Hello.
Lots of things have happened, but unfortunately I've forgotten how to write.
sopratutto in inglese. Perņ...
I'm in Italy, as it's coming into summer and starting to get really hot already.
Italians like summer and the women all start striping off and the men go wild.
I'm considered staid and out of fashion because I refuse to wear high heels or
shave my armpits.
However, I try to tell them, in my advancing age I won't be the one with
distorted feet and ingrown hairs!
(Italian women now are considered hairy only at birth. At the age of 1 they
receive their first wax treatment by the priestess of the local 'aesthetic
salon', followed by breast enlargement at 18 months and liposuction at the age
of 4.)
Last week I sat an Italian language exam that was eight hours long and so
stressful two African nuns started crying and a dutch woman swore herself into a
sweat.
The exam itself wasn't so hard, just the organization that was, well, Italian.
The foreigners all arrived punctually at 8 a.m, as told, and the exam slowly got
under way at 9.30 a.m. Then after 5 hours of intense concentration, examiners
bullying and yelling, foreigners swearing and crying, and no one understanding
anything, there was a two hour wait in the corridor until the oral part. Getting
up at 7am had already been a strain, so I went home immediately afterward and
after a few stiff whiskey's and some electro shock treatment, straight to sleep.
This summer I'm going wwoofing in Tuscany with my flatmate Lorena. Lorena's from
the countryside near Napoli, grew up in the industrial suburbs of Turin where,
to earn back her lunch money she had to fist fight, with her father. This year
she saw the ocean for the first time. So she wants to go wwoofing this summer
for a bit of a lifestyle change.
Then I may pop down to Puglia in the south of Italy and lounge about on the
white sand beaches and contemplate the difficulty of life.
After summer, back to N.z in September, to lounge about on white sand beaches
and contemplate the difficulty of life.
Unusually, after 8 months in Italy, I feel much less intelligent.
Greetings and much love,
Melody