I was awakened around 4 am by our roosters’ cries and thus grudgingly stayed up until it was time to go to school. I must admit that when my host mother pulled over her car and told me that we arrived at my school, I asked, “Dov’é (Where)?” It was on the second floor of this building with a green gate. Many students apparently walked by the building because it is very unnoticeable. But once I walked inside, I was mesmerized by the 400 year old brown gate and mid-Renaissance wall paintings up on the roof. SYA seems to promote a different kind of learning environment from that of Episcopal, which is high-tech and modern.
After painstakingly going through the boring paperwork, which none of the EU citizens (there were about 4 of them) had to go through, some of us went to get gelato and caffè (thanks to Jadzia, a local native, who took us to nice and cheap places). Then, we signed up for our classes, which was very stressful. I badly want to take an online class, so let’s see how that works out. But the highlight of the day – of course – was the dreaded Italian placement exam. Almost none of us have Italian background, with the exception of possibly three students who already speak the language. So I walked in feeling very reassured that I am not the only one who has no clue on what the questions were asking. But the oral section of the test was fairly easy, so I think I did okay overall.
After a long day, I honestly wanted to take a nap, but my 7 year old brother (Andrea) wanted to play with me. So I gladly played “preso” (literally means "taken" in the sense of tagged) and ping pong (also called ping pong in Italian). Then, we rode our bikes and went on the trampoline. Afterwards, he asked me if he could play with me again tomorrow, and that was possibly the most adorable thing I have heard since I got here.
More on Andrea: he is a brilliant ragazzo. He catches onto English phrases quite quickly. I taught him how to say “follow me” and “bicycles.” He was so excited that he taught me some words, such as “pomodoro” (tomato) and “ferma” (stop as in command). He still gets frustrated at times when I do not understand a word he is saying, but he still talks to me in Italiano, to which I respond with “Si, si, si!"
Tomorrow is our first day of real classes. I am really excited to get to know the new faculty members because they all seemed nice today.
