Day 28 - Last Day of Class

# Campari & Soda: 0, # Gelati: 0

Today was the last day of class but our teacher, Arianna, didn't take it easy on us.  I guess that makes sense as not everyone was finishing up today.  In fact, most of the class are continuing on for several more weeks at least.  Today we did combined pronouns.  That is when you combine an indirect and direct object pronoun.  Sometimes these are kept as separate words, sometimes they are smooshed together, sometimes they are put in front of the verb, sometimes they are smooshed onto the end of the verb.  I really struggled with this lesson.  In many cases it didn't even seem to me that two pronouns were needed.  Italian puts in extra ones (by the standards of English) for emphasis.  "Me I ate an entire pizza" is a gramatically correct Italian sentence if you want to emphasis how much you ate.  I started off getting 30% of the exercises correct and ended up getting a whopping 50% correct.  A passing grade I suppose.

In the conversation session we had to role play a different scenario.  I was grouped with Susanna (again) and with Ken (the uptight American).  Susanna and I were disgruntled guests in a hotel and Ken was the hotel owner.  When he isn't trying to learn grammar, it turns out that Ken has a great sense of humour.  We would make a complaint and he would just blow it off, claiming it was the Italian way.  I complained that the thermostat in the airconditioning was broken so my room was too cold but when I opened the window, mosquitos came in.  Ken insisted that in Italy mosquito bites are good for your health.  At the end Susanna said she would take her complaints to the carabinieri.  Ken said the head of the carabinieri was his brother-in-law.  It was all very silly but a lot of fun.  The other groups had all picked the same scenario but had taken it seriously.  I think their Italian was more grammatically correct and elaborate than ours, but we were more entertaining.

Kim and I had a light lunch at the Agricola e Vitale Osteria.  We sat at a table in the piazza as the weather is (still) very pleasant.  We also had a very pleasant waiter.  He was friendly and chatty and keen to provide advice to tourists.  He was also easy on the eye.  Kim and I argued about which of us would get to take him home as a souvenir.  As middle-aged women we feel we have the right to make inappropriate remarks about attractive young men.  The young (English) women at the table next to us seemed to disagree as we got the evil eye from one of them.  Kim is American so she doesn't speak quietly.

After lunch I just went back to my apartment to start organising all my belongings as I leave on Sunday.  I just realised that in my apartment complex there is a locked gate separating the block I'm in (at the back) from the front half of the complex.  My landlord is on holiday in Sicily and won't be meeting me to pick up the keys,  I'm just to leave them in the apartment and pull the door shut behind me.  There is a logical flaw in this arrangement.  My plan is to go down with my suitcase, unlock the gate and prop it open with the suitcase.  I have a note, which I will leave with my case, that says in my best Italian saying "Please don't close the gate.  I'll be back in a moment." and the same in English.  I'll then run back to the apartment, get my backpack and leave the keys.  Hopefully, no-one will close the gate in the 30-60 seconds while I'm gone. I'm leaving at about 8:30am on a Sunday morning so I should be fine.  Worst case I have to start waking up people in the apartments in my building until I find someone to unlock the gate for me.  

Jackie, from my class, had arranged a farewell dinner at the Agritourismo Granoantico which is in the hills outside Bologna.  She wanted to have dinner with a view.  There were 5 of us going in the end.  We met at a taxi stand not far from my apartment at 7pm.  When I arrived, a little before 7pm, there were 4 taxis there.  By the time we had all got there, just after 7pm, all the taxis had left.  We waited a little longer and then Celina (who speaks the best Italian of all of us) called for a taxi.  We needed two as they only take 4 passengers max each.  One arrived promptly and Jackie, Celina and her husband, Rudy, hopped in.  The driver swore another taxi would be along in a moment for Susanna and me.  You can guess what happened next.

We waited.  And waited.  And waited.  No taxi.  At 7:30pm I called again (my Italian is better than Susanna's).  The line was busy but eventually I got through to the operator, only to be told there were no taxis available in the city centre.  It was a Friday night after all.  I then asked the waiter at a nearby restaurant for help.  He called two other taxi companies but got the same story.  I then remembered someone telling me that I could use Uber anywhere they operated.  After installing the app on my Italin phone and resetting the password (which I had forgotten of course) we finally had transport.  It had to be one of the fancy cars (Uber Black) as that was all that was available, but we were on the move.  Susanna and I finally arrived at the restaurant at 8:15pm.   However, this is considered a civilised time to eat by Italian standards so the others were still just having aperitivos and admiring the view.

 

 

It was a pleasant enough view, but it looks out over the hills, not back towards Bologna.  Once the sun has set there is nothing to see, so we went inside and had dinner.  The dinner was nice enough but nothing special.  I've had better here in the city centre.  Still the company was good fun and journey was an adventure.

To return to Bologna, the staff at the restaurant called us a people mover from a car service so we could all go in the same vehicle.  I was very pleased as I didn't want to waste time standing around calling for taxis or Ubers late at night.  We got back to Bologna after 11pm and were dropped at the taxi rank for a round of fond goodbyes and (false) promises to keep in touch.  I had wondered what it would be like walking back to my apartment at that time of night but there were lots of people around.  The evening was mild and every bar and cafe had people spilling out onto the street.  The piazza near my house had more people in it that I have ever seen in the daytime. 

 

An entertaining day but a long one.