Conversing in Italiano with kids!

So I just had my first conversation with my friend's 4 year old: not a "Where are you?", "I'm coming to find you!", "I found you!" game-type interaction where his contribution is mostly Si, No or giggling but an actual 2-way exchange of information and ideas.  It ended like this (in Italian of course!):

4 yo: You know, I fully understood everything you said.
RR: So you think my Italian is getting a bit better?
4 yo: Yes.
RR: But I'm a still a bit of an idiot in Italian! (usually renders him in giggles!)
4 yo: No!  You're not an idiot!

I've been lucky enough to witness my friends' children's development over the years in terms of understanding that I speak another language and how to best communicate with me.  The 4 kids now range from 4-7 years old and over time I have seen the older ones go from babbling in Italian and giggling when I say I don't understand before babbling again, to repeating themselves slowly, to sounding out words for me.  All this in stark contrast to my visit to another family with kids the same age who were baffled by the concept of someone who didn't understand Italian - so much so that the younger one at around 5 years old was terrified of me and wouldn't come near me the whole day!

Now, my friends' two older kids at 7 years old tend to slow down and simplify the language they use, but the latest development is speaking grammatically ugly sentences in order to be on my level!  A few days ago, the 7 year old girl wanted to show me the ice cream maker she had received for her birthday and said while pointing indoors Io... macchina... mia (literally "I machine my") much to her parents' amusement!  But in fact, she has always been the most advanced when it's come to finding a way to get her message across to me, and in reality, who among us hasn't ever found ourselves in conversation with a foreign tourist uttering lines such as "He my husband" or "Me no like football"!

Today, just now, the 4 year old baby of the gang, the only one I've known since birth, has started on that path of communication development and, truthfully, it's a real treat to behold!

Italian condoms!

(insert un-PC joke here!)

A friend said he'd heard Italy was cold just now

I think it made him feel better to imagine it was as grey for me here as it was for him there. 

Nearly October and not a cloud in the sky!

Sorry about that!

Day trip

Yesterday we visited the capital of Puglia, Bari, to attend the largest exposition of homeware in the south of Italy, similar to the UK's Ideal Home Show.  It has 2000 exhibitors and typically attracts around 2 million visitors over the course of the month that it's on for, so it's kind of a big deal here and as yesterday was the last day, it was absolutely packed!

We went with some friends hoping to bag a bargain sofa for our new living room, or at least some useful ideas.  What we found was an awful lot of diamante, glitter crown motifs and other totally OTT design elements!  This was the advertising poster for one of the collections!

Would you buy a sofa from this man?!

Probably the coolest thing I saw all day was the interior design of the Eataly newly opened in Bari.  It's a deli and restaurant chain doing incredibly well internationally selling good value, wholesome Italian food, but our friends' opinion is that it won't last long in Puglia.  The reality is that unlike perhaps in New York or Japan or northern Italy, their offering isn't anything new to the Pugliese who can get great priced, healthy Italian meals in hundreds of restaurants up and down the region already!

Eataly's espresso cup display!

So no sofa, nor foodie inspiration but a fun day out and a great opportunity to see there's more to Bari than just the bus route between the airport and station!

Tough day

Lost my temper on site and shouted for the first time.

To summarise, one after another, day after day, aspects that were agreed long ago would be part of our new home, now have to be compromised or paid for as an extra on top of the original price.

The key element to all this is timing.  We are in the very last stages and they know we are desperate to move in, so the idea is that we will pay whatever they ask in order to do so.  The architect referred to it as a type of ricatto (blackmail) and coupled with yesterday's experience with the ice cream maker (see Things I've taken for granted in UK: consumer rights!) I'm feeling a touch jaded.

(All this reminds me of a joke my Italian builder told me a few weeks back: When God created Italy and saw how very beautiful the country was he had to redress the balance, so he created Italians!)

Thankfully, there is as ever, a song which helps.  This has been on repeat either on my phone or in my head most of the day.  It's haunted me from the first time I heard it, so let's share a little soothing:

P.S. Perspective check: just incase it needs to be said, I do know of course that there are more important things in life than this project.  Someone who has been kind to me every visit I've made to Puglia over the years, lost his wife this morning.  My difficulties are small in comparison.  Of course it's just a house and only money, and it's not lost on me the irony that the song Long Nights was written for a film about walking away from all such things to live in the wilderness!

Things I've taken for granted in UK: consumer rights!

Yesterday was my friends' little girl's birthday.  She was so excited to receive an ice cream maker from her aunt and uncle, but when the (rather dated and sun-faded) box was opened it was clear it had been used... a lot!  There was sugar stuck to the inside of the bowl, dribbles on the outside and aged, yellowing grease in every join: really made me quite queasy.  Everyone was so apologetic but I figured it was no big deal - clearly it was the shop's mistake as it had been bought just that morning, and a quick return with the receipt would result in a replacement or a refund, right?

Wrong!  I went in with my friend to see how this sort of situation was handled in Italy and the owner was very dismissive, insisting the item was old but not used.  He plugged it in to show it worked, wiped it a bit with a cloth and then forcefully stuffed it back into its box continuing to argue, without any sense of apology, that a fly must have got in the box and left all these marks!  Seriously!  He told us to return home and give it a clean, and if it didn't work come back to see him.

Of course, in UK a big company like Argos or BHS would fall over themselves to apologise and replace the item without question if bought just that day, perhaps even with a gift voucher if you played up the birthday girl's crestfallen face.  But a small shop like this in a small town, dealing directly with the owner, they should surely be even more aware that people talk and a damaged reputation will cost him far more than the profit he made on the item sold.  How do these businesses survive?

The whole thing made me so angry!  What about the Sale of Goods Act, what about the Goods Missdescription Act?  It seems none of these exist here, and after hearing my friend's stories of other parts of Italy where people have bought boxed goods only to find when opening the box at home that it contained only bricks, I am feeling very wary!

Sometimes I wonder if I play it too safe with my interiors...

Bold colour choices in our holiday apartment!