Foolish One

It's me, hi! I'm the foolish one! Silly me, to think that everything would get easier upon moving to Trento...

To start the week, Monday brought our first discussion section in Trento, which I dedicated to starting to get the kids thinking about the midterm, which takes place just before we leave for Siena. In standard form, just the word "midterm" was enough to freak them out, so I spent the class trying to get them to focus on our review-based discussion. After lunch break, we had language class, in which I did a culture lesson on Trento, teaching my students some fun things about the region (which they loved) and getting them to practice their subjunctive verb conjugations (which they hated). Our other activity of the day was a trip to a local vineyard for our first wine tasting. The guy who owns the vineyard, Giuliano, remembered me from last year and was just as kind as I remembered him being. He doesn't speak much English, so I interpreted for him while he told our group about the area, the farm, the vines, the grapes, and the wine-making process. We made it to the end of the evening and Professor E, renouncing his leadership responsibilities once again, looked at me and said "take us home, Katie. Where's the bus stop?" So, yeah.

Tuesday brought with it a philosophy lecture and a trip to Le Albere, an urban expansion project on the fringe of the city, where they converted an abandoned Michelin tire factory into a lovely space with apartment complexes, shops, and parks. The conversion in the early 2000s was headed up by Renzo Piano, a very famous Italian architect, who did a great job according to me! I'm hoping to return to their parks tomorrow to soak up some sun. I got back and went for a run at the hotel gym. I was flummoxed by the fact that the treadmills say they're programmed in miles but must in fact be in kilometers, and since I am not good at converting from imperial to metric while also trying to run, I ended up setting the speed WAY higher than I normally would... I got worn out pretty quickly as a result! That evening I had dinner with one of my students, Louise, who is learning Italian at a never-before-seen rate, so I've pulled her out of the beginning class and we're now doing an independent study so that she's not bored. She seems excited! We had swordfish and ragù pasta for dinner, a nice evening out.

This Hump Day was a busy one, so after lecture, I had lunch with Finlay at Green Tower, where I got this cool looking (and delicious tasting) caprese salad, giving me some much-needed vegetables. We met the group at the Gallerie, museums that are inside converted highway tunnels in the mountain. The vice president of Trentino came over specifically to visit us, so I interpreted for her too, although she spoke in much longer, more convoluted sentences than Giuliano did on Monday. Yikes! One of our students had a meltdown afterwards, so only once we had dealt with that did I return home for the evening.

Lecture Thursday brought with it yet a student in crisis, this time feeling nauseous and subsequently throwing up in the adjacent bathroom. Sent her home. Ate lasagna for lunch after class. Taught my language class another chapter of Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities. Ran around trying to figure out where to send the kids to do their laundry, since there aren't any machines in the hotel. Closest option is a 17 minute walk, which is not going to fly with most of them, I think! Gave a vital lesson to some of them on how to wash their clothes by hand instead. We finished the day with a group dinner at Forsterbräu, a place that specializes in the German-influenced cuisine of this region. After shared appetizers of pretzels and potato cakes, I ate wienerschnitzel while watching our students down stein after stein of beer. I went immediately back to the apartment, foregoing the group outing for gelato since I was stuffed and exhausted.

Field trip Friday returned again, this time bringing us to Veneto, the region just east of Trentino. Upon arriving at the hotel where the students are staying, two greeted me from their balcony, making a heart with their arms :) We started at Fabrica, a place that does short-term fellowships for young creatives, including visual artists, musicians, writers, and computer scientists. We toured the compound, heard a few presentations, saw lots of modern art (confusing), ate lunch with the artists in residence, took a picture in their little wading pond (as is the annual tradition), and baked in the Veneto sun. Our next stop was mercifully a church with a Romanesque abbey dating back to 1253. The kids were unexpectedly well-behaved there, so I had some time to commune with God and beg him to grant me patience to deal with everything. He seems to be waiting to answer that particular prayer... We ended the day at another winery, where we had a Prosecco and beer tasting. The ladies there also needed me to interpret, which ended up being quite difficult, since they were telling us the names of specific bugs that eat their vines and the highly technical names of the machines they use to produce the drinks. I got a bit flustered, but Finlay stepped in and helped me after a while, which I so appreciated! My brain was tuckered out and did not want to figure out how to talk around the many wine words I didn't know.

Today has been a delightfully calm and quiet day. I slept in before chatting with Sarah, a student from last year's summer program and then catching up with Bailee for a bit. She made me realize that I hadn't eaten any gelato in over a week - it's simply un-Italian!! - so I went out afterwards and remedied that situation with a gelato and a Roman pizza-like dish called a pinsetta. The gelato helped my well-being greatly, so a big thank-you to Bails! I went for a stroll through the city before wandering back home and flopping back on the bed. What a week!