When the waited came over he asked me how long I had been studying and he looked at my notes and asked how I was doing. I said that it was only day 2 and I was still very new to it and he started explaining why they say things in certain ways. Such a nice kind man... This is why I love Italy. I love Italians, they are passionate, loud, and very, well, Italian! But they also love people that love their country and they are very proud. Romans are very proud people especially. I walked away from that restaurant proud of myself for coming all this way to have a go.
There was nothing for it. It was right there... I had to get on.. and so it happened. I got on a Tram. On the Viale de Trastevere, there is 1 main tram line that goes into the centre of town one way, and down into the suburbs via the end of the road I am staying in, Via di Donna Olimpia. What was the point of walking all the way across town to get the bus when the tram was there and they are every 12 minutes, whereas my bus is only every 30-40 minutes. Thanks to the wonders of Google Streetview, I had looked this journey up before I had arrived in Rome so I could visualise where I needed to get off. So off it went.... I was painstakingly staring out the window to see whether I could see where I needed to get off. Now this tram goes directly the route I walked on my first night in Rome, the mission that was food. I spied my stop.. Now I couldn't see a stop button anywhere close, but luckily it slowed to stop anyway. Phew! I then walked up the road to my apartment taking in the shops along the way. Half of them were still closed with it only being the beginning of September, they are not back from their August holiday... there were odd market stalls selling things from handbags to underpants, there were the odd cheap shop, a bit like a poundland... handy to know for things like shampoo, and then there were a lot of pizzerias and gelaterias, and they were all full! In a suburban district, they were full of people eating and drinking, at 3pm! They were most certainly Italians too as this was off the beaten track for tourists...
I finally got home, 15 minutes after getting off the Tram. It seems every day I'm accomplishing something new. Even if it is something really small...
So today was day 3 at school. Things are starting to get intense. I'm aware that it is an 'intensive' course but wow. I think if our teacher wasn't so easy going, it could be a really long a difficult course. He focuses on speaking at all times, and although allowing you to write your notes, he would rather you say it 25 times wrongly and then get it right, than you write it down once and read it. His pantomime attitude of teaching, his performance, puts light into doing something that is extremely difficult. He also doesn't push. If you aren't comfortable saying something or you don't know, he doesn't make you say things or make you look a fool, he simply moves to the next person until it is said correctly and then it gets repeated. To be asking questions such as, "Where do you work in Rome" and making statements such as "I closed the window because I was cold" by the end of day 3 I feel is a massive achievement for everyone. Some people are much better than others of course. Myself and another English girl struggle with certain aspects and I think this comes from not only are we not pushed to learn another language that much in school, the English language is so different to Italian, French, Spanish etc... We don't have the I, you, he, we, you, they....Safe to say I will be repeating these over and over and over again tonight...
Now anyone that knows me, knows that my love for Italy has sprung from watching a certain film. Eat, Pray, Love. Now in that film, there's a scene where she is with her tandem exchange partner, and he is teaching her the verb 'attraversere'. Now... He is telling her "attraversiamo", which means "We cross over", and she describes it as the perfect Italian word, "with the rolling trill, the wistful 'r' ".... Now this has stuck with me ever since first seeing the film. So as we were today asked to shout out verbs, most people were saying things such as... To sleep (dormire), To work (lavarare), To eat (mangiare)... All I could think of was attraversiamo... knowing the ending of 'iamo' meant we... it must be attraversere.... So I said this... He stopped in his tracks. He was stunned. Such an odd verb for someone to know that knows hardly anything... he shouted at me... "You know 'to cross'?! You don't know to eat or sleep or work but you know to cross!! Wowsers! The girl from England knows how to cross!" We were all laughing and inside I felt quite pleased with myself that I knew something a little different. Of course this then became a running joke that if anyone wanted to talk about crossing over, I apparently had copyright and had to be asked! He asked me how I knew the word and I said it was from a film and he asked which one... When I said Eat, Pray Love he was just stunned and then carried on... A little moment of me, in a class where there are so many people, all with their own reasons to be there... and that was mine.
When school finished, I wandered down to the Trastevere to read through my notes. I sat with a beer, on the steps of the fountain in the Piazza di Santa Maria in Trastevere. If there was ever anywhere to read through your notes and do homework it was there!
I then hopped on a tram (as you do) and came home.... Lots of homework to do today.... lots of words to remember.. apart from attraversiamo of course, I think I know that one.
But maybe first, a snooze in the summer afternoon sunshine...
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