Graduation???

March 4th 2020: Hallmark moment??? I went out with a very nice guy from Berlin. In true Italian style, we got gelato and then walked 6 miles to the Piazzale Michelangelo which has a beautiful view of the city! It has rained all week but luckily it stopped so I was able to get the above photo!

March 5th 2020: I have officially moved to level 2! both my conversation and grammar classes are both in this level so I am really progressing! I should have celebrated the same way I did high school…Pad Thai! Today in conversation class, I wrote and then read a murder mystery to the class and then as a group we read a section from a real book and had to solve it. I was the first person to figure it out, I guess all that Hawaii Five-0 was good for something! It is absolutely astonishing how much I have learned. I went from being able to greet someone to reading and comprehending!

Today I went with two of my classmates to a bar during our break to get a coffee. (Here a bar is where you go to get a hot drink and a pastry!) I got a caffe latte to go for 2 euro while at home, a large mocha maple macchiato espresso pumpkin spice latte caramel cappuccino grande is like 6$. (Can you tell I’m a coffee person and totally know what all those things are??) In Vermont, my classmates would get a coffee every morning on their way to school and this was shocking to me. Granted that could be my background in financial literacy (thanks parents!!) but it seemed crazy to me to spend 30$ a week on coffee! Here, it is part of the day to stop at the bar, put down a euro and drink your espresso. The whole thing takes about 2 minutes and then you are on your way!

Another component of my school that I really like is the diversity. In my nearly three weeks I have learned with people from Ireland, Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Macao, Turkey, Austria, Germany, Mexico and Portugal. A big part of what we do in class is talk about our homes so I have learned about each of these places in a new way. It is very interesting for me to hear all these people’s perspectives on different topics. As you can imagine, they vary greatly. American politics and the current election cycle is something we discuss quite frequently but I expected that. Yesterday we had a really shocking conversation about Armenia and it was not something I had thought I would be trying to talk about in a language I don’t fully understand. People’s thoughts on this subject were so so so diverse and it was pretty hard for me to comprehend.

Big win for me today! I went to the gluten free bakery, they have a little gluten free market where I wanted to buy GF flour. I asked the people (IN ITALIAN!!!) which flour would be better to make Bechamel sauce and then ordered a strawberry tart and finally wished them a good day! Super proud of myself and I can’t wait to be able to speak more.

In other news: a man in my class showed me a photo of his yard with an inch of snow and asked me if that was like living in the Northeast. I said pretty much and showed him a picture of my yard with the car completely snowed in and he couldn’t believe it!