Low moments

I am gradually writing off the coffee bar’s around our house. I attempted one yesterday for the second time and found myself stuck with not enough language to understand why I wasn’t given the change I expected. The barman, like the previous time, barely gives me eye contact and looks like he is incredibly pissed off that I am taking up valuable time and space in his café. While I am trying to sort out why I have not been given any change, I have one darting eye on the boys to check they are not standing on the chairs, banging on the fish tank, jumping onto the main road, playing with the sugar, bashing the toy/lolly dispenser or walking into unsteady old ladies. I know I am not relaxed and my ability to smile charmingly is somewhat limited by the circumstances. I would like to be able to change this, but for now, I will abstain from bars where they cannot tolerate Inglese speaking morons who just don’t get it. In the meantime, I drank the coffee on the street and cried the first tears I have had since arriving and I just didn’t care who saw me because I’m from New Zealand and we are not likely to run in to each other again.

My other moron inglese moment was at the market this week. I was picking my way along the vegetable stalls with the kids firmly in hand in the crowd and decided to buy some peaches. I wanted to check that they were not rotten or damaged before I bought them so I picked them up and looked at them. The lady started shouting at me in Italian. It is almost amusing, but you just stand there with absolutely no idea what they are shouting at you, but the most obvious thing to do is to leave. Pretty much now.

I headed down a few stalls and bought some gorgeous fruit (including a carton of fresh figs which are right in season here) and the woman very graciously tolerated all my broken Italian, commented repeatedly on how beautiful my boys were and I was able to make the purchases amidst smiles and pleasantries. Oh the difference a few metres makes.

Oh and tonight – I have discovered that I walk wrong for Italian apartment living. I walk heavily like a hippo rather than lightly like a ballerina. My heel strikes the ground first, rather than my toes. Now it makes so much sense why high heels and I seem to make such a bad combination.  So I will add that to my list of things to achieve this week – learn Italian and learn to walk differently so that the people who live below us will not look at me with menacing eyes (not that I have met them yet) while I disrupt their peace and quiet. Amazing they can hear me walking really over all the laughing, squealing, yelling and shouting that the boys do – not to mention their mother at them.