Troubles

The picture is where my class was today. You would never know it was a school. Everything just blends together.

I walked to class with my umbrella today! Anddd... marketing class was a bit overwhelming today. He just talked for like two and half hours about so so so many different things. First he talked about his history, then we all had to introduce ourselves to the class when I suddenly realized I was placed into the wrong marketing class for my major but oh, well... maybe I'll learn something more if the marketing class is not directly related to hospitality. We had to then pick partners for our final project (which is worth 30% of our grade) and he kept telling us to pick "good" partners but really, how are you supposed to know if someone is "good" if you just met them. I ended up partnering with the girl next to me who is from Suffolk University in Boston and we have to create a marketing plan for something, a product/ a place/ really anything. Any suggestions on what we should market? He then continued to lecture us on traveling, trying to speak Italian, and integrating ourselves more with the Italians and to hang out less with the Americans.

Second trouble of the day is that it is impossible to watch American television in the United States. I know, I know.. I should not want to watch American tv while spending a semester in Italy but I want to keep up on some of my shows and it's nice to relax to the television before falling asleep and it reminds me of home. All the televisions here are in Italian obviously, although there is one movie theatre here that shows movies in English but only a couple nights a week and are shown much later than when they were released in America.

Third trouble of the day is that I really wish I knew more Italian. It is so difficult to communicate what you want/ need. I want to be able to speak with them and have them respect me. It is also difficult to judge how much English a person actually knows. Like today at the market, when the cashier said Four Euro, we were all confused because we were expecting him to say Quattro Euro. Then the restaurant that we went to for dinner, the tables were really close together and we were seated next to two Italian girls probably a bit older than us and Emily understood some of what they said, but basically they made a rude comment because we are American. I really want to try and fit in and feel less like a tourist but I feel like the way I am feeling right now, I feel like that may be impossible. I'm hoping things will get better soon.

Chocolate Class in the morning (which I am very excited for) and then Cultural Italy class and then it's the weekend already! I really hope it doesn't rain all weekend. Oh, did I mention there is a chocolate festival this weekend too! :)