Italian vs english language.

I consider myself happy. Yeah, I do. A lot of nice things are happening to me here: meeting people, going to the parties, new experiences. But, mostly, I’m familiarizing with a language which put at the beginning what mine put at the end.

Let me give you some example.

If you look at the street and see a fat, young, blond, American girl, you would to say “a fat, young, blond, American girl”, according to grammar rules. In Italian you have a lot of combinations, instead: “un’americana bionda, giovane e grassa”, which is literally translated “an American girl, blond, young and fat”. Then you continue: “a blond girl, young, fat and American”, “a fat girl, American, blond and young”, and so on. That Anglosaxon notices first of all that the girl is fat, doesn’t regard politeness; it sounds more like a discipline in the way of viewing, which might responds to the beauty of the natural flux of the life, the Born, the Middle Age, the Death; spring, summer, autumn and winter, then.

In Italian, the aproach is pretty different. It responds to a sort of law of gravity: words at the beginning or at the end of a period are heavier than those in the middle. It’s also important how words are joined. Thus, if I say “an American fat girl, young and blond”, you can ascertain that the American fat girl is an healty blond girl or a naive blond girl. And in case the order was inverted, you could pleasantly discover that she’s blond and young, maybe because the blondity is a kind of habit while the youth a status.

Another peculiarity is the neutral gender of words. The most cruel is friend.

«Honey, where did you go last nigh?»

«Last night? I went out with a friend.»

«Does your friend name sound more like Barbara or Paul?»

Gender is very important in Italian. Specially in terms of friends.

«Are you jealous?»

I asked then to English and Australians more explanations about this topic and all agree that you have to look at the context, which, in few words, means that it’s not a matter who you go out with. Bitch.

The same I love you. You could love me like a sister or a friend (yet). We all agree that when you fall in love with me things changes. And if you are not clear, I’ll never, never kiss your lips.

It will happen then, in a raining afternoon, I write a message to Giuliano where I say I think I fell in love with you. But this is another story, and there’s a plenty of time before it came.

Couchsurfing.org is not a dating website.

Collingwood is the hippie quarter in Melbourne not only for the Abbotsford Convent but also for the Sophia Mundi Steiner School, the Yarra Bend Park and the events organized inside. Who shows me the quarter is a fellow named Holly Dance. I known him through Couchsurfing.org. I suppose Holly Dance was his nom de plume, anyway, I’ve never discovered his true name because, after that afternoon toghether, we’ve never seen each other again.

At Lounge Bar I get teased by my collegues when I tell them I’m going to meet this lad known through Couchsurfing.org.

«Com’on, there’re all ingredients for making cake: a girl, a guy, a dating website!»

«It’s not a dating website!»

Well, actually I know someone who uses the website for sexual adventures; but the most part of people makes a correct use of it, that is meeting travelers and backpakers, so as to being hosted for some night, or to make acquaintance with someone who is living in the place you’d like to visit, and so on. However, my collegues seem don’t apreciate my explanation, even though after a little time they reply cool.

Holly Dance is 45 year-old and his fairly name is because his profession. He says he’s being a teacher of Creative Dance at the Convent. He looks weird. For the whole afternoon, he has never dismounted his bicycle (because a pain at one leg) and his own means of transport seems equipped for a hypothethical desert crossing, with its light as big as a lighthouse, its reflecting stickers spread everywhere, and its plastic box functioning as luggage rack. When I’m talking he doesn’t understand me very well. That makes him teased. Nevertheless, he’s a kind man and takes me to walk at Yarra Bend Park.

The Yarra River is still a snake before to swell into the belly of Melbourne, and flow into Hobson Bay. We keep walking long the river and lovely trails, where we are passed by runner of all ages. Finally, when we reach the Convent, Holly Dance gets off and parks his armed bicycle.

Here, there’s a canteen managed by volunteers where you can have lunch just living a free offering. It’s almost sunset time, so we decide to sit on lawn in front the Convent. Getting a glimpse around me, it seems we have travelled in time to the 70s. There are long hair and rasta guys, girls with flower crown on their heads and second-hand dresses coming from India or recycled. Also in this case, Holly and me are the ugliest of the lawn. When the sun is by now behind the roofs, Holly take me inside the Convent. No monks, no nuns, just artists. The old rooms has been turned into ateliers where painters, illustrators, musicians, writers and joung teachers whose can have laboratory, exibhitions and classes of students. At the Convent there’s also the Illustrator Australia seat. I applied for become a member but I sould pay $200 at year (they selected me as Gold Member, the expensivest, for professionists) and I can’t afford it. Moreover, the association doesn’t count a lot of members and on Facebook it has only 500 I Like, against 5,800 of the Associazione Illustratori Italiana. For once, maybe, it’s better to stay in Italy.

Getting back to exploration tour, we crosses a courtyard which turns in cinema on plain air in the night and a park for concerts. It’s summer now, and it’d be great to be there, but unfortunatly I can’t because my job, and given that I’m horribly tired when I’m off, I prefer don’t move beyond Brunswick or CBD.

That which looks as an English cottage of the late seventeenth century is the Sophia Mundi Steiner School. Steiner’s schools are based on educational phylosophy of Rudolf Steiner, the founder of anthroposophy. The pedagogic principles of his philosophy aspire to an all-round education, to the purpouse of developing a high degree of social competence in the child.

In the teaching programs you can find not just only maths, science, english, but also carpentry, theatre, singing, art, and all that activities which give to the student a strenght experience with the life and himself. Thinks that during the firsts years of school (which lasting until 18 year-old) marks aren’t even assigned, teachers write up a description of student’s attitudes and personality.

Great day with Holly Dance, thanks Couchsurfing.org. I keep on saying it’s the perfect way to know pretty well new places; if you surrond yourself of backpakers only, they are other disperates like you, they think like you and bla bla bla. So, a local is still a local, however weird he might be.