By the time I arrived in Camerino it was pitch black. the bus had wound its way up a hill and I knew I was high up, but I had no idea where. I met the principal's husband and he took me straight to his wife. They were a very Italian couple - lovely and incredibly hospitable, but you only needed to look at them once to tell where they came from.
The principal was an incredibly tall woman. She was quite formidable. Still she was lovely and escorted me directly to my house. I confess I'd signed up to the course and not really given much of a thought to accommodation; I'd been looking forward to the trips and classes, but it had never occured to me that I wouldn't be spending all my time at the school - most of it, granted, but certainly not all of it.
So the principal took me to my apartment: that too was typically Italian. It had an old wooden door into the building and then I was living one floor up. The principal told me I'd be sharing with three other girls who were all great. Considering this was only my second time in Italy on my own and for the second time I was staying with more people I didn't know, I was grateful that this time, my co-habitants got a glowing review. That said it wouldn't be a very good marketing ploy for the principal to turn round and say, actually the girls seem quite horrible.
Still, I was excited to meet them, and settle in to my new apartment.
The principal showed me to my room. It was down a corridor, past the kitchen on the left and the bathroom on the right. There were two bedrooms, one to the left and one right at the end of the corridor. Mine was straight ahead. We knocked on the door and were admitted by a short-ish girl with brown hair and big brown eyes.
'Hi' she said.
'Hi' I said.
So far so good.
The principal left us to get on.
You'll be pleased to know that the conversation went on and developed and we did get on. For those of you that read my posts avidly, you'll remember that I chose a Pride and Prejudice theme for my last group of friends. This time I think I will choose something a little less high-brow: Desperate Housewives should just about do it.
So I shall call my roommate Gaby. I don't intend for this to be a cheap racist comparison, but Gaby (my roommate) was Portuguese. She was full of a music project she'd just completed in London and the beau that she'd just met. It transpired she was very musical - very into musical theatre - needless to say she had quite a pair of jazz hands on her. But I wasn't in a position to make sweeping judgements after meeting her for five minutes, and if my previous stay in Italy had taught me anything about first impressions, it was to wait before jumping to conclusions.
If I was going to share a room with her for a month it was important that we got on. This was also true for our neighbours in the apartment. I shall delve into some Desperate Housewives history for their pseudonyms: Catherine and Anna (Gaby's niece). These little epithets will all become clear as my story progresses.
I met them that night as well. One was French, the other Belgian. They too seemed nice. Anna, the Belgian girl, seemed quite eccentric but I couldn't exactly talk now.
I went to sleep that night after a mammoth day. After meeting my housemates, the travel trauma had been forgotten as an unpleasant dream. I looked forward, with some apprehension, but forward nonetheless to getting down to business the following day which was to see placement tests and ontroductory classes, but more importantly, it would begin in a cafe where I would meet the rest of my desperate gang.
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