"I LIVE on a roll."

Tuesday was the first day I had class, beginning with a ridiculously difficult Italian language course at the University of Florence. The professor was very nice and pretty easy to understand (even at her normal native Italian speed), but the other students were clearly almost fluent and it was incredibly intimidating! It definitely was scary realizing how much Italian I don't know... siiiiigh. I think I'll be moving into a lower level which will still definitely be challenging, but at least I'll be able to participate without feeling completely useless.

After the Italian class, I met Tylar and 2 of her homestay friends for lunch and gelato. Not sure if I mentioned this earlier, but I plan on eating gelato every day... just a teeny little cup everyday, and no one can stop me. I DO WHAT I WANT. The gelato is literally absolutely divine; my favorites so far have been blackcherry and pistachio.

Tylar and I headed to our 3 hour class at CAPA called Understanding Modern Italy with the senior academics adviser of the CAPA program, Guido. This 7 person class is taught in Italian and is all about understanding the risorgimento and modern Italian culture. Guido speaks incredibly quickly, but very clearly and tells amazing stories once sidetracked, which seems to happen somewhat easily! Let me just say that he quickly became my one of my favorite professors...ever. He made us share somewhat intimate parts about our lives, things professors don't normally ask, but they were obviously important to him! He was especially intrigued by the fact that my parents (HI GUYS! I'LL CALL HOME SOON, I SWEAR!!) immigrated from El Salvador and that we speak Spanglish at home. Every now and then during the 3 hours, Guido would switch to English for 9.3 seconds and then switch back to Italian and I realized that I understood it all perfectly; it was such a seamless transition in my head and I was honestly just shocked! I think it was very apparent evidence that I'm already getting a bit better at Italian. Also, the title of this post is one of Guido's; when I said that he was on a roll which is why I hadn't interrupted him to ask a vocab question, he yelled "Karla, I LIVE on a roll!" and it just sounded so funny that the whole class cracked up. Even though it's 3 hours long, it's definitely going to be one of my favorite classes this semester.

That night, CAPA rented out a ristorante for the entire CAPA group and it was honestly one of the funniest nights here. One of the rooms was playing a college basketball game on a huge white wall, so of course all the boys couldn't stop drooling over it! The food was delicious: bruschetta, liver paste, tuna paste, prosciutto, salami, broccoli pasta, sage and butter ravioli, artichoke risotto, and tiramisu... basically everything I love in life! Most important part of the whole evening wasn't the food, but bonding with the program kids over a few bottles of wine... not that I drank any. Blegh! (Cara, se tu stai leggendo questo, mi dispiace tantissimo!)

The group I sat with was hilarious and I couldn't stop laughing, especially with quotes like "WAIT... can I tell you something weird? I made out with your boyfriend!!" It was truly fantastic sitting down with these kids and getting to know them! The teachers (Guido and Looney, the two greatest humans) obviously loved our Italian speaking skills and they kept coming over to talk to us and share stories. It really felt like such a nice little community and I hope we get to do it again soon! It was super tough leaving the restaurant but it was getting late and I still had homework to do for Wednesday, so Kelsey and I walked home with super high spirits!!