The Big Photo Shoot

January 11th: Today meant another reasonably early rise so I could make a few calls home using the little happiness card. Liz and I left quite early around eight in order to use the computer labs only to find when we arrived at the uni that it opens at 8:30. Oh well we will know for next time. This mornings lessons focused on the gerundio and onomatopoeia. We worked in pairs and made simple storyboards using only sounds. The rest of the group had to guess what the action was all about. We were given our groups for our school visit on Thursday and Friday. I will be with Adriana and Domenica. On the way to the eatery Jack, Liz and I stopped at the tourist centre to get some posters to use in our classrooms back home. After flicking around a few rubberbands and trying to coax the posters into a single roll we headed off for lunch. Today I had the lasagne polenta as il primo and then a chicken fillet rolled around ham with vegetables as il secondo. Beauuuuutiful!!!!

After lunch we returned to Hotel Giardino to drop off all our gear and then returned to il castello for the photo shoot of the whole group. Adriana as usual was late. Laura's husband took quite a few shots. We then regrouped into our states and took photos. Laura and Carla posed with each group. Spot the token Tasmanian.

In the afternoon we all met in the lecture room and listened to Luciana Brandi who gave a talk called "L'acquisizione della ligua come il suono diventa parola." It was quite an interesting talk but as usual I lost the plot about half way through and someone was actually passing notes! After the talk we had refreshments in another sala put on by Manuel. We then made our way back to the hotel. Goretti, Adriana, Deb, Cecilia and I did another round of Prato mainly looking at clothes in the in windows.

Then it was back to the hotel again where we had a show and tell of all the gear we plan to take to the schools on Thursday. We had a few nibbles to eat and a lot of laughs. I got Jack out of bed though I am not sure how he could have thought of sleeping after downing five different types of coffee at a coffee bar in under three minutes for the purpose of a film clip he was making for his class. And just for the record, he was as high as a kite. No wonder he listened so well during the talk. Jack took a group photo of us in room 202. Above I am pictured with Laura and Carla who are my teachers. I am also posing in front of the main door of the castle. The patriots with the Australian flag are Cecilia, Adriana, Rosemary, Rosanna and Liz, a happy little bunch of Vegemites.