Classes, Colds, and Complaints

October 12, 2011

I’ve just finished my second full week of university classes and am living in a university apartment with three lovely Italian girls, one with whom I share a double. We have no living room, just two bedrooms/bathrooms with an adjoining kitchen, so visitors beware: bring your own sleeping bag or portable air-mattress if you plan on coming here.

My classes are interesting…I think…I’m not quite sure because I only understand about 30% of what the professor says in one of them and about 60% in the other. I’m taking history of contemporary philosophy, which, as you might assume, is the class in which I only understand 30%. All the lectures are on concepts and theories, which can be difficult in English, so just imagine how much info goes zooming over my head in Italian. My other class, contemporary Italian literature, is slightly easier. My professor gets very excited about the novels we’re reading and is a small, slightly chubby, old lady so it’s a little like listening to an Italian grandmother tell a story. I’m very excited about this class because the novels that we’ve been assigned sound really interesting and I can read four of them in English (hurrah for reasonable professors!).

But, alas, Italy always throws obstacles at me the second I start to feel comfortable. I have yet to find any of my courses’ books (because why would Italian bookstores sell Italian novels in English?), the weather took a sudden turn so all of the sudden it’s cold out, and because of this sudden temp change I’ve come down with a pretty bad cold. Meh. Now I have to go to the pharmacy. I’ll tell you about it when I get back. OH! And the internet just went out so I have no idea when I’ll be able to post this.

Alright, I’m back. So the pharmacy run was surprisingly easy, I don’t know why I thought it wouldn’t be. I knew the key words to explain my cold to the pharmacist: raffredore (cold), congestionata (congested), and le tosse (coughs). Armed with the correct vocabulary and very obvious symptoms I conveyed my illness, received my medication and its instructions, and paid in all of three minutes. 

Prompt service? In Italy? Unheard of. Except, apparently, at the pharmacy.