Day 6 - Back to School

My mum didn't pack me a lunch and I didn't cry when i was standing at the front door of the school waiting for the first day to begin, but the place has a bell that rings between classes,.. so i guess it's flash back time.

Monday was the beginning of my 4 week course at the Centro Studi Italiani here in Urbania. The course commenced with an entrance exam, the only italian i had studied was 10 x 3 hour classes )level 1 and 2) in Melbourne, after about 20 seconds reading the entrance exam for the course i figured that the standards here would be significantly higher.

I fumbled my way through the exam stuffing up what I thought were fairly basic things and then had to inflict the oral component of the exam onto one of the teachers. I guess i did better than I thought, because eventhough my grammar was pretty abismal and you could drive several 3 wheel APE through the holes in my vocab i managed to get into the elementary group and avoid having to go through the beginners course again.

That Afternoon Danilo, one of the school admin staff and all round cool dude took the new students on a bit of a hike to a monastery just outside of the town. A good chance to shoot the shit with the other students and for the younger and more adventurous amongst the group to designate shagging targets. Student numbers are down this semester due to the travel precautions that have plagued the world over the past few months so there are only about 25 of us.

Later that night we were guests at a local enoteca 'Vin Italy' where we sampled several local wines while the store's proprietors Alessandra and his wife Maria Grazie discussed some of the finer points of the stuff we were shoveling down our throats, some of the highlights included a Vin Santo which was a sweety ... smells and tastes like a Noble Riesling, several sweeter reds, served chilled just how i like em and some wines from Puglia. The drinks were accompanied by serveral antipasti parmesano and salami from the local area and an absolutely magnificent olive oil which i will definitely be sending back home, golden and light with an effervescence that i have never ever encountered before, yeah top night.

I returned to my wog palace in via dante alighieri to an interesting night listening to the trio of dogs in the area, the upstairs neighbour who insists on walking around the tiled floors of her apartment in what must be steel tipped stilleto boots and the neighbours on the other side of our bedroom wall quite happy to allow their nippers (nipoti) to have some very professionally coordinated tanrtrums. Classes start at 8:50 Tuesday morning