Day 21 - Fine Weather Was Too Good To Last

# Campari & Soda: 0, # Gelati: 0

The weather today started off pleasantly enough, but by mid-afternoon the rain had set in.  At least the temperatures are still mild.

Class today was not too bad.  The number of students is back up to 8.  Several who weren't there yesterday, showed up again today plus we had someone (Jackie) who had switched into our class.  Poor woman, as we spent a good 30 miinutes discussing the homework which, of course, she hadn't seen before.  The rest of the grammar session was spent on new material - when to use the different forms of the congiuntivo.  There are four options - principal phrase and secondary both in the present, both in the past, principal in the present and secondary in the past, or principal in the past and secondary even earlier.  Not hard to remember.  Just don't ask me to remember how to conjugate the various verbs in each tense but at least I know which one to look up. 

The "conversation" session (which has remarkable little conversation in it) got derailed on a discussion about Starbucks in Italy, sustainable tourism and the evils of multination corporations.  Our teacher's politics are decidedly left of centre, but not extremely so by Australian standards.  However, you could see some of the American students getting very uncomfortable.

I had lunch with Kim at the place where I had dinner last night as they had artichokes on the menu and Kim is very fond of them.  They seem to be more of a Roman speciality as not many restaurants here have them on the menu, although they are in season and I see them on all the greengrocer's stalls.  After lunch Kim headed off to her private conversation lession while I headed back to the apartment to do my homework somewhere warm and dry.  The homework was 50 sentences where we had to conjugate the given verb in the correct version of the congiuntivo.  I will find out tomorrow if my smugness in my understanding of this tense if justified.  I suspect not.

For dinner I took advantage of all the porticos in Bologna and just ducked out to La Rustica which is just down the road from me.  I had a very pleasant plate of pasta and glass of wine.  For the sake of my health I also had a large salad.  Besides tomato it was some of the first vegetables I've eaten all week.

I like this trattoria.  They offer sound advice.