I am now in the busy, noisy city of Florence. I am here to study the Italian language intensively for two weeks. Four hours every morning – two hours of grammar and two hours of conversation practice! Three afternoons a week I have a 2 hour lesson in drawing or painting at a near by affiliated Art school.

When telling people of these plans before leaving Australia,  I was met with various words of encouragement and excitement.  “Wow, what a great thing to do” was the general consensus. Well let’s just clear one thing up right now, folks – this is a CRAZY thing to do, ok?! I  must be mad to voluntarily take myself to a foreign school in the middle of a foreign city to learn a foreign language!

After only one day here I am exhausted and challenged beyond belief! There has been nothing romantic about this notion of being in sunny Italy, eating all the pasta and drinking all the wine I want, as most people seem to think it would be.

The reality is that I am in a dingy, tiny, ill equipped, run down apartment close to the centre of the city. The shower is broken. I have a hard single bed to sleep in (a tad squishy for a big girl like me!) And the only chairs to sit on are those hard uncomfortable cane chairs out of Van Goghs paintings “The bedroom in Arles” and “Van Gogh’s chair”!

I am surrounded by noisy bars and pizzerias in the nearby streets. There are police and ambulance sirens blaring loudly and frequently, church bells every hour, vespas and cars hooning past constantly. Big noisy, clanging, garbage trucks at 5am, late night music and the loud, italian voices of people wobbling home after a night in the bar! Apparently, we are in one of the quieter streets!  It has also been hot and humid and I have a choice between fresh air, mozzies and noise or sleeping in a dark room in a pool of sweat!

The only thing that is making this place even a little bit bearable is the lovely french woman with whom I am sharing it. If I  was here alone I think I  would’ve  packed up by now and gotten  on the first place back home…. Irene is a 60 something widow who comes from Champagne. She speaks 6 languages and just wants to improve her Italian even though I  think she speaks it well already. We have chatted non stop!

This morning after arriving at the Michaelangelo Institute, I was greeted by 2 flights of stone stairs that I  will have to negotiate several times a day and a melange of other students of all nationalities and ages. After sitting a one hour test to deduce my abilities with the language, I was placed in an intermediate class. As posted on Facebook,  I am the only old chook in this house of chicks and it was slightly  intimidating!  Six young Mexicans on their gap year, yawning with boredom and flicking their long flowing hair! I  didn’t want to seem so keen and thought I  would lay low, but I  couldn’t  help myself and kept asking “what does that mean?” Thankfully the professore was very patient with me. I had to concentrate so hard to understand  what he was saying that my brain really did hurt by lunchtime!

I  went to lunch with Irene to a pizzeria recommended  by one of the professores. She is insisting we speak in Italian as much as possible and it was actually fun and funny to be having a conversation in Italian. I am surprised at how quickly I am picking it up!

After lunch I went to my first Art class and Irene went off to a cooking class and a concert. The Art school is a rabbit warren of small rooms, none of which had windows so it was really warm and stuffy in there. There were however, wonderful drawings and paintings (by students I presume) all over the walls!

There were already classes going on and I was put into a drawing class with an American  couple I had met earlier in the day at the Italian school. The teacher, a very handsome, young man, launched straight into an explanation of how to draw the human body. There was no introductions, so I  don’t know his name and he did not explain what the structure of the program would be. It was obvious though, that he did know what he was talking about and before I  knew it, there was a life model standing naked in front of us and we were instructed to draw her for 30 mins. I tried the technique he showed us and was sorely frustrated.  It probably  didn’t  help that I  was tired and hot. For the hundredth time that day I wondered what the hell I was doing here!

There is more to tell about this first day here, but this little black duck is beyond tired now and needs to curl up in her pool of sweat in bed and try and get some sleep.

Forsa in Firenze I will….