More waffle than a Belgian bakery

Merry Christmas everyone! Consider this, the second blog in just a matter of days, to be a present, from me to you. I do expect something in return, but not a blog. Preferably something shiny that costs money.

I'm posting this quite early in the day, unusually, because I've got a big gap between lessons, and also I've just had 3 coffees in the last hour, so I AM ROCKING. LET'S GO LETS GO LET'S GO!

Lately I've been trying to improve my Italian grammar, as I'm blindingly aware that I'm not the best. I used to be a quitter, but then I decided that wasn't for me, so I'm trying to persevere with the grammar. It's pretty hard though. There are many things I don't understand: girls; how they put the stripes in Aquafresh toothpaste; Korean; and now I can add the vast majority of Italian grammar to this list. (Two things I do know though, are that you should never look at a gorilla in the eyes, and the origin of the adjective 'rubenesque'. I use my time productively, I'm sure you'll agree.)

I don't particularly consider myself British, beyond the convenience of having the passport. As a country it has the dubious honour of the creation of modern day Iraq by taking disparate communities who didn't like each other much and lumping them all together, and the invention of concentration camps. Both of these ideas, with hindsight, weren't great (although hindsight shouldn't have been necessary to tell them that they were probably weren't too good at the time either). However, both of these arose from the Empire, and one positive aspect of the empire was the proliferation of the language. English is what keeps me in beer and occasional good times, so I'm grateful for this. Also, I'm hugely thankful that 'we' had an empire with a lasting effect rather than the Italian's. (Obviously ignore this if you're from Abyssinia.) Italian grammar seems like a torture tool. Move over water-boarding, Guantanamo is introducing lessons on the Partitives. To my lazy mind it seems needlessly complicated and full of caveats. English may not be the easiest, exception to the rule-free language in the world, but compared to Italian it's like something very easy. So, I think I'll sleuce back into my habit of quitting difficult things, and have instead decided that vocabulary is my new focus. Unlike Italian tax, it's less taxing.

For those of you in the frozen tundra of the north, you'll be relieved to hear that Genoa is no longer so miserable weather-wise. Today, in effect, is very sunny. Still a bit nippy, but much more pleasant. Also, thank the Lord that I don't believe in, it's not so windy. The wind here is fierce, which has two serious drawbacks. Firstly, it makes my hair look like a bush dragged backwards through a bigger bush, which you'll appreciate is pretty serious. Secondly, it makes sleeping tricky. See, I live on the 5th floor, and there's only one appartment above me. But above my room, it sounds like they've moored a boat. I expect it's just a shed or something, but in the wind it creaks to and fro in a most unedifying way. If it were an actual boat in the actual sea, that'd be alright, if a little uncomfortable in bed (a water bed, perhaps), because at least the waves have some rhythm, rocking me off to my strange, nightmare-filled dreams. But this boat is not in the sea, it's actually quite far away from it, and has about as much rhythm as one of the losers from the early episodes of X Factor. It gives respite from my previously mentioned dreams, but at the same time means I'm less of a ray of sunshine in the morning than I previously was. So, fingers crossed that the wind stays away, otherwise I may accidentally repeatedly stab someone on the bus with a rolled-up newspaper.

That all seems like a bit of a moan. I do appreciate that living in Italy is pretty cool, and when I think about it, I guess I feel lucky. But I wouldn't be Scottish if I didn't complain about something. I'm merely upholding my end of the bargain.

Until next time amigos, buenos dias.
:)