to tell the difference.
They all want to use the equipment exactly when they want to use the equipment.
There’s no time restrictions posted, so we’ve just started using the stuff for a moderate period of time each session, say 20 or 30 minutes a go.
But Italians, many of whom use the equipment for the same kind of times, don’t like to wait.
As a result they take the type of action we’ve NEVER seen before.
Basically, they have no compunction about tapping you on the shoulder as you are huffing and puffing along on the treadmill or bike, and saying, “Quanto tempo?” or “How long have you got to go?”
Or they stand about five centimeters from you and wait and wait and wait.
The first time it happened Mantha nearly fell off the treadmill before almost smacking the guy in the mouth.
But it pretty much occurs every day now and we’re used to it.
It’s not personal, it’s just the Italian way.
And it makes for a fun-filled action-packed gym session, which actually fly by with all the entertainment on offer.

Ps. Olympic Palestra is the only gym we’ve ever seen with numerous prominently displayed Vietato Fumare or No Smoking signs.

Italian for beginners

The first thing to remember about the Italian language is that it has two modes of address for the second person singular – the informal “tu” and the formal “Lei”.
To complicate matters. “Lei” can also be used for the third person feminine singular, although when being used in this mode it is represented with a lowercase “l” as in “lei”, but is conjugated in the same way. So too, “lui” – the third person singular masculine – keeps the same conjugation as “Lei” and “lei”, but only in the present tense.
If you hadn’t already noticed, Italian can be complicated.
The language – which officially became known as Italian in 1870 – is actually based on Tuscan and Umbrian Italian with a good dose of other regions’ dialects thrown in for good measure. Perugia is supposed to be an excellent place to learn Italian because the Perugina dialect is very close to the national lingua which means you get practice.
So, apart from its complicated history and complex conjugation, learning Italian is fun because the University Per Stranieri – the University for Foreigners – or literally The University for Strangers - is fun, or at least it’s interesting.
Stranieri, as the University is endearingly known around town, runs courses in Italian.
It also does an excellent sideline in Italian bureaucracy 101.
Successfully enrolling requires a mix of planning, energy and tenacity, a dash of assertiveness, a pinch of charm and a dollop of luck ….. and that’s even before you’ve started the never ending schlepping to the bank, the segretariat and the questura (police station) - if you want to stay in Italy legally.
Once you’ve got your marco de bollo – that’s the adorable postage stamp-like tax payment receipt – affixed to your enrollment form and been handed a timetable, it’s finally time to start class.
We either had the good fortune or made the mistake of enrolling in a one month Stranieri class, which we later found out meant three months of work was crammed into one month.
We declined to sit the entry examination and therefore should have proceeded into the Beginners A1 class.
We figured a refresher in “Mi chiamo….” Or “My name is….” wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
Wrong!
Even though the rules clearly state we should have been in Beginners A1, we somehow ended up in Beginners A2 (we think the woman who enrolled us in the segretariat thought she was doing us a favour, and well, maybe she was but then again ….. well we’re not entirely convinced!)
So off we go to Beginners A2.
Once there we find we are the only native English speakers (not a bad thing we think) surrounded by loads of Spaniards, a couple of Belgiums, a few Germans, a chick from the Czech Republic and a Japanese guy who is studying to become a priest.
Most of the Europeans are what’s called Erasmus students – which means they are studying at Perugia’s normal Italian university (they have one too) on a European Union scholarship. Perugia has lots of these Erasmus students.
Our teachers are Francesca – for conversation and pronunciation – and Antonella for grammar.
We spend our first week reviewing the present tense and then move onto the passata prossima, or the recent past. The next week we’re learning the future, a day later it’s time for direct object pronouns and then we are onto the passata indirecto or the indirect past – for which there are a long list of terms and conditions to learn about when it’s appropriate to use.
Sandwiched in between these large chunks of grammar are loads of new vocabulary as well as about a thousand irregular verbs and lists to learn on their conjugations. There are also personal pronouns as well as other adjectives that can be conjugated similarly to personal pronouns but are in fact not pronouns.
You get the picture. We covered a load of new material in four weeks.
Now, maybe we’re naïve (or just delusional), but we’ve both done our fair share of Beginners’ Italian classes.
Italian was not brand new to us.
It was, however, new to almost all our European classmates.
Why then were they able to speak it so much better and with oh-so-much-more ease than us.
Well, here’s the answer as explained to Alex by Julian (or shoolien) from Belgium.
“Yeah, I know I should probably be doing more study, but it’s really all just too easy. If I don’t know a word I just add an “o” or an “a” to the French word and it’s almost always right.”
It took Alex about a week to recover from that little bombshell.
So there you have it. Even after busting our guts with hours of extra study everyday, attempts to memorise verbs and vocab, we’re never going to be able to simply add as “o” or an “a” to words in our native tongue and get the Italian.
To be honest Julian’s secret made us feel a whole lot better about our failure to keep up with the class.
Having said that, we did have a snicker when one of our teachers asked if anyone in our class liked Italian desserts such as tiramisu.
Overwhelmingly the answer was: “What, is tiramisu Italian?”
Who are these people?

ps. it probably doesn't help our case to admit we usually study with a verb book in one hand and a Peroni in another. Is that bad?

Ciao Ragazze

Apparently Perugia is under threat.
From what you may ask, as we did.
Well, according to Antonella, our Italian grammar teacher, too many foreign girls are getting engaged to Italian boys.
This is why there are so many local girls who don’t have boyfriends, she continues seriously.
But why can’t the Italian girls take up with the foreign boys, surely that would be a solution? we think.
Oh no, it’s too hard for the girls, Antonella says.
The “stranieri” culture is too different. They only want to be with Italian boys, with Perugini boys actually, she says.

Italians have made being a closed society into a social phenomenon.
Here, it’s always your family first, your contrada (or neighborhood) second, your town third, you region fourth and Italy fifth.
It’s an attitude that can rear its head in some unexpected and sometimes ugly ways.
The often violent pushing and shoving to get on a bus or train first; the shameless queue jumping or the refusal to yield to anyone when walking down the street (ie, if there’s a group of five Italians they will walk five abreast and force all other comers onto the road and often into the path of oncoming traffic!)

Having said that, Perugia is actually a relatively open city.
With more than 10,000 students (both Italian and foreign) here at any one time, it’s in the best interests of the shop keepers, café owners and bartenders to serve us.
But they don’t all have to be welcoming.
Take the morning cappuccino.
We started going to “our” bar, at the foot of our street and on the way to Stranieri about a month ago.
For the first week-and-a-half we got greeted with a gruff “Dica Singorina” literally “Tell me Miss” (as in tell me what you want).
Then one day, quite miraculously, after a week-and-a-half of fronting up every day and asking for the same thing, our barista greeted us with “Ciao Ragazze” literally (Ciao girls) and prepared our usual (due cappuccini) with no order necessary.
She’s even started smiling at us now.
Who knows, maybe this time next month we would have graduated to “Come stai?”