La Dolce Vita

            I guess I’ll start this entry five minutes after the other one left off.  After I posted my last entry on Thursday, I went straight upstairs to our room at the hostel where we stayed for a few nights; Maria had just gone upstairs a couple of minutes before me, and everyone else was already asleep.  When I got to the room I looked around for the fourth set of sheets the owner of the hostel had given us when we checked in, but I couldn’t find them anywhere.  (I found out the next morning that they were on Alvaro’s bed the whole time.  But anyway…) so since I couldn’t find them I decided to put my Italian skills to good use and go downstairs and ask the hostel owner if he had any extra sheets.  I was so excited about talking to an Italian in his native language that it was almost ridiculous J

            I headed downstairs and knocked on his door, which was ajar, and said, “Scusa?”  He came out of another door saying, “Si?”  I said to him, “Ha due lenzuole?  Non posso trovare le mie…”  He said, “Ahh, si,” and went to go get them out of a cupboard.  After he gave them to me I said, “Grazie mille.”  Such a simple conversation, but it was such a long time coming for me to have a conversation in Italian with a real Italian person in Italy, and I was very proud of myself J  And the best thing is, there will be more where that came from!  I am so excited to be here I can’t even describe it.

            Since we had had a long day of traveling, walking, etc. and were up late that same night, Tony let us all sleep in the next morning (Friday).  He actually didn’t wake us up until one o’clock in the afternoon.  So we all got ready and headed out at about 2:00 to visit Rapallo, Portofino, and Santa Margherita, three really beautiful towns along the coast of western Italy.  Out of all three towns, Portofino was probably the most touristy.  And I actually ended up seeing the father of some old friends of mine from middle and high school while I was in Rapallo!  That was the day that Maria, Alvaro and I got our first tastes of Italian pizza and gelato.  Delizioso!  We have had some type of pizza every day since Friday and gelato two times since then as well.  Just about all the restaurants we’ve come across either have “pizzeria” or “gelateria” in their names, and if it’s not in their name, it’s still very likely you’ll find either pizza or gelato inside the doors J

            On Saturday, the four of us got an early start and headed out to visit the Cinque Terre.  If you haven’t seen pictures of the Cinque Terre, go Google it right now, or look at the pictures I will post on Facebook.  They were absolutely SPECTACULAR!  Classic Italian towns with classic Italian houses, restaurants, shops and people.  The names of the Cinque Terre (literally five earths; five towns) are Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore.  We went to all but Corniglia.  We got lunch from a take-out pizzeria in Vernazza, and as we were waiting for our boxes, we turned around to see a small cat sleeping on top of a couple cases of beer.  He was adorable!  He kept his eyes shut even as we pet him.  Cats and dogs seem to be everywhere in Italy, both on and off leashes.

            We got to go for a swim when we were in Manarola, and we had fun jumping off of the rocks into the beautiful water!  When Maria was using a rope to climb up the side of a rock, she said to Alvaro, Tony and I, “Faccio l’alpinismo!” which means “I am mountain climbing!”  She looked so proud of herself, and for some reason, her saying that made us both start dying laughing, and we still laugh when we think about it.  We also met a guy in Manarola who was from New York; he was in Italy camping and couch-surfing.  We went out to eat that night after we got back to Genova, and since Maria and I were both full after eating our primo piatto (“first plate;” many Italian meals consist of an appetizer, first course, second course, and a dessert), we were joking that we both had food babies.  Tony overheard us and gave us a confused look, so we explained to him the expression “food baby” and what it meant.  Since we were in fact in Italy, we decided to Italianize the joke and say that we each had a “bambino di cibo,” which just made us burst out laughing all over again.

            On Sunday night we finally arrived in Siena!  This is where I will be living and taking classes for the next four weeks.  The train station actually borders the university, so when and if I need to take the train I should have no problem finding it J  Monday morning we all woke up early and had breakfast at 7:45, since we had to be at the university to take our placement test at 9:00.  I placed in the post-intermediate one, level B4, which sounds good to me!  While we were waiting on our results we met some of the other foreign students that are going to be in our class – three from Canada, one from Australia and one from Russia.  The Russian girl does not speak English, which is great, because I really want to meet and make friends with people with whom I will be forced to use Italian and not English!

            We spent the rest of Monday exploring Siena, moving into our apartments, and making sure that we know how to get to our classes from the apartments.  Maria and I lucked out and somehow snagged a flat that is just about as close as you can get to the building where our classes will be; we just have to turn two corners and it’s right there!  We will have another roommate too, but we haven’t met her yet.  We also met our landlord, who had inherited the building, and who was celebrating his 25^th birthday that day too.  As we have been getting used to our room we’ve already had to call on him for his help on how to use the washing machine (Maria was using it and it just stopped randomly and wouldn’t go back on, and we weren’t sure if that was normal or not), and what we thought was the latch to flush the toilet ended up spraying water everywhere, and our landlord told us it was actually the bidet.  The flusher was practically up on the ceiling.  What typical Americans in Europe we are J  But in all honesty, every toilet we have seen has been different than the last, and every lock we have tried to open or close turned a different way and a different number of times.  But you live and you learn J

            Tony had to drive back to Milano to catch his flight to Spain later that afternoon, so after he helped Maria, Alvaro and I get our Italian cell phones and SIM cards, that’s just what he did.  Now we are on our own!  But the streets of Siena seem fairly easy to navigate, and language/communication-wise, we really do just need to be thrown into the deep end and left to fend for ourselves.  The three of us have been using Italian to the best of our ability since we’ve been here, but Tony had been helping us do things like buy food, phones and just communicate with people, but if we’re ever going to learn the language fluently, we obviously have to fend for ourselves, which is just what Tony said.  I’m excited and nervous at the same time; I trust my knowledge enough to know I can find the words to express myself, but if someone is speaking a mile a minute, I’m not yet at the point where I can comprehend them a hundred percent.  Sometimes when we have tried to talk to people here, they can tell we speak English so they just start using that, so my goal for my time in Siena is to walk into an establishment (food, clothing, etc.) and speak Italian with fluency so that the other person does not think that they need to use English J

            A couple hours after Tony left, Alvaro came over to Maria’s and my room claiming he was starving, so the three of us went off to get something to eat.  We decided to dine at a restaurant that had reasonable prices while still serving classic Italian dishes.  We walked in and found out that they had a happy hour special, where we could get an all-you-can-eat buffet AND anything to drink (including wine, beer, etc.) for just five euros!  So obviously, we jumped on that.  The three of us felt like we were in a movie, or a dream, or something completely unreal as we sat at a table outside the restaurant, in the streets of Siena, sipping our wine, eating our pasta, and just listening to the sounds of Italy.

            On our way back to our apartment, we stopped to get some essentials like breakfast foods and shampoo, and realized that the ladies who had given us our phones and told us they would call one of us to tell us what our phone numbers were still had not called us to let us know.  And of course, we couldn’t find out what they were by calling each other because we didn’t know each other’s numbers.  I immediately thought of a solution – since I now had an Italian phone number, I could text my cousin Luca, who lives in Milano, and ask him to text me back and tell me what my number was!  So that’s just what I did.  When he texted me to let me know, Maria and Alvaro called that number so that I could tell them what their numbers were.  Genius, huh?

            I continued to talk to Luca when I got back to my apartment, this time on Facebook.  I was telling him about what I had done that day and that I was now just hanging out at my apartment with friends.  Since I wasn’t doing anything of major importance and since he now had my phone number, he told me he was going to call me.  I was excited to finally be able to talk to him on the phone, but a little nervous too!  Again, I know that I can converse with someone in Italian based on what I have learned, but hey, this was like a moment of truth!  But as the conversation went on, it got easier to converse and I realized I shouldn’t have been worrying about it.  We discussed my plans to go to Sicily and Milano and what days I will be arriving and leaving, and he reassured me that he would pick me up at the Bergamo airport when I got to Milano.  At the end of our phone conversation I asked him how my Italian was.  He gave me six and a half out of ten, and told me that by the time I return to the United States, my Italian skills will be greater than ten J  I sure hope so!  And a six and a half out of ten pretty much corresponds with the post-intermediate level of classes I am taking.  That is the main reason I am here after all, to learn the language!

            Maria and I spent the later part of the evening hanging out in our sixth-floor Siena apartment, sipping our wine and listening to the Italian conversations and cars going by down below.  This is the life J  Last night at about midnight, we heard some keys fiddling around in the lock and knew our third roommate must be home.  We had found out from our landlord that she was from Romania, so I wasn’t sure at that point which languages she spoke, or whether or not her Italian was fluent.  Well, talk about getting thrown into the deep end!  She speaks Italian perfectly and not much English.  She walked in the door and called out to us, realizing that there were people there.  She asked us if we spoke Italian and where we were from, and we told her we are students from the United States studying Italian at the Università di Siena.  Her name is Daniela, she is 25 and works at a restaurant.  She showed us around the apartment and then we hung out in her room for a bit, getting to know each other while practicing our Italian and helping her learn a little bit of English.  She is really sweet, and it’s so cool living with someone from another country who I must use another language to talk to!

            Today (Tuesday) was the first day of classes!  It was sprinkling a little bit, but Maria and I made the quick walk to the main university building from our apartment.  Our classes last from 9:00 am until 2:00 pm, with a 15-minute break at 11:25.  My instructors are great at explaining and speaking Italian, and these classes in Siena pretty much pick up from right where I left off with my Italian studies at GCSU.  Maria, Alvaro and I met up with our new Canadian friends that we had met the day before (their names are Kylin, Toni and Matteo) during the break and after classes got out.  We bonded with them and thought it was cool how they were a group of two girls and one guy, just like us.  After we got out of class we decided to go and get something to eat at – where else? – a pizzeria J  Kylin, Toni and Matteo directed us to one they had been telling us about that sold huge slices for two euros each.  After lunch we went to get the book for our class and made our way back to the apartment, which is where I am now.

            I know this update is long, and I would be updating more often but my Internet connection has been going in and out at every place I’ve been.  I’ll try to keep you guys posted as much as I can, though!  Thanks for keeping up with me!

Chloe