My first 24 hours in Italy

First of all La Spezia is molto, molto bello (very, very, beautiful)!! The Debellinis live in the middle of the city on the 10th floor in a very lovely apartment. It is grand and impressive as apartments go and pretty contemporary in its decorations, the most wonderful thing is that one entire wall in the living room area is a window with doors that go out to a balcony with a spectacular view! Let me attempt to explain the geography of this place a little bit; Downtown La Spezia is a city that is surrounded by mountains on three sides and an inlet of the Ligurian Sea on the other. My room is tiny but one ENTIRE wall is a window with a lovely view.

I discovered when I arrived here yesterday evening that I finally have the large, loud, and lively Italian family environment I've always wanted. It was Margarite's tenth compleanno (birthday) yesterday and I arrived to a party complete with guests, two cakes, frantic cooking in the kitchen, 4 ten year olds practicing a dance routine, and several very excited dogs.




Marcello, Grazia, La Nonna (grandmother), and Danna around the dinner table

 I have been in La Spezia for only about 24 hours now and I've already fully exhausted my Italian vocabulary. I REALLY wish I would have brought my Italian book that I had intentions of cracking open all summer long. I've found the motivation I was looking for! The family that I am staying with is very, very kind, despite the little that we can all communicate to one another. Marcello, the father, and Grazia, the mother, both understand most of what I say in English as long as I speak slowly and use fairly simple language, they talk back to me in English, Marcello a little better than Grazia. Marcello is one of those brilliant Europeans who understands and speaks Italian, English, French, and German! He invited me to watch Inglorious Bastands with him tonight but with a warning after it started that it is the original unedited version in all 4 of those previously mentioned languages plus Russian in various combinations of audio and subtitles. We've been watching about 20 minutes, there as been no English, and I have no idea what is going on! The girls, ages 8 and 10, understand me and will translate some, when they aren't being naughty (they are a bit spoiled and also were pretty attached to their old Au Pair and aren't sure they want a new one yet). Their nonno (grandfather) lives with them. He is kind and continously offers me sweets of various sorts and is also a wonderful cook but he speaks and understands absolutely NO ENGLISH which has been very interesting when we are alone in the afternoon together. Today at lunch he taught me the words for Fork (forcetta), spoon (cucchiaio), knife (lamo), and glass (biciere) and then sweetly tested me at dinner. I think I mostly passed.



One of my tasks today was to hang up the wash to dry on the balcony. I thought it was very pretty.

 They have a sweet Romanian girl, Danna, who cleans the house, is my age, and speaks Italian but only a few words in English. She won't let the language barrier get in the way of her friendly nature though and with the help of drawing a few pictures and lots of acting finally managed to ask me to go for a walk with her tonight. Our conversation on the walk consisted of a mess of Italian, English, and a little Spanish and lots of acting out of things only 1/2 of which I think either of us understood. On the plus side I'm going to be unstoppable at charades when I get home! She is very patient with my terrible ability to understand and speak in Italian and since it is not her first language she speaks simply and slowly for me. She wants to learn English very bad so I think I may have found a language exchange partner. She has insisted that I come meet her friends on Sunday. I think she said one of them speaks English but then again I'm not really sure.



view from my passeggiato con Danna on the dock of the harbor, we're looking back towards the city



Opposite view: From my bedroom window

 
I've only had one breakdown so far. It was on the stairs of the apartment complex tonight. I've been on the verge of tears all day. Tears are my natural reaction to continuous stress and frustration and lord knows that today has been full of both. I love it here I'm just so incredibly frusterated that I don't understand much and mostly nobody understands me. I want to learn Italian but occationally it would nice to just freeze everything and have a freaking conversation in English!! La Spezia doesn't seem to have a language school for foreigners nearby and it isn't big enough like Rome or Florance to have lots of fluent English speakers. So anyways, my breakdown mostly consisted of me crying hysterically for about 5 minutes and wishing I wouldn't have been so quick to leap into this adventure without a better basis in this language but I pulled myself together and the rest of the night has been better.

I have high hopes for my new budding friendship and language exchange with Danna!