Two Months

In a few days I will pass the “two months in Italy” mark. I’ve enjoyed myself immensely so far, and really feel that I am beginning to pick up the language.  Between home, school, and soccer, I am fully immersed in Italian.  The weather is finally starting to get colder, though the word “cold” is relative here. It is in the fifty’s and high forty’s during the day, and for my family and most Italians here, that warrants a full winter jacket, whereas I’m happy with just a heavy fleece.   In soccer, we officially moved to ‘winter training’ attire which means we are required to wear long sleeves…just when we hit the prefect short sleeve training temperature. 

School is difficult, but it feels great that I can now understand much more of what the teachers are saying versus when I first arrived.  In Italian class, we will be starting Dante’s Divina Comedia on Wednesday, which should be…. interesting. Needless to say, it would be difficult to read and comprehend an English translation of La Divina Comedia, but I get to read it in Old Italian. In Art History, we are studying ancient Greek art, and namely, the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian orders. We are just beginning to dip our toes into the waters of sociology in Psychology class, and are continuing the study of pre-Socratic thinkers in Philosophy class. At this moment, these classes (Italian, Art History, Psychology, and Philosophy) are probably my most difficult classes. Math and Physics have been easier for me, mostly because I’ve covered some of the material before and these classes aren’t as rigorous on the Humanities track (versus the math and sciences track). I am still strong at French grammar and reading, but find speaking French to be extremely difficult; the better I become at speaking Italian, the worse I become at speaking French.

Soccer continues to go well and I can already tell I’m making progress.  It’s difficult to explain just how good the soccer is here, especially at the national level where my team competes. I train several hours a day, four days a week with Carpi FC and get to play in some of the scrimmages. I’m playing mostly center back, but started to train with the midfielders this past week.

All in all, it’s been an incredible two months, and I’m looking forward to traveling with my Italian family to visit their friends in Rome at the end of November.