On the second day of our holiday in Italy, we were hungry tourists who wanted to see everything. High on sugar owing to a breakfast comprising cakes, cappuccinos and tropical fruits, and with a phrase book, day pass for public transport, street map, camera gear and summer jackets for the pleasant evening chill, we set out to explore the fashion capital.
Phrase book is a must! Interestingly though, while it is relatively easy to begin a conversation by looking up English words and their Italian equivalents in the book, it is often quite a task to decipher a response. Like when Maulik asked an elderly bus driver if the bus drove to Via _, he responded ‘quindici!’. We had good laughs when we eventually figured that ‘quindici’ meant ‘fifteen’ – that we should take bus 15 :D
There were other times when we discovered that many Italians spoke French. Always eager to brush up my rusty French, I started to use it instead of English or Italian from the phrasebook. But that didn’t always work. I got a lot of ‘sorry, but do you speak English?’ It was all very amusing. All in all it went well mainly because the sounds were easy to identify and reproduce. Oh and I love how they stress the vowel before the last consonant in every word. Like ‘Per favore’ - ‘paar favohray’ (please) :)
City lights – At sun down, having climbed up to the roof of the Duomo to look at the flying buttresses and also the city, having tasted Pizzas and Spaghettis and Macarons in the country of their origin, and having shopped music and toys, out came our tripods for some night shots.
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