It is Friday afternoon, Fräulein and I have gone down to the local bar for a cappuccino and brioche. We both know cappuccino should only be drank in the morning, but we are both stranieri in bell’italia. Like an idiot I suggest Fräulein should start to teach me some of her German language. She readily agrees so I went into the bar and asked for some paper, pen and a big glass of red wine…. The most important thing was the red wine. Knowing my proficiency at learning Italian over the past fifteen years, wine was going to be an important learning aid.

After I had struggled through trying to learn number 1 to 10 and we had drank the cappuccino plus the red wine (Rotwein = red wine in German! who would have known) and had eaten some chocolates that I won at the bar. I am sure Fräulein thinks she won them, not that it matters as I ate most of them when she was trying to teach me numbers 1 to 10. We decided to leave the bar.

On the way to the car, an old Italian man greeted us….

Old Man: Salve. (Hello)

We both responded back in perfect Italian ‘Ciao’ (Fräulein’s Italian is better than mine)

He looked at Fräulein and said “You are stupendous, you are beautiful, so tall, Magnificent.”

I asked him his name and he replied You are so lucky very fortunate, she is so beautiful”

Ok thank you, but what is your name?

He completely ignored my question and said, “but you are shorter than me and she is so tall and beautiful and stupendous”

OK. I understand she is 10 cm taller than me and it is me who has to stand on tip toes for a kiss, but.

While this conversation is going on, Fräulein is giggling like a schoolgirl. The old man told us he was 82 years old and followed this up with “Fräulein is wonderful and beautiful”…. Although I asked him four or five times for his name, he was so entranced with the beauty of Fräulein, he never got around to telling me his name…

So at the moment I am still trying to learn Italian so I can laugh and talk to the locals and now I am trying hard to learn some German. Why? I am not sure, Fräulein’s English is near perfect, her Italian is much better than mine, for example, she said I don’t use conditional tenses when speaking Italian, whatever that means.

Maybe with her help, I might manage to learn enough German to get by when we go to Germany in the New Year.

Not to self, important German phrases to learn.

I like red wine.

Yes please, another glass.

Where is the toilet?

She is paying.

Where is Fräulein?

Bye from Pecora Nera and Miss Stupendous, marvellous tall Fräulein.