Author: susan

It is Monday morning and I have farewelled Chris!

So where was I? It’s been a while since I emailed so its back to Friday I think. Another last day of school, more goodbyes to another class. Then I needed to move my focus to Chris’ arrival. She was supposed to get here around 1ish. She rang around 2 to say she was trying to make her way around Siena. She hadn’t taken the Autostrada so was getting really boxed up around the towns. An hour later I went and sat up on the wall with my bike so I could get to wherever she entered the city quickly…and I waited and waited and waited. Eventually she arrived at around 6pm!! She had been sitting in the car for about 8 hours!! We eventually got home but had only a short respite because we had a booking at Locanda Antica di Sesto outside the city. Chris knows the owner and chef, Aurelio. We set off to get there and of course got totally lost again, driving around the hills trying to find Sesto (oh for the GPS and Ham at the wheel!!). Anyway we eventually got there and had a marvellous meal with full attention of Aurelio and the staff. It was fantastic and so heavily discounted that it cost a mere pittance!! We were home late and talked until even later.

Saturday was hot and muggy. We walked around the town, exploring little churches, gardens and streets. Then we went and picked up the car and drove to a little village just on the other side of the river, to a restaurant that I’d heard about through school, called Tambellini. It was just gorgeous. We sat outside under trees and had a lovely (but light) lunch. Very nice indeed. We then set of to go to Puccini’s country villa ’Torre di lago’. Again we got lost and inadvertently explored more of the Tuscan countryside in our efforts to find the Villa. We eventually did find it however. They open it every 40 minutes to let visitors in and we just missed an entrance by 5 minutes. We had a coffee, wandered a bit and eventually got ourselves into the Villa which was lovely. But it was so humid and muggy!! We then returned to Lucca and after a bit of a break went to All’Olivo for dinner…lovely, lovely meal. After dinner we went up to Piazza Antiteatro where there was a Jazz festival happening. We listened to a band for a while and came home.

Sunday we had our coffee and hired a bike for Chris. We cycled around the wall and had intended to go up to the river and ride along to the lovely restaurant I went to last time we rode along the river. However as we rode the wall it started to rain, then it started to bucket down!! So we took Chris’ bike back and went to the Duomo for a look around. We then picked up the car (great having the car) and drove to the restaurant for lunch. It is a lovely family run restaurant, just simple, basic and yummy food. The rain had stopped so we drove around the hills of Lucca for a while through vineyard and Olive tree country, it was lovely. Back for our afternoon break and then out to dinner at Restaurant Giglio for another superb meal (I had the most tender shoulder of pork ever!!).

So now its all over, we had coffee this morning, walked to the car and she is now heading back to Roma (on the autostrada!!!)…a really lovely weekend. She is a great friend to me here in Italy.

For the rest of the day I’ll fit in a laundromat. Stock up with food again and maybe do a bit of house cleaning. It always feels so lonely when company leaves so my next focus is my sojourn in London next week….cant wait!!

This is a long one…sorry.

More school. Definitely a nicer class this week and some nice interactions. After school yesterday I went and picked up my dress…it is great, all done, now an even hem and another dress i can wear more. After school there was an excursion around the wall to learn more about Lucca. Keeping in mind how hot it was walking the wall and keeping in mind that everything is in Italian and that I understand about 50% (better than weeks ago I guess), it was nonetheless really interesting and there were lovely people to chat to as we went around. We went to an amazing church Chiesa della Rosa, which is never open but the teacher knew it was open for a short time yesterday so we went there. It was quite magical, built into ancient Roman walls. Apparently there are a lot of these churches in Lucca that aren’t open to the public and that you have to find a time when there is a concert or something in them to get inside. There is another I have my eye on! Anyway after the walk (only half way around the wall) I took myself off and got myself a Spritz….I felt I deserved it!!

I then came home and cooled off with the air-con thing and watched more episodes of The Vikings!! Today the school excursion is to the beach at Viareggio but I’m not going to go. Not my sort of group excursion!!

It is morning and I’m heading off to school in a minute via cappuccino and cornetto!!

All being well Chris will be here tomorrow.

So where was I? My brain is overheated. Sunday was very quiet, I couldn’t really do much, I’m sweating every minute of every day. The humidity seems to make the heat feel so much worse.

Anyway, back to school yesterday for my last week, at least for a while. This week the class is much, much better. I’m so lucky to have kept Ele as my teacher, she is such a delight. There are no smart arsed Aussies in this class which is a relief. I have 2 “my age” American woman from the West coast who are having a little holiday together. There is still Alicia. Funny but I’m getting quite fond of her, my most unlikely partner in crime. We bonded over finding the Austn woman of last week overpowering!! There is an older Brazilian woman who doesn’t say much but I’m sure would be very interesting if I got to know her. And there is Gerhardt, an Austrian man who is in the middle of a ‘life change’ moving away from his own business into being a watercolour artist who teaches painting to groups on field trips and makes a living with his exhibitions. There are also some lovely people in other classes who team up with me for coffee and who are delightful. One is a lovely Australian woman from Kew. So…a good group all in all but I’m not spending time out of school with anyone as I was a few weeks ago.

Yesterday I plucked up my will-power and rode around the wall X3 (not 3.5 because I was losing my grip on the handles through the sweat!!!!).

Last night Lucca was treated to a sound and light show au naturale with thunder and lightning positively pounding away throughout the night. It was amazing with the whole sky lit up continuously. So, not much by way of sleep!! And as I write now the thunder seems to be starting up again.

I finally rang Cristina (landlady) yesterday and with her advice have now got the cooler chugging away. It’s a blessed relief but a really impractical unit. You have to stick a great pipe out the window which means the window has to be open which means “ZANZARE”…(mosquitoes). So I either swelter or I get bitten!! Cristina was supposed to bring around an ordinary fan for me which would be helpful but it hasn’t arrived yet!!

Today my other Christina rang and is on track to come up to Lucca on Friday…that will be a nice treat. After school I set off to find a dressmaker I’d heard about because I wanted the hem straightened on one of my few dresses. That was a coup….I found them and they will have it ready for tomorrow for a mere 5 Eu….hopefully it will be a successful operation. I then bumped into Gerhardt having a beer after he’d been out painting. So I joined him for a drink for half an hour then headed home.

Back to writing up todays lesson before dinner.

The last 2 days have been about surviving the sweaty, humid heat which somehow seems harder to bear than Australian heat. So exercise has been suspended and I’m spending much more time indoors which sends me a bit spare. The apartment has no cooling and if I open the windows I let the mozzies in!! I think I have to get myself a fan…or ask Cristina for one, not sure which!! I wander the streets a bit, do a bit of shopping, find a shady spot to read my book and do some more despairing about my hopeless Italian. That has been the last 2 days really. The Australian woman in my Italian class is a pain and there are no ‘mates’ to play with. Despite this I have decided to flagellate myself a little more and return to school for one more week. I think that woman is going up to a more advanced class which will be good but goodness knows who I’ll get if anyone. I’ve adapted myself to Alicia the American and Nocciollina (the dog) and no doubt we will remain in the same class cos we’re both hopeless!!

Mad Men has kept me company at night but I finished that and am moving on to the Vikings. Also finished my delicious book and always feel sad when I finish a book I’m loving.

Chris is coming up next weekend. It’ll be good to see her again.

For the rest of Republic Day I took it into my head to walk around the wall but with my unerring wisdom I took it into my head in the middle of the day (mad dogs and Englishmen???) without hat in my inimitable fashion and nearly died of sweaty heat. Once you get half way there’s no turning back!! I staggered home and did my writing up of lesson thingo. I did manage to rouse myself enough to go out again in the late afternoon for a mild passeggiata but that’s all.

Today it was back to class, maybe a little better today because I’d concentrated on getting my head around the past imperfect. But the class isn’t a compatible class at all which is probably at the heart of my restlessness this week. This means I haven’t got any playmates at the end of the school day…just a lot of emails from last weeks friends!!

I went food shopping, came home for lunch, wrote up the day’s lesson and then, more sensibly, went for my 3.5 giros around the wall in the afternoon. I haven’t done the 3.5 kms for a little while so the bum protests.

Today is Republic Day and a holiday in Italy. No school which is probably just as well as yesterday school wasn’t good!! It was the start of a new week and a new class of 5. Which by the end of the day was a class of 3!!

One woman who ended up being my partner was a Doctor who worked in the Women’s and Family Clinic in East Brighton…Catherine. She was a bit scary and clearly very ernest about her Italian, had been having private lessons in Melbourne and was very good. After a morning session in which she had to partner with me she asked to be moved to a higher class at the morning tea break!! Oh well!! Another German woman who already speaks at least 4 languages asked to be moved to a lower class because she was a beginner in Italian (imagine how good she’ll be by the end of the week though!!). Then there was 3…Alicia and her dog were one and the other, another woman from Melbourne (St Kilda), Karen. She’s also better than me but was happy to sit with this class. I seem to have really met my waterloo with classes…that point at which it is just too hard for me to move forward. I am very depressed and frustrated and think I need to give up at this point. Certainly school has taken a turn for the worse this week.

Susana came with me for morning coffee and then she headed back to Rome. Hence I spent the afternoon, after school, laundromatting and doing some shopping to prepare for the holiday today. Today I must study…I can’t avoid that thought, awful though it is. It is high 20s and going to be consistently in the 30s from here on in. Glorious weather for a day of celebration Italian style. The Guinigi Tower has been draped on all sides with the Italian Flag!! It looks splendid. The only problem I have with holidays is that I can’t get a coffee until 11am…my regular place is always closed on Sundays and holidays.

Must open the books now and see if I can make the Past Imperfect stick in my brain.

Yesterday was a quiet day with Susana getting herself ready to depart. Firstly I had my lovely phone calls from Angus and Kirst and Rose to fill my morning with cheer!! Then Susana and I had breakfast (she was desperate to have eggs…not me, I’m the perfect Italian, Cornetto only!!) in the sun on Piazza San Michele. Susana then rented a bike and we just cycled around the wall a couple of times, then back home for a while with Susana packing and booking etc etc.
I went out for a little passeggiata and then in the evening we went out for another delicious meal. End of day, end of weekend. Now ready for the new school week which will be short because tomorrow is a holiday for Independence Day.

Certainly my life goes from one extreme to the other. One minute I’m very laid back and the next minute life is full-on. Today was busy and my exercise has gone completely out the window..it is always the first thing to go replaced by eating and drinking in a flash!!

Off to school in the morning. We’re now doing past imperfect tense…what the fuck??? I don’t even know what that is in English!!! Anyway just before my brain exploded they called an early day for the anniversary of Luigi Boccherini’s death in whose honour there was a cello concert at the church. Now I know you will all know who Luigi Boccherini is so I won’t bother explaining!! Then Carolina and I went for lunch and sat in the sun for a while. I went home then and did a bit of writing up of today’s lesson before I had to go back to school for a concert of Italian music being put on by the school. That was really very nice. After the concert I timed up with 3 women from school for a bit of bar hopping for Aperativo’s. During the bar hopping I went back to the apartment to meet up with Susana who had just arrived back. I found her and she joined us for more aperativo’s, so there5 of us and we all went off to have pizza and wine for tea. That was nice but then we parted company. Susana is staying here for the next 3-4 days which is nice, she is lovely company….she is bright, adventurous and no trouble at all. So the next few days will be fun.

Time for bed to retire my brain before having to tackle past imperfect again in the morning.

Two more days of school under the belt and having trouble keeping up with a lot to do!! A new woman has joined our class from Sweden. She is lovely and also a ‘my age’ type of woman.

The weird woman, Alicia, remains weird but I’m getting used to her!! I think her life must be tough. I’m sure she has been anorexic and seems to struggle with all types of food. A vegan, no sugar, no gluten, no milk etc etc. She ‘can’t’ eat out ! Her husband is a professional athlete i.e. Triathlon/ Ironman and he is Number 3 in the world! So he trains all day at these training camps in Austria and here outside Lucca. He is part of a professional cycling squad. We had a discussion about the fact that she makes her own ‘milk’ by soaking cashew nuts in water and then grinding it into a milk substance. Today she brought this into class for us all to try. Which we did, including Ele, our teacher, and we all refused to drink any more after the first sip…it was cacky and poor Alicia was so disappointed in us. Class is getting harder and harder but we’re all struggling with the same things.

After class yesterday I had a quick lunch again with Carolina then I came home to get my school work written up. Then I took off for my ride around the wall then back for tea and the final episode of Downton Abbey 🙁

Today was school, shopping, home to quickly get the house ready for Susana to arrive tomorrow and then soon I have to go back to school for one of the ‘activities’. Today we’re learning about ‘non- verbal Italian’ i.e. what the hand gestures mean. It promises (so I’m told) to be fun. Then home. Tomorrow there is a musical afternoon at school with Italian songs etc and Sally (English woman in my class) and a couple of other people and I are going to go out to dinner after it. I have to meet up with, and fit in, Susana in all this which could prove challenging!!