School/La scuola

Happy Valentine’s Day!

It’s been a long day for me. I woke up around 4am since I went to bed around 9pm last night. Not being able to fall back asleep, I took to reading a few things around the apartment about what to do in Florence. Luckily there are a lot of English-language materials produced for students full of tips for things to do around the city. I made sure to add to my growing list of must-see restaurants and sights.

Today marked my first day of Italian classes. I visited the school last night to make sure I’d know how to walk there from my apartment and I was glad to know first that a) the school actually existed and b) that it was really the 10-minute walk they said it would be. It’s a couple of minutes from the Duomo, which means it’s very central, and it consists of a few narrow floors of a huge building.

As soon as I checked in, I was asked to do a short Italian test consisting of around ten short answer questions and ten multiple choice questions. I pretty much had to guess them all based on what I thought sounded correct since my only prior Italian education consisted of a few lessons one day a week when I was still in elementary school. After I completed the written test, I waited for a very short and impromptu oral exam, where I was asked about my experience with the Italian language, why I wanted to learn, etc. I was soon placed into the elementari 4 class. There are 3 sections that I know of (elementari, intermedie, and superiore), which I think are each split into four levels (1-4). Each section lasts two weeks and then you proceed to the next level, i.e. elementari 1, then 2, 3, etc.

My class is split into two parts: first we learn grammar with Patrizio from 9:00-10:30am and then we practice speaking with Tiziana from 10:45am-12:15pm. I'm not used to such short days.

Classes are 12 people maximum. Mine consists of 10 people: 4 guys and 6 girls. Most of them are younger (I'd say 18-22), although there are two people who are older than me. It's nice to see that we hail from different countries: Sweden (1), Israel (2), Uruguay (1), Russia (1), Switzerland (1), USA (3), and Canada (1).

I have a lot of grammar catch-up work to do so I asked Patrizio to recommend a good book for me. I bought 2 later today and have yet to crack them open.

Today's word of the day is not scuola, surprisingly enough. It is nubile, which means "single".

After class, I went out for lunch with my classmate Marie (from Michigan). She told me it was very hard to meet locals in Florence as opposed to cities in the south of Italy like Lecce, where she studied a few years ago.

In case you're wondering, I ate i gnocchi alla sorrentina--one of Nicky's favourites. It wasn't that good at this restaurant whose name escapes me.