Italian 101

I love all things Italian - the food, the wine, the art, the fashion, the culture...did I mention the wine?  So a few years back, after a particularly difficult time, my husband thought the best thing for us was to escape to Italy for a short vacation.  Never having been there before, we very bravely booked the whole trip ourselves without the help of a travel agent.  We purchased our plane tickets, rented a car, and booked an apartment off the Internet from some guy named Francesco who gave us directions from the airport in Bari south to the city of Oria where we were to follow the street signs to the Piazza Manfriedi where we would meet him in the local bar - SERIOUSLY.

Now, I'm sure this is where you expect me to tell you how our adventure went terribly awry, but the truth is we drove straight to our landlord Francesco who showed us to our beautiful apartment in a 600 year-old-building within the walled medieval town.  It was absolutely amazing!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/enzo_tarantino/4926828469/in/photostream

Our Apartment

http://www.scenicrentals.com/owner-vacation-rental-property-listing/1466/Apulia

Finding our apartment was the easy part - trying to communicate with people who spoke even less English than we spoke Italian was the challenge.  At times we were so desperate, we even attempted to use our high school French only to be rewarded with puzzled looks and head shakes.  So, in case any of you are considering a trip to southern Italy, here's my personal list of the very bare essential Italian words & phrases that I found useful:

"Vino rosso, per favore" - red wine, please.  (I used this one a LOT)

"Non capisco" - I don't understand

"Non lo sa" - I don't know

 "Non parlo bene l'italiano" -  I don't speak Italian well (which was, of course, a huge understatement).


It's also important to know that the numerous little shops called "Macelleria Equine" translates to "Horse Butcher". Ham is called "prosciutto", so if the meat looks like ham, but is called something else and the waiter tells you it's "local cured meat" you need to wonder. I discovered this fact a little late in our vacation but must admit I thought it was delicious - so much so that I once ordered a whole plate of it as an appetizer.

Yup....I did. In fact, I devoured it.  Oops!

One last thing - as no course in speaking Italian would be complete without an explanation of Italian hand gestures, I've included a video which explains the more common ones for you.  Enjoy!