Life is a foreign language; all men mispronounce it.

My Italian is coming along slowly. Very slowly. It’s there, because I understand things more often than I did when I got here, reading it is pretty good as well, but speaking it, that’s another story.

Until Friday.

I had a conversation in Italian! WOOOO! This was exciting for me because I was getting annoyed because after being here 2 months it felt like I wasn’t progressing. So on Friday, I was going into this shop to get something for my mom (awesome Christmas surprise… maybe) but they didn’t have it in the window like it was on Wednesday. Taking a chance, I went up to the woman who worked there and in Italian, told her I didn’t speak very well, but I wanted to know what happened to the ________ that was in the window the other day. She told me they were sold out.

I would have been sad because the gift is awesome and I’m sure my mom would love it, but any sadness I should have felt was gone because I successfully communicated in Italian :D

I’m not saying what the gift was just in case I find it somewhere else.

But, this little communication gave me the confidence to start talking more in Italian no matter if I make mistakes. I usually do and realize it as soon as I walk away. Oh well, hills and valleys kids, it’s all hills and valley’s.

When I got home later I giddily told my story to everyone and they were proud. Hooray… I may actually have a handle on this language before I finish here.

In other news…

On Saturday night people ate dead birds at our house… while I have taken to trying almost everything once, the dead birds will not be tried (they still look like birds!). Although I did give pheasant a chance, tastes like chicken actually. As for polenta… I had no idea what I was missing up until this point in my life.

Also on Saturday night, I went out with Christian and his friends. One of his friends is apparently related (cousin’s I think) to the person who plays violin in the singer Shaggy’s band. Upon hearing this I thought “Shaggy requires a violinists?” Then I thoughts “does Shaggy still tour?” I know you’re all jealous… I would be too if it were the year 2000 and that stupid “It wasn’t me song” wasn’t already played to death.

And apparently I’m a better bowler than I thought. We played on Saturday night at 2am and I was better than I remembered, I didn’t break 100 but I got a spare, and I think that’s more than I could say for my bowling prowess in Canada.