Last week, when I talked about the seeds blowing around like snowflakes, I didn’t think it would actually snow, but it has, not in Bologna itself, but in the surrounding area. One teacher has described the weather we are experiencing at the moment as ‘weird’, another says it’s going to improve, and will stay warm (personally I think that she’s just afraid that unless we get an optimistic weather forecast, we will all pack our bags and go home).
We are still enjoying our Italian lessons and glad that we booked for four weeks. This seems to be the average length of time that people stay for. Any shorter time and we might not make significant progress.
We are also glad we have our own apartment. We had the choice of staying with an Italian family and thought that this would be the way to maximise our learning as we could talk to the host family in Italian over dinner, but it seems here that if you stay with a family, you have to cook for yourself, which is not what I had envisaged at all.
Our fellow students are all very friendly and a good mix of ages, nationalities and backgrounds. After travelling on our own for over three months, we suddenly have a social life and other people to talk to (English is the preferred language here on social occasions) which is very pleasant.
Tortoise Travel 