Blue Bar

Around the corner from where I live, there’s a coffee/wine bar called the Blue Bar. Down in the valley, there’s also a Green Bar and somewhere there’s a Red Bar, aside from a couple of others with names like Obelix and Asterix. The one I frequent is Blue Bar, which is not very large. There are, however, tables out on the cobblestone street and depending on the time of year you can sit in the sun or in the shade and have a cup of coffee or a glass of wine and let your dog, if you have one, lie at your feet hoping for a crumb, as you and he or she watch the tourists arrive or the neighbors pass by walking their furry friends.

What makes this place unique though is the owner, a handsome young man of about 40 with a stubby salt and pepper beard in the latest fashion of not having shaved for several days.  Once he’s poured the glass of wine or made that cappuccino (heaven help the tourist who orders one after midday!), he is happiest when playing his guitar and serenading his customers. He loves people, at least most of them, and when he’s not playing or cleaning the counter, he tries to learn the languages of his expat customers. In addition to the office workers or laborers who come by for that mid-morning espresso and a short chat, there are many non-Italians who either stop by on their way to and from the city’s main attractions, or who have fallen in love with the city and are temporary residents for a month or more every year. Around five o’clock, it’s quite common to see a bevy sitting outside with a goblet of wine and a bowl of potato chips as they meet up for their afternoon aperitivo. I never have figured out, however, just what they find to talk about one day after the other. Antony has a real aptitude for languages, and is delighted to practice his skills. What singles him out is that he is unpresuming and not averse to asking questions. So when I have five minutes and it’s off-time for customers, he pulls out his copy of Speak Up and we read a bit so I can correct his pronunciation.

While his Italian is perfect, he grew up in France and when speaking English, keeps forgetting to pronounce the final “s” on a word, for in French you don’t. When we’re reading an article, say on Ireland or the Beatles, I have to keep telling him – “look, there’s an “s” at the end of that word”. One of our real challenges appeared when we were reading about the Irish and their folklore what with banshees and dwarves. You might not think twice about the dwarves, but it’s an important word, for the artisan who lives one door away makes clay castles and … dwarves. Hah! Now that was a word almost impossible to pronounce, at least for Antony. Try pronouncing dwarves yourself and you’ll see that your lips and mouth and teeth all seem to be involved in an Olympic gymnastic competition. So maybe we should just stick to the alternative spelling: “dwarfs”. Antony had no trouble with squirrel, even though according to the internet it is one of the hardest words in the English language to pronounce. This rather nonplusses me, but Antony tells me that when he uses the word (now I’m not sure why he needed to refer to squirrels, except that somehow or other he had come across the phrase “to squirrel something away”), young people frequently didn’t understand him.  Maybe they’ve never had to squirrel away a few dollars in preparing for their trip to Europe.