la classe

To begin, I'd like to recap a quick encounter that just occurred on the street. Michelle and I were walking home from dinner with our friends (across the Ponte Vecchio and past Il Duomo- both just on the way home) when a young man stops us and quickly asks us a question. Even though I've had a full 2 days of Italian class now I had no idea what he was saying and start sputtering sentence fragments of "non parlo... le? uh... l'Italiano" and Michelle calmly leaned over and lit his cigarette for him. I asked, "Oh you know how to ask for a light in Italian?" and she said, "No he asked for it in English. Just with an English accent."

Anyway, classes are in full swing now and uh... what a swing it is. I have noticed a pattern in which every important figure at my school is young and unfairly attractive. The executive chef is a cross between Fabio and Johnny Depp. The dean of students is a young, pretty, model-y type woman and everyone in between is the same. Even the older chefs have a salt and peppery charm and all the women are beautiful but almost look like they'd rather they weren't. It was really becoming rather annoying. Well, you can imagine how relieved I was to walk into Italian class Monday morning to find nothing but a neon pink scrunchy top backpack with a bright yellow and purple geometric pattern decorating the outside. I found myself wondering, I wonder what kind of young, hip Italian owns that bag? Enter Francesca. A short, skinny legged, plump bodied, shuffly type lady with lipstick that reaches far beyond her lips and an intense ear-length haircut, the likes of which I haven't seen since my peers in 4th grade (which she manages to get sticking straight up every time we don't understand something). I was especially excited to see that today she had the very same gray strechpants/ baggy blue t-shirt combo she wore on the first day... yesterday. It certainly was a good choice on the first go-round. It interests me that she is a teacher of another language because I'm having trouble believing that she speaks anything other than Italian. Hard to teach a beginning level class when you can't even break the ice in their native tongue. An example: Obnoxious Girl from California in my class, "How do you say roomie in Italian?" (Already a good start to a conversation.) Francesca, "eh.... eh?" OGC, "Oh, ha! I mean roommate. How do you say roommate?" Francesca, "I'm sorry I don't.. eh... If you can't afford the book you don't have to buy it today but that is just the one you will need sometime." Well played, Franky. She also informed us that beginning tomorrow she will be speaking only in Italian. That would be day three. Seeing as how so far we've learned numbers and how to conjugate "to be" I'd say we'll all have a pretty good time tomorrow. She has a habit of asking a question she is fully aware we won't know the answer to and grimacing at the silence. I foresee a whole lot of silent grimacing.

Breads class was next. After a nice 3 hour break between classes during which I slept and ate- what I do at every free moment these days- we put on our brand new chef jackets and hustled excitedly to our next class. At least this was something we knew. Enter our next mistro- Gabriele. Picture the count from Sesame Street in a chef's outfit with a more nasally voice. A nice guy, but difficult to understand nonetheless. After explaining biga for about a half hour longer than necessary he stopped and said "I don't understand myself when I speak English." We're right there with ya buddy. While he has some endearing qualities, the rest of the class is lacking. Two older American students (they're all American) in particular are really rubbing us the wrong way. They act like teenage besties and the male of the two- who we've nicknamed Greg- regularly partakes in such hilarious antics as tossing bread around and not catching it smoothly at all, putting a baguette and two round loaves together in the shape of a penis and taking a picture, posing inmfront of things with one finger on his lips and oh-so-funny "I'm a bad wittle boy" faces and having friend "Lucy" take pictures of him. Our poor chef is so out of his element speaking English that he does little to stop it. The class itself might be more interesting if there only about 3 of us instead of 9. Unfortunately there is very little hands on. We made some delicious Tuscan Bread and Ciabatta today but all we got to do was shape two loaves each and then watch the rest happen. The facilities are lovely but the pastry lab is small and the most of the other students are far less experienced. We're hope hope hoping that in the 2 1/2 weeks remaining, there is some pick up in the pace. I want so badly to Love that class but so far it's been mildly difficult to do so.

On another note, I had the first reaction I've ever had to my deathly last name the other day. I asked a girl at a front desk where my class was and when she saw my name she said, "LaMorticella?" and made a "I'm-being-strangled" face/ gesture combination. No one has mentioned that before. So that's a treat.

Now it's time to be harvested by mosquitoes (which are WAY bigger here and bleed all over the place when you smash them..... sick) and go to bed. So arrivederci (a word my friend has been using as Hello and Goodbye since we got here. Don't do it folks. ....It only means Goodbye. And he was wondering why he'd get snickers whenever he ordered something).