Come stai? First day of classes

I of course had to start the morning off scaring both me and Karli. We have to use Karli’s phone for our alarm clock which is still set on New York time. Anyways the plan was to get up at 8 am to leave for school at 9. Well I am right by the window so I woke up and the sun was brightly shining. It felt so late in the morning and I am of course so worried that we are going to be late so I grab Karli’s phone to check the time it said 1 am which if it was Utah time would mean it was 9 am so I wake up Karli saying its 9 am. She then reminds me that it is set on New York time which would make it 7 am and we still had a whole hour to sleep longer, haha whoops my bad. So we were able to get up at the correct time and make it down to breakfast with only a few minutes until we had to leave. Thankfully for us everyone in the house was already gone for the day. On the table they left us this fruit filled croissant and the ready made toast in a plastic bag haha. We weren’t sure if this would be the only morning we had alone so we decided to seize the opportunity and get the Seinfeld picture of us trying to cut down the heel of a pump haha. Because of our little picture taking we were a few minutes late in leaving for school. On the way out of the door we grabbed a nectarine to share which was a great choice. It was absolutely amazing. As I was eating this luscious fruit I realized that I had never eaten a fresh nectarine in my entire 21 years of living. The peach was better but the nectarine was nothing to be overlooked.We quickly learned that you definitely need no less than thirty minutes to walk to class. We also realized that the walk to campus is completely uphill the entire way. Apparently we live at one end of the city at the bottom of the hills of Siena and the school is located on the whole other side on top of the hill. Aren’t we so lucky. I look at this as a good way to keep the legs toned and in shape and help work off the HUGE dinner meals we have.
First thing at school was orientation. Nothing to important there and because we are from BYU we got to skip the thirty minute lecture on alcohol and drinking haha. He talked mostly of how we are adopting their language and because of that we are adopting their culture and everything else along with it. I was sitting there feeling really pumped to learn Italian and couldn’t wait to start but that feeling didn’t last too long after our first Italian lesson started. We were introduced to all our teachers who seem extremely nice. I am not going to lie our Italian teacher fits the suave stereotype that people have for Italian men and it doesn’t hurt that he dresses very nicely. Directly after orientation we jumped right into our first lesson. In groups we wrote down different Italian words we already knew in various categories like verbs, nouns, food/drink, and people. After that little exercise it didn’t take very long until I was feeling pretty overwhelmed. He just started going off about stare (meaning to stay in English) and essere (meaning to be) with little explanation.

We took this little break and everyone had this hilarious look on their face of complete confusion. After chatting with us clearing a few things up amongst ourselves I understood better. Once I started comparing to what I knew in Spanish I felt even more better about it. Once everything was all said and done I could greet someone in Italian (which technically I already knew) and I could ask how they were and answer that question as well as ask where they live and where they are from. I have this feeling this is not going to be an easy process. Whoever said that once you learn another language they get easier as you go is a complete and total liar. I am getting Spanish and Italian all jumbled in my head because they are so similar. I was glad when Italian was over haha sad to say but it was true for me and everyone else.

We had a break before our orientation walk around the city. Everyone is addicted to their internet so they all pull out their laptops and utilize the schools to computers to check their facebook and e-mail. I lug my computer with me today so I did some drawing and hanging out. Drawing was horrendous and I hate it. But I missed the memo from Peter that informed us we had to do like two hours of drawing or something. So I am scrambling to get some drawing time in. Me and the girls (Cailey and Emily) went out for our usual lunch of stopping by a fruit shop. It is also friendly to the pocket considering thus far food has been the only thing I have spent my money on. That afternoon we took a walking tour about town. We were showed the cafeterias for the university students that we will not be frequenting with lunch with an average cost of 7 euros for a crappy meal. It’s a good way to mingle with the other students to work on our Italian but I will just have to find other methods. Half the time our professore was talking I couldn’t hear her or I was trying to figure it out exactly where we were. She showed us where things like the Laundromat, grocery story, etc. were located. After it was all said and done we headed for the grocery story. Afterwards we walked around and ended up by this gelato place that our professore said was a good place. I figured I needed some gelato therapy for making it through the first day of classes. Today’s choice was dark chocolate (fermate or fermante) and white chocolate (ciocolatte bianco) which was a fabulous idea.

I suggested drawing in the campo so I could knock out my two hours of drawing. I threw on the pod to hopefully make it a little more bearable. A bunch of us were having out drawing. It was a perfect evening and I loved sitting out there. I feel this will be a repeat experience. As we were leaving the piazza we spotted these very American looking people. We were glad to hear English so we stopped to see what they were doing. They were from Vanderbilt doing the exact same thing we were doing. Luca (the director of Dante Alighieri) mentioned that there was 55,000 residents plus 27,000 students. We are clearly one of many universities studying here. The trek home was long. I always feel victory when I leave the city walls thinking we are close but I quickly forget that we are all the way at the end of the road. We always discuss what we think we are going to have for dinner. It’s a curious question always on our brains. We are waiting to get something gross.

We had to put stuff in the fridge and we saw what we assumed was dinner on the counter and the label said Finocchi which just sounds sketchy. So we were worried. As Fiorella came in she was saying what sounded like People so we were laughing thinking she was maybe calling to us. Dinner was around 8 later in the evening as always. Frederique was gone so conversation was more sporadic amongst the Taddei clan. Very spicy sauce on the spaghetti noodles. Me and Karli shared one of those zucchini pods and ate this onion thing which I think is the Finocchi. I ate it and it was fine nothing life changing but sufficient. But I was really excited about the mozzarella!! I was informed to put olive oil, salt, and pepper on top which I do not recommend. I like just the plain mozzarella. I asked them what the name of the dog is and its Pepo. Later that night me and Karli made the connection that when Fiorella came in she was calling Pepo not people or us haha but for the dog which could possibly be blind. Then we had fruit for dessert and I enjoyed a pear. Of course the night would not be complete without an awkward conversation where nobody is understanding each other. We think they were asking about what we ate for lunch while we were at school or trying to tell us they would not have food for us one day. The rest of the night we just chatted and wrote in our journals.