Italian Lessons

Ah-lee-chay = Adopted name (spelled "Alice")

Gelato = Ice cream you don't regret eating every day

Finocchio = Fennel, can be used as Fag

Cazzo = Dick, used like Fuck

Si, Cara = Yes, "beloved" = A really dreamy thing to have a dreamy Italian boy say to you

When you go to a foreign country to babysit, try to remember more than four songs with which to sing the children to sleep. Also, try to remember more than two verses of these songs. Further, don't let any of those four songs be "Yesterday" as it will cause children to be moody upon waking.

If you are not a person who wears them, don't bring thongs. Just don't. They won't make you feel sexy when they're riding up your butt crack as you're riding in a minivan listening to an Australian recording of "I'm a little teapot". And when you realize that you've brought not just one, but five pairs, you will feel stupid in addition to unsexy.

Furthermore, do not blow your budget on lingerie which you will wear for no one but yourself. I am, under other situations, a huge advocate of buying lingerie for oneself, but it doesn't help with the above situation, or with the realization that the relationship you're in is almost over. However, disregard this rule entirely should "Hit Me Baby, One More Time" come on while in you're in the dressing room and literally "give [you] a sign".

If you only started drinking coffee while on said family vacation, and are still new to the concept of ordering coffee, do not--I repeat--DO NOT think that you will be able to order a cup of joe in a country whose language you do not speak and whose cafe culture you do not understand. You will be standing at the counter--this is where they stand, right? why isn't anybody else here??--sweating not just from the 90 degree heat outside, or the 90 degree caffe latte in your hand, but from anxiety wondering why all the baristas are staring at you and talking--obviously about you--in the condescending and ironic way that only those who speak a language you can't understand know how. You will run outside, after swallowing the huge cup in one gulp, and realize that maybe there's some truth to the idea that a hot cup of coffee is the best way to lower your body temperature. Or maybe it's because you were sweating so much when you were inside, that the stale breeze that greets you when you finally get out is a very, very welcome one.

Dewy-eyed Italian boys do not give a second glance to sweaty, frizzy-haired girls with braces who have four children in tow.

Once you have accepted this fact and have started to settle into the glory of not caring about that fact, men named Enzo (and I do love the name Enzo) will ride up to you on their bicycles and ask you where you are going to eat lunch, and whether they might be permitted to take you out for lunch. You will politely and insistently decline because--did I not mention this?--Enzo will be 70.

If you sleep in the same room as the children for three weeks, you will, eventually, have to let at least one of them try on your underwear and maybe let her wear the pair to bed over her PJs as a compromise for not letting her wear them, over her clothes, to breakfast.

Kids love boobs.

There are two categories of flavors of gelato: fruits and creams, and ne'er the two shall meet. But that won't stop you from making glorious combinations of flavors. I recommend fior di latte which means milk flower and is what happens when vanilla goes to a strange tribal ritual on a tropical beach, has a transcendent experience, and drags its hungover, yet divine ass back to the gelateria. Eat it and be merry.

You will never--no, New York, never--have pizza as good as the pizza in Italy.



More when (if) I remember.