#54: Arrivederci Summer
Colazione senza turisti...
Ciao Nonni,
I am very sorry for the lack of an update last week. It has been busy around here!
Summer is finally coming to an end here in Lucca, and with that is the slow return to normal life. Leo has started back at asilo nido, and Raffy begins attending her new Italian school next week. The temperature is now consistently back below 30 degrees, and we've had a couple of spectacular storms overnight that have finally brought some rain.
Our friends are also returning to town, after many took extended holidays with family. It has been fantastic to hear about everyone's breaks, and what they do or don't miss about their respective homes. It is also great to have a crew of kids and adults to hang out with around the town again. The spontaneous playground or piazza playtimes while the parents enjoy a chat (and a spritz or beer) are one of my favourite things about living here.
I'm also pleased to report that this week I have stopped being treated like just another annoying tourist. For all of August, I was subjected to the indignity of paying before ordering at pretty much every bar and gelateria in the centre. Happily, this morning when I went to Pinelli for a cappuccino e cornetto, I was shooed away from the register and told that it was fine to pay afterwards. The relief!
The kids are not the only ones starting back at school in the new year. I have signed up to the Lucca Italian School for a language intensive, and I am very excited about it. Hopefully by Christmas I will have made a decent amount of progress on my Italian, which at the moment is still very much toddler-level.
It's been a humbling experience to truly come to terms with the fact that there aren't any shortcuts to learning a new language. Immersion is helpful, but it isn't a magical form of knowledge osmosis in the way that some people seem to make it out to be.
While I wouldn't claim to be eloquent in any language, I feel confident expressing my ideas and opinions in English. Conversation is really important to me, in terms of how I form opinions of people. More so than anything else.
It bothers me that the impression people form of me at the moment can't factor this in at all. I can only imagine how all the many migrants to Australia over the years have felt about this, leaving careers and entire personalities behind when they moved to start a new life abroad.
In the case of our neighbours, it is our very lack of Italian that I'm sure makes them think I am a bit dense. I look forward to the day I can disprove this! I think I'll be truly satisfied when I can engage in the kind of spirited debate in Italian that I so much love to have in English.
All my love and hugs,
Kate
