Scuola begins!

Today was my first day of class. We start the UC Center Rome program with a three week intensive language course Monday-Thursday three hours a day. My teacher walked in today and without introduction, started speaking Italian to everyone. Throughout the three hour class, she only spoke English about two times. So far she is a phenomenal teacher. Her name is Rita and she went to the University of Rome “La Sapienza”. Later she completed a specialist degree in Language Pedagogy from the Scuola di Specializzazione all’Insegnamento of Latium. She had the entire class sing "Bella Ciao," which is sung by Italians on their celebration of independence anniversary, similar to the 4th of July for the United States. It was sung by the left-wing anti-fascist resistance movement in Italy. We went through the basics of learning a new language like the conjugation of the verb "to be," how to greet people, the alphabet and numbers. There are only around 20 people in each class. I knew almost half the class from the apartment dorms we all live in. Its a nice change going from a typical UC class of 300 people to a small group of 20. The class was helping each other out with phrases and having a blast the whole time! Last night ten of us went down to the Tibre river, where they have hundreds of white tents set up along the river that turn into bars, restaurants and shops at night. We all had a glass of wine, sat by the river and talked for hours. It was a nice way to start the semester off right :)