Quick Follow-up

Ciao!

Today's blog probably won't be as long as I have lots to do today. I thought of a few things I forgot to mention yesterday, so before they slip my mind, I'll continue my topic from yesterday.

Many people here know English and speak English, some are fluent, and others only know a little. Regardless, most of the English I hear is with an accent, and oftentimes it's broken English. Since I often don't know every word or correct conjugation to complete a sentence, I realize I'm speaking in broken Italian - the problem is that I've also started speaking in broken English! If I switch from Italian to English in the same thought or paragraph, I start speaking very slowly in English, and oftentimes not completing sentences correctly. It's really weird as I now sound like a dumb foreigner both in Italian and in my native language!!

The other thing I forgot to mention yesterday was the structure for questions here. There are some interrogative words like what, how, who, etc., but there is no word for "do." So when you want to ask "Do you have a pen," the sentence is "Hai una penna?", which without the question mark means "You have a pen." So the only way to tell if something is a question is by the inflection of one's voice, which has been difficult for me. When I read something in Italian, I have to focus on each individual word, so sometimes I reach the end of a sentence, and that's when I realize there's a question mark, but it's too late at that point as I've been reading the sentence like there's a period at the end.

I mentioned yesterday that it was difficult for me to pronounce words in Italian, but I did get one helpful hint today. We learned that every vowel in Italian is pronounced. If there are two or three vowels next to each other, you pronounce each vowel, unlike in English when many double vowels form one sound. I wish someone had told me that earlier!

Ok, that's enough about the language now. This afternoon we are playing Italian cards with other people from school. Clay and I learned how to play Italian cards last week from an American professor who was here. It's a lot of fun, and we've played almost every afternoon since. There are two games we play, Briscola and Scopa. The deck is different than an English deck (and I got ripped off when I bought a Sicilian deck for 5 euro from the Auteri. They also ripped me off when I bought an alarm clock, so I don't care how nice Sergio is, I'm not buying anything else from him.)

Anyways, I really enjoy playing cards, and I've falsely given Clay the impression I'm quite good at them (in reality I continually get good hands and always beat him). But it'll be fun to play with more people and in partners today. Since my family is a huge card-playing family, I can't wait to bring my deck home and teach them how to play!

One other thing to note. It's really a call for assistance. Clay and I have a week off to travel throughout Italy in February. We've decided to hit up Rome, Florence and Venice (Roma, Firenze, e Venezia). We also have two long weekends off, and we'd like to go to Athens, Greece and Cairo, Egypt, neither of which are that far from Sicilia. Anyways, we're looking for suggestions for cheap airfare. We haven't found anything cheap for Cairo or Athens. The cheapest we've found to Venice and Rome is about 50 euro. We're also starting to plan out our itinerary of what things we'd like to see in these cities. If you know of any cheap travel options, or of places we should definitely see, I'd love to hear from you! You can e-mail me at brockse@auburn.edu, or leave your comments here on the blog!

Thanks for reading! A domani! (Until tomorrow)