Genova: new rituals

Genova: always there is the sea

My second night in Genova  I was introduced to the other students at the school AND a fabulous northern Italian ritual called the “aperitivo”. You go to a restaurant, pay maybe 6 or 7 euros for a drink, then fill your plate at the buffet to your heart’s content! Although it happens a bit early (between 6 and 8 pm) to be dinnertime in Italy, it’s a cheap way to fill up!

that's Jesus in the back (who knew he liked plaid?)

The next Monday I started my Italian-language course (half-paid for by the Italian Cultural Institute of the Italian Consulate in Canada, thank you very much)!

After months of studying the language on my own and with a real, live expat Italian tutor (thank you Filippo), I really hoped to test into a high level. (In fact, when I arrived I’d even hoped to be taken for a native Italian speaker...which was a tad unrealistic considering I had very little idea what anyone was saying!)

Instead I was placed just one level above complete beginner. Che tragedia! I then understood, with crystal clarity, the feelings of so many of my English students in Toronto. I had constantly heard students say they really thought they deserved to be in a higher level. (“It’s language karma!” a good teacher friend told me.)

However, I liked the teacher and the other students very much, and the Dutch owner (!) and his Italian wife were exceptional in their efforts to help students feel at home at the school and in Genova.

It was a great start.