First Days in Ferrara, Italy

Ciao tutti!

PL Bridgette here! We have arrived safe and sound and are enjoying the beautiful surroundings that is the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, which will be our new home for the next month. As the Italians say... "A ogni uccello il suo nido è bello," to every bird, his nest is beautiful. This may not be our permanent nest forever, and we all may miss a bit of our nests back home in the US, but wow, is this nest beautiful and we are going to enjoy every moment of living here! Ma chissà.. a few of us can always return to nest here permanently!

The first night we all stayed in a hotel. We had a delicious welcome dinner at a local restaurant, where students enjoyed "cotoletta" and tiramisu. After a good nights rest, students were up and at it early in the morning for breakfast at the hotel and orientation. At orientation students were given their local Italian cellphones, we went over the rules and expectations of the program, and we held quick informal interviews in Italian in order to place them in three separate levels. After it all, students were ready and anxious to meet their host families and spend their first night with them! They reported back some delicious sounding first dinners.. pasta con ragu, eggplant parmesan, homemade bread.. the descriptions left the PL's feeling jealous and hungry!

The first day of class students arrived on time and ready to go! They reviewed some basic conversation starters and were ready to start using their Italian with the locals, and in fact, that afternoon they got to do just that! Their first “community conversation” was walking around the neighborhood and introducing themselves to locals and asking basic conversation questions, while making sure to differentiate between informal and formal speech. After the community conversation, students re-convened at the school to go to lunch with the PL’s and our program coordinator, Roberta. Every day we will be going to the same restaurant together, “Ristorante Della Luna.” We enjoy three courses at lunch.. usually pasta, a meat course, and a dessert or fruit course. Si mangia bene in Italia!

After lunch, students were off to their first activity- a ceramics workshop at a local ceramics store, or pizza making at a local organic farm called “Terravita.” The students were split into two groups, with the groups switching the activity the following day. Even after a large lunch, students didn’t mind chowing down on their own homemade mini pizzas, and for ceramics students had fun creating a souvenir they’ll be bringing home!

Check out some pictures below. Ciao!