Progress

Today I woke up at 7, and it is already getting easier! I think it's just because I'm still in a foreign environment and I don't want to be late to walk to school.  It was really overcast and rainy this morning and I loved it.  I don't really like the rain, but I do like the overcast weather.  It was funny because a lot of the Italians were saying how cold it was and how they don't like it, but it didn't really feel cold at all to me.  When I got to class, we started learning right away (or at least the other students did).  I just sat there daydreaming until two teachers walked into class and asked for me.  One was an English teacher and the other was an Italian teacher.  We went up to an empty room and talked for a while about what the plan will be for me.

The Italian teacher is going to work with me privately about two, possibly three hours a day, when I would normally be in physics or math or something, and instead of not being able to understand anything, I will get to start from the basics of Italian and work my way up slowly.  Today, we did about an hour total of Italian.  It was basically a review for me.  Some verbs, the days of the week, months, introductions and so on, but it will get more difficult as we go.  I told the Italian teacher that I wanted to go back to class for art because I thought it would be something easy to understand without having to know Italian, but I guess he just spoke about perspective and drew some stuff on the board for the whole class, so I didn't understand anything. Then I went back to private lessons until the end of the school day, which was just until 12:30.

I walked home with the same people and had lunch (it's all starting to become a normal routine).  Then I had a couple of hours to myself again where I just read and listened to music.  At 4, Giovanna, Chiara, and Valentina came and picked me up and we went to the gym, finally! I've been waiting to go for a week.  It was so nice to workout again.  We just did some running and weights for about 30 minutes and then we went up stairs to do an aerobics class.  It was pretty easy, but it was fun, and it was good for me to review some of the body parts in Italian, numbers, and direction.

After the class, all four of us huddled under a small umbrella and walked to a store across the street to be picked up.  Then when I got home, we ate dinner, and around 9, I was picked up by Giulia (my future host sister), and Janie (the other exchange student).  We went back to their house (which will be my future house) and it is beautiful! It is like three or four stories from what I saw because I didn't get a tour or anything, but it is amazing!  Anyway, about five other people came over and we just hung out upstairs (like the third or fourth floor) and talked about random things.  Then at eleven, Giulia took me home.

It was a fun day, and I am super glad that I now have a private Italian teacher! Hopefully this will increase the speed that I'm learning!

Going to bed not so early tonight. Oh well.

Ciao!
~Devon