Parliamo Italiano

Wednesday, May 21st

A quick note before I tell you about my day. Shauna and I got so lucky with our family assignment and location here in Siena. Besides the obvious fact that I am beyond blessed with the opportunity to be in Italy, I got placed with truly great and caring host parents. Anna, our Italian mom, is really thoughtful and just like a grandma to us. She asked me one morning what I eat for breakfast at home, so I said bananas and cereal mostly. The next morning, along with all the food she normally puts out for breakfast, there was a box of Special K and a bunch of bananas in a bowl (p.s. Italian Special K is way more delicious than the American stuff, which doesn't make any sense but it's true). She also does our laundry and makes a-ma-zing dinners. She does her best to help us with the language but also gets excited sometimes and talks really quickly. Shauna and I are really having a wonderful experience with her and her husband, and are especially lucky that our house is so close to the school and the center of town. And we have WiFi! It's the little things.

Anyway, today we had class the same as yesterday (more subjunctive, woo!), but the last hour was different and really great. We went to a park with another class and each got paired up with someone from the other class.  Then we talked about anything we wanted for about half an hour.

I got paired up with a woman from Israel. She was born in Argentina and moved around a bit so she spoke Spanish, Hebrew, English, and also Italian. Of course, we were speaking in Italian the whole time but every once in a while she would slip a Spanish word in, so that was fun. I was surprised by how easy it was to speak with her, without pressure to get everything right. It was really nice! We talked about where we were from, what we liked to do, and she even asked me a bit about the LDS church. She said she loved the Mormons who were at the BYU Jerusalem Center. Overall, a nice conversation and a wonderful break from the classroom.

Immediately after class, instead of having a break before going to another class, our group went to a deli for lunch. There the owner taught us about Italian cheese—how it's made, how it ages, etc. etc.—as well as some meats—trust me, you do not want to know how pig blood meat is made. Don't ask.

After the demonstration we got to eat! We had some sort of pasta salad dish, then a sampling of meats and cheeses, then some biscotti. Overall a great lunch and a yummy alternative to regular class meetings. Afterward we had the day free, and I spent most of my time working on my presentation for tomorrow. Everyone in our group has to present on a particular subject and mine, the very last one, is on World War II in Italy. So much information to condense into a ten-minute presentation without boring the class to tears (assuming they aren't all WWII enthusiasts like I am). Let's hope for the best.

Later we had dinner and then all of us met up at Cinzia's apartment to watch a movie together, since we are all separated and living in different houses. Even though we didn't finish the movie (we started Inception at 10pm, and by 11 we were ready for bed), it was a fun night.

Overall not much for today. Tomorrow we do the cooking class again, which I am way excited about, and then Friday is Florence! So hopefully by the end of the week I'll have more exciting stories to share.

A domani,
Ciao!