Saldi!

Ciao! Today has been a very good day (molto bene!). First Ernesta took me to the supermarket and her niece, Francesca, came with us as she speaks excellent English. I am quickly starting to understand more and more Italian and my Latin background, I have realized, is a huge asset. Thank you Magistra and Magister! The only problem is that I am making the mistake of pronouncing words completely in Latin instead of using the root (or first few letters) with the Italian ending. For instance, I keep saying “mater” for mother when I know the Italian word for mother is “madre.” Oh well, I am sure this will improve as time passes.
The supermarket was very crowded and had many brands I recognized such as Pantene shampoo and Heinz ketchup! I looked at the code printed on the ketchup but couldn’t understand what it meant… though I really should not have expected to seeing as American factories don’t make the ketchup for Europe. Then, after we came back, I went on a walk with Francesca and her baby girl. We walked for a long while and she showed me my school’s building and also the building where The Last Supper painting is displayed. This building is next to Santa Maria delle Grazie, a famous medieval church. It’s amazing how such a historical object is only a few blocks away!
Today is one of the first few days of a big sale that is held in Milan during this time of year, hence the title of this post. In all the shops the world “saldi” is displayed in the windows and the streets were full of shoppers returning from the Christmas holiday. It is interesting to note that all the articles of clothing displayed in store windows have the prices clearly marked on them; Francesca said that she believes showing prices in compulsory. This is a great idea and American stores should try this… then I wouldn’t go into a store absolutely loving something to find out it’s actually well beyond my price range.
After this walk I attended Mass with Ernesta in another medieval church. I asked before we left if wearing jeans was acceptable because my mother DOES NOT allow us to wear jeans to church and she is very strict about this. Everyone here got a kick out of that and laughed for awhile… so I wore jeans! I was expecting a very long Mass but it was actually quite short at about 40 minutes. Then we went to another market area where she bought me tissues. I am sick and I think she asked if I wanted tissues in Italian and I clearly didn’t understand so I just said “Si” and there you go, she bought them for me even though I packed a lot of them already. She also got some oranges and afterwards we had a good time walking around with me pointing to things and her pronouncing the noun in Italian.
Now we are back and going to have dinner. To everyone at AGD – have a great first day of rush! To Jena/Taylor – calm down! It will be alright! To my family – please get on a plane right now and come!

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