Day 7 - Ferrara Side Trip

# Campari & Soda: 0, # Gelati: 1

Today was bitterly cold again, but sunny.  I'm almost beginning to get used to this weather.

Beatrice & Giulia brought in home-made biscuits to class today.  It turns out they are university students who were just doing an internship/work experience placement at the school and today was their last day.  This explains a lot.  They weren't bad teachers but were lacking in experience.  I wonder what our new teacher will be like.

Lindy, a Dutch student, got rather impatient with Beatrice's teaching today.  She had good reason.  Today were were learning a conditional tense.  Essentialy the tense you would use when saying something like "I would have" or "I could have", e.g. "If I had known xxx, then I would have done yyy instead."  Beatrice was drawing timelines on the board and explaining when the various bit of the sentence were in time.  One of the American students suddenly said that they got it and it was just "would have"/"could have" and all the timelines weren't necessary.  Lindy pointed out, rather tartly, that it might work that way in English but it doesn't in Dutch and the timelines were very helpful for her.  Later on two of the American students lapsed entirely into English to discuss something to do with discount American airlines.  Lindy interrupted to ask Beatrice if we could get back to talking in  Italian as that is what she was there to learn.  Beatrice really needs to learn how to guide a classroom and keep us on track and on time.

Today's afternoon excursion was a trip to the neighbouring town of Ferrara.  I hadn't originally planned to go, but then I learnt the guide would be Diana.  She was the one who took us on the orientation tour on Monday.  She is an excellent teacher so I signed up for the trip.  The train trip only took 30 minutes (plus an extra 15 minutes for random delays).  The group consisted of 2 people from Australia, 1 from the USA, 1 from Mexico, 1 from Japan, 2 from Germany, 1 from Switzerland and 1 from Argentina.  However, Diana made sure we used (bad) Italian as our common language, not English.  I don't know how this came up in conversation, but at one point we learnt that the 70 year old brother of one of the Germans has just had his 7th child.  He has 3 by his first wife, 3 by his second and now 2 by his third. His third wife is younger than his oldest child.  Apparently he isn't rich.

Ferrara is a smaller, quieter town than Bologna.  This surprised me as it was the original capital city of the Dukes of Ferrara.  Their castle is still intact and is an impressive sight.

We visited the castle courtyard, the cathedral (which is undergoing renovations) as well as walking around the historic centre, marvelling at the various palazzos.  We didn't have enough time to visit any museums but it was still a pleasant afternoon.  We finished up with a gelati (indifferent) before rushing back to the railway station.  We got there just as the train was about to leave.  Three of us jumped on.  I'm not sure if the rest made it.  Many of the group were still strolling along but the 3 of us were done and just wanted to get home.  When I got back to Bologna I have to confess I didn't wait to see how many of our group had made it, I just left, as I was all peopled out.

For dinner I went to the place near the apartment again.  I was tired and just wanted to eat somewhere I knew I could get a decent plate of pasta and a decent glass of wine.  I got that, along with a plate of salami and cheese to start and a panna cotta to finish.  I was sat facing the street and as I was about to get my dessert I noticed one of  my classmates, Martin, peering in the window.  He saw me and I waved, so he came in anded asked if he could join me. I had to say yes and he turned out to be pleasant company.  He is 80 but I would have sworn he was only in his early 60s.  We compared notes on our apartments (he is staying about the same distance from the restaurant as me but in the other direction), our views on the class, other trips we've done and how much weight we are putting on. As I said, pleasant company, but I'm not going to get the early night I had planned.

I doubt I sleep well in any case.  I am staying in the student district and it must be graduation day for a lot of students.  I've seen several young people wandering around with laurel wreaths on their head and there seems to be lots of parties going on.  There is one going on right now in the courtyard and the chanting seems to involve a lot of shouts of "Dotoressa".