Italian Romance, Continued (and a note on sing-songiness)

"By the way, Josh is now engaged," I told all the girls on the way to Laura and Elisa's house after an afternoon of ice skating. (Side note: In Italian, the words boyfriend or girlfriend and fiance are used interchangeably, so you have to say that they are "officially fianceed")
"Really?!" They exclaimed collectively. "Tell us about it!"
Admittedly, I don't know many of the details, but I explain what little I know. There wasn't that much of a planned program to it as there was with Tom's engagement. The absence of a program brought up the whole episode with Andy and our friend Giacomo's opinion on it.
"Not romantic?!? He doesn't think it's romantic? That's because he's not a woman!" were the various cries that went out.
"Giacomo thinks he knows everything" Elisa comments, "Men think they know everything."
"We do!" piped in her 12 year old brother, which brought out laughter from his five female (and substantially older) companions.

I comment only because it was interesting to see this situation through a different pair of eyes. Maybe there's less of a gap there than there first seemed ;)

On an unrelated note, but one with the same cast of characters.
I ate dinner with this family tonight. We were one Italian family made up of mom, dad, two sisters and a brother, aged 18, 15, and 12 respectively, two Portuguese sisters and me, an American. At dinner, one of the Portuguese girls comments that lots of people think Italian is very songlike. In fact, many Portuguese people think that if they just sing their Portuguese words, they'll practically be speaking Italian.
"But what on earth do you mean? Italian sounds like we're singing? Who thinks that?!?" asked one sister incredulously.
"Most of the world!" I exclaimed, adding that English speakers also tended to think of Italian as melodic.
"Ciao, Pa!" sang the 12 year old son to his father. And then a sister or two joined in between peals of laughter, "Ciao, Pa! Ciao, Pa! Ciao, Paaaaaa!"
"Haha, Italian sounds like we're singing..." the mother commented shaking her head.
And that, was the end of that.