Culture Vultures (Part I)

I paid a fair whack to go on the language course, but then again I got a room in a flat, four hours of class, five days a week, numerous outings, and four special cultural classes. We'd be warned, sorry told about these during our introductory meeting. They would each cover a different part of Italian culture: opera, the Romans, the Renaissance and one I have conveniently forgotten.

It was this (together with the guided tours around beautiful towns and cities) that enabled the school to advertise the course as language and culture. Gaby and I decided we would go; Bree and Lynette agreed because, after all, we were paying for it - there'd be no sense in not doing.

The first of these was set to coincide with our trip to the opera on Friday night. We had the opportunity to see Madama Butterfly by Puccini in Macerata, a beautiful open-air theatre. This was at an extra cost (naturally), but one that was worth it - in our view at least.

So I went to this class to hear all about Puccini. It wasn't that interesting as I wasn't passionate about opera. From a musical perspective it was informative and Puccini was really quite a clever bloke. I made some notes, but then decided to just listen and enjoy it - it wasn't as if I was going to get tested on it.

The ironic thing was that I never knew how useful that information would prove to be, but you'll hear all about that in due course...

So that evening, following on from the success of the night before, Bree invited us back for another movie. This was not Puccini or opera. We were treated to one of the films from the Saw franchise. From what I'd heard of the films (and we were launching in at number two) it was a lot of people getting injured in lots of different ways. Boke.

I don't know whether I didn't want to offend my new friends or whether there was no alternative, but I acquiesced and we started to get to grips with one of the most gruesome films I'd ever seen. You know it wasn't that bad. There was much more of a plot that I thought there would be. I would even go as far as to say it was clever.

I went home that night (I managed to get home safely without being kidnapped by someone seeking to exact moral vengeance on not-so-innocent members of the public) and dreamt of a mixture of refined Puccini and refined ways to kill people involving complex contraptions. Zzzzzzz...

Recreational Horror

Friendships were blossoming already in the first week of the language course. Gaby and I were enjoying each other's company in the flat and even cooking for Catherine and Anna was proving to be less stressful that it was to get the money off them in the first place. In between our outings and classes we had quite a bit of free time on our hands. We weren't at the stage where we knew enough people and the town itself well enough to go and descend on a local pub - sorry, bar, so we found alternative forms of entertainment.

I was surprised as to how many people brought laptops with them. Had I not returned home from Italy the first time, I wouldn't have had one. Gaby didn't have one, but Bree did and the other thing that Bree had in plentiful supply was horror movies on said laptop.

During the morning that saw Francesco Totti-Gate, Bree invited me and Gaby over to her flat for a movie night. We ate (probably pasta) and left (probably late) and arrived at Bree's flat. Ours was quite old - we had an old front door and the flat itself was hollowed into the old walls. Bree's flat was quite modern by comparison. The building itself was old and a bit run down - wide marble stairs all the way up to the fourth floor: this is where Bree was. Lynette was on the floor below, but I was yet to see her flat.

It was a small flat with modern furnishings and it was generally quite cozy; our flat was typically Italian with very high ceilings and whitewashed walls which made the whole place look a bit impersonal. Bree's flat was in the roof of the building and so everything seemed that little bit more intimate. She was sharing a room (I only met one person who wasn't and they, interestingly, were in Bree's flat: if you wanted such a privilege then you had to pay for it). Her roommate was a nice girl, from Ecuador if memory serves, but she left us be.

We got ourselves settled and crowded round Bree's tiny netbook.
'What do you want to watch?' she said.
'What have you got?' says I.
'You know.'
I didn't.

It turns out much of the video library was horror-based: my least favourite genre: gratuitous violence, unnecessary torment, nightmares and poor plots cover pretty much everything. When I was in high school I watched the Johnny Depp film Secret Window. My friend was a little affected by the film and so decided to turn the sound off. Without the soundtrack it was literally watching a man with unruly hair wandering round a house and opening cupboards.

But Bree only had horror films. We settled on a thriller with Jodie Foster about a team of people who are have to complete a training exercise where they locate and catch a dangerous criminal. Predictably there is an actual dangerous criminal on the island and one by one the team members are killed off. It was a good film. I'd managed to steer Bree away from pure horror and the result was a nice evening where we could just relax and take some time away from studying Italian.

We were now in the middle of the first week and I was really getting into the whole experience. Camerino was the perfect location - it was like we had our own authentic campus town built where we could try out our Italian in a controlled environment.

The end of our week was looking busy - we had all (as in the four of us) decided to go to the opera, the following day would see a special culture class all about Puccini and at the end of the week we were having a trip to Assisi and Perugia. Lovely.

Grand Tourer

So after Francesco Totti-Gate that morning, we all met up in the main piazza, the one with the funny Pope, for our tour of Camerino. The four of us that had started to form a tight unit at the Frassassi Caves once again drifted together and got our cameras at the ready for what promised to be an entertaining afternoon looking at some of the more beautiful places in the town.

The tour started at the university. There was a large courtyard/cloister set up which led on to some of the university buildings. Within that, however, seemed to be the town hall - I think they ran into each other or used each other's facilities where necessary because we came across quite an unusual room (on the left). I confess I didn't really listen to the explanation of what it was because I was more keen to ask if I could sit in the big chair and look important. It turned out I could. It was very comfortable and, even though I say it myself, I felt at home in such a seat of power. (Jokes.)

We moved outside after our little flirtation with power and influence and moved along another covered walkway. Instead of skirting the piazza, this one skirted the edge of the town itself and gave the most fantastic views of the hills below. It seemed a shame that there were only a few windows in the passageway where you could look out and see it in all its glory. Still, when they came, they were spectacular. It was also a great day for taking pictures, the clouds were big and fluffy and cast some incredible shadows on the fields below.

 After we'd fully explored the ins and outs of the university cum council town hall thing we found ourselves back where we started, in the main piazza. We turned our attention to the church - the one where you are expressly forbidden to show your knees - and with the clouds the way they were, from the outside it looked quite something. From the inside it was still a little gloomy and overly ornate, but my friends and I took great delight in finding the pew for 'La Famiglia Innocenti' and thought that it would be the perfect photo opportunity.

 We walked over to the other side of the town after our visit to the church, skirting the left side of the city. Lynette got halfway there and then decided that she'd go and do some shopping and get on top of the pile of homework she'd be given by her tutor (who seemed to take things a little more seriously than Wendy, or should I say Sig.a Totti).

 In between the amazing views, we came across another church - it is Italy. This one, I came to realise, was a lot more traditionally Italian. It was smaller that what I can only imagine was the main parish church in Camerino, but they'd crammed in just as much stuff. I know 'stuff' isn't a particularly eloquent word, but I can't think of a more appropriate one. It was just stuff - gold stuff and painted stuff, marble stuff and miscellaneous shiny stuff - stuff everywhere. Stuff. Stuff. Stuff.

Stuff.

Anyway, our tour ended at the top side of the town where there was a little walled park; the guide (who was one of the tutors) left us to wander back in our own time. Gaby, Bree and I decided to hang on a little before we wandered. We wanted to take some pictures first. I'll leave you with one.

'I Am Francesco Totti'

The following morning at class Wendy decided she would play a game with us as she got the 'why are you making us do a tense that no-one speaks?' vibes. Looking at her, there was something familiar about her - something of me that I saw in her. I thought it might have been blonde curly hair or even seeing someone that looked like Victoria Wood and that just made me feel at home. It took me a long while before it occurred to me what it was.

Her teaching style.

I had taught for two weeks at a summer camp near Brescia, and if you've read the posts, you'll have seen that things didn't really go to plan. I wasn't the best teacher and I lacked real drive or experience. I knew teaching wasn't for me and so although I'd put my all into my class, I knew I was still a bit rubbish.

Most of my lesson plans fell through in one way or the other, and because I hadn't taught for very long I didn't have an arsenal of games and ideas to fill in if my class got bored, or started going native. The knowledge I had of English grammar was very formal and linguistic. I could explain the subjunctive mode to my class, but this was little use when they were still on 'do you have'.

Unfortunately I wasn't the right fit for that job, and it was that I recognised in Wendy. She had decided to play the 'who am I?' game, where you ask yes/no questions so that you can guess who the person is masquerading as.

Wendy went first. We got down to a sportman who also did some writing. I looked around. None of my classmates were even remotely interested in sport. The two blokes we had weren't the type of guys who spend Saturday in the pub watching the footy, and the girls didn't really seem to case about any kind of sport. It was down to me.

The writing thing flummoxed me. I didn't know of any Italian sportmen that were also writers. I guessed as many Italian footballers as I could and then gave up. We all gave up.
'Io sono Francesco Totti' says Wendy.
Ahhhh. Now it makes sense. Though not a terribly clever chap, Signor Totti has written a few books here and there.

We played this game for a little while longer but it soon transpired that sportmen and women weren't the only people of little interest to my classmates. They just weren't interested in anything really. Wendy abbandoned the game and we went back to the passato remoto.

Another Evening at the Theatre

That evening we all assembled once more in front of the naked lady (who we still hadn't clothed with Lynette's zebra print dress) and took our seats in the theatre. Well I say we all, I actually mean myself and Gaby waited next to the naked lady for about four minutes and then went to get a seat. To be honest I wasn't there for the music - I love music, but I had the feeling it was going to be a little on the dull side. I just quite enjoyed being in the theatre in our little booth, with plush red velvet everywhere.

After a while Bree arrived and wanted to join us in our little booth. We were quite a long way up and had a great view so I directed her to where we were, but it was like a maze and unfortunately because all the booths look the same, it was a case of trial and error. In the end I had to go and find her so that she stopped terrifying people by bursting through the curtains expecting to find me and Gaby.

Once we were all settled and had stop frightening the locals, we found that the best bit about the whole experience was taking pictures of each other looking regal. I would share some of these with you, but I deleted them on account of the fact I was laughing so much that without the flash, blurry was certainly the order of the day.

Still. No worries. I don't have any pictures of the band, but I do have a video - watch with caution, they're a rowdy lot.

Anyway Bree decided that although she was loving the booth, she was going to watch down in the circle with the commoners (it's her video).

The concert went on for a while and when they came back for their encore I decided that it was perfect timing  because I needed to do some homework for Wendy. I don't know what 'encore' means in Sicilian, but apparently one of the translations is 'come back again and again and play for at least twice as long as you did before the encore'. I stayed another twnety minutes and then called it a day.

Though I had initially feared the music would be dull, it turned out to be noisy and energetic and almost as bad as boring music. With boring music the worst that will happen is you fall asleep; with loud music the worst that can happen is a banging headache. Gaby stayed until the bitter end, I couldn't manage it.

It was still a good night though, and my authentic Italian experience was getting better by the day. I went to bed after I'd trawled through all my homework and woke refreshed the next morning. Not only was I ready for class, but I was ready for the tour of Camerino that we were to have that afternoon.

Road Trip!

That afternoon as we met in the place the bus had dropped me off those couple of nights previous. There was a double-decker coach waiting for us. Whenever I was a kid, the people at the back of the bus were the cool ones. When I reached an age when I was getting buses to and from university, this ceased to be the case, or at least aged twenty I still wasn't cool enough.

I say 'still', there were the odd occasions that I did manage to make it to the back of the bus. Anyway, for some reason this is where I ended up on that first road trip. My new friends and I had bonded so furiously that there were about ten of us in a group and the back was the only place that could accommodate us and our desire to get to know each other further.

I confess this move made me feel slightly immature - surely we're too old for the back of the bus lark, but it proved useful for leg room and chatting. So our first road trip was to see the Frassasi Caves. Anyone who's been to these kind of caves before will know the deal - stalagmites, stalagtites, lots of eerie lighting, a strict 'no photos' rule, and dark, dank walls.

This is quite cynical isn't it, and it was beautiful, I was only disappointed I couldn't take any pictures of it. We were allowed to take a group photo, but it's so small that it took me a good five minutes to find where I was.

Anyway, it was still spectacular and a really nice way to spend an afternoon. Looking back at some of the pictures, there were four of us starting to emerge as firm friends - me, Gaby, Bree and Lynette. We made a great team: we all had the same sense of humour, a good attitude to studying, and a childish delight in comandeering the back of the bus.

When we got back to Camerino, we decided that we'd all go to the concert that evening. One other thing we had in common, was the desire to get stuck in at every opportunity...

The Class System

After our evening at the theatre we all retired quite early, I seem to remember. With the prospect of a concert the following night as well as our first outing the following day, there was certainly a lot to look forward to and also to prepare for.

The teachers at the school had been feverishly marking our placement tests so that they could put us in classes the next day. So when we got to school the next morning, everything was in place for us begin putting the money we'd spent to good use.

Gaby and I congregated with Bree and Lynette, and one of Lynette's flatmates. When we met we were all equals, but we were about to be separated into the good, the bad, and the downright hopeless. We had a little idea of each other's ability, but only because we'd chatted about how we'd ended up in Camerino: we'd all studied Italian, but at different levels and in different contexts.

The principal came out and started chanting names. I was called with Lynette's housemate and my housemate Anna. There were others, of course, but only two people that I'd actually spoken with. We were whisked away to the first floor of the school and left in the charge of a woman called Wendy.

Hang on. That doesn't sound very Italian.

She wasn't. Well she was in that she was Italian, but she looked more like Victoria Wood than Sophia Loren: it was uncanny - she had short, curly blonde hair and the slightly-protruding teeth. I took a seat at the back, probably with Anna, excited to start learning how to actually speak Italian.

'Cominciamo con il passato remoto' says Wendy, turning to the blackboard.
We were going to start with the only tense in Italian that only appears in the written language. Not that the passato remoto doesn't have a place in Italian - I believe I used it in my final exam to adopt a high and ironic literary tone when talking condescendingly of something. It was also useful to learn so that I could recognise it when I had to dive into Petrarch and wade through Dante. I mean it wasn't just the heavy stuff that uses it - I found it spread liberally all over I Love Shopping, the Italian translation of Sophie Kinsella's Confessions of a Shopaholic (I had to read it - it was not out of choice).

Anyway, it turned out that the start I had to my language course was an eency-weency bit disappointing. I took the time instead to suss out my classmates. There was a gentleman from the Lebanon (he always referred to it at the Lebanon - I'm never sure why some countries give themselves a definite article, but I don't wish to be politically incorrect). He was quite loud. He had a friend, also from the Lebanon, a nice girl, quiet, but her friend more than made up for her silence. There was a Spanish guy, some Spanish girls - in fact the most represented nation was Spain. Lynette's friend was Croatian, Anna was Belgian, and then there was little old me from England.

At first glance they didn't seem like the kind of people I normally come into contact with and subsequently befriend. I wasn't pre-judging them at all - I fell victim to that once before. Instead I was trying to read them, as I had done with the group in the cafe. This sounds a bit creepy, but it isn't; I was just trying to get the measure of them. We do it all the time subconsciously, I just wasn't that interested in the passato remoto.

Our days were structured thus: one class, break, another class, finito! At break we all met up and found out where each other was, who we were with, and what we'd done. I had thought that at that moment everything would become clear as to where we were placed in terms of levels. I didn't necessarily want to know about everyone else, but I was keen to know where I stood and what level I was aiming at. I established that I was in a class above Bree and Lynette, but I was unsure about Gaby: no problem, if we were doing similar things, we could do our homework together.

The afternoons were ours to do whatever, though the school had organised a number of trips and special classes throughout the month. Our first trip was that afternoon - to the Frasassi Caves; we had just enough time to go back for lunch and get ready to go out again.