In which Amber conquers the bus and the walk home
So, things that have happened since Sunday morning.
We started class on Sunday, which broke my streak of starting-fall-semester-on-Labor-Day. I took a placement test, which they didn’t even look at-they just put me in intermediate. It’s exactly what I want-only four other students (one fluent in Portuguese, the other three have had a little bit of Italian they don’t remember very well). Starting from the beginning, but at a faster pace. Spanish helps SO much!
Met my host father Fabrizio last night-he speaks a lot of English. I kind of feel like I’m cheating, since most people’s host families don’t speak any English. But it’s also nice because I can ask how to say things in Italian better, so we can all have real conversations at dinner. I still can’t understand him and Letizia when they talk quickly to each other, though.
Two more students are going to be staying in my house starting tomorrow-they’re not from my program, but from a UC program here in Siena. According to Fabrizio, they’re much less serious than our program-more like they’re on vacation, and not very tidy. Tidiness is very important to Italians, our program told us. Apparently the way most American students keep their rooms is shockingly messy to them. Their bedrooms basically look like no one lives in them-mine is almost like that, but I have more visible books.
So, the stories you’ve all been waiting for since you read my subject line: my journeys home.
I decided to walk to school yesterday morning so I would know how to get there and back and not have to take any more taxis home. I got to school, but totally failed because I went down a huge hill and then back up a huge hill totally unnecessarily. So that afternoon I explored and figured out that the bus actually takes the best route and what that was. I figured out that the reason I was confused on the bus on Saturday was because I missed the Piazza della Sale stop and went too far, because it is not a big open piazza, it is just a street without a big building on one of the sides. And then I walked home. I was going to take the bus, but forgot that it only ran on the hour on Sundays, and came at the half-hour mark, sat there for five minutes wondering when the bus was coming, and then decided that it would be faster to walk home. It was!
Today (Monday [Labor Day in the U.S.]) we had our first five-hour intensive Italian class. It was pretty good-for part of it we had to go to a bookstore in the city and write down info about a book in Italian. I felt kind of like a tool because I picked one by John Rawls-I would have done Hume but I couldn’t find any. Gasp! I am still recovering from the shock, haha.
And then after class I spent a million years updating the blog and telling people about it. So you’re welcome, haha. Anyway, I’m off to go do errands and get some gelato. Don’t hate me because I’m living in the awesomest city in the world!
We started class on Sunday, which broke my streak of starting-fall-semester-on-Labor-Day. I took a placement test, which they didn’t even look at-they just put me in intermediate. It’s exactly what I want-only four other students (one fluent in Portuguese, the other three have had a little bit of Italian they don’t remember very well). Starting from the beginning, but at a faster pace. Spanish helps SO much!
Met my host father Fabrizio last night-he speaks a lot of English. I kind of feel like I’m cheating, since most people’s host families don’t speak any English. But it’s also nice because I can ask how to say things in Italian better, so we can all have real conversations at dinner. I still can’t understand him and Letizia when they talk quickly to each other, though.
Two more students are going to be staying in my house starting tomorrow-they’re not from my program, but from a UC program here in Siena. According to Fabrizio, they’re much less serious than our program-more like they’re on vacation, and not very tidy. Tidiness is very important to Italians, our program told us. Apparently the way most American students keep their rooms is shockingly messy to them. Their bedrooms basically look like no one lives in them-mine is almost like that, but I have more visible books.
So, the stories you’ve all been waiting for since you read my subject line: my journeys home.
I decided to walk to school yesterday morning so I would know how to get there and back and not have to take any more taxis home. I got to school, but totally failed because I went down a huge hill and then back up a huge hill totally unnecessarily. So that afternoon I explored and figured out that the bus actually takes the best route and what that was. I figured out that the reason I was confused on the bus on Saturday was because I missed the Piazza della Sale stop and went too far, because it is not a big open piazza, it is just a street without a big building on one of the sides. And then I walked home. I was going to take the bus, but forgot that it only ran on the hour on Sundays, and came at the half-hour mark, sat there for five minutes wondering when the bus was coming, and then decided that it would be faster to walk home. It was!
Today (Monday [Labor Day in the U.S.]) we had our first five-hour intensive Italian class. It was pretty good-for part of it we had to go to a bookstore in the city and write down info about a book in Italian. I felt kind of like a tool because I picked one by John Rawls-I would have done Hume but I couldn’t find any. Gasp! I am still recovering from the shock, haha.
And then after class I spent a million years updating the blog and telling people about it. So you’re welcome, haha. Anyway, I’m off to go do errands and get some gelato. Don’t hate me because I’m living in the awesomest city in the world!