Day 2: Orientation

Today we had our orientation. It turns out that there are students from all over the world going to LdM which is pretty awesome! After the general one in the Teatro Odeon, we broke up into the different programs we applied through. Mine was through the office in Austin, TX. After that we had our placement exams, which I thought I was going to fail! It turned out to be really easy. There was a short answer question that asked “Why did you choose to study abroad in Italy? What do you hope to accomplish while you are here?” I know I made some grammatical errors, but I talked about how I love learning about the rich Italian culture & history, and that my level of reading, writing, and listening was at a higher level than my speaking. We had an interview after (something I totally didn’t expect) and I did fairly well. The advisor talking to me asked if I had taken an Italian literature class, but I said no. There is one offered at SDSU in the fall that sounds interesting, but I think that Dante is hard to understand in English, and would probably be super hard in older Tuscan Italian! The advisor told me that I need to work on some specific grammatical things and to get help from the free tutoring service the school has when the classes start and I should be fine!
Only one of my roommates is taking an italian class too, so after our exams we walked by the Duomo. I totally didn’t realize I was walking in front of the Baptistery until I turned around and saw the Gates of Paradise! It was amazing until we started getting followed by a gypsy so we ran away.... hahaha!
Right now my roommates & I are waiting for our landlord to get here. We are supposed to meet with him so he can show us how to use our washer and get our internet set up. After that we have our school welcome dinner at a restaurant which should be fun!