Every week we had cultural classes; in the first week it had been the perfect complement to our trip to the opera, in week two we were to have a lecture all about Rome as our Saturday trip was all about the history of the capital city.
I will confess that I wasn't very interested in Puccini, but it paid off much later in my year - more on that as we get there. I was, however, a lot more interested in Roman history. I had found the Romans fascinating from being a kid at school and I was actually looking forward to first delving into a bit more history, then going and experiencing it a few days later.
So on our second Wednesday afternoon we were psyched for a bit more Italian culture.
We ran into a problem almost straight away. The first class had been in the school and quite a lot of people came. But that was Puccini and not everyone's keen on opera. The initial signs were that far more people were interested in Rome and so we'd need to take the class into a bigger arena.
I had absolutely no idea where it was. Someone had tried to give me directions but I was still clueless. I was going with Lynette, Gaby and Bree and we found the place by accident. I say by accident, I actually mean by tailing some other people on the course that for some unknown reason, happened to know where we were headed.
Just as we were leaving the rain started. It was much like it had been a couple of days after my arrival: the rain was Biblical. I still didn't have an umbrella and so I was about to get very wet. We hurried along with the storm clouds gathering and managed to get ourselves to the classroom about five minutes late (which, for Italians, it actually early).
As more latecomers began to drift in, you could see how much more the weather was coming in; each person would be slightly wetter than the one before. Fortunately for me, because it had been quite hot, I wasn't layered up, and like Bree, I certainly wasn't wearing jeans. This means I dried out really quite quickly and could focus on Roman banter without sitting in a wet patch.
One of the main lecturers was taking the class. At this point I'd like to explain that though my friends were all similarly aged, and the majority of people were, in fact, young, there were some older folks that had come along for the ride, and let's say there were ever-so-slightly keen.
The first question went thus:
'Can you name the seven hills of Rome?'
The lecturer had a go. He couldn't quite get there, but he wasted about five minutes in trying. I was starting to wish that I was drenched after all as that would certainly take my mind off it all: he could have called them after the seven dwarves and I'd have been none the wiser.
Good start.
The rest of the lecture picked up a little. It turned out to be as interesting as I'd expected and there were plenty of things I learnt that came in handy during my year studying in Verona; but I had no foreknowledge of this and in that moment I was looking forward to Saturday's trip to Rome even more...
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