Italy Remembered

Honestly, and I have to be honest or my nose might grow, my first two days in Italy were hard and exhausting.  To be in a country where you don't understand what is said to you and you can't read the signs, it's exhausting.  Perhaps I look exhausted.  Vietno means prohibited.  That would have been a good word to know.  "No Capisce" also would have come in handy and I knew that phrase.  I've watched the movie, The Godfather, after all, but I forgot it. In the ancient walled city of Erice, a man asked me, in Italian, the way to the piazza. I understood his question and I had just been to the piazza, but to tell him the way was impossible with my limited language skills.  He said to me, "No capisce?"  I replies nodding enthusiastically, "Si! No capisce" even though I did capisce.  Sometimes it is handy to claim ignorance.  Later in the week a young woman approached our table while we were having lunch in Catania asking for money.  I totally capisced. But I said, "No capisce."  And the waiter intervened for me, saying I didn't capisce.  Not capiscing was hard. While at the mall I saw a sign that was explained to me that babies should be carried, no pushed in the stroller down the ramp from one floor to another.  I knew this baby would not handle freedom followed by constraint in the stroller again after a short interval so I chose not to capisce that sign.  After the first two days I gave up on capiscing and was able to relax and enjoy myself. I tried though.  In my attempt to speak Italian strangely French and Spanish words emanated from my mouth.  It was very confusing.  One day I asked my companions, "Why did the bellhop say Bon Jour to me?"  The answer?  "Because you said 'Merci!' to him instead of 'Gracie.'"  Oh, yeah, my mistako. Twice I went into what I thought was the women's restroom only to find a man in there. Both times I left and checked the sign on the door - definitely a dress and not pants on the sign so I returned and purposely forgot about the man.  People can make mistakes. On the flight home the agents at the desk were Italian and I had some difficulty but once on the plane, the main language was strangely, pleasantly relaxingly, English.  Wow, it felt so good to be understood again.  Kudos to those American immigrants! I don't think I could do it.