Italian voice

Sometimes the smallest thing can make your day. It happened to me yesterday, when I had a bit of a chat with a colleague. She studied Italian for years and is very good at it and she knows a bit of French, she wants to improve it, so she speaks to me in French. I try to answer with my very limited Italian, mixed with some French and English when I can't find the words, which is very often. Anyway, I couldn't say much, so I used my usual line: "Io parlo bene italiano ma non capisco una sola parola" (I speak Italian very well, but cannot understand a single word). She was quite impressed and said "but you've got a Neapolitan accent". It is strange, as I have never been anywhere near Naples and most of my Italian friends were from the North. Maybe I got it from all that time spent listening to opera. I said it before, it seems that I am gifted for Italian, so it is a shame that I never learned it properly. But to know that I could get an authentic accent (or somewhat authentic anyway) made me feel quite happy.