So my first week of class has come and gone, and things are feeling a lot more comfortable. The first class I was placed in only had American students, so naturally a lot of English made its way into the classroom. The next day I moved to a higher level class, and this class was much more diverse. We had students from Austria, Mexico, Brazil, America, and Japan. Because of this diversity, everything in the class had to be explained in Italian. This made it much more difficult to explain my thoughts, but then the Italian conversation was much more intelligent. I’m very happy that I moved into a higher class because now I feel like I’m pushing myself outside my comfort zone.
Taking my Italian skills outside of the classroom has been a lot harder for me, but I’m getting there. With my host family, I have trouble following everything they say at the dinner table, but I have also been trying to ask questions until I understand what they are saying. For the most part, I can hold a conversation, and they have been very gracious with me asking them to repeat themselves or talk more slowly. I’ve gotten very comfortable ordering from restaurants in Italian, and I am able to pick up much more from conversations I hear on the street. I still fall back into English when I’m not fully concentrating on my speaking, but I’ll get there. This is only week 1 of Italian bootcamp, and I know that I will only get stronger from here. The more I put myself out there, the more I’ll learn and be able use in my daily life.
On the culture side of things, Siena is a great place to be. As a part of one of my classes, we get tours of the many museums around Siena. Because of this class, I get to see the city from the eyes of a very informed local. Our professor, Luca, is a wonderful teacher, and it is obvious that he loves Siena. He teaches the class in English, so I get much more of the city’s history out of this class, but it would be a great test for myself to see how much I could understand, like the cooking class I took. From that experience, I learned how to make a four course meal, and all the instructions were in Italian.
Language and culture and food. What else could I want out of my summer in Italy?