BLONDE- MONTH 2:ROUTINES

Dear Clare,

two months have already gone and I can say that now I’m perfectly integrated into the school,  the family and   the language, ….. I feel almost like a native speaker. At school I’m not considered “the new student” or the foreigner anymore. Everything is going the right way. Everyday  I try to  learn new things from this culture, and everyday is a discovery for me.

 I wake up every day at 7 o’clock, I go to school and I finish at 12.35 or 1.30 pm, I come back home and I do my homework . In the late afternoon sometimes I hang out with Andrea and his friends, now everything sounds usual to me. 

 Italy is incredibly fascinating and I really love it,  but of course sometimes goes wrong. Last week, for example, I got back from school and Lucia was waiting for me in the living room. I felt a bit worried because she was looking at me in a strange way: I felt guilty , but  I didn’t know why. Suddenly she smiled at me and told me that we were going to make  dinner together. She exactly told me these words :” Nina, you are going to cook a typical Italian meal…”Baccalà”, but don’t worry  I’ll help you out!” (Clare you know that I’m a disaster at cooking and I really hate it!).

   So, a little embarrassed,   I explained to her that I can’t cook at all and I told her about  that time  in Barcelona when I put sugar on  the salad. I said that the only thing I can make is Paella, but we already had already made it the first week I spent in Vicenza. But Lucia was very confident of my cooking skills, so she showed me the recipe: dry codfish, onions, a litre  of fresh milk, little white flour, grated parmesan cheese, chopped parsley, salt and pepper.

 In the kitchen everything was ready; my first task was to cut the fish. At first it seemed so difficult but when I understood what to do, cutting the fish became very funny, I started to sing an Italian song learnt here at school and Lucia sang along with me: cooking has never been so funny! But when I started to dance with the knife in my hand, there was a terrible consequence: I cut my finger instead of the fish.  Lucia looked at me very scared and worried , and immediately she brought me to the hospital, where I got 4 stitches. When we got back home Andrea, Chiara and Francesco had prepared   Baccalà for me, and I think that was one of the sweetest thing that my host family have done for me so far. , I really felt like a member of their family.

At dinner we ate Baccalà all together;  it was excellent. I must say that every time  I think of the accident,  I smile at myself, it happened in a such a  funny way! 

Now Clare I have to go to bed, I’ll write you soon.

Valentina Gentilin