Y'all want Gelato?

Castiglion Fiorentino.

That’s right, short of ‘ciao’ and ‘vino’ the southern grammatisation of y’all is the word I hear most around here. So, not surprised by the first two but stumped by the frequent use of the last word you say? Well, you see not only are there 48 students from 3 of California’s public universities represented here at Santa Chiara but we also have students from 2 schools of the Lone Star state and one from ‘Bama. Texas A & M and UT Austin make up the Texans contingency and Auburn from Alabama just rolled in early this week. Ya, you can imagine it’s a funny chorus of ‘hey guys’, and ‘y’all’ we sing in the halls of our former convent but, save for the occasional disagreement on menu selections and shoe preferences, we all seem to harmonize together fairly well.

Well, I ought to admit, I get a kick out of hearing the soft southern accent doused with the generous use of y’all but, more importantly, all this y’allin helps support my Italian lessons. See, Italian, as other Romance languages, makes use of the plural form of the second person pronoun. For any of my Californian compatriots, you (as in you-all) should be familiar with the Spanish use of Ustedes and Vosotros. Well, Italian’s got ‘em too only they come to us by way of Voi and Loro. So what about English I hear? Well, we English speakers we don’t really make distinction between you or, say, a large group of you. Most of us, that is, ‘cept the southern states of the US. So, when trying to explain the verb tense for second person pronoun, all our animated Italian instructor has to say is: ‘You know, you plural as in Y’all.’ And, you (as in you-all) know what? We get it.

Moments: Santa Chiara

Above: Santa Chiara courtyard
Above: It's hot. We get thirsty.











Dinner family style Watercolor class














Santa Chiara has become something of an animal sanctuary. About 6 turtles live in the courtyard (after being rescued by one of the directors of the school.) And then there's Henry--a pesky, but very friendly, bird who enjoys sitting on student's shoulders or tearing apart stray notebooks.

This afternoon Katie, Merilee and I went for a quick walk in the valley. We came across a beautiful fig tree behind the octagonal church and picked a bag full of fresh figs. Then the sky cracked open and poured out the first electric storm of the season. Cool wet rain on hot summer skin, sweet figs, e deliziciosa.



Around C. Fio: