Up and off to school again this morning. Not nearly as good this week. Susana and I have been joined by one other student, an american man who is a beginner but actually speaks Mandarin, Japanese and Korean so he can’t be dumb. But he is a very conservative american in Italy with his wife. He is way behind the ball when it comes to knowing even the basics of italian so he was totally lost. We have a new teacher and she is much harder to follow and doesn’t give you the lesson and then the conversation so you tend to get lost and not know what you need to be doing. It’s harder for Bruce (yes, he really is a Bruce, I thought that name belonged to Australians). So where last week I thought I was making some small gains, this week it is down the plughole and back to base 1 !! Also the ambience/ collegiate feel of the class has gone…oh well!!
Susana and I went off for lunch after the lesson and met up with some other people from school at the restaurant which was nice even if they were speaking Italian diligently over lunch and most of it went over my head. Nice (and new for me) restaurant though. Then we all parted company and I set off on my bike to do my mandatory around the wall…made it 3 times again but god my bum will hardly hold me up at the end of it.
Then I came home and have been doing my revision / writing up all the rest of the afternoon. I’m exhausted. Last episode of Newsroom tonight..I’m reluctant to play it cos I hate finishing series that I have bonded with and am so enjoying. It’s like losing a friend.