Ciao!
It’s hard to believe my second week in Sorrento is already coming to a close, but things have been good so far! I know haven’t said much about Sorrento yet, so I’ll try to give a good recap here.
First off, taking two classes over the course of just five weeks is proving to be a busy task, but I have been enjoying them both and learning a lot about Italian language and life in the process. The small class size has been very helpful as well, especially in my literature class, in which there are just four of us. My lit professor has been great in really making sure we understand the Italian with which he speaks, plus his name is Domenico, so I knew we’d get along right from the start.
Aside from classes, it’s been a process settling myself into the daily life of Sorrento for sure, but definitely a good and exciting process. Part of it is just the typical things like getting food and groceries, and finding my way around the local streets, but the other part is, of course, doing it all in Italy and really trying to stay immersed in the culture. Both parts have their own challenges, and they often come hand-in-hand. For instance, shopping at the grocery store is not only trying to provide for myself for the week, but also trying to figure it all out in Italian. I may or may not have accidentally bought about three weeks worth of mozzarella, but hey, I ordered it in Italian, and now I can put as much cheese on my daily salami sandwiches as I want, so I’ll call it a win.
By the way, I have been doing my best to only speak Italian when purchasing anything around town or when eating out, which has been a solid way to keep my practice going. (I am pretty much an expert at explaining that I’m allergic to nuts at restaurants, no big deal). It has definitely been challenging pushing myself to keep trying to speak in Italian as often as I can, but I’m slowly improving, and continuing to explore more opportunities to immerse myself in the language. For instance, with some help from a contact at my school, I had the chance to hang out at a summer camp for local Italian kids today, and it was a really good experience. It was fun to be around other young Italians, watching them interact and learning about local experiences like this, while also meeting some really nice people who helped me practice my Italian even more – hopefully I will have more to share in the future about experiences like this!
Overall, there has been a lot to balance these past few weeks between classes, daily life, keeping up with my Italian, and of course finding time to relax and do cool things in Italy, too. This morning I finally took the time to wake up early and go for a run through the streets of Sorrento. Before that, I have only seen the streets filled with people, so it was really awesome having the streets almost to myself while doing a little deeper exploring of the city as well. I also got to take a quick visit to Capri last weekend – a small island to which we travelled from Sorrento by ferry – and you can check out some of my pictures from that trip here too!
Ciao for now!
Dom