Getting About

Last weekend my choir had a concert in a town called Argenta. We had a very raucous bus ride (which reminded me a little bit of elementary school, but worse) and then we had about three hours to kill before the concert. We drank coffee, then rehearsed. Then we were hungry. And what do you do if you're hungry and don't have time to go to a restaurant for a real dinner? Aperitivo!

That meant multiple glasses of spritz (which is prosecco, a bit of water, and a bitter alcohol, like Campari), and healthy foods like potato and corn chips, popcorn, and bizarre little sandwiches made with prosciutto and spicy ketchup. I don't know how everyone else managed it, because when we left (5 minutes before the start of the concert) I felt both tipsy and nauseous. And after we had listened to the children's choir and all-male choir, we got onstage. By that time - after about an hour and a half sitting in a darkened auditorium - I was tipsy, nauseous, and sleepy. But somehow the concert turned out really well. (Well, not according to our maestro, who hears every mistake. But I thought it was great.) We looked very snazzy in our all-black outfits and colorful scarves.
Speaking of which, you can find the choir here.
If you want to see the current photo and listen to some songs, you have to enter the site in Italian. After the intro, click the Italian flag, then the "media" bar, to listen to songs we recorded in March - I sang only a couple of them because I didn't know the words yet (though I do now!).



Not much else has been going on here. We had no hot water for week and I woke up every morning to the sound of my roommate yelling in pain in the shower (yet he wasn't very quick about fixing it). I finished my English teaching on Thursday, after giving Andrea his final exam. He was happy to finish because it's the beginning of summer - I was sort of sad. And I felt guilty, because he had trouble with the exam (which I didn't write, but still).

Translating has been fine. Tourism texts have lots of words like "crystalline", "splendid", "excursion", and "tranquility". I actually wrote an email yesterday describing a night out as a "grand excursion", and then felt very ashamed. This website is infiltrating my brain. (It's not in English yet, but it will be when I'm done.) But I do like the office and the people I work with. This week I taught Andrea (who's sort of like the Italian version of a Belmont Hill boy) the myriad meanings of "get". When he asked me the difference between saying that something "rocks" or something "rules", I was totally stumped. Any ideas? It's all very educational. But we agree on who is the hottest female Grey's Anatomy character, so he gets bonus points. (It's Addison.)

What other English phrases are worth passing on?