Life goes on in Bologna

Life goes on in Bologna and with each week that passes I feel a little more at home and a little more part of this city life. I speak a tiny bit more Italian and that helps although those moments when I can’t articulate a word are still there!!

This week there is a strong ‘careful what you wish for’ message as I move into my third week of Italian lessons. I was whinging about not having enough conversation practice and now I find myself playing with the big kids and totally overwhelmed.
My conversation class, starting today goes for 1.5 hours and has 7 people from Japan, China, Korea, Switzerland, South America…all of whom (except Korean and he’s caTCHING UP!!) speak far better Italian than me. Hence I miss one hell of a lot, have to ask again and again and remain mute when possible. Having said that it is amazing how tolerant people are. I guess we will see how it goes.It is always the way and I can imagine finally feeling comfortable in Bologna when it is time to leave. I miss have my mate Madeleine but am getting on with it.

I have 2 major things in my life…the dentist and my Italian classes (not to mention the time consuming homework). With these 2 things I am totally occupied during the week. Today I was taking it easy, pottering around in my nightie, decided to look at my emails to find that Giancarlo had sent an email to say the cleaning lady was coming this morning…shit. I flew up to get dressed, washing and dishes everywhere, things to do etc, etc when the door bell went…I was flying to get dressed as I heard the key in the door…oh dear – chaos. Anyway, all good, I left the chaos, apologised to her and trotted off for my morning cappuccino. Then I came home, stepped around her to clean my teeth and get going to the dentist.

My new cap is now in place and looks beautiful. Fabrizia is also spending hours cleaning my teeth and giving me treatment to keep my gums healthy. The problem is that the new cap looks so beautiful it makes the old horrid one next to it look awful. We discussed this at length. She has already done the impression, the XRays and the technician is on the case. So I made the fairly momentous decision to have the one next to it done as well. I can come back from either Rome or Lucca for her to finish me off in the New Year. I think she is actually cheaper than Australia and doing a fabulous job. This will really put a lot of pressure on me but I think I will regret it if I don’t do it now. So we are trying to get more times in the diary for her to start me off now to finish in the New Year. Financially I can only hope that this work will funded by Jeannie…I think she would approve. If not, there may be a spot of bother. Having said that it will need to be done soon anyway, I’m sure of that and I’m on a good wicket with Fabrizia.

I had a very quiet weekend just wandering around…I’ve latched onto the appearance of Vin Brûlée (mulled wine)…this sustains me on my passagiata’s. The Christmas markets are interesting, though there is little new under the sun. There are also still museums to interest me and I went to the Archeological Museum this weekend. Giancarlo and Fabrizia asked me and the 2 Americans to dinner on Saturday night. That was nice although I cannot warm to the Americans. They leave this week and it won’t be a loss to me.

It is now only 2 weeks until I depart for London via Rome. It’s hard to believe really and I look forward to that just so much.
Off to start my massive amount of homework