I must say, dinner conversations in foreign countries do tend to have their fair share of amusements. Sure there is the normal, "How was your day?" talk, but there is a lot more to learn as well. The new company makes things fun and the language barrier makes things interesting. Many a night Amy and I have had an odd conversation with Nino and Gabriella. One night Gabriella asked us about Mormons. She meant the Amish. We proceeded to correct her and then try to explain what a Mormon was. Like I said, interesting.
Nino likes to make Amy and I eat second helpings, too. His argument is that it's good for our skin. We don't believe him, necessarily, but we always take that second helping. Gabriella chimed in with a bit of history. She told us that Nero used to bathe in monkey's milk in order to have better skin and to look younger or whatever. Shocked, Amy and I asked her to repeat. "Asino," she said. Surprisingly, Amy and I knew this word. "Oh, you mean donkey!" says Amy. "A monkey is, you know, ooh-ooh." Now, you have to picture her doing the traditional imitation of a monkey at this point as well. Gabriella burst out laughing, as did we all. There is rarely a quiet moment at the dinner table.
Now there are two new members in the house as well. Silvia and Maria are sisters, each in the mid- to late-40s or so and have come to Florence to take a cooking class for two weeks. Silvia is from Phoenix and has a horse ranch there and Maria is from Mexico and owns part of an island in Cancun. They are extremely friendly and the dinner conversations have only gotten more interesting with them at the table.
While Silvia speaks English very well, Maria does not. That means that Silvia and Maria will talk in Spanish, which Silvia will translate into English for us and then Gabriella will translate that into Italian for Nino. Confused? Me, too. I already was mixing in Spanish with my Italian. Poor Elisabetta. My Italian teacher will be all flustered with me.
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