So East it's Ouest

...Italy. So I took up Anna-Maria's offer to visit down near Pisa in Tuscany.  Using the super cheap and super simple (a bus goes straight from Lille to the front door of the airport) Charleroi airport in Belgium I headed on down bearing gifts from Lucia from the north of France.  Anna and her husband Nick live in a small town nearby called Vicopisano nearby Pisa.  He is Dutch/Italian she is French/Italian and they speak english, italian, dutch and french fluently.  Ridiculous.  They both work as language teachers and Nick also heads up a bagpipe troup and is a Scottish aficionado (kilts kilts kilts), he wears a bowler hat.  They are part of the english group in Pisa and they study with many nigerians so they are now learning nigerian pidgeon,  things like 'You face be fine'=you're looking good. Tuscany  vs the south of France:         Basically Tuscany is really similar to the south of France.  Differ...

The most exciting part about speaking a new language is when you get to hear it used casually on the street.  This has been the most educational part of my stay.  Things aren't called what the books taught me to call them or there are some 'faux amis' (the same word in both languages with different meanings) that I wasn't aware of, or even just mannerisms, commonly used mild expletives, phrases and slang.  For instance in every French book they will tell you that window is 'fênetre'; when used here the French understood what I meant but it was like the equivalent of saying 'may I take a ride in your horse-less carriage?'.  Okay maybe it wasn't that wierd but nowadays 'fênetre' means the whole window including the frame around it, so if you want to say window in everyday terms you use the word 'vitre' or sometimes even 'carreau'.  A 'faux amis' I was not aware of was ravioli, which can also mean dumpling; you learn a lo...