Italian Friend

Big News!

I officially have an Italian friend - a resident here in Taormina! During our first weekend here, we met this guy Ricardo at the beach, and I was convinced he would be our Italian friend. He even asked us to go to the Corso with him. But, we haven't seem him since, even though we cruise Corso Umberto pretty regularly.

Anyways, this friend is Salo. He works at a restaurant called the Osteria da Rita, and it's right around the corner from both the school and my house. We've eaten there probably about once a week, and the location is so close, that I pass it about 4 or 5 times a day. Salo always stands outside the door to greet people as they come, and to keep an eye on the outside tables (almost all restaurants and cafes have outside tables). So, Salo has grown accustomed to seeing us, but I think we are now officially friends thanks to a class assignment yesterday.

In groups, we had to go and interview a store owner for class. My group chose to interview this guy that runs a nearby newsstand. While we were in there, Salo came in to purchase something, and he recognized me! So I said hello, and finally introduced myself. He realized I was a student at Babilonia; prior to this, I rarely spoke to him, except to order food, which I can do quite well, so I think he thought that I was fluent. Or at least, I like to pretend I had him tricked. But now that we're friends, the game is up. He knows I can't speak very well.

Anyways, so we had a brief conversation in the store. Clay and I were excited that he might actually be a real Italian friend of ours, but we started to debate his age. Clay thought he might be 14. I was convined he was at least 18, maybe even 20. We decided it didn't really matter as every student here is about 50 years older, so we figured we were closer in age to Salo than our current group of friends. I settled the issue last night though when I saw him as I was coming home from a cafe. There weren't any customers at the time, so I stopped to talk to him. Turns out he's 26. He was very nice and talked to me for a few minutes before his Dad returned to the restaurant (I don't think he's supposed to talk while at work - I'm not sure).

I told him we'd go eat at Osteria da Rita for lunch today, and we did. He talked to us a little, but they were a bit busy today. We did get some free bruchetta today, and we love their restaurant, so it seems like a good deal! We're hoping that sometime soon, we can hang out with him outside of the restaurant, but he does have to work a lot. We will see. I'm just excited we have an Italian friend who is patient with our lack of speaking abilities.

Other than Salo, I can't say I have any exciting news. It's strange how quickly things become routine and normal around here. I'll give you my daily routine just to show you how normal life can be, even in a far-off, beautiful place!

8:45 a.m. - Wake up and get ready for school.
9:30 a.m. - Class begins. The morning session is dedicated to "analyzing" the languague, which is esstentially grammar.
11:20 a.m. - We take a 20 minute break to rest our minds. Most of the time, all the students come upstairs and hang out, drink coffee, etc. It's probably a good break for the teachers as well, who I'm sure are ready to talk in fluent Italian to each other.
11:40 - We go back to class. The second part is dedicated to coversation. We learn new vocabulary, have conversations, listen to tapes of conversations, etc.
1:30 p.m. - We're done with class and starved to death! Clay and I usually make sandwiches from stuff we've bought at the store. And two days a week we usually go to a restaurant or cafe.
3 p.m. - I normally head back to school and check e-mail, make weekend plans, update the blog, etc. Some afternoons, we'll go for a long walk to the beach, or like Tuesday we went to Catania, but normally we spend it at school, online and hanging out with other students.
5 p.m. - The school closes. Sometimes they have activities in the afternoon, but more often than not, those are cancelled due to a lack of interest. We've been to a few things - lectures, movies, card games, etc.
5 p.m. - 8 p.m. - Normally we cruise Corso Umberto or go get hot chocolate or gelato. About every other day it seems like I have to do laundry during this time just to keep up. I also usually finish my homework then.
8 p.m. - Dinner, which can last anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours.
Post-dinner - I finish my homework, take a shower, and then just read or listen to music before falling asleep.

Like I said, it's pretty routine here. It's just like it would be in Auburn, except I'm in Italy! :) Now that everyone is bored, I'll sign off for the week. We are most likely going on a whirlwind tour of Palermo tomorrow. It's all the way across Sicily, so most of the day will be spent traveling to and from. But it's a large city that we really want to see; however, we're trying to save up money to travel farther on some long weekends, so we've opted not to stay overnight. Assuming we go (the weather is a little gross today, so we may hold off if it doesn't improve), we'll have about 6 or 7 hours to spend in the city! :) I hope everyone has a great weekend! Ciao Ciao!