Luna Mezz'o Mare

Later this month we are departing on a Mediterranean cruise. We will be visiting 3 new places in Italy: Cinque Terre, Sorrento, and Taormina, Sicily. First cruise ever; first visit to southern Italy. To get in the mood, I've been downloading Italian music to my cool new phone, and this is my ringtone. I'm madly in love w/Patrizio and his Harry Connick good looks. And for those of you who don't understand the Sicilian dialect, it's just as well. The lyrics are delightfully crude. If you must know, just Google...


Buy the mp3 here and you can make your own ringtone with the Ringdroid app:

Il mio nuovo Kindle

I just got my new Kindle. Now there will be no more rushing to download reading material at the airport. It has 3-G AND Wi-Fi. Everywhere I've been in Italy has Wi-Fi. I also invested in the European power cord.

Now the only problem is that Rob & I will be fighting over who gets the new Kindle and who is stuck with the old one. Yes! We are a two-Kindle family.

Scriverò ogni giorno

I vowed to use this blog as a daily journal of my February 2010 trip to Todi, among other things (comments on books to read, places to go, my photos, my other trips to Italy, etc.). I did not keep that vow. I now hereby pledge to write something every day. I have several posts in draft, many photos to publish and explain, books and web sites to recommend. They'll never be published if I don't start somewhere. I hereby start.

Perché Italia? parte seconda

Okay here's my crazy new theory on my passion for Italy. I've mentioned that my provenance is essentially all British Isles; not a drop of Mediterranean blood in evidence. But remember your English history: at one time a large part of Britain was a part of the Roman Empire. I'm thinking that somewhere back in my pedigree was a homesick Roman soldier, and my nostalgia was passed down in his blood. I'll let you know when I've gotten the results of my genealogical DNA tests.

Okay

There is no K in the Italian alphabet. (No J, W, X or Y, either). But one of the most common words out of the Italian mouth is Okay. And in keeping with the amazingly consistent Italian rules of pronunciation, each vowel sound is articulated, so Okay has roughly 3 syllables. (And, by the way, Ciao! if pronounced correctly, has two.) Unlike the French, the Italians are fairly happy to adopt English words. I'm typing on il mio computer, posting su l'Internet. The William Safire of Italy is Beppe Severgnini(Ciao! America, La Bella Figura). He believes in seeking, where reasonable, to use Italian words when speaking Italian. But, even he is not doctrinaire: regarding computer he says: combattenderlo si rischia di fare una figura da francesi: fighting it, one risks making a Frenchman of oneself.

Indimenticabile

One sees variations of these flyers all over Italy commemorating the passing of a loved one, announcing the memorial mass. This one grabbed me by the heart. It says that the holy mass will be celebrated on February 24 on the occasion of the twenty-seventh anniversary of the departure of the unforgettable  [indimenticabile] Anna Maria Biscarini. I only hope that someone will find me indimenticabile 27 years after I'm gone.

Update:

upon my return to Todi in February 2011, I found  Anna Maria Biscarini ancora indimenticabile (still unforgettable) after twenty-eight years.

Sono confetti? no, sono coriandoli

One would think confetti a perfectly good Italian word. If you know your Latin/English/Italian, it is a perfectly good plural past participle of the same root as confection. And that's a hint to the subject of this post. Confetti = confections, commonly served at weddings, e.g. Jordan Almonds. What you see above is a picture of small shreds of gaily colored paper left on the pavement after the Carnevale celebrations of this past weekend in Todi. In Italian, they are known, not as confetti, but as coriandoli, which is the same word as coriander, or cilantro for those of you of a gastronomic or botanical bent.