Buondi.
Today I have the last from our ‘expressions with’ series (next week we’ll start something different…)
And this time it’s Expressions with ‘casa’.
For example ‘una casa chiusa’.
Now what could that be?
Some sort of youth institution, a sort of juvenile prison?
Oh, I know!
If you’ve been to Italy and looked at the houses and apartments here, you’ll have noticed that people like to have bars on their windows, certainly on the ground floor, but often even on the upper floors.
Nobody ever seems to get burgled in Italy (or at least, only the rich), but everyone, irrespective of social status, is utterly-parnoid about home-invasions.
When I first lived here and, during hot summers, would leave my bedroom window open at night, neighbours would knock on the door and warn me of the risks I was taking.
In those days it was Albanians, but substitute a feared immigrant community of your choice: Mexicans, Syrians, Canadians, whatever.
‘Everyone knew’ the Albanians would pump ‘sleeping gas’ through my bedroom window, presumably from the top of a ladder, so as to sedate me before ransacking my home and making off with my cash and jewellery.
“But I don’t have any cash or jewellery”, I’d protest.
“The Albanians/Mexicans/Canadians don’t know that, do they?” my neighbours would insist.
Privately I suspected that any cat burglar with access to sleeping gas would also be resourceful enough to research the Internet for more likely targets, but hey, I’m a foreigner and clearly know nothing or I wouldn’t leave my bedroom window open.
Besides the window bars, by the way, apartments here mostly have heavily-armoured doors, with several sets of locks, just in case the Albanians bring a tank and try a frontal assault…
Brits are the opposite, funnily enough. THEY get burgled all the time, but you’ll never see bars on the windows and they have faux-old wooden doors with silly little Tudor windows in them (and no shutters on the windows even, are they MAD?)
Anyway, the point is that Italians are very security-conscious. So maybe this ‘casa chiusa’ is something to do with that?
Oh well, you can find out for yourself when you study today’s new, free Italian lesson:
(The others in the series are on our ‘New’ page, here.)
P.S.
Next Tuesday I’m going to Sweden. It’s a holiday, but also my chance to put my eighteen months of language-study into practice!
Over a period of just under two weeks, we’ll be visiting first Malmo, then the Stockholm area, then Gothenburg, plus probably places in between, before flying back to Italy from Copenhagen.
Advice and suggestions from club members living in any of those cities would be very welcome!
What and where to eat, nice pubs, touristy stuff I shouldn’t miss – that sort of thing!
You know how to contact me.
And hey, I plan to write up my travels, just as I did when we visited Texas last year.
If you weren’t with us back then but are curious, try Googling ‘Onlineitalianclub.com + Texas’.
Or look at our ‘Recent articles‘ page and click back in time to June 2017, though given that I write 156 articles a year, that might take a little longer…
Be warned then – content over the next few weeks is likely to be only peripherally connected to learning Italian, though it should hopefully be relevant to learning a foreign language.
If that’s not your cup of tea, do feel free to unsubscribe (there’s a link at the bottom of each email I send out.)
Or just stop reading until I’m back in Italy, which’ll be Monday 25th of June.
A lunedì.
Roberta Verbyla says
Buondi Daniel! I used to receive these chatty emails from you and now I no longer receive them! I miss them and would like to continue to receive them. Use email address below. I do receive emails about book offers, so I am all set with that, but emails about your travels and about the new lesson on the website, I no longer receive those.
Daniel says
You’ll need to ‘join’ again, Roberta, sorry!
Daniel