Speaking Italian...Sort Of

Well, it’s happened, as everyone said it would. We have fallen in love with Italy.

I was a bit apprehensive at first, because before we came here, everybody kept telling us how wonderful Italy was and how much we were going to love it.

This made me nervous that the build-up and expectation would lead to disappointment. It’s like going to see a movie after everybody has told you it’s the best movie they’ve ever seen. It raises expectations to a level that can often be difficult to meet.

But I am happy to say that so far, Lake Como has been everything we’d hoped for. Once we got used to the bells, of course!

What I find so interesting is that it is difficult to put my finger on why it’s so wonderful here. Yes, the lake is beautiful, but so were the lakes in Norway. And certainly in France there were cute old towns with cobbled streets, but neither of those places have anywhere near the feel of Italy.

What has struck me so much about the Lake is the almost tropical lushness of the mountains surrounding it, and the dramatic steepness of those mountains. I mean, look at that picture above and tell me that this doesn’t remind you of Jurassic Park!

People here have been very kind as well. Willing to suffer through my terrible Italian, and either switch to English, or continue talking to me in Italian, but very slowly and with a lot of hand gestures! It’s like a non-stop game of charades!

I took a basic Italian class before I left, but I am limited to a few random words or very specific phrases. Still, I try to use what little I have whenever I get the chance.

I decided, when making a dinner reservation at another local restaurant, to try to do it in Italian. I looked up all the words carefully, and called. I got through my opening statement, asking if it was possible for me to make a resrvation for that evening, without a hitch. And the man who answered the phone was so kind as to even answer me in Italian.

And this is where the trouble began: I had absolutely no idea what he was saying to me. Not a clue. He might have said: "A reservation, what a wonderful idea!" Or he might have said: " The restaurant is closed." Or he might have said: "I have athlete’s foot and smell like cheese." It was all the same to me.

Undeterred, I decided to plow on, offering up the time of 8:30 for us to arrive. To this he said "Si". Si!!! I know what that means! Then he said something else. I have no idea what, but I decided that the best response would be to give him our name. To which he said "Si" again. Then there was a long pause, during which I felt a slight panic.

What do I say now?? I didn’t know how to say “See you tonight” I wasn’t even sure how Italians say good-bye over the telephone, especially since they say “Pronto” when they answer the phone, which I always thought meant quickly or hurry up. Maybe in that vein, the way to end a phone call was to say “giddy up” or “Hang up the phone!!!” or something. How was I to know?! So I waited, and finally I said “Grazie! Ciao!” which were the only other words I could think of at the moment.

Steve was very impressed with how it had sounded on my end, until I explained to him that I had no idea what the man had said to me, and that for all I knew I hadn’t even called the restaurant at all. It was very possible I had just made an appointment for a full body wax or a tooth extraction.

It was not until we arrived at the restaurant that I realized what the man had probably been saying, which was that we didn’t need a reservation, since, apart from one table of two we were the only people there.

The menu at this place was very similar to the other restaurant we went to in the area: a lot of fish and a couple of pastas and rice. Steve had a Bolognese and I decided to try their version of fish and rice. Food in this part of Italy definitely seems to be less about pizza, pasta and meat and all about fish and rice.

The food was nowhere near as good here as it was at the other restaurant, but the desserts were wonderful: a tiramisu with a kind of doughy, bready layer instead of ladyfingers, and a cold nougatty semmifreddo, which tasted kind of like a whipped and frosty marshmallow fluff with nuts. Yum…

Wine for Already Being in Love with Italy

So I have only four more lessons in which to become fluent in Italian in preparation for our visit there in September.

I think there might be a slight flaw in my plan, but no matter. I have already begun to fall hopelessly in love with Italy, and I haven't even been there yet.

Below, a list of the reasons why:

Reason #1: The language. No matter that I still can basically only say "The cat is white", "My name is Jocelyn" and "I am married" (I am making sure Steve learns how to say that last one, too), anything that is said in Italian sounds like the most beautiful, musical and romantic phrase ever uttered.

Reason #2: The attitude. Those Italians really seem to know how to enjoy themselves. Last I heard, they get 650 vacation days a year, they nap from 2-5 every day and their dinners last about 4 hours. The teacher of my Italian class, Alessia (beautiful name, yes?), was telling us that Italians, before they have children will, on a Saturday night, go out for dinner at about 10pm, after which they will go to a bar or dance club until 5 or 6am, at which point they will go to a cafe, have a cappuccino and a brioche before going home where they will sleep until being woken up at 1 or 2 for lunch with Mama and the rest of their immediate family.

Reason #3: The Maserati. Now I am not a car person ordinarily, and I know next to nothing about them, but even I can say with authority that the Maserati is a beautiful car.

Reason #4: Tiramisu, pizza, gnocci, parmesan, salumi, prosciutto, biscotti, spaghetti, lasagna, cafe, bucatini, bolognese, pesto...need I say more?

Reason #5: Il Vino. Of course...the wine. With all that wonderful food, you need some wonderful wine: Prosecco, moscato, vermentino, sangiovese, chianti, vin santo, and on and on and on.

One of the wines I discovered in the course of my recent wine studies was a Sella & Mosca Cannonau di Sardegna Riserva. I can't remember, to be honest, if it was the 2003 or 2005 vintage I tasted, but I think it might have been the 2003.

We tend to think more about the Italian wines coming out of Tuscany and Piedmont, but Sardinia is producing a lot of delicious wines, as is Sicily. Cannonau is the Italian word for the Grenache of France and the Garnacha of Spain, and this wine was full of the flavors of rich black and red berries, earth, spice and wood.

It's a powerful wine so will go well with food, though I was also quite happy sipping it by itself before my food arrived, when I savored it alongside a simple plate of sharp, crumbly Italian cheeses, raisin bread, dried fruits and nuts.