I meet La Russa at b&b, where I'm staying. She is in her 50ties but I gauge she might even have surpassed the limit of being 55. Nevertheless I would never ask her about age as it's a rather perplex and inappropriate topic. She speaks both languages, that is, English and Italian at a broken level.
In contrary to me she is more sociable and although her Italian is much worse than mine, she is not afraid to practice and to speak it, while to me it is almost a drag to say something so imperfect I would rather keep my mouth shut. Indeed I'm very very wrong.
I assume la Russa is a well off entrepreneur back in her homeland, thus she can allow herself 'a vacation' in Sicily 3-4 times a year with a duration of 2 months each. She is divorced and has a daughter who is just as passionate about Italy as her but somehow she got married to her countryman.
She always wears a gaudy red lipstick and changes her personality drastically once switching to Russian (and since it's a Slavic language just as Polish I can understand quite much). I can't say we got along because I barely know her, but we were hanging out once.
It is my last day in Palermo and I decide to go and hunt for some souvenirs with her (la Russa) since Palermo da sola still seems to be a bit pericoloso to me. She recounts me stories about her amore. Her amore is 50 something I couldn't get what was his job but I started wondering why she has to stay at b&b instead of living with him especially that mind you we went trough the whole city to find suitable pairs of socks for him.
Amore, he likes when I go shopping for him but he is very demanding so a simple pair of socks won't satisfy him. I would like to buy him also a decent pair of shoes but I cannot do it without his approval - she enters every shoe shop and collects pictures of the assortment to show them later on to amore ,so that he could choose his favorite pair.
Without judging anyone I just hope I won't end up like this, but since some people are afraid to be alone they are ready for many sacrifices. However I don't like this kind of approach as it continues labeling Slavic girls in the Italian world as either prostitutes , badante(s) summarizing as obedient chicks, who will do everything to make the man happy not wanting anything in change for themselves, which is a pity because they deserve the best.
We also go to the Ballaro's market where we order a portion of sardines that brings to my stomach nothing but a subsequent contamination and the next day enhanced by the insupportable heat my condition gets just worse, so I'm kind of forced to sightsee the Italian capital at full throttle.
I forgot to say goodbye to la Russa and I feel sort of bad about it, because le voglio bene lo stesso (I wish her well regardless)
