# Gelati: 1, Distance Walked: 9.0km
When I showed up for class this morning 2 of the teachers recognised me. I was surprised. While I was here for a month before, they have students who attend the school for several months. Also, I was at the school 2 years ago. I didn't expect to be that memorable. I hope it was for good reasons.
There are 5 students in my class. Livia, who is from France, and also started today. The other 3 students are American. Andrea has been at the school since January, North (I think that's his name) has been there since February and Fall (again I think) has been there a few weeks. When Livia, North and Andrea speak a torrent of Italian pours out of their mouths. Fall, at least, speaks slowly and has to think of the word she wants. Livia has a strong French accent and North just mumbles so I didn't understand a lot of what was said today.
Our teacher for the morning session was one I'd had last time. I still don't remember her name. We started by talking about markets. We took it in turns to read out paragraphs from an article about famous markets in various Italian cities. The teacher repeated every paragraph I said, but not any of the others. I didn't think my accent was that dire, but apparently it is. On the plus side, I knew almost all the words. We then revised the conditional tense. I had no trouble with this, unlike some of my classmates, so that was also a balm to my ego.
We then broke for coffee & pastries. I stayed with my classmates and we were good and spoke to each other in our best Italian. Only Andrea and I bothered to get a pastry. What is wrong with people?
After the coffee break we went back to the classroom for the conversation part of the day. Our teacher now was Arianna who I remember (both her and her name!) from last time. She also remembered me. We each were given a card with an emotion written on it. We then each had to describe a time when we felt that emotion.
Andrea started and launched into a detailed explaination of which I understood about every other word. I never did find out what the emotion on her card was. I think it might have been contentment. Livia's was worry, mine was digust and North's was disappointment. Fall had left for the day for reasons I didn't catch.
Finally we finished for the day. The school's owner asked me how it was going. He offered to move me to a lower class but I declined. The content of the lessons is easy for me, it is just that my classmates are so much more fluent than I am. Still, I think it is good for me to have to listen and speak a lot more than I'm comfortable with.
For lunch I just bought a piadina-y thing from a shop near my apartment. It was a circle of bread stuffed with sausage and fried onions that had been folded in half and toasted on each side. It was Dull. The bread was doughy, the sausage tasteless and the onions few and far between. Why skimp on the onions, which presumably are cheap, but include lots of meat? It would have been much better with more onions.
In the afternoon I had my 1 hour conversation lesson with yet another teacher, Miriam. I think I'm the only student having individual classes in the afternoons as the place was deserted each for us. It was easier than I expected. I did most of the talking, which was not easy, but it was (relatively) easy to think of what to talk about. It was all just getting to know you stuff. Have I been to Bologna before? Why do I want to study Italian? Questions about family and where I live and such like. The only problem is I keep getting asked what I do. I just say I'm retired and I do very little. I will have to think of a more interesting answer. More importantly I will have to think about what to talk about with Miriam tomorrow!
After my conversation lesson I went shopping. The typical weather for this time of year here in Bologna is low to mid 20s. It is actually 30 to 32C all week. When I was packing, at the last minute, I threw in a pair of shorts and a summer dress along with a couple of short sleeved tops so I'm ok for clothes. However, I dithered about packing the sandals that are easy to walk in versus the sandals that are stylish. Since I was going to Italy, and didn't expect to wear them a lot, I opted for the stylish sandals. I'm now wearing them all day every day and they are giving me blisters. I tried various shoe shops but Italian shops don't cater to people with short, fat feet so I had to settle for a buying a big box of bandaids instead.
For dinner I went to a randomly chosen trattoria near my apartment. It was a bit of a disappointment. Their food was Decent but that is all. I finally had tagliatelle al ragu (aka spaghetti bolognese) and for dessert chocolate "salami" with marscapone. The salami was made with dark chocolate, cocoa and crushed biscuits held together with melted butter. It came straight from the fridge so eating it was a challenge until I let it soften a bit. I was sure I'd send pieces flying across the room otherwise.
As I was leaving the restaurant the road was blocked with a demonstration going past. There must have been several hundred people in it. I'm guessing from the rainbow flags it was some sort of Pride thing. There were also 6 or so riot police following on behind in full riot gear. However, they were just strolling along, swinging their helmets in their hands. They were clearly unbothered.
Now I'm off to think about things to talk to Miriam about tomorrow. I keep reminding myself it doesn't have to be true, I just need to know how to say it in Italian.
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