Chatterboxes

Italians sure seem to like to talk. Having only the need to send a fax to my new landlord, I went to the nearest copy and fax place. Like usual, my broken Italian resulted in a mostly english/italian conversation where neither of us were speaking our native language. Fortunately, unlike most of these types of encounters, the conversation became completely Italian after he learned that I was 1. Not from Australia 2. Studying at the university 3. that I haven't been speaking english the whole time I have been here. He was a really nice guy and apparently graduated in geology way back when. He might have said he actually had a PhD as well. After he said that, he also told me not to try and find a job in Italy...makes sense if he is working a printing and fax store. All the same, he was a great guy who felt no need to end the conversation too early. We discussed (or I listened) to his wisdoms of the corrupt government, the need for geologists to work and study in Italy, how pasta is intrinsicaly better here and where there are good places to view pillow lavas in Tuscany. Really a cool guy...maybe he can help me with my homework. It is great when you meet a fellow geology lover who understands that vacations are great excuses to go see new geology and that it is totally worthwhile to visit a town named Gabbro.

Over the weekend we celebrated the birthday of one of Paola's brothers. Like most occassions here, we celebrated with lots of food and lots of talk. The pizza we had was take-out, but still extraordinary. The pizza conversation was quite good, and especially hilarious when I explained to Paola that a popular establishment on Green St. sold pizza that had tortellini as its toppings. She nearly fell out of her chair. I hadn't realized how scared tortellini are and that there is an unwritten rule in Italy that strictly forbids the use of tortellini as pizza toppings. As is standard, after the load of pizza we had some tea and sweets. There was still a bit of my Irish soda bread left so it shared the table with the cake Paola had made for the occassion. It was quite a compliment that the uncles nearly finished my bread before opting for a slice of Paola's cake. I suggested to her that perhaps next time she should throw a few tortellini into the batter before she bakes the next one (all in good fun of course). At about 11 30 we finally wrapped up after nearly 3 hours of talking. By then, I was about exhausted from concentrating for so long, but very happy to have shared the table with the family.