Avanti! (aka "Today I am an Italian")

Italians are a pragmatic lot. Ask someone in Rome for directions: they will wave in (presumably) the right direction and say "Avanti!" roughly translatable as "go a few blocks that way and ask somebody else."
Anyway, the scene is a bright Sunday morning in late October.  I'm boppin' down the Via del Governo Vecchio, en route to the internet hotspot, with nothing on my mind more momentous than boarding passes.  I encounter three ladies of a certain age and dignity, decked out in their Sunday best.


--Lei parla Italiana?


Uh oh.  This is a test.  

--Un po', I exaggerated. And with greater accuracy: non abbastanza bene.   No, not well enough at all.
 
--Campo de' Fiori? one of the three asserted, with an interrogative upbeat. And the others chorused: Campo de' Fiori!

Ah.  Now that one I can handle.  I think.  Mutter mutter "al sud."  Mutter mutter "a destra."  Mutter mutter  "attraverso il Vittorio." 
 
And then it dawned on me.  There is an easy way out of this.

--Avanti!

--Grazie, signore!

And I gazed in admiration as they undertook their progress in the direction of Campo de' Fiori.

Today I am an Italian.