Day 8: Full Italian Schedule

Usually classes start at 9 or 9:30.. today it was 8:00. We kept our windows open, in hopes that the morning light would help us wake up. It did the trick, so I promptly rolled out of bed to go start the coffee (it's not your typical Mr. Coffee--it takes about 15 minutes until it's ready). Here is what our schedule looked like today:

8:00 a.m. - Visit to local street market in Ariccia

8:45 a.m. - Walk to elementary school

9:00 a.m. - Visit the "Bernini" primary school in Ariccia (Children ages 6-10)

Observation and interaction with children and teachers

11:00 a.m. - Walk to "James Joyce" high school in Ariccia

11:15 a.m. - Visit "James Joyce" high school (finish at 1 p.m.)

1: 15 p.m. - Brief meeting with Mary Lou Gray on campus

3:00 p.m. - Classes in the campus area. General introduction to Week 2 activities with Cinzia

3:15 p.m. - Class with prof. Susanna Marra introducing next day's field trip

4:15 p.m. - Classes with prof. Peek on Italian Etiquette and Culture

5:15 p.m. - Watch movie on Roman Engineering

WELLLLLL, remember how I said Italians ran on their own schedule? Yep. We didn't get done until 7:15 p.m. So my additional 2 hours added to the written schedule was correct.

A few notes on today's visits:

The street market is only on Monday mornings and they, like the festival, have booths filled with different odds and ends. Fruit, veggies, bread, bathroom products, clothes.. random. But Kasi and I did score some leather jackets for 20 Euros (we bargained). Mine's blue and it looks really blue in this picture but I promise it's not weird (at least I hope not). I just look like a Crayola box in this picture.

The elementary school was so precious. The little kids were preparing for a show they have in June so they performed it for us to practice. It was a wide array of performance topics. The littlest kids danced and sang to Peter Pan (in Italian) and the older kids surprised us with a vocal performance of the song "Fame" in English.

The high school might be my favorite part of the day. We walked up right in the middle of them switching classes so we felt like goldfish in a fishbowl looking into the glass. Do you want to know the main difference between the U.S. (most) high schools and theirs? Almost every other person had a cigarette in their hands to go smoke outside during their break. It absolutely blew me away that this went on so openly at high school. I guess its just normal to them... either that or they haven't had health class and learned about lung cancer and yellowing teeth. After this eye opener I didn't know what to expect for the rest of the visit. The high school's English teacher led us to her class for the period and there were students in there waiting for us. We broke into small groups and some Italian students took us on a tour around the school. It was about what you'd expect except that they don't have any football teams or cheerleaders like most schools--they just had a volleyball team and theatre. Odd? Also, they use a lot of computer labs as compared to books in a classroom. Or this just could be the way it is with Huntsville High School and I'm showing my age by not knowing that schools have entered the 21st century. Also, at the beginning of the tour I didn't know that our students spoke English (I obviously didn't get the memo that we were visiting an English class....) and so I was just talking and talking to another girl from our Ariccia group, and then I picked up on the fact that the Italian students knew exactly what I was saying. Oops! Note to self: Ask before I ramble and ramble. It was so interesting to interact with the students and both of us attempting to talk in the other language. Most of them had very strong English skills--we were all impressed! This is probably because they start them off young and so they'd been taking English classes for many years. Also, not only did they speak English, but most of the students spoke a third language. Why doesn't America do this? I found it so amazing that these 18 year olds could hold a conversation in 3 different languages. It made me want to run out and purchase Rosetta Stone. Maybe after this summer I'll come back with a tad bit more knowledge of the Italian tongue. It was hysterical the conversations we were having with these students. They asked us if we watched Gossip Girl (they preferred Chuck, we preferred Nate) and we asked them if they had boyfriend/girlfriends. We got restaurant suggestions for neighboring towns. It was just so fun to talk to these people that live halfway across the globe in a completely different kind of country, but yet it was so easy and normal. We exchanged Facebook information and acted as if we were old friends. Thank you James Joyce for this experience!

The afternoon is where the Italian time took over our schedule. We got back to having class around 3:00 and it was held in our common room because the main part of the Palace is closed on Mondays (on Wednesdays we have class in the main part of the Palace). Lectures started and we started chasing rabbits left and right and next thing we knew, we had wasted 1 hour talking about the Italian word for a bird. When Susanna wandered into the palace to begin her Power Point on the Etrusceans, we regained formality and got to taking notes. We learned about the site we will be visiting on Tuesday -- basically the Etruscean's influence on the creation of the Roman Empire. Then Peek talked to us about Italian Etiquette and Culture... stuff we had already heard. Some notes for you: Their lunch begins at 1 and dinner doesn't start until after 8 (we have yet to succeed in having a day on the Italian eating schedule). Italians get married later than Americans, and they live with their family until they marry (Meaning they could be 30 and live with their parents. This is normal to them!). The unlucky number in Italy is 17 (like our #13). This is bad that I don't know more off the top of my head.. hope I'm ready for my quiz Wednesday! I'll give you more as it comes to me.

For dinner, ya'll are going to laugh. Guess where we went? No, not Italian. No, not American. Chinese. Yes, Chinese in Italy. And you know what? It was delicious and a refreshing, much needed, change of pace. We are wanting to pace ourself with the pasta and pizza intake, so 6 of us walked to Albano (about 12 minute walk) to get us some sweet and sour chicken. It was also probably the biggest language barrier we've had since arriving in Italy (they don't understand tap water). But it was delicious and we will definitely be returning! Becca took a picture of us at our table so hopefully I can get that from her and put it up.

Tomorrow is another long day, we are going on a field trip to some ancient Etruscean ruins from 8-5, so I'll blog some pics tomorrow! Peace out for now :)

Side note: this was hanging in the Elementary school. We're leaving our mark! Auburn in Italy :)