Monday productivity!

Monday started off with a very stressful placement exam at the CCF during which the advanced group of CAPA kids were handed a page with 4 prompts and had to write a 500-600 word composition. We had no previous knowledge of the prompts so there was a lot of bullshitting! After about an hour and a half of writing, staring off into space, and thinking about breakfast, I gave up and handed in my essay.

The group went to a little breakfast bar where we all ate standing up, which is a very Italian thing to do! For breakfast, they have coffee and bread/cookies/etc and eat while standing (if at a café). I love it! I had a marocchino and a croissant with some kind of sweet cream inside- very delicious! After wandering around for a bit, led by the boys in the group since I sure as hell don’t know where I’m going yet, we headed over to the CAPA center to get a few class things figured out.

This is when I realized some really fun information; because I am on the Advanced Italian Track, I’m able to take courses (taught in only Italian) at the University of Florence with ACTUAL Florentine students! In addition, because there are classes on Fridays, the courses only run until March 15^th, meaning that from that point on, I’ll be free to travel around Europe from Thursday nights until Tuesday mornings! And it was honestly the best news ever! The scheduling for the University of Florence classes is really weird though. My language class in from 8:45-11:30 every day and then from 11:45-1:15, I’ll have my Literature 1, Literature 2, or History of Italy course, but the days of the courses won’t always be the same each week. I might have the Lit 1 course on a Monday and Thursday, but the following week it’d be on a Wednesday with History on Friday. It’s kind of really stressful, but I highlighted all the days I have class and I think I’m set! Although I’ll still have 2 classes at CAPA on Tuesdays (Conversational Italian with the most fashionable Italian professor ever) and Thursday (Renaissance Lit: Humanism with the best Pitt professor aka The Loon-dawg) afternoons for 2-3 hours after my University of Florence classes are finished for the semester, I’ll take it!

After this, a few of us left from CAPA towards the Santa Croce church for lunch at a small restaurant where I had pasta, beef, and potatoes. Then we walked over to a corner gelateria where I HAD THE BEST BLACKBERRY GELATO EVER. I am drooling just thinking about it!! We went to sit over on the steps of the church and died over Florence’s beauty and then talked about cute animal videos for about 15 minutes. You know, normal things.

Tylar and I then went to the Uffizzi, which was closed like most museums in Florence on Mondays, but that was okay because we made our way across PONTE FREAKING VECCHIO to the other side of the Arno River. For those of you who don’t know: Ponte Vecchio is the only bridge in Firenze that was not destroyed during the bombings of WWII. We walked through Altr’Arno for a little bit and visited the Santo Spirito Church and the Palazzo Pitti, which was astonishing. 

View from the Ponte Vecchio.

We headed back to CAPA to find out our essay results after running into Kelsey and Catia. I found out I was placed into the Superior Italian class, which was so surprising! I don’t think my essay was really that good… but OKAY FINE WITH ME. I really think being in the advanced class will push me into learning Italian quickly and effectively!

I went home for dinner with my homestay family and it was fabulous like usual. The Italians eat dinner differently than we do. Generally there is some kind of pasta course, a meat course, salad or veggies, and then fruit for dessert. It was a little strange at first, but now I think I’m getting used to it! And I really enjoy eating fruit for dessert (although my family isn’t letting me eat apples or bananas because I mentioned I’m allergic to them- oopsies!). Another thing I’m getting used to at dinner is my family in general. They are very sweet (Dario even said that in the 10 years they’ve hosted international students, I’ve been the best at Italian! Woohoo!) and I am finally getting to be more comfortable around them! Tonight I even joked around with them and participated a little in their conversation about Berlusconi. I also tried to explain what a snuggie is, but I don’t think I did a very good job! My family speaks English, but unless I look UTTERLY confused about something they’ve said, they only speak to me in Italian, which is very helpful. I can already feel that I understand Italian a bit better. I have noticed that I have recently begun translating everything I say into Italian in my head, which is somewhat surprising but pleasant when I know how to do it! Here’s hoping that in 3 months, I’ll be able to speak almost fluently!