# Campari & Soda: 0, # Gelati: 0
Bad news first. It was cold here today. The temperature managed to get to a high of all of 15C. Tomorrow and Wednesday are going to be worse. Only 12C each day. I haven't packed for this sort of weather. Also, while my apartment has radiators, the are operated from a central boiler in the basement and that has been switched off since it is now spring. I tried shopping for warmer clothes on the main shopping strip but all the shops are full of spring/summer wear. I did eventually find a shop that sells just socks, pantyhose and leggings and bought some leggings. Just as I was about to give up, I stumbled across a charity shop (for cats!) and bought a slightly too large red coat and a black scarf. I may have to wear the same things several days in a row, but at least I'll be warm.
On to the good news. I had my first day of class today and it was fun. The school is in a old palazzo which has been subdivided into multiple small apartments. There was about 40 people milling around when I arrived at about 8:45am. The owner, Andrea, was leaping about greeting returning students as well as welcoming new ones. He is somewhat eccentric but clearly cares very deeply about teaching and the school. For example, you don't pay up front for classes. He said he doesn't run the school like a gym, which charges an annual fee upfront and hopes you don't actually turn up after the first few weeks. Instead, you pay when you leave, so you only have to pay for the classes you have actually taken.
There are 9 people in my class this week. The numbers will vary from week to week as new students start each Monday. In age there is about a 50-50 split between people my age and 20-somethings. Most are from America, but one woman is from Ireland and another from Argentina and one young man is from Germany. Our common language is English - native English speakers are so spoilt.
Our teacher, Beatrice, took us for a scamper over all the verb tenses we are supposed to know. I actually knew all but one of them, so that wasn't too bad. We then spent the rest of the morning session learning words for shopping, spending and different types of shops and goods with an emphasis on idiomatic phrases. At 11am we broke for coffee and conversation. This bit didn't work as well as it was supposed to. We are supposed to go to a nearby cafe/bar as a group with our teacher and practice our conversational skills. However, the whole school does this at the same time. Having 40 people descend on the same small place at once doesn't really work. My class ended up getting split up. I lost sight of our teacher and all but one of my classmates. This one young American woman and I sat together, chatting in English, which was pleasant but rather a waste of class time. The pastries were nearly as good as those from Pasticceria Antica Bologna where I had breakfast yesterday.
After the break, we headed back to the classroom and where we met our new teacher, Adrianna. We were paired off and given 4 short stories about something unexpected. We had to come up with an explanation for each - practicing which past tense to use. We took it in turns to read out our stories. This was fun as we tried to come up with responses that were interesting but were something that would only require us to use words we knew.
After all this we stopped for the day. I like my class. The level is pitched about right for me and my classmates are generally pleasant people.
Most afternoons the school arranges optional excursions. Today's was an orientation tour of Bologna. Tomorrow is a visit to a museum for musical instruments, Wednesday is a cooking class at Ca' Bianca which is in the countryside outside of Bologna, Thursday is a trip to Ferrara and Friday is a visit to the Museo Archeologico. I did the orientation tour and have signed up for the museum visit on Tuesday and the cooking class on Wednesday. I've already been to the archeological museum and I don't think much of visiting a town just for an afternoon, especially as that would have to include travel time. This weekend I plan to stay here on Saturday, as it is market day, but go to Ravenna on Sunday to see the mosaics.
The orientation tour was fun. There was about a dozen of us altogether from the school, but only one other person from my class - the young German man Max. I got to chatting with an Englishwoman (much better Italian than mine) and an American woman (complete beginner). The tour was entirely in Italian but spoken slowly and clearly. After it was over the three of us agreed to catch up for an aperitivo - some other day - before rushing off to find a shop that could sell us warmer clothes.
Foodwise today was a bit of a letdown. I didn't have long for lunch after class and before the tour. As it is Monday a lot of restaurants are shut, including the first few recommendations from the school. I stopped at the first place I came across that was open and had what looked like a reasonable lunch deal. It turns out it was cheap because it was an all-you-can-eat buffet. I had two slices of indifferent pizza, some overcooked tortellini in a carbonara sauce, some grilled eggplant (for veg) and some surprisingly good gnocchi in a tomato-based sauce with lots of cheese. For dessert I had their tiramisu. It had an unexpectedly good amount of coffee and booze but the "cream" was mostly just cream with barely discernable traces of marscapone - 5 out of 10 at beat. For dinner I just had the rest of the cheese and salami from yesterday with fresh bread and an insta-salad mix from the supermarket. I'll eat better tomorrow, now I have my warm coat and can brave the outdoors.
Must do my homework now.
Oh, almost forgot. When I got here my landlord told me where and how to get access to the fuse box in the wildly unlikely event a fuse blew and the power to the apartment was cut. Guess what had happened when I got home today? Assuming an Italian fuse box has the same layout as an Australian one, it looks like the earth leakage breaker had tripped which is a bit of a worry. At least I know how to turn it back on, even though I had to stand on tiptoes to get to it.
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