Tests and tours

Last night and this morning were suuuuper nerve-wracking for me because we had our first big exam today. When push comes to shove, I KNOW that I know Italian grammar (or at least the parts of it that were on the exam) but I still get sososo nervous! Fortunately I think everything went well (and I thinkkkk I got the maximum 8 bonus points! I'm a huge fan of extra credit.), and after that it was the weekend and I'm going to Florence tomorrow and it was just such a nice weight to have lifted.

To treat ourselves after the stress of studying, my roommate Rachel and I took a trip down the block to Feltrinelli. I kind of love bookstores. They make me absurdly happy. And I kind of lovelovelove the language sections of bookstores, except in the US they're usually pretty small and basically limited to Spanish. So I absolutely ADORE Feltrinelli. So many books I want to read in Italian! Oh, I also love and adore children's books in other languages, so the kid's room is my favorite. There was an entire shelf devoted to Gianni Rodari, who I've loved and adored since my freshman year in high school when I recited one of his poems at the Stony Brook competition. He writes the absolute CUTEST books/stories/poems for kids, and most of the books are illustrated and it's just the cutest thing ever. Plus they had little flip books of Disney stories in Italian - they had 101 Dalmatians in Italian and I am soooo tempted to go back and buy it... this will probably happen before the end of my stay here because it's literally a 3 minute walk to the bookstore and it cost 3 euro.

Rachel and I were overwhelmed with joy, so we decided it was safest for our wallets to return at a later date when we weren't in the post-exam-stress BUYBUYBUY mindset. But as we're leaving we hit the language-learning section of the store... ¡Ay dios mio! I've actually never met anyone (my age) who fully understands how excited languages and all kinds of language learning materials and everything in foreign languages excites me... buuuut now I have! Rachel and I were actually freaking out in the aisle - we awwed over the cute little pocket dictionaries (they even have Italian-Albanian... soo tempting!), cooed over the little synonym reference books, drooled over the giant Zanichelli dictionaries that are sadly too big for us to take back into the US :'( and just generally were filled with joy at the love of languages and it was the greatest thing everrrr to have someone to share in that happiness with!!! Leaving was actually painful, but I ended up sneaking back later and buying a French grammar intensive book... IN ITALIAN. I'm going to re(kinda)-learn French IN ITALIAN. HOW COOL IS THAT? And how amazingly helpful will that be, to be able to compare the two languages side by side and make connections?!?! I'm SO EXCITED. 

Yeah, so that was my day of intense stress and then intense roomie bonding. I'm still in such a smiley state just thinking about it... I know, no one really gets it, but I love this stuff. Just that feeling of happy passion joy-ness totally solidified (ignoring the fact that it already was solidified) my commitment to my major. While we were standing in front of the shelves all fluttery I said to Rachel, who can't really commit to a major for more than a couple days (Sto scherzando ;) Rachele!), "YOU HAVE TO DO RLL!" and she was like, "I knowwwww aaaah!" soo maybe I'll have a friend in my concentration now (by that I mean actually KNOW someone else with my concentration now... haha).

As hard as it was, we had to buckle down for our afternoon class with Antonella. After a brief class, she took us on a walking tour of the historical sites of Perugia. We walked a loooong way, down a bazillion steps and by the train station and then all the way over to this pretty park by a monument to June 20th... there are a few days (like the 4th of November and the 20th of June) that are CRUCIAL to Italians; there's at least one street or piazza named after them in every city. As we walked we stopped at these monuments and examined the differences in wording on them and how the diction is reflective of the people's opinions of that leader or event. It was really intriguing, and Perugia has such an interesting history for a smallish town. It's the perfect size to live in and explore and really get to know without being overwhelmed. It's too easy to fall in love with this country. Really, though. I'm falling head over heels here :) P.S. that's another crazy thing, like ALL the women here wear crazy high heels EVERY DAY. And the streets are all super uneven cobblestones! I'll stick to my flip flops, especially because I'll still be a foot shorter than the average person even with heels :P

Day's Recap:

Books purchased: 1 (so far)

Books want to purchase: Decline to comment for fear of parental lecture

Steps walked up/down: 932847923 (approximation)

Cutest thing I saw in Perugia today: when we went to class in the morning, there was an enormous groups of little elementary-school aged kids (from a camp, from what I could figure out) all gathered in front of the big church and they were dancing/singing along as some of their counselors (or maybe hired people like the Wiggles or something who dance/sing with kids for a living? Not sure, had to rush to cram more before the exam..) stood up on the steps of the church to lead them in the motions. The songs were super cute, about like getting ready in the morning and playtime and stuff, and all the kids knew the hand movements and were SO into it. Adorableee! (Kinda like pocket dictionaries... okay, I'll stop now.)

L'amore e libri (love and books),

Michelina