The Story of the Art Monster

It was the last week of our program in Todi, Italy, and we were going to have an art exhibition for our art class. We had been asked to invite our local friends and (host) family members to it. So the day before the exhibition, I decided to remind my host mom about it. But, since my host mom didn’t speak any English and my Italian was really bad, too, I asked my Italian teacher to teach me how to say it. Now, art exhibition in Italian is mostra (with an "a") de arte, but by the time I got home, I had already forgotten half of the sentence. So I went up to my host mom and I said, in my broken Italian, “Don’t forget, mostro (with an "o") de arte tomorrow.” Even before I could finish my sentence, my host mom was laughing hysterically. I knew I had said something wrong, but I didn’t know what. So she quickly ran to the other room, got a dictionary and showed me the meaning of mostro...and, honestly, I couldn’t help laughing either. Mostro in Italian means monster, and what I had been saying was, “Don’t forget, Art Monster tomorrow!”

Posted by Vrinda, Todi, Italy