The following morning I woke up in my new room. Because it was August in Italy, it was already hot by 8am. I didn't have anything for breakfast having just arrived the day before, so I decided to join Gaby in meeting some of the other people on the course for a coffee and a croissant before we had to meet at the town hall.
I was a little swept along by everything - I didn't quite understand how Gaby knew people already, but I wasn't going to complain. At that stage I still didn't know the town and so I was led down narrow backstreets, inamongst old-fashioned blocks of flats, the like of which I'd seen in Sanremo's old town and Baiardo. We arrived at what I learned later was the main street and I was immediately set upon by another Portuguese girl I will, in the interests of maintaining my Desperate Housewives theme, call Bree.
She scooped up me and Gaby and chivvied us into a cafe that seemed to be full of other students on the language course and explained that she'd met my roommate on the plane over from Portugal. She asked me where I was from and I told her I was from Manchester.
'Great!' she said, 'there's another girl from Manchester here too!'
I was quite taken aback and then I remembered that the person that had put me onto the course was a university lecturer and had mentioned it to one of her students too.
Bree introduced us: I shall call her Lynette. I got the impression everyone knew everyone else and considering I arrived so late the previous night, I wasn't surprised. I slotted myself into the pack and waited quietly to find the lay of the land and see what kind of people they all were.
Thinking about it now, and thinking about how strong our friendship became, it seems funny that on the first morning we were all playing characters and playing to stereotypes until we got to know each other better. It seems like we went about it backwards and became friends in the most complex, round-about way possible. But then again, you could say that's why we became friends...
After the cafe debacle, which fitted a whole host of personalities into a confined space in a headache-inducing half hour, we moved on to the town hall where our introductory meeting was to take place. It was typically grand. We all took our seats - I sat with Gaby, Bree and Lynette - and the principal told us about the course.
We did a quick show of hands for different nationalities and Lynette and I discovered that we were the only British contingent - language wasn't going to be too much of a problem as the Portuguese people spoke English almost better than we did! There seemed to be as big a stress on culture as on language which I didn't understand until long after the course had finished, but was grateful for in the meantime as it meant the month certainly wouldn't be 'all work and no play'...
We had to sit placement tests so that we could be placed into classes of an appropriate level and we were informed of a couple of opportunities coming in the next couple of days - a concert and tour of the theatre and our first official outing (to some caves).
The scene was set and the players had been moved into position...
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