Me No Speaky Italiano....Yet.

I showed up to Italy with no Italian under my belt. Brilliant, right? Pre-departure Katie saw no problem with this, as the program specifically stated that there was no language pre-requisite AND neither Lindsay nor Alison made mention of any kind of language intensity. Of course, as soon as I met the other people in my program, it dawned on me that I was clearly the only person who had not taken any kind of preparations in the way of learning Italian. I am also the only person who did not bring a gift for my host family as well as not bringing any of my paper work in order to obtain a permit of residency. I did, however, bring school supplies, so I have that going for me. I realize that I've only been here for 5 days and I certainly can't be expected to have the language down to a science. I know the important words like "grazie" and "basta" and a barage of other vocabulary words that Margherita has given me during our lessons. I even ordered my own gelato tonight, even though it took Jeanie several times of saying very very slowly the exact words that I needed in order to obtain said gelato. It was a roaring, strawberry success.
But after 5 days of nodding my head and smiling like an idiot, I finally found the appropriate time to take matters into my own hands. Only one day of intensive Italian class had not taught me the only phrase I really felt my host family needed to understand: "I am tired." This was all it took to make Margherita understand that I didn't want to play cards and watch Winx and watch her number all of the bookshelves. Apparently, everyone knows that if someone is tired, that someone should be left alone. After I looked up the phrase in my ancient 1957 edition of Berlitz's Italian American dictionary, I paced about my room, muttering it to myself and making sure it sounded correct. According to the pronunciation guide, it did. So when the time was right and I could see Margherita and Arianna winding up for a second episode of Winx while pulling out the couch bed, I very sternly said to Margherita, "Sono stancana." I have no idea if that is conjugated or if the tense makes sense but she immediately understood and kindly wished me good night. Yes.

Lesson? Understand your priorities and then act accordingly. Especially when you are in a foreign country and your 7 and 4 year old host siblings just want to play with your I-Pod and dance all night. 

This is meant to be a travel blog! So why didn't I immediately tell you about the flight over here and staying in the Agritourismo in Farfa or my initial impressions of Italy? Because I am tired. And being 6 hours ahead of everyone does not help at all, because I end up staying up kind of late so that I can catch all the people I want to talk to. The thing I do for you people. More details will come, I promise, and then you all will finally be able to live vicariously through me. Get excited!