One of the nicest things to hear is surely ' would you like to come round for a cup of tea? In Italy 'Vuoi venire da me per un caffè?
It means you are accepted and your company is enjoyed. It's a step towards friendship.
'Make yourself at home' in Italy becomes 'Non fare complimenti.'
these simple sentences help us along the way to belonging and feeling part of a community.
When I first came to Italy and was trying to get to grips with the language, mainly thanks to my motherin-law, some words caused me problems. One of these was 'furbo'. If you look it up in the dictionary you will find, 'clever, smart, cunning, crafty.'
If someone says with a smile, 'lui è furbo, or fare cosi è furbo, be careful. Furbo when used to mean clever or smart is more like something my dad would have said, 'Don't be a smart Alec' as a warning to my brother, or 'You think you're such a clever dick' to my poor mum which would have us in fits of laughter. Whatever, it is certainly not a complement.
In the last forty years the amount of traffic on the roads has increased enormously.
My dad never took a driving test, he just went up to London, bought a car and drove it home. When the M1 motorway was opened in about 1959 he came home from work and told us to pile in the car, we picked up a neighbour and an auntie on the way and off we went down the M1 at a hundred miles an hour with my Auntie shrieking that the wheels were going to fall off and us rolling around and giggling in the back. Roads were different then.
Crossing the road however was taken very seriously. Policeman would often come to our school and teach us the Green Cross Code.
'Look right, look left, look right again, if the road is clear quick march.'
We were taught to chant it. It was the start of our survival guide to life. How to cross the road.
We were told about a man called Leslie Hore-Belisha (1893-1957) who had the bright idea- literally- of planting a black and white striped pole topped with a bright orange globe at places where it would be considered safe to cross the road. He had been the Minister of Transport and had this idea in 1934.
The Belisha beacons were melted down to make munitions in 1941 and then reappeared as poles with flashing lights.
The Belisha beacons were placed either side of the zebra crossings so motorists could see well in advance where people might be crossing the road.
The Primary school I went to was beside a very busy road and so crossing the road was considered a dangerous activity. We had a Lollipop lady who was someone's mum and she helped us safely across to the sweet shop on the other side.
When I came to Italy my ability to cross the road was severely tested. There are no Belisha beacons and cars can park jauntily across the zebra crossings, called Strisce Pedonali, or simply 'strisce'.
They don't even have to stop, and actually you can put someone's life in danger if you do stop because the car behind you might not be able to stop and so overtake you.
The Pedestrian crossing is really just a suggestion as a place to cross.
Remember to Look Left, then right then Left again because of course in Italy cars drive on the right.
In England you just have to stop and turn towards the Zebra crossing and cars screech to a halt, you want to bow and curtsey as you make your way across the road.
In England crossing the road has rules, in Italy it is an art.
Once outside Buckingham Palace with an Italian friend of mine, on a very cold Winter day with nobody around. We pressed the request button to cross the road. After awhile as there was not a car in sight we decided to cross the road even though it was still red. No sooner than we had arrived on the other side that there was a loud whooshy whizzy noise as loads of cars came speeding round the corner only to have to stop at the Pedestrian crossing and find nobody waiting, so feeling embarrassed we crossed back again.
Take care on the roads wherever you are.
In Italy it is common to refer to the British Isles, Great Britain , the United Kingdom as Inghillterra. Literally of course Inghilterra is England. Great Britain would be Gran Bretagne, the United Kingdom - il Regno Unito, Le isole Britanniche- the British Isles. Inghilterra is an all embracing term for all of these names, not just England. That's the way it is, it's not offensive to the Scots, Welsh and Irish, not at all.
Sometimes the people living on the British Isles are referred to as Anglo-Sassone, the Anglo Saxons, or the British -i Britannici.
It's the same in France, Les anglaises are the British, not just the English. Scots people might loudly protest, 'Je suis Ecosse', not wanting to be called anglais, which is right , because they're not, they're Scottish. In Italia they are the Scozzese.
If you go to settle in a country which is not the one where you were born, not the one where your mum and dad live, not the one where they speak the language that you grew up speaking, for whatever reason, you will inevitably be asked, 'where are you from?' so here I am, I am English, from England, from the British Isles. Born in Britain where one of the first jokes I heard was,
'A Scotsman, an Englishman and a Welshman were looking at a cow in a field. The Englishman says 'That's an English cow'. The Welshman says 'that's a Welsh cow.' The Scotsman says 'That's a scottish cow, you can tell by the bagpipes.'
Now though after so many years Italy is my home. Italian is not my first language, it's acquired. It doesn't come from deep in my heart like English does. It doesn't churn up vivid deep memories of childhood like English does, but I love it, I love the language and the people. I love England and Britain and its people.
I'm going to try and make my blog more bilingual so it will hopefully help and enrich anyone who loves these two countries.
Italy and Britain complement each other. They admire each other in unexpected ways with no envy at all. For example -queueing. Italians watch the way English people queue in awe. Knowing they are not keen on queuing they have a machine with a number, you take the number then you can chat and browse until your number is called. I'll be coming back to that in another post.
For today I will just say how Italy and Britain complement each other. Shakespeare set quite a few of his plays in Italy.
Romeo and Juliet was a novella written by an Italian called Luigi Da Porto and Shakespeare used the story to give the world the rich language of love.
Romeo and Juliet is set in Verona.
Othello is set in Venice.
Much Ado about Nothing is set in Sicily.
The Merchant of venice is set in.. well Venice.
Two Gentlemen of Verona is set in .. Verona, and is supposedly the first play Shakespeare wrote.
All's well tha ends well is set in Florence
Julius Caesar is set in Rome.
Just to start the ball rolling with a new phase of my Cappuccino and Brioche blog which will have a more bilingual approach. I hope you enjoy reading it and love England and Italy like I do.
My blog is called Cappuccino and brioche because I love cappuccino and brioche, my daughter chose it because she knows how much I love that time of day. My mother called it elevenses because at 11 o clock in the morning we would stop for a coffee break. That was how I grew up, tea for breakfast, coffee at 11 o clock then tea in the afternoon. The sound of the kettle was music to our ears. We loved it. We usually had instant coffee but as time went by we would have filter coffee or a cafetiere.
Over the years coffee has changed quite a lot in England. Once when I was having lunch in a pub with my mum, the wiatress came to ask us if we wanted dessert. We both said we would like just coffee. She looked puzzled. There was a silence. She asked us what sort of coffee. We said just coffee. Then we all looked at each other and laughed as she reeled off all the choices we had:- flat white,latte, cappuccino, americano, espresso, filter and so on.
In Italy a similar thing has happened. Coffee means espresso. If you go into a bar and ask for 'un caffè' you will be given an espresso. Fragrant, dark and warming to be downed in one go and then get on with what you were doing. A shot to the system, a bounce back and a spring in your step.
My weekly treat is a cappuccino and a brioche with a friend. The cappuccino has to be hot to warrant sitting chatting for a respectable length of time. You have to ask to have it hot though , 'un cappuccino molto caldo per favore.' I don't know why but I don't like all the froth on the top so I ask for 'cappuccino molto caldo, senza schiuma, per favore.'
This might be met with an eye roll from the waitress.
There are lots of different coffees in Italy too now,
un caffè macchiato would be a shot of espresso in a small cup with froth on the top.
A macchiatone would be the same thing but more of it in a larger cup.
An Americano, is coffee with water
Still, many people will ask for 'un caffè' especially men. It's just not macho to ask for a cappuccino, unless it's for breakfast and accompanied by a brioche and a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice.
If you ever travel through Italy and have an early start it is a real delight to stop at an Italian motorway service station and have your 'colazione', breakfast. As you enter the 'autogrill' you will be met by the tantalizing aroma of Italian coffee and warm brioche and the sight of mounds of bright oranges from Sicily.
Enjoy your coffee everyone today whatever way you like it.
