Four days of ordinary time

1. 25. 10
This morning was our first time going to the university. We met the Boston College students, and all took a placement test. I will brag a little and tell you I got the highest score (my host family was not surprised). We were divided into two groups based on our scores, and the other three pitzer students are in the other group. Oh well. Time to expand my friendship group.

It snowed! It was really light, but still kind of exciting. It’s supposed to snow harder tomorrow.
Today for lunch, in addition to pasta and meat and cheese, we had grilled pumpkin and zucchini. I’m usually not a big fan of pumpkin, but in such thin slices and with char, it was pretty good. Davide, the eternally disappeared brother, made an appearance today.

After lunch, I met up with the other three advanced students in Piazza Garibaldi. Isabella and I discovered that we live really close to each other, and ended up on the same bus on the way there. While waiting for Sky, we saw a funny-looking group of guys who seemed like musicians or at the very least wannabes. After giggling and trying to take a couple subtle pictures of ‘ourselves’ aka them in the background, we saw them staring at us, and suddenly one asked, in English, if we were ‘from the States.’ They told us they were in a band performing at a bar tonight and that we should come and have a beer with them. Right. (We also ran into them about an hour or two later while crossing the street, and they said ‘hey Americans!’ and patted one of us on the back, thankfully not me.) Anyway, we went to H&M, of course feeling compelled to go shopping in Europe in a store we can find in America. After that we walked back and headed to Chocolat Milano, a magical chocolate and gelato place that has been haunting me since Saturday. They have a ton of delicious flavors, at least six of which are different varieties of chocolate (milk, dark, orange, cherry, etc.) I got dark chocolate and berry (frutta dei boschi), which was the perfect combination.

Earlier we had perused Via Farini to scope out the wine bars, but when we got there around 10 it seemed as though most everything was closed or dead (admittedly not terribly surprising on a Monday night). Luckily, we found one place that was open and lively and we had a great time. We drank Lambrusco, a slightly fizzy (it is really hard not to always say 'frizzy' when the Italian word for fizzy is frizzante) red wine. (The next day in class, we learned that it is the locally produced wine.) I mentioned earlier that locks and keys are very different here. We took a picture, and one of us courtesy of the coquettish waiter.

Even if I can’t yet discern vast improvements in my grammar, it is nice to be making measurable progress. Every day, just in the course of normal conversation, I learn new words.
Rubinetto – water faucet
Sparire – disappear
Rubare – to rob/steal
Ladro – robber/thief
And so on. More, I hear and lean to understand, but have yet internalized. Then there are words that have subtle differences that I am still teasing out.
Magari/forse – maybe/perhaps (?)
I keep hearing riuscire, and I have yet to figure out exactly what it means.

On my first night, I learned an important distinction. My host dad was watching a Pink Floyd concert on the TV upstairs, and when I came up I told him I had heard it from my room and recognized it. He kept telling me that I couldn’t hear it from my room, and I tried to explain to him that I could. After both of us stubbornly repeating ourselves, I finally realized that what I was saying was that I was listening to it in my room, which obviously I was not and could not because the tv was upstairs. So,
Ascoltare = listen
Sentire = hear

Words/phrases I’d like to learn
Sneeze (actually, I asked at dinner today, but even though I repeated it to myself several times, I can no longer remember)
Cross the street

1. 26. 10
Today was a short day. Not having class in the morning, I had the luxury of waking up at noon. I met up with people to have lunch in ‘the best pizzeria in town.’ I decided to take the 6, and theoretically was five minutes early, but the bus was eight minutes late. When the six shows up, there are two of them, and I take the one that says Barriera Bixio. Wrong. Turns out that’s the last stop and I get kicked off. Now what? I walk. At least now I’ve realized that whatever it says on the front of the bus is its last stop. Anyway, I make it to the restaurant, about 20 minutes late, and meet everyone else. I order a Ceci, a pizza with mozzarella and tomatoes and basil. (This name now seems weird to me, because I have learned that ceci is the word for chickpea/garbanzo, neither of which were involved in this pizza.) It’s a deep dish! It was good, but way too much. Pretty much pizza stuff on top of a loaf of bread.

Then a quick jaunt home for school stuff and then over to class. I see the bus go by the stop about a minute before I get there, so I figure I might as well try to walk. Well, after a bit I realize I don’t quite know where I’m going, so I walk back to the stop just in time to catch the next bus. It’s amazing how much faster a bus is, even over short distances. It had been sprinkling snow a bit on the way to class, but by the end of class there were big fluffy flakes and snow accumulating on the cars and leaves and everything flat. Of course, this is the day I get off a stop too early. No matter. Dinner is eggs and mashed potatoes made with Parmesan Cheese (!) and the usual bread and cheese, etc. I am officially in love with Asiago cheese, but am also enjoying Branzi.

1. 27. 10
This morning, for the first time, the sun was streaming in through the windows, and it looked like a beautiful day. I had to remind myself, as I often must in Claremont, that just because it was sunny didn’t mean it was warm. I did a little bit of yoga, because strange places in my body are not appreciating the fact that I sleep on a futon.

Today is called the day of remembrance, and most of Europe remembers those who were killed in the Holocaust. I saw some flags at half-mast. Survivors, or perhaps just anyone who was alive at that time and is willing, go into elementary schools to tell their stories to educate and prevent anything similar from happening in the future. It is also the 109th anniversary of Verdi’s death.

Lunch was a pasta that looked like linguini but had some other name, and fish that I think was sole (but it turns out most Italian animal names are completely not what they sound like they might be).
Class was a surprisingly interesting lecture about the formation of the European Union and the history and attractions of a few Italian regions. Perhaps more than being interesting, the pace was fast enough that nothing became too overworked. While in class, since today was the first sunny day of my stay, I also managed to catch a view of the first sunset of my stay. All I can say is that I can’t wait to be outside for one: vivid oranges and purples made a color palette altogether different from any that I have seen before. After class I stopped by a Tabaccheria to get some more postcards and some school supplies. This may have provided me with a way to understand how many of the other students feel on a daily basis. I learned classroom vocab three years ago, which means I forgot most of it two and a half years ago, which means that I had a really hard time communicating what I wanted to the shopkeeper. She just looked at me blankly and annoyedly, and offering me things that I did not want. Eventually, I settled for a notebook of graph paper and a non-mechanical pencil, because I didn’t want to draw things out even more. Note to self: learn more relevant terminology before another attempt. On my way home I had fun crunching through the snow that hadn’t melted away during the day.

Dinner was a delicious chicken in tomato sauce, apparently concocted using the leftover sauce from lunch, but it might have been my favorite of what I’ve eaten so far. Also, we had fresh mozzarella. All the cheese I eat here makes me wonder what the heck it is that we eat in the U.S. After dinner, because today is the day it is, there were a ton of holocaust movies on. We watched The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, which is about as depressing as it gets. All of us were expecting/hoping for a happy ending, but no such luck.

1. 28. 10
First day of real Italian class. After warming up, we talked about the Day of Remembrance, and thanks to my family’s news watching tendency, I was the only one who knew what it was. Among other things, we watched some youtube interviews of Primo Levi, Italy’s native equivalent of Elie Wiesel. He wrote a beautiful and painful poem, called ‘If this is a man,’ about his experience in Auschwitz.

Lunch was pasta, which seemed to come out of a wok, which I don’t quite understand. They really do make their pasta al dente here, though. We also had a really unusual sounding but remarkably delicious salad: fresh mozzarella, tuna, chickpeas, onion, red cabbage, and either regular cabbage or lettuce. Afterwards, Leti took me to a shopping center north of town. I suppose it was pretty big for Parma, but in comparison to our malls, it was tiny. They had maybe 50 stores and it was one story. They did have a sandwich café with a wall of prosciutto hanks (?), which was pretty cool.

Because it was so small, we finished in about an hour, which gave me time to come home and take a nap before meeting with Alice. I feel like we spoke way more English than Italian, but I guess that’s ok. She has a big interview for a job in London on Wednesday, so she needed the practice more than I did. We both had cappuccinos, which might be the only form of coffee I am ready to accept into my lifestyle (other than frappuccinos, which once mocha-ized can barely qualify as coffee). It was good to talk to her. Often when I am talking, I know that I am probably making mistakes and wish that people would correct me. In talking to her, I understood why people don’t. it would be exhausting, distracting, and kind of demoralizing to try to correct every little thing, especially when the message is clear. So, I just pointed out a few things every now and then, like when she said cooker instead of cook, or doctoress in reference to a female doctor. She invited me to a lot of things, but sometimes I got confused about whether I was really invited or whether she was just being nice. I would definitely like to hang out with her and her friends, who are also pretty near to me in age. I want to befriend and hang out with Italians so that I can occasionally really be in Italian, sans the American Student Posse.

Cristina and I met up with three of her guy friends to go see ‘Avatar’ at 9:30. Ten euros! Ah well, it was all for the experience. At first, my eyelashes kept brushing up on the glasses, and the film was making my body indecisive about whether it wanted to get a headache or be nauseous. I definitely appreciated the random four-minute break in the middle. I had had some mild trepidation about whether I would be able to understand the dialogue, but I didn’t have much trouble. There were some words I didn’t quite catch, but overall what I really liked was that I also wasn’t translating the whole thing; I was just listening and understanding. Was it worth ten euro (aka 15 bucks)? I don’t know. I wished I could have listened to the linguistics of the native language more, but I was busy trying to read and understand Italian subtitles. Overall, though, it was a cool experience and also an affirming experience about my level of Italian comprehension. Now I just have to be able to speak as well as I understand. When we left it was cooold: -8 degrees Celsius of cold.

Words I want to learn:
Ascend
Anyway