"The water heater!" She told me enthusiastically. Apparently she and her maitenance-guy-like assistant had come to fix our water heater (which I had noticed last night was acting very oddly, in a "no you can't have any hot water" kind of way). Totally bemused I slunk back to my bedroom and sat on my bed for about 20 minutes.
My room mate was very asleep still -- she and the other three who share this apartment with me were still not back when I fell asleep at 2 am. I was pretty much alone. I listened to the loud Italian conversation coming from our kitchen and tried desperately to think whether I had to go talk to them again. I really didn't want to. Tears arrived. It's amazing how alone one can feel when one can't really speak the language and one's three companions are all dead to the world.
Eventually I got up and dressed (after spending another ten minutes making sure I knew exactly how to say "do you need me or my friends" and "may I use the water" in Italian) and went to greet the woman and her companion again.
"Your Italian is so good!" She exclaimed when I offered my careful phrases. "Not like my English!" They did not need me and I could use the water if I didn't mind it cold. I just wanted to brush my teeth, so I didn't care. It was amazing, though, how relieved I felt after I had worked up the courage to have that 2 minute conversation.
My trials were not over.
Having absolutely no food in the house is really, really bad. I always complain, at home, about how "there's nothing to eat here!" but having stale bagels and cereal and ricotta cheese is so much better than having a literally empty fridge...that I will never complain at home again. I had to go out and get groceries today or I was pretty sure I would die -- and I'm not really comfortable enough with my flatmates yet to rely on them to do it...especially since they were all still asleep. So I went to the market.
I got very, very lost, and while some people are happy to get lost in a foreign city ("More opportunity to explore!") I was getting anxious in a belly-tightening, headache-inducing, jaw-clenching kind of way. When I finally made it to the huge market I expected to feel relieved, but I wasn't. I waltzed in through the doors to the giant terminal-like building and realized that I hadn't made a list. More important, though, I hadn't made a list with the names of the things I needed in Italian. So I wandered...for about 15 minutes, feeling even more alone than I had earlier that morning. Finally I approached a grocer and asked for bananas, peaches, and grapes, but when he offered me a grape and said "Prova!" (try it!) I just sort of wiggled my hand in an awkward way until he handed it to me.
After the grape incident I was confident enough to buy sausages, although I had to stand dumbly in front of the counter for about four minutes while I tried desperately to remember the Italian word for "quarter", as I certainly didn't want a whole kilo and suspected half would still be too much. I had a brief moment of terror when I thought maybe I'd asked for FOUR kilos, but thankfully I hadn't. It certainly felt as if I were carrying four kilos when I left the market and made the 15 minute walk home. I managed to stagger up the 4.5 flights of stairs to my apartment and deposit my prizes on the kitchen table.
So it don't look like much, but that little pile of groceries there is a SYMBOL OF MY TRIUMPH. Sort of. I'm still tired.
Look, I'm not saying I didn't cry into my teddy bear this morning, because I did, but I did manage to procure sustenance. I bought grapes. I am now the owner of my very own grapes. If that's not something to be proud of then I don't know what is.
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