English Grammar and other Absurdities

Jutta is staying here with us as she is taking a class at a local school training to be an English language teacher. So we have frequent late night discussions about the most fascinating topic humankind ever came up with: grammar. Hardly any disciplin seems such a random mixture of conventions, habits and hard and fast rules. I challenge all of you (with the exception of Pamela who knows this stuff) to explain to me when to use the Past Perfect Simple vs. the Past Perfect Progressive. Any takers? I certainly had to look up what a Past Perfect is and then remind myself of the simple vs.progressive and then - I still didn't know. Mind you I started learning English in 3rd garde and although I learned more BS than useful things during my first two years I still had 9 solid years of English during Gymnasium (high-school, sort-of) and then got an advanced dregree in a disciplin (biology) where everything of any importance is written or said in English plus I had an American boyfriend and went to a top-tier American business school. And I still didn't know. I do it right most all of the time but I don't know why. On the occasion that I get it wrong I know for a fact that 95% or more of the Americans would have gotten it wrong, too. But here we are talking grammar classes, exams - all that annoying stuff that doesn't rely on intuition or skill but on hard knowledge acquired by hours and hours of memorizing rules and exceptions - actually rules are easy, exceptions are the problem.

So Jutta is sitting here, day in and day out studying grammar and lesson planning while we take trips, explore the city and go pigeon chasing at the local park. In the evening we try and partake in her misery but really - who of you know when one uses "he will be speaking" vs. "he is going to be speaking" of the top of your head? For me it is actually fun because I do not have an exam looming and I think it will help me with studying Spanish when I finally know what that past participle thingy is that I am supposed to be forming in Spanish.

On the fun and entertainment note: we took a train to Pisa today.Max has long been talking about the Leaning Tower and has been speculating when it will come crashing down. The train ride is just over an hour and the weather was forecasted to be somewhat better there than here. So off we were. I have been to Pisa at least once before but it must be close to 20 years (or more - yikes!) and all I remember was being underwhelmed. Given the fact that Pisa is so hyped up I had expected more. Today I was pleasantly surprised, the town, although not as neat and small and cute as Lucca was definitely charming with lots of old buildings, nice pasticerias, piazzas, chiesas and all the other ingredients of Toscany. We had to cross the entire town to get to the Duomo and the Tower and I was thinking to myself while walking that the whole town was pleasantly non-touristy. I mean there were tourist, plenty, but nothing like Florence. That all came to an abrupt stop when we turned the corner and entered the area of the Leaning Tower. It was crawling with tourist of every description, color and nationality. This isn't even close to main season and it was hard to spot the lawn for the people (hyperbole!). So we decided to climb the tower and see the whole circus from above. Max was very excited about the prospect and so we went to buy tickets, expecting outrageous prices but the reality was a differnt ley down: Max was too young, one has to be 8 years old min to climb the tower and although he is tall we couldn't pass him off for 8, especially since Uli had said upfront that he is only 3 to get free admission for him. Tears followed and a lot of complaining about "malo" (bad in Spanish) people until we could sort of satisfy him with the explanation that many a baby had fallen off the tower, contracted a super-big "bobo", and had to spend serious time in a hospital ("Mama, the babies have to be in the hospital for 10!!! minutes - that's super-long") and that he certainly did not want to face that prospect and that's why the policy (accepted authority at this time as they carry pistols) had forbidden boys like Max to climb the tower.

Last time I came I thought the Tower and the Duomo was well worth the trip but the city nothing special, this time I thought that the Tower and the Duomo were highly overrated but the city charming. One thing that seriouls irked me is the shamelessness with which they extort money from the tourists. Sure, you have to pay to go up the tower, but you also have to pay to see the Duomo and if you happen to be interested you have to pay seperately to visit the Baptisterium and yet another church (or museum) next to the Duomo. All tickets have to be bought individually at differnt ticket booths. Give me a break, just consolidate and don't be so greedy as to charge me four times and if you absolutely must at least sell me all the tickets in one place so I don't have to stand in line four times. I mean - no brainer, right - everbody hates queuing.

The result of the Tower age constraint was that Max was annoyed with the lot of them and didn't want to see the Duomo or anything else. Uli and I decided that we have seen enough Duomos, churches, chiesas, iglesias, Kirchen, cathedrals, Jesuses, Madonnas, Saints and Sinners and so we skipped the money extortion scheme of the catholic church altogether and just lounged around the lawn (forbidden, but we are in Italy and nobody gives a damn). To make up for it we lit a candle in one of the other - minor - churches in Pisa on the way to the train station. Finally a real candle with a real wick and real fire. We have been waiting for that ever since we set foot into Spain almost six weeks ago.