31st Gennaio 2015

Due to the time difference, I am not really sure how to write about my journey home, so I think I will do it like this:

1.       Saturday

2.       Sunday until the flight

3.       The flights, and arriving at home.

So, yesterday, which was Saturday.

I woke up at half-past seven, hoping to have some free time after packing. I stripped the bed and put the sheets on to wash, and laid out everything on the bed. Giuliana brought my suitcase up from the garage for me and I thought “how will I get all of that in there?”

Well, I managed. I was proud of myself. I went to tell Giuliana I had finished. I walked back and realised that I had forgotten a shoe. One shoe.

So I opened my bag a little bit and put it in. Everything was fine.

Then I went to weigh my bag. The batteries for the scales were flat, so I took the ones from the laundry. They said 29 kilogrammes. I picked my suitcase up from the scales with the side handle and…

It tore. Yes. The zipper from the plastic. It was only about 10 centimetres, so I thought that I could buy a strap to keep that bit shut. Then I tried to pick it up again, this time using both handles, and the zip unzippered itself. So, I lay down on it again and zipped it up. Then the tear grew to the whole length of the case.

I had minor breakdown, and I spoke to Dad on Skype for the first time since my birthday. I didn’t want to have to deal with it, to be honest, but there was no option. At first we thought I could get away with a strap and then maybe the shrink wrap at the airport, but when I showed Dad the damage, he said I needed a new suitcase.

At this point, I am afraid to say, I had a little bit of a breakdown, though I think it was the only one I have suffered from in the past two months. I told Giuliana the situation, and she said, “No problem. We will go to the shop”.

So we measured my suitcase and went to Piove di Sacco, the town of the school at which she teaches. There was only one suitcase in the whole shop that was as large, or larger, then mine. Perhaps I have packing problems, but please remember that this was for two months. We considered two medium sized cases, just for convenience in the future, but we weren’t sure about weight, so we went for the single huge one.

We got back, I unpacked, then had lunch (spaghetti with ricotta affumicato) and then repacked. I barely had enough time to clean the room, and my hopes of a relaxing morning were dashed.

We drove to the train station and were there about 20 minutes early. Paulo and his family arrived about five minutes after us, and Chocolate came to see us off about three minutes before the train departed.

The train ride was relatively uneventful, though it was nice to do it during the day so we could see out the window. Paulo and I were quite surprised when we found that it was just the two of us, without any volunteers or other students. The train stopped in Bologna and Firenze before we disembarked at Roma Termini.

Ours was the last train to arrive, and all the other students were waiting at the station for us. Somehow we walked past them, and it took us about 15 minutes to find where we were supposed to go. Then we went to the buses, which took us to a hotel “Villa Aurelia.” We left out luggage in a small room and then went to our rooms for ten minutes before dinner.

Dinner was okay-ish. There was a nice pasta, and I had learnt from last time that you don’t say “grazie” until the man has dished you all that you want. Then there was chicken, and it wasn’t great. I said “basta, grazie” after just one piece, and I am glad I did. It was quite dreadful.

After dinner we had a meeting in the big room. We had to play a game in which statements were read out and we had to stand in different parts of the room depending on how strongly we agreed. Then we had to draw our “adjustment lines’, or lines representing how, generally, we were going at each week. Then there was a picture of a backpack on which we had to write all the things we would be taking home, including objects, skills, interests, attitudes and personal characteristics. Finally there was a survey, and then we were presented with our certificates of participation.

Then we upstairs to our rooms, and we all talked in the corridor for a while before going to bed. There were many fewer people at the hotel than there were at the arrival – the 54 people from the Western Australian Association of Italian Teachers had departed on the 24^th, so it was only about half a dozen each from Argentina, Australia, Costa Rica, New Zealand and South Africa.

I went to sleep at about half-past midnight.