ITALIAN CLASS, Portland, Maine – “Well, Stew, did that adventure have a happy ending?” Prof Sandro of Sardina wants to know. I’ve told my story (in Italian) and I’m almost off the hook. One more word from me and it is the next person’s turn in the white hot spot light. All eyes still on me, I think: I can do this. A simple “Yes” would work fine. But I feel expansive and try to geld that lily and say “eventualmente” Felt right at the time, but long suffering Sandro shook his head and muttered “False Friend.” By complete accident, I knew what he meant.
We were in Italy and all our good intentioned dictionaries were not. We ducked into the book store on the main drag in Castiglion del Lago. They say Italian to English. We say English to Italian. Pot-ate-o / Pot-ah-toe. it all comes out in the same wash, no? No. Almost, but still no. Once I saw the difference I realized this could be a very good thing.
First, lets get one thing right out on the table: Italian is very sexy mistress. She has you feeling on top of the world one moment. And the next moment, she’s disgustedly stamping out her cigarette. On your face. It happens to everyone. You are so dazzled by the romance and the soft vowels. It seems almost too easy. Pizza, spaghetti, ciao, buon viaggio, piano, volcano. It’s hardly Mandarin Chinese or Arabic. We’re using the same alphabet and we’ve heard so much Italian in music and the arts that it feels comfortable, approachable. That’s where we get complacent and let down our guard. And start making up words on the fly. If rapidamente is rapidly (which it is) then surely eventualmente is eventually. But therein lies the rub. Eventualmente cruelly IS an Italian word. It just doesn’t mean what we (ok, what I ) think it means. Prima or poi would have been a better answer if I had to go past the simple answer of Yes, Sandro.
Unlike any dictionary I’ve ever used this Italian one (who knows, maybe they all do) highlights all these bad boys. And trust me there is a “Nota” or a “False Friend” on almost every one of the 600 pages here. Accident (accidente) really means incident (incidente)? And vice versa, for good measure. In what world would that happen? Ah, but it does and “Quando a Roma” we need to step up to that ancient plate and do it the way the Romans would want us to. Wonderful dictionary. Highly recommend picking one up the next time you are in Italy. Whole new perspective. I’m sure Italians look at these FF’s and throw up their hands and say, those crazy English speaking people. THEY’VE got it all backwards. Just like we do going the other way. Allora, relax and enjoy the ride. False Friends is better than no friends at all.
See you in Italy,
Stew
CITTA DI CASTELLO, Umbria– It was a dramatic kind of day and night. Of course I enhanced the photo “a bit” but omg, we had never been to this lovely city and we’d been wildly turned around on mountain roads getting here. Seemed easy enough. Next time. When the thunder and lightning started, we were just coming out of a Signorelli exhibit. We’d been wandering through that castello for a couple hours and were on the far, far side of town. “Umbrella? I thought YOU had the umbrella!” we both said in unison. Shoot. Must be in the car. ooOK. But, a tiny, further “degree of difficulty” as they say in Olympic diving, was this: We didn’t know which way to run. 
Or, maybe you could say we knew where the car was but we didn’t know where WE were-relative to it. We had to duck into a doorway (luckily, doorway to an aces gelateria) and show a lady there a photo I had taken of the city gates that we walked thru next to where we’d parked. THEN we could start to run. At least at that point we were running the right direction. Memory. Must remember to use it sometime. 
PANICALE & NEW ENGLAND¬–-It is interesting how things work out. In ways you never expect. James and Elizabeth from nearby NH wrote us here awhile ago and we went back and forth the way we do in email. As often happens when the subject is Italy, it seemed we had a lot in common and so naturally we were happy to find our spring trips overlapping. We found them in person at Aldo’s almost as soon as we rolled into town. Just one more reason to love life in a small Umbrian town. 
