We had a great trip to Italy this summer. Ever since, I’ve seen things with a slightly different perspective. I imagine it’s the same for Em.

It took me a while to get the hang of some aspects of the language. First, I had to stop trying to speak Spanish after a waiter in Rome requested that I do so because it was throwing him off. Then I had to get used to the way that one forms plurals in Italian (and Latin). Masculine plural nouns generally end in “i”, and feminine plural nouns end in “e”. For example: a sandwich = “un panino”. Two sandwiches = “due panini”.

Back at home in the states, we all butcher this with Italian words that we’ve adopted into English. When I find myself ordering a sandwich at an Italian restaurant here, I find it listed as “a panini”. I’ll order it as “a panino”, and the waiter will confirm, “okay, a panini”. Ah, stop that. It hurts.

Anyway, here’s a fun and less-painful example: one of the bathroom doors in my office has this pattern in the wood.

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t think anything of it, but when compared to a map of Italy, it bears a striking resemblance.

Map courtesy Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the BPL.

…something I would not have noticed, had I not been keeping a mental image of the map of Italy in my mind ever since this summer. sigh.