It's Harder Than It Looks...

Today marks two weeks since I landed in Bologna – and it feels like I’ve been here forever.

I’ve now started school (more on that in a minute), got into a little routine and I’m walking the streets like a native.

My better half came to visit last weekend, for five days, and while it was so lovely to have him here, for him it was a holiday. I loved showing him the city and he fell in love with it too, but when he left – the reality set in.

When I flew out I knew he was coming to visit. I’d only have a week to myself; to settle in, move into the place I was staying long term and start school, but then familiarity would resume when he was here to give me cuddles and hold my hand over a table in a café.

Now he’s gone, and its dawned on me that I’m here now for another 7(ish) weeks… on my own.

So, starting school – my first week was brilliant, I felt like I was learning really quickly (I was in a class on my own), I learnt verbs, I could say sentences, I (finally) learnt all the numbers and days of the week – it was going swimmingly, I’ll be fluent in no time at all.

Of course, as soon as I was put in an Italian social situation – I was f**ked.

It’s one thing saying “so-no … Emily… Ho (pronounced oh) vente….quattro… anno… uugghhh I mean anni!”, and quite another when you are faced with a someone over a coffee and they are speaking a million miles an hour with words you swear to god you’ve never heard of.

Anyone who knows me knows that I can get “quite” stressed and those social situations definitely didn’t help that. My neck gets hot, all the way up to my ears, I choke up and I literally just end up going “sorry… inglese…” and running away.

In class I feel intelligent - out of class I’m still a bumbling English tourist.

The worst moment of my trip so far came on Monday. I got moved up a class (see I told you I was doing well). I sat down with two new students, one from France and another from Spain – they both said they knew very little Italian. “Good!” I thought, we’re all on the same page.

Nope!

The class started and that was it. The tutor spoke too fast, all in Italian, the other two girls understood and replied; when I tried it was just single words interspersed with English.

He started talking about reflexive verbs and as soon as a worksheet got put in front of me I was already halfway to hyperventilation central.

The words were swimming on the page; I couldn’t make sense of it. I thought if I just kept quiet and kept my head down the class would be over soon, but no. The tutor did his job and said “you understand?” – I lost it. I couldn’t breathe. I excused myself a little too late, tears were already in my eyes and I got to the bathroom just as my first panic attack in over 6 months kicked in.

If you’ve ever had a panic attack you know that it’s a death knoll for the rest of your day. You can’t see, you can’t catch your breath, it’s like your drowning on air. You spend the rest of your day either crying, or close to tears, utterly knackered with eyes pinker than an albino bunny rabbit.

I tried to stay in the bathroom for as long as possible, and then there was a knock. I crept out, crippled by embarrassment (what must these people think of me – poor little girl, what a child!).

In reality, the owner of the school was amazing. He empathized. He had felt the same learning English almost 30 years ago, he knows how hard it is, especially when you have quit your job, put all your savings up and risked losing friends and the life you knew to move abroad and live your dream (which then turns out to be less rose tinted than planned).

He offered one-to-one lessons a few times a week just to build my confidence back up and embed what I’ve learnt, then said a new beginner class would be starting next week so I could join that.

Three weeks at beginner level – I thought I’d be fluent in 5! In the words of Pretty Woman… “Big Mistake…Huge” (and I couldn’t even go shopping on this budget)!

I felt stupid. Why can’t I learn this!? I consider myself intelligent, and yet this is like I’m 6 years old again learning my 7-times table (I struggled with 7’s).

I left school early that day (when I tried to go back into the class I had another panic attack, this time I had to be taken out doors. I went back to the flat in tears – how could I show my face in that place again. I’d been inconsolable and made an utter prat of myself!

Luckily, my other half was still here and he helped pick up the pieces of this broken little girl who had come back to him after a mere two hours apart.

Yesterday I walked back into that building and I had my first 1-2-1. I was terrified (and mortified). But it was okay. The confidence came back slightly; I’m trying to learn. I even bought a newspaper to translate, but it’s harder than it looks.

It’s not all pasta, pizza, red wine and sunshine you know (although there is a lot of that!).