First Italian class

I guess since it's October things can finally kick in to gear here in Rome, and so the first semester of Italian classes has just begun. I will be in a class on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10:30 to 1:30pm. I thought about getting a tutor to make the learning more efficient, but then I decided that it'd be fun to meet people in class and since the class size is a max. of 10 people there would be ample opportunity to access the teacher.

In my class, there are nine women. Four of us are Americans - three of us with children that are in school here and one being an au pair from Wisconsin. Then we have a Russian, a Spaniard, a Japanese, an Irish nun, and a French woman. The instructor speaks only Italian for the entire lesson. We did a lot of work in pairs. Of course, I was paired with the Russian who speaks no English and we both tried to fumble through Italian so that was interesting.

I rode my bike to and from my class so on the way home I enjoyed an extended ride through the Villa Borghese. Josh and I had lunch at home and exchanged stories of our mornings.

Josh started off by taking the kids to school where he inquired about the Italian teacher (for both Charlotte and Olivia) who broke her foot last Friday and will be out for at least a month. It is such a shame that she injured herself, she is are favorite at the school. Then Josh stopped to drop of Charlotte's urine sample (yes that's right) at a Bios clinic.

Here in Italy, they are very big on their medical testing for anyone that is participating in any sport. Even if you want to join a gym - you must generally conduct a medical exam on site. They don't really do liability waivers here. In any case, Charlotte had her medical exam at the pool yesterday where they did a full-on EKG. This morning, Charlotte continued her medical exam by making her sample, which Josh had to take to the lab for routine analysis at total cost of 6.85 euros. The results were emailed to Josh this afternoon. How about that for efficiency? Can you imagine labwork in the states costing so little and getting the results so quickly? Josh said he did feel a bit awkward though, sitting in the waiting room, holding Charlotte's urine and waiting for his number to be called (apparently you take a number like at the deli counter).

Judging from the protocol, they can't be testing for drugs, or they've taken the honor system to another level!!

Unfortunately, much of the afternoon was filled with admin. We are still trying to get the house straightened out before our first guests arrive next week. And, the nuns sent over a girl for us to meet. The encounter made me cool a bit on the live-in concept here...so we need to think about it.