There’s a language lying somewhere between Italian and English that only bewildered tourists and Italian grandmothers, or nonnas, speak.  It consists in simple phrases repeated once for good measure, and you become proficient in it when you find yourself caught in the middle of an Infiorata festival at 9 p.m.

“Veni qui!  Veni qui!” a nonna with a yellow perm calls to you from her medieval-era, stone home, sweeping her hand away in a violent shooing motion.

“Oh.  Oh,” you say, pedaling back and forth across the cobblestone threshold like a bear on a unicycle, unsure whether she wants you to come to her or go away.

Inside lies a massive pile of carnations: pink, red, yellow and even lime green. A giant’s bouquet.  She gently grabs the petals of a red one like a chicken’s neck and yanks the stem clean off.  She smiles, her scissors quickly chewing the petals into bite size pieces collecting in a shoebox at her feet.  She mimes a cutting motion at you expectantly.      

“Snip, snip?” you ask, and she nods, impatiently repeating this over and over, correcting your desperate attempts until midnight when her fellow nonnas swarm in with pizza, pastries and wine.  They pinch your arms, tsking, and gnash their teeth emphatically.  “Mangia!  Mangia!” they insist as they shove food in your face.

After an hour, you beg, “Basta!  Basta!” and the first nonna pulls you out into the night, shoving them back like wild animals.  You two step out onto San Gemini’s lone road, but tonight, the stone pathway is hidden under a natural mosaic of flowers, seeds and coffee beans, a tapestry of doves, crosses and oceans.  The nonna plants you down at one design, a stained-glass Jesus and Mary, and she disappears.  A young woman with brown, buzzed hair grabs your chin, rubbing her finger across it.

“Bella,” she nods and “Bella,” she repeats.

“No.  No,” you insist modestly and it won’t be until much later that you realize she’s drawn a charcoal goatee on your face.

She then hands you a box of gluey carnations, but after a few minutes, she gently wipes away half the clippings you’ve spread across the stenciled paper.  This happens every half hour until the orange sun rises and you’ve repeated “Mi dispiace” twenty-five times.

Finally, the nonna returns and drags you to a cafe to eat, nap and slowly glean from a local English speaker that at 5 p.m., the priest will lead a procession through town, kicking up your creation with each step.

As you realize this, the nonna looks at you.  “Cappuccino?” she asks.  “Cappuccino?” with a sipping motion.

“No.  No.”  You shake your head heavily.  “Vino.  Vino rosso.”