Germany meets Italy and vice versa

Hello everyone and welcome to our blog “Germany and Italy meet: a quarantine story”. Here for you are Giorgia and Clara. CLARA: Since Giorgia came to live with me I realized that this was not only going to be an experience in a foreign country for her but also a cultural exchange for me and my family. GIORGIA: I moved in at the beginning of February not knowing what to expect. I knew I had to live for 6 months with a Swabian-German family made up by the parents and three daughters, one of which approximately my age. CLARA: We might as well start the main part of our blog post writing about food, one of the main aspects of a culture. I have to address this topic carefully because my exchange student comes from Italy, a country were food is the basis of every tradition. Another reason is that… she is sitting directly next to me! GIORGIA: Yeah, food… the thing that I am probably missing the most from Italy. To be honest when I first came here I was a bit anxious to find out how my diet was going to be, especially since all they say about German cuisine is potatoes and butter everywhere… it didn´t take me long to realize that that wasn´t far from the truth. CLARA: Just like us Germans with the butter, I am yet to see my Italian partner enjoy one of her self-cooked Italian dishes without sparkling it with a lot (!) of oil beforehand. I am still waiting for her to put it on her cookies in the morning. And yes, you heard me right! Cookies for breakfast. That´s a thing. GIORGIA: Moving on from the food topic, apart from learning that I actually enjoy all this butter (the weighing scale does not, though!) I have also learned a couple of dialect expressions. From the “pass uff, Mädel!” to the “Kommscht du net?” I wasn´t really sure at first if they were even referring to me in German (and I don´t think that my teacher back in my home country will be able to understand much either). All in all after some months I can sound confident enough when I say “Ja, mir schwätzet ä bissle Schwäbisch”. CLARA: Not only she learned some local expressions… I have to admit, without being too immodest, I am also getting pretty good with Italian phrases. I still don´t know, however, when to use “hai paura?” (hast du Angst?) in a normal conversation, che strano (wie seltsam). I guess I will just try to gesture with my hands and see what they understand, as they can get almost every single concept across just like that (I could show you, maybe when quarantine is over). GIORGIA: Defenitely if you happen to laufen an uns vorbei (walk past us) at the Bahnhof waiting for the late S-Bahn, you will catch a mixture of Italian, English, German, Roman and Swabian dialect! On the next blog posts we will try to bring more content from our experience, especially since we have so much time on our hands nowadays (Thanks Covid-19). And now location reveal! Greetings from Capri!… April Fools ;))