feb 17

Today started off very typical for any other Thursday as we had language class and then service learning. In language class, we reviewed questions and made sure we knew the difference between the “what’s” and the “how’s.” After that, we continued to work on the determinatives in the singular and plural form. Then we were introduced with the indeterminative in both singular and plural and masculine and feminine.

After language the group split and went to our service learning. The refugee center that day was pretty quite, everyone was watching the film being played. I didn’t know what they were playing but it seemed to be a old war movie. My group mates and myself went into the classroom to see if anyone wanted to learn English for the day but since the movie was playing, the attendance was very small, only three people came in. One of them I was able to talk to and find out what problem he had; he spoke English pretty well but couldn’t read or write it. He was educated but not in the English language since he didn’t understand that some letters make different sounds in different words, not like in Italian how if a sound needed to be harder, a letter is added afterwards. I made an agreement to give him a list of common words that sounded differently than they are spelled.

The end the day, it was a start of our last scheduled three-day weekend. Most of the group did decide to take advantage of the extra day to travel and see other parts of Europe or even Italy. Some went to Amsterdam, Greece, Sicily, and others just decided to stay in Rome. I went with the group that went to Amsterdam and it was nice to use a different way to get to Fiumicino as we used to the tram to Trastevere station and took a train for 8 euros instead of all the ridiculous prices we all paid when getting here. There, our flight was delayed two hours and we were able to experience the generosity of airitalia as they gave us free food and drinks. Our plane was filled with American students all headed to Amsterdam too.