Hoha Hola

Today was the first night of Italian 101 for Alice and I. For the rest of the people in our class, it was the second night. They were one lezione ahead of us. Alice and I don’t need lezione 1, we drink Italian wine!

Upon arriving we knew we were in for trouble or that, maybe, we were trouble. Anxious to be bilingual we arrived early, walking in on the Geman class. The teacher, who was also our Italian teacher, motioned for us to exit and, in English, told us to shut the door.

Once we finally made our way into the classroom, trouble ensued!  We did not do our homework, a movie about Mussolini, and we had no idea how to conjugate verbs. Non capiscso! In addition, we had overachievers in the mix. There is one or one with a twin in every class. More about her later.

As our teacher, That’s Not Italian, started going around trying to memorize everyone’s names, she learned we were new to the class. Upon this discovery, Alice leaned over to me and said (in English), “I can’t believe she doesn’t remember we weren’t here the first night.” Alice is right, we’re pretty unforgettable. Kind of like Bombshell McGee. Speaking of which, Bombshell McGee was sitting in the back row and has a big borsa. Once it was obvious we were “green” to the language and the class I let everyone know, “Clearly, we’re not going to do very well in this class, we can’t even read English.  We thought the class was on Thursdays and missed the first night.” Everyone laughed, in Italian. Hoha hola. But I jest, hoha hola is how you pronounce Coca Cola in Italian, if you’re “pure,” which, of course, we are.

As we were going around telling everyone what we have (English translation: boasting), Overachiever had to use a four word phrase when everyone else only used three word phrases. That’s right, she said, “Io ho pantalone blu.” Showoff. Oh, and the flying fish tat on your wrist, signore, please! Bombshell McGee, who lie ha vino, was like, whatever (with Italian attitude!).

Somehow, we quickly moved to plurals. Alice quipped, “Noi abbiamo pennas.” Wrong! Then I said, “Voi avete scrivanias.” That’s Not Italian replied, “You girls, you think you can just add a ‘s’ and make it plural.” We really don’t think that, we were just testing her. Then she said, “That’s not Italian. Italians say, ‘you want to speak Spanish, just add ‘s.” You girls, you grammarly super incorrect.”

It’s pretty clear Alice and I, with our grammarly (yes Add-ly, grammar is now a noun) super incorrect, must head to the library and check out some children’s books on Italian. We’re definitely going to need some picture books to make it through this class. Or, maybe, just more wine. As Alice so wisely wrote (in a secret note that she passed to me at the first part of class), “Clearly, a glass of wine would have helped.”

Today’s homework assignment: Google Carla Bruni. We did. She’s hot naked. As soon as we saw her, we both exclaimed, “Hoha Hola!”

273 thoughts on “Hoha Hola”

  1. I ain’t never had much of no desire to learn no furrin’ langwitch… but after seeing ms bruni nakit, I could:

    a) see myself learning a foreign language
    b) googling the french first lady for class credit

    could I get an internship?

  3. Hmmm. I have a feeling the reason I didn’t know about my binding, bookselling, Italian speaking neighbor is I didn’t speak Italian at the time, so I didn’t understand him. Probably thought he was Greek. Now that I’m Greek, it’s all Greek to me.
    @Area Man: you speak english goodly, so goodly, i think you could speak any language. I’m proud of your googling skills.

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