The Things That Make My Life in Italy Interesting Part III

At times I grow rather frustrated with the Italian language. So, I decided to make a list of the pros and cons of not knowing the language that everybody else speaks, while at the same time having none of them know your language.

Cons:

• I never know what's going on. People might have told me but I don't know that either.
• It is possible for people to talk mean behind my back right in front of me (I highly doubt this is happening though).
• When anybody gives me instructions for something to do I usually have no idea what they are telling me.
• I talk to the animals a lot in English- everyone might think I'm saying weird things to the animals.
• I am relatively certain that everyone here thinks I'm an idiot. It's a common misconception with people who don't speak your language or who speak very little of it- because they can't communicate they are generally thought of as being more stupid.

Pros:

• If I don't end up doing what was intended then I can just say I didn't know what to do.
• This also works if I for some reason don't want to do what someone asks me to do- then I can just play it off as being confused.
• I'm getting dang good at charades.
• I can mutter in frustration and nobody knows what I'm saying (though I guess this also works as a con because they might think I have a horrible potty mouth when really I just say things like, "Shoot!" and "Dang it!" You know, typical Mormon swears).
• I talk to the animals a lot in English- nobody knows exactly what I'm saying to them so I can tell them all my secrets and really, nobody knows.
• My bedroom is a very thin wall away from the sales office. If I end up saying something in my sleep (I have been known to say very strange things in my sleep) and somebody hears then they won't know what I've said.

That's the whole list for now. I'll probably add more as time goes on if I think of them.

And, for a little bit of fun, here's a recent list of things I've learned since coming to Italy:

• There are few things more suddenly disturbing than having a fly fly straight into your ear.
• Italians don't seem to mind if you see them without pants on. I've now seen half of the members of this family without pants on and nobody seems to mind (don't worry, they're still wearing underwear).
• The song "Cotton Eye Joe" is super popular here. Several people have it as a ringtone on their phone and it was the main song on a wedding video I watched a couple days ago.
• If you have pathetically thin hair like I do then a space heater works rather well as a hair dryer.