Le mie nuove parole

In the immortal words of Billy Maddison:
"Back to shcool, back to shcool. Gonna show my daddy that I'm not a fool..."

So yes, here I am, just finished my Italian study for the night and I've finally hacked into somebody's internet connection from our apartment. I'm full from the pasta I just cooked (being full is now an hourly occurrence) and still tired from our random Tuesday night outing with a few Florentine locals. The only new thing about life here at Italian school in Florence is that (okay there are two new things) I have to get up at 7.30am (eek) and I have study to do. Besides that, drinking excessively is still a feature as is getting up to general mischief...

One of the things I've learnt about the Italian language so far is that it has distinct lack of slang and there is a true inability to make up new words and phrases. However, that hasn't stopped Loz, Phoebe and myself from putting our name to a few fine (English) phrases that I think I have to share...

1. The chocolate cake face (Origin: Marissa and Phoebe, 28/2). The first night we found the local Tratt (our brilliant local restaurant) we decided we had to sample their chocolate cake. When Phoebe and I dug our forks in, lifted the morsel to our mouths and tried the masterpiece, our eyes rolled to the backs of our heads, our lips turned up ever so slightly and we moaned the most satisfied of moans imaginable. We turned to each other, realised how ridiculous we looked (like those synchronised divers, but Italian style with food consumption), we could not stop the laughter. The very next day on a coffee break at school, we walked into a bar (an Italian bar is really just a glorified coffee shop by the way, I'm not that much of an alco) and were waiting for our macchiati when a glorious example of a Florentine man swanned in, stood at the bar, looked around for all the drooling women (we were there) and began chatting away to the barista in the sexiest Italian. Once again, Pheobe and I looked at each other, the eyes began to bulge excitedly, a grin spread across our face and we realised that the chocolate cake face had returned. Stupidly enough when we were drunk the other night, we told the Italians about the CCF. One of them wrote to Lauren today saying, 'when I got your friend request today, I got the chocolate cake face'. We have started a phenomenon.

2. Food perve (Origin: Phoebe's friend, date unknown). Pretty self explanatory this one, but we use it (and do it) constantly when in restaurants, at the food markets and in various gelaterias around the place. I've also come up with another meaning for the word. It revolves around the hot butcher at the food markets. He's sort of an Italianfied Hugh Jackman. I am not joking.

3. Jump friendly (Origin: Marissa, 5/3). Phoebe and I were talking about Prince Caspian in the latest Narnia movie (we are Disney nerds...correction, I am a nerd) and the words just came out of my mouth: "He is completely jump friendly."
Look out hot butcher.

4. Spartaco and Maximus (Origin: Phoebe and Marissa, 2/3). In honour to the real Spartaco we met on our first night here, Phoebe decided she would name my dictionary after him. Hers is called Maximus because, well, he's so tiny. He's got little man syndrome.

Lastly, because some people have been hassling us for the reason behind our blog name, I'll give it to you (Lord knows when Lauren will bother writing again).

5. Fatboy (Origin: Geoff Lynch, sometime in January). I'll admit it. You all were right. My suitcase was way too big. My big suitcase (Fatman, father of Fatboy) initially weighed 23kg. Fatboy, the 'small'/'carry-on' bag weighed 15kg. Yep, I'm quite serious. I really don't know why the woman who weighed it at customs at Brisbane airport was so nice to me, but it was more than double what it was supposed to be. She let me straight through. The man who was there two weeks later sent Loz back because she was about 1kg over. After realising both Fatman and Fatboy were not the best of travelling companions, I put the two of them on a diet. I threw out a few things, left clothes at a friend's place, lost a few more things and have offloaded a couple of books to Loz.

Anyway, too much to digest on that one. Ciao for now.