When in Rome...

Well, not quite Rome. But near enough. Last week we took a 4 day flying trip to Milan. Initially it was to see a football game. But the significance of that event quickly became overshadowed once it was discovered that Milan was the home of the odd fashion shop. Or two. Or 10. But that's a story for another day. This was my first real trip outside of Sweden since arriving in Sweden. I don't really count our trip to Iceland, as that was just a group of Swedes hanging around together. This was just the 2 of us, in a strange new world. And a world that embraced neither English nor Swedish as a language. And here's where I discovered something really interesting about my current destination in life. I had learnt, or tried to learn, a little Italian. Prior to our trip. Nothing too complicated or technical. Just so we could hail a cab, order a pizza, or check the price on something. When I arrived to Sweden I knew a few Swedish words and phrases. But I was very very selfconcious about my shortcomings, so was reluctant to try them out with any anger. Still am to an extent, but that's slowly fading with my sense of self respect. In Milan I discovered that, when you are crap at speaking one language, and you know that you are, and you accept that you are, and you've given up being polite........ you have no problem at all about being crap in another language. So I let those poor sods in Milan have it. Both barrels of tragic Italian. It was bollocks, they never understood a frickin word, and I couldn't have cared less. I consider that to be progress along my Swedish journey.