My first few classes!

A church in the Chianti region of Italy, 28 May 2010.

Well, I said on Facebook that this would be a blog in which Lindi, Emily and I would all post (I did ask them first...) but no matter how much I look at them meaningfully, then at the blogger website, then back at them, apparently I am the only one doing so at the moment. Lindi just protested that she IS going to do it, but we'll just have to see about that.

Today was our second day of classes. I have four hours in the morning of Italian, while Emily has a printmaking class in the morning and a fashion illustration class in the afternoon. Lindi, on the other hand, is just a bum, and gets to spend all that time sketching, writing, editing photos and sleeping in. Lucky!

Unfortunately, last night I set an alarm on a cell phone that was keeping the wrong time. Aren't they supposed to update by satellite? It was close enough, though, that I didn't notice... and was therefore quite unhappy and confused when I woke up this morning to (what I thought was) 7:30 a.m. in a colder, darker sort of way than yesterday. It turns out it was significantly earlier. Emily was groggy and annoyed when I woke her up and said, "Emily! We have to leave in half an hour! Why aren't you awake yet!" She said, "My alarm didn't even go off!" ...Of course, it just hadn't gone off -yet-. Ergh. I went back to bed for an hour.

I am enjoying my Italian class, even with the long class periods. We have thus far learned basic conversational skills, the months, the days, the seasons, numbers, some random vocabulary and several verbs with their conjugations. It's a relatively small class- only 10 students- which is nice. Although the things we're learning are pretty rudimentary, I can tell that I'm already picking up on the Italian around me more than a few days ago, and can at least have simple conversations. I could, for instance, say good evening and how are you to the man at the gelateria downstairs from our apartment... and then ask him how old he is or what language he speaks. Basic, indeed.

Anyway, we have a school holiday tomorrow in honor of the founding of the Republic. We were going to visit Lucca, but all the things we wanted to see there will be closed! Ah, well. I think we'll go to the Uffizi and climb Giotto's Bell Tower-- both of which we were going to do last weekend before the Great Stomach Flu Plague hit our apartment. It should be fun. :)

<3,
Helen