Italiano Intensivo! oh my!

Ciao Tutti!

So today was the first day of intensive italian! This morning everyone went to class for two hours and my professor spoke only in Italian. Once class started I began to realize how little of the language I actually know. I became so overwhelmed that I was on the verge of tears... I was thinking "how in the world am I going to survive the uscita?" (The 'uscita' is where we go out with italian guides and either go to a caffe', book store or post office and use our italian. Uscita is literally translated "going out; exiting)

Well walking back up to my room for a half hour break, before the uscita, I was in very low spirits. After my break, I was a bit more rested and reenergized and so I was ready to try out the uscita. I was put into a group of about five and we were accompanied by two Italian guys. And so our two hour adventure of ONLY speaking Italian began. I was nervous but I was also trying to keep an open mind.

Two hours later and a nice cappuccino, I was feeling really good about everything that happened during my uscita. At first it was dificult to understand what my two guideds were tring to tell the group (especially when I had to go into a photo booth to get passport pictures.  It was all in Italian and I didn't know how to work the macchine!) But as time went on, understanding the guides, Alesandrio and Phillipo, became easier. They were very helpful and understanding that we were pretty helpless haha. Our first stop was the post office. The purpose of going to the post office was to get our residence permit. If it wasn't for Alesandrio, I don't think I would have been able to get my permit because I could not understand the teller and he could understand my broken Italian. Alesandrio came to my rescue and helped me  through every step!

When we all were helped and received our permits, we were taken to a bar ( in Italy a 'bar' is not like an American bar but like a caffe') At the bar we had to practice ordering and so I went up to the 'barista' and  said "vorrei un cappucinno, per foavore." As I sat down at a table with my cappucinno, my group and Alesandrio and Phillipo were able to just talk (in Italian) and chill. It was a lot of fun and a great  experience. This week of intensive Italian is going to be very challenging but a great way of learning the language!

A domani!