no matter how many times she said it, it always brought a smile to my lips. for 14 days my fellow touristas and i were under the very patient, watchful, and solicitous care of loredana (lori-donna), a cute italian chick, born and raised on the mountainous shores of the beautiful island of capri (pronounced CAP-ri by the locals). now living in sorrento. 40-ish. newly married for the last two years to her former nemisis (according to her autobiographical account...we usea to HATE each o-ther, you know?.... and fighta, fighta, fighta alla the time:). now deeply in love, they are planning to begin a family in the next year or so because.... the clock is, ah, TEECK-ing. you know? while we were staying in sorrento we ran into them one night in the hotel lobby....such a cute couple....and obviously amore':)
sorry about all of the goofy phonetical stuff, but i have never heard anyone in my life who had such a stereotypically strong italian accent. it cracked me up coming and going. i was successful in recording her a couple times on my iphone, and i like to listen to it periodically. i was told by more than one person on this trip that the english language is the most difficult to learn. over the years loredana has had difficulty with lots of words and sayings and kept us in stitches as she recounted one after another. one is the word artichoke. it was funny listening to her account of how it took her two years before she could properly...how you say ah?...e-e-e-NOON-ciate it.... forever practicing by plugging it into her everyday speech in the most comical ways. even now she has to stop and think before opening her mouth as it comes out in broken syllables... arrrd-ti-choke. mrs. joan, our 89 year old (yes, 89) tour family member was so impressed with her rendition that she presented loredana with a fresh artichoke she had picked up at one of the numerous fruit/veggie markets found everywhere in italy and sicily. the artichoke then took the place of that little umbrella most tour guides use for group identification purposes until loredana ceremoniously laid it to rest by throwing it overboard on the farewell ferry ride from sicily to naples.
loredana was our caretaker, teacher, nursemaid, information-gatherer....whatever we needed that we could not find or do for ourselves...she was on call. the only time she got rattled was when we came off the overnight ferry from sicily. we had to say goodbye to our own familiar touring bus and our bus driver luigi and join another touring group enroute to rome for one last hoorah before boarding various planes and trains for other destinations. now she had not only her own little family, but she inherited the other group from their now-departed director and it turns out there were some complications that still needed to be worked out....oh my gaad, ai yai yai, mommamia......but she persevered with style, saw it through, and continued to do a great job. for which all of her little sheep are eternally grateful. allooorrrda.
Legend:
rrrrrd.....rollllll them rrr's baby. that's the way they sound to me:)
allora..... italian for ok, well, so....loredana's verrrrdy favorite expression
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