Walking Tour

Today I had my second lesson in Italian and as the days progress my instructor’s mission is to use less and less English so we are forced to begin to think in Italian. I imagine that by the end of this trip I will be dreaming in Italian. This reminds me of the book that my blog is named after, Sharon Creech’s Bloomability in which the main character is sent to attend school in Switzerland. After fighting against the language throughout the entire course of the book, toward the end she finally realizes what a wonderful culture she has been participating in and finally begins to embrace the language. Not knowing that she has begun to embrace her surroundings, she first realizes this when she begins to dream in French, Italian, German, or Romanish (all native languages in Switzerland). I wonder if I dream in Italian now, if it would actually be linguistically correct since I am constantly soaking up the language just by being outside, or like right now sitting next to three smoking, elderly gentlemen at Caffee Centrale who are having a very lively conversation probably about the tre ragazze Americani (three American girls) conversing with a man who overhearing our English sat down with us. This British man, Karl, joined us for over an hour and told us all about his experiences living in Viterbo for ten years. He somehow has not learned the language, which he blames on the fact that he is older and his brain simply won’t work in that manner anymore. Karl was truly a fascinating person to talk to and I hope that once I have picked up more Italian I can have a similar conversation but with an Italian Karl.

After our second Italian lesson our professors took us on a tour of Viterbo. Here are some pictures from just walking around, mostly over in the part of town very near where I live:

 My favorite little cafe! Must try very hard not to eat here everyday!

 Scary snake/fish sculpture holding up the fountain.

 A very, very old sculpture of a man. I will have to read the information posted about this because I am not sure exactly where these sculptures came from, because there is quite a few of them all in the same little piazza.

This morning was the first chance I have had to go to the local fruit market and I was amazed at how much I walked away with after paying so little. I will have to make that shopping trip a weekly thing now. 

I also tried my very first cannoli, EVER. It was very good but perhaps a little too sweet for me because I could not finish the whole thing. 

Ciao! I must return to my piazza to cook myself some lunch and then begin working on my homework. School has officially begun because I have homework!