The Expeditions of an Expatriate

I officially have one month left in Italy.  Of course, that is not quite the end of my eurotrip.  After I leave Italy, I will be flying to Barcelona to be reunited with my other half, Caroline!.  We will be romping around Spain and the UK.  The day after we return from Liverpool, I’m flying home home, a casa mia in Los Angeles.  I decided to come home a littler bit earlier.  A tough decision but ultimately one I knew I had to make.  I can’t wait to see my family, eat mexican food, and overall just enjoy being back in the homeland.

Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.  I still have a trip to Milan, a trip to Berlin, and whatever else I can see of Italy.  Still, the countdown begins and I’m so excited to be headed home soon. 

It’s so easy to underestimate being fluent in a language.  I mean, I’ve been studying Italian for two years and now I’m here, living in Italy but trust me, I’m no where near fluent.  I have my days where I just cannot even form sentences in this language.  I struggle for the words and of course I try to literally translate things from English, which usually results in a sentence that makes zero sense in Italian.  And through all this I’ve learned how useful the word “to get” is in English.  There is no direct translation into Italian, mostly because this word can mean almost anything in English.  In Italian, you have to translate this depending on what you want to say.  I’m sure someone would tell me that “to get” is a lazy and imprecise word and it would be better to use other words instead of this one but trust me, after all this time, sometimes you just want to use “get” instead of any other word.

Ways “to get” can be used to English.

1. Do you get it? translation: Do you understand?
2. How do I get there? translation: How do I go there?
3. Can I get something from there? translation: Can I take something from there?
4. Get better! translation: Feel better!
5. I got sick. translation: I felt sick or I was sick.
6. I got an A on the test. translation: I received an A on the test.
7. Can you get some wine?  translation: can you bring (or buy) some wine?

I’m sure there are much more that I can’t think of right now.  I mean, I’m always thinking of a new one while I’m walking down the street.  It seriously is one of the most useful words in the English language.  I wish there was one as useful in Italian  that functioned the same way.  I mean, I think the word “fare” comes close in how many uses it has but they’re just not the uses that I want.  

These have been my adventures in language.

I know what you’re thinking, “Adri, that’s crazy!”  I know!  I mean, why would the zombie apocalypse start in Italy of all the places in the world.  Jack Donaghy said on 30 rock, “the Italians have a saying, Lemon. “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.” And although they’ve never won a war or mass-produced a decent car, in this area they are correct.”  I mean, that pretty much sums up how I feel about Italians.  But the reason why I’m convinced zombies will begin in this country is precisely because of their obsession with being clean.  Are you prepared for this generalization I am about to make?  Italians are obsessively clean!  I don’t even understand it.  No one prepared me for culture shock in a European country.  I mean, I was expecting to move to another first world country but Italy is not the first world, more like the second…but I digress.

I think almost everyone in my program has had a similar experience with Italians about cleaning.  In Berkeley, my roommates and I would clean the whole apartment once a week, switching up our duties.  Italians would think we were filthy if they heard that we cleaned so little.  They expect the whole apartment to be cleaned practically everyday.  Someone needs to tell these people that you don’t need to mop the floor ogni giorno.  

I’m not even going to get into the discussion about the bidet.  It’s just a thing I will never understand.

So, I remain convinced that Italians are going to create the super-virus due to all the cleaning they do in this country.  

It’s getting pretty ridiculous actually, so ridiculous that I decided to write a blog post about it.  

I’ve always loved ice tea but the true roots of this obsession lies in a roadtrip through  Arizona and Nevada when I was 12.  It was the middle of the summer, so it was naturally grueling hot.  Whenever we would stop at some gas station or supermarket, I would get a large can, or bottle glass of Arizona Green Ice Tea.  It was perfect for those hot desert days.  I think I still connect ice tea to that memory, which is why I love it so much.  It reminds me of traveling and just being the most satisfying drink.  I always prefer Arizona Green Ice Tea to anything else but I just love ice tea so much, that I’ll drink any kind.  

In Italy, my most recent obsession is tea pesca, which is just peach tea.  I drank an entire large bottle today.  I guess that’s not actually that surprising.  I used to drink those gallon bottles of Arizona Ice Tea in about two days.