Day 5: Peanut Butter, Aubergines, and Background Music

It's raining today. Back to being chilly again. Also, I will actually be going into town Saturday, so I will be able to get batteries for my camera.

So, I gave my host family a gift last night for inviting me into their home. It was peanut butter -- both the chunky and creamy kind because my grandmum argued that more American kids like creamy peanut butter even though I love chunky.

They were a little confused by peanut butter. I'll explain.

Peanut butter is not really sold in Europe. During my time in Milan, I saw one type of peanut butter -- it was in a very small jar, it was very expensive, and, I must admit, it didn't really look like peanut butter at all. This is something that is very American.

The other thing: Peanut butter, in Italian, is called il burro di arachidi -- a butter, or spread, made from peanuts. My host family kept getting stuck by the use of il burro, which seems to only be used for actual butter (the milk fat kind). I tried to explain peanut butter as something similar to Nutella, but then I got onto a tangent about how to eat peanut butter and got lost trying to come up for the Italian equivalent of "celery."

They enjoyed it well enough, I suppose. However, I now have an awful craving for peanut butter cookies.

That explains the "peanut butter" part of the title. Now onto "aubergines."

So, for the middle school English classes, the students have to listen to dialogue; the dialogue is on a CD, they listen to it, and then they answer questions about it. Easy enough. I never really thought about it, but people here learn British English. Which means there are exaggerated British accents for the dialogue CD's and words like "aubergines" are used.

It's something.

While we were listening to the dialogue, there was a music class going on next door. They were listening to music during the class and the sound leaked through the walls. It wasn't too bad, but it was definitely noticeable. So, for one hour each week, for the next eight weeks, I will have background music.

Personally, I am amused.