School's out

Despite the grand events at I Tatti this week, they did not obscure the final days of my Italian course. I really enjoyed taking these classes--they provided an outlet to other non-Italians also trying to integrate in a different country (sometimes I wondered if my aunts and uncles from Vietnam felt like I felt taking these classes when they were trying to get settled in the US), as well as a valuable, solid structure to the day. However, it was a bit of a challenge to get up daily at 5:30am for the past 5 months, though with the sun and the traffic being so problematic, we will continue to try to stick to our usual early routine. Both classes in which I participated (medio and medio-avanzato) ended up being all-female--a couple guys started in each but about half-way through disappeared. This made for a fairly relaxed and friendly atmosphere, and we were very lucky to have wonderful instructors for both courses (I heard other teachers were not nearly so good). Also, I befriended the two Vietnamese nuns who were in the previous course with me, and I think I will miss them the most. On the last day of class they wrote and sang a song for the instructor, making it an especially sentimental day for all of us.

Yesterday was the opening of an art exhibition by one of the students in the class. After meeting with Claudia for gelato, I bumped into a couple girls from class also on their way to the exhibition. It was nice to spend the afternoon with everyone, outside the classroom, and it was equally fantastic to see some creative artwork by one of our fellow students. I hope I can keep in touch with a few of these girls, and I will need to practice my Italian so that I can continue to communicate with them!

Gule and pregnant Chargre (both from Turkey, I am sure I spelled their names incorrectly), Kuniko, Hiroaki (the husband of Tubasa), Tubasa, and me at the opening of Tubasa and Hiroaki's joint art exhibition. No, that is not wall paper behind us.

The exhibition was inside a hotel that displays works by local artists, at least I think that is what they normally do.