tanti aguri

I woke up this morning with my mind trying to translate random words from english to italian, with my spanish getting in the way. All I recalled about the upcoming day was that I was heading to the Vatican Museum with Zia Maria Rosada and her 3rd grade class. As I walked out of the bedroom, Maria greeted me with Tanti Aguri. I stopped a moment, tried to figure out which language she was speaking and then realized she said Happy Birthday. I said gratzie automatically and then it clicked that it was my birthday. She made me this wonderful cake which I would have eaten more than one slice if I hadn't eaten so much for lunch. I need to just plan on gaining weight while I'm here!
After day 2 of being in Italy, my italian hasn't improved much and my english has gotten worse. I was typing an email to a friend in Nicaragua and I didn't know how to spell disappointed in English on freetranslation.com so I could get it translated to Spanish. It's all the more obvious here that I'm losing my mind. I walk around with a small notebook and ask anyone around me how to say this or that.
Franco, my mom's cousin that I never met before, picked me up from the airport and he and his family have been so ridiculously nice to me. It's as if I'm the president of the United States and their long lost daughter all in one. Franco has the look that I typically associate with Italians. Dark hair, a little silver going through it, a gold link bracelet on his right hand, a checkered button-down shirt that is covered by a sea-foam green sweater accompanied by black pants and shiny black shoes. Thank goodness for his two beautiful daughters, Arianna 28 and Elisa 24 who both speak English. They also have a 20 year old living with them while she goes to school, her name is Serena and she is from Futani, where my grandparents are from. Last night I felt like a school girl again as all four of us were in one room, watching Mona Lisa Smile (i understood none of it, but I've seen it before) and exchanging Italian and English words. The girls got a kick out of blueberries and blackberries. They thought when I said Raspberries, I said redberries. They kept going with all the colors...greenberries, yellowberries and orangeberries. Too bad its not that easy.
Monday I start school, and its possible I'll see the Coleseo before that. If only the frustrations of the language barrier would go away...I feel like I'm back in 7th grade just learning Spanish and living in a place like Nicaragua. It's true that b-c I know Spanish I'm a step ahead in learning Italian, however the two languages are just different enough that words I think would be the same aren't and frustration forces me to write down the correct translation in my little notebook, just to forget it two seconds later. Regardless, I have a solid feeling I'm really going to like this place. More to come soon.