June 11th: Converters and Euros

June 11, Wednesday

10:50 pm

Today the chamber orchestra had our first rehearsal/coaching with the violin teacher. It was sort of a surreal experience for everyone to gather together, tired, cranky, and disoriented, and sit down to read Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. After (for some of us) four days of not touching our instruments, it sounded great to finally hear some music. Though we were rusty, the piece felt especially fresh and fun, and it was a great first run-through.

I have a growing rapport with the woman who works at the front desk. She’s fairly young (probably late 20s to early 30s), wears hip clothes, and has a cute layered haircut with highlights. She’s also very peppy and helpful, or as much as she can be when there’s a huge language barrier between her and most of the people who are staying in the convent. (Oberlin’s not the only bunch – there’s at least one other group from Oklahoma, and maybe others too but I’m not sure). I stopped by on the way up to my room, since I needed to ask her where to buy an electrical converter to charge my cell phone and computer… evidently something about the voltage is different here…..

Umm….

How the heck do I ask this in Italian, when I’m only 80% sure what I’m even asking in English???

On the way I had studied up on my pertaining words, such as “voltage,” “plug,” “wall,” “outlet,” “convert,” etc., and fortunately, many of them were cognates. So I basically took a deep breath, got out my cell phone for illustration, and did the best I could, complete with hand gestures, which is how they usually describe something in their own language anyway. To my surprise, the woman met me halfway, and attempted to help me with her grasp on the English language, however new it was for her. After a couple of minutes, she pointed to the wall, I nodded wildly, and she managed to understand my question. Turns out there’s a store right in the main circle that sells Motorola phones, so I think I’m all set. That is, if I can explain the whole thing again to the store worker later this afternoon….. As I walked away, only half pleased with myself, she said, “I’m teaching you Italian, you’re teaching me English.” “Si! Va bene, penso,” I responded – It’s going well, I think.

Speaking of the language barrier, I paid 10 euro for two items this afternoon, thinking I was spending only 1 euro. Here they mark whole euro the same way we mark cents:

€.5

I don’t know about you, but this looks like half a euro to me.

It’s actually 5 euros. So at a dirty corner bookstand/tourist trap, I found a great book on the history and culture of Arezzo, and an Italian-dubbed version of the Bourne Supremacy movie, for “€.5” each, and was under the impression that I was getting a great deal. The friendly old guy who owned the bookstand was too cute and helpful for me to put the stuff back, so I just bought them anyway.