"Gir-af-e!"

June 1, 2007

Our second family dinner was AMAZING! We met our hosts in the square and they drove us back to their house again for a spectacular fish dinner. I was wrong about their names before, though, so I will now correct it: Roberto is married to Luiggiana; Roberto's sister lives with them (still don't know her name); their son, Matteo, is married to Lorredagna; and Matteo's son is Andrea.

My title comes from Andrea, tonight, the seventeen-month-old grandson of Roberto and Luiggiana. Andrea has been reading the interactive Lion King book, and his favorite animals are the giraffe and the toucan. Every few minutes he put his hand to his neck, stretched his head up, and gurgled at me. The whole family would then chorus, "Giraffe!" (with the Italian inflections on the vowels), and he would grin widely behind his pacifier. They would yell the word for "toucan" whenever he put his hand over his nose and mouth. It was adorable!

Luiggiana has been studying English for ten years, and she invited a friend from her English class for dinner. His name was Michele (ME-KE-LAY), and he came late enough that he stayed one course behind us all throughout the meal. He was a bit nervous with his English at first, but we butchered Italian so much trying to speak to him that he was happy to oblige us. He would talk very loudly and very rapidly in Italian, and then he would tell the same story in English for our benefit. Michele is an artist, and he presented Jen and me with hand-made/hand-drawn pen and ink postcards of Tuscany, which are absolutely beautiful! Mer, I think you could make a killing in the postcard business.