First post! How exciting!

Buona sera ragazzi!
Here's what I want to do: tell everyone, everywhere why studying and speaking ITALIAN is absolutely the coolest thing! Why it's such a fantastic language; why speaking it releases endorphins in my brain; why reading an ITALIAN novel or watching an ITALIAN film or walking along a street in Italy and hearing someone speak ITALIAN is so worth one's time! Ma perche' no?! Particularly when a taxi-cab driver in Florence once stopped his car to tell me: "Complimenti a tua madre, ti ha fatto bene!"

Ok, so maybe that's a few too many exclamation points but I can't think of any ITALIAN speaker who is lukewarm about the language of Dante, Machiavelli and Petrarca....Not to mention Marco Materazzi, Luca Carboni, Niccolo Ammaniti and my friend Giovanni, just to mention a few illustrious native Italian speakers! (Ciao Giovanni! Sai cosa vuol dire 'illustrious'? La tua vecchia maestra ti fa fare un po' di compito!).

Here's what I think you'll find on my blog (still in the formulation stages, as you can imagine): I will write about Italian books I am reading, Italian films I have seen and Italian meals I have devoured recently. I would also like to list my favorite restaurants in Italy, my favorite streets (and street names, a bit of an obsession with me), my favorite Italian cities and how about favorite Italians? I am leaving out favorite Italian wines, and out-takes from current excursions to the land dove suona il si' but I am sure those topics will find a home here.

I hope all of this is of interest to somebody other than me out there. Speriamo bene! And to my Italian friends: per piacere, mandami un email, fatti sentire, ma soprattutto quando vedi un errore! Sai che gli errori grammaticali mi fanno impazzire!!!

E va bene, cominciamo!