Goodbye Brescia ...

Lake Como

Today, I left Brescia. I'm in Milan for the night and then heading to Sicily on Sunday for five days before getting back stateside. My year living and teaching in Italy has been a great experience and I am very happy with what I have done here. Some of my students assumed I would be returning next year, some asked if I would, but the eight months teaching in the vocational/professional high school were just enough for me. Will I return to Italy? I hope so. Teaching was a huge part of my year, but it was also the means to the language and cultural exchange. I would live in Italy again for these reasons, but with a different job or study.

Sunday with Roommates

As you can see from my first picture, I did get to Lake Como this week. I have been wanting to go since I studied in Parma and planned to go this year. Our roommate who left in January found a job in Como as a lawyer and we planned to visit her in May. Last Saturday when Daniela and I went to buy our tickets for the next day, the man at the ticket office told us, "ma domani, c'è sciopero" = "but tomorrow, there's a strike." We tried to ask questions about which types of trains, the hours of the strike, etc and he just looked at us and said "C'è sciopero, punto" = "There's a strike, period." How Italian. Regardless we had a nice afternoon together and went out to lunch at a new osteria. As to getting to Lake Como, I ended up getting there on my day off on Thursday. Although not without difficulty. I bought a normal ticket to Milan and tried to buy my ticket from Milan to Como while I was still in Brescia. The machine told me that the tickets were sold out. Well, you do need a reservation for this type of train however I know that you can buy a ticket without a seat and just stand on the train. The machine wouldn't give me the ticket. Once I got to Milan, I asked someone if I could buy a ticket to stand, because there were no more seats. Well, if the machine gives you the ticket, you can buy it, yes. Well, the machine is not giving me the ticket, so how can I buy one? I went to the ticket office and again he told me that he would gladly let me pay for a ticket without a seat but the machine wouldn't let him do it. Any way you could override that? I bought a ticket for the train two hours later but went to the platform for the earlier one and asked if I could get on since I couldn't buy a ticket without a seat, so I bought a ticket for the later train. "Well you can't, but I'll let you." There ended up being plenty of free seats. The train was a replacement and so none of the seats matched the reservations, for example there was no car 7 on this particular train. Instead of working it out, they just decided to "sell out" all the other tickets. Again, how Italian. 

Once in Como, I took the boat ride along the lake to Bellagio and back. Each way took two hours of relaxing on the water. It was beautiful, although I unfortunately did not see George Clooney or his house.

I always imagined George Clooney's house would look like this

One of the private lessons I do here in Italy is with two retired teachers who study English as a hobby and meet with me once a week for an hour of conversation. After our final lesson, they asked where I'll be next year and what I'll be doing. The honest answer is that I just don't know. With plenty of ideas, I have nothing concrete in mind. They wanted to know if I'd be back in Brescia or not and the argument ensued. She'll probably come back to Italy, just not Brescia. But, why would she come back to Italy instead of going to another European country? Well, she'll want to explore more areas in Italy first as opposed to going elsewhere. Annamaria's argument was that not another country in the whole world has as much variety as Italy. You cannot just have an experience in the north, because all regions of Italy are a new world, like another country. We see this the best in the dialects spoken throughout the Italian boot. In fact, before the unification of Italy, Italians in the north could not understand those in the south. Television shows taught Italians the Italian language. That is how different these languages were that they learned Italian through television shows meant to teach them the national language. Not only are there other regions to see, but various dialects to learn. So far I've lived in Emilia Romagna and Lombardia, that leaves 18 more regions to go. So don't worry Italy, I'll be back :)

I hope you've enjoyed my blog as I've been in Brescia. I shall write another to tell you all about Sicily but it may or may not get out before I return home depending on the internet my last day in Milan. Thanks for reading!