italian lessons... day 1

I've started my Italian language class. Yep, after two years in Italy, I've grown tired of sounding like a cave woman. My first class was pretty enlightening, exactly the stuff that Strange Pilgram is all about, so I'll share. Maybe weekly, we'll see...

What did I learn in my first day of Italian?

A pencil sharpener is called temperamattita. This word gave me a lot of confusion when the punks and I were shopping for school supplies. Mattia means pencil, and tempera reminded me of Temper Paints, so I thought it was some kind of painting pencil. Glad we finally cleared that up!

Also, principianti means beginners. I'd always understood it to be "participants"... which actually works most of the time. Ahh, the subtle details are beginning to surface.

And then this phrase really threw me for a loop:
Lui e' medico, pediatra in un grande ospedale di Milano; si chima Paolo, ha 45 anni, un po' di pancia (poca), e' un po' pelato (troppo), e' sportivo, simpatico e allegro.

Did you get all that? Well, Paolo sounds like a pretty good catch. He's a doctor, a pediatrician at a big hospital in Milano. 45 years old. Pancia means tummy, so he has just a little tummy. He's also athletic, nice, and happy...

But what about pelato? What the heck does that mean? I'm thinking: Pelle is skin and pelo is an animal's fur coat ...wait, are they saying he's furry? Too much furry?

How much is too much? Are we talking Mike Rowe furry or Teen Wolf furry?

good furry

bad furry

Well, it turns out that, on the contrary, pelato means bald.