le fotografie

Saint Peter square

flying. A Roma

First thing, i was rushed out the door and wore the wrong shoes. Lol. Will have to buy new sneakers in Rome. US TSA was ok, though i had no idea what i was doing. No airline even hinted at taking a bag from me to check. I dressed in layers, warmly, but Tucson airport was an oven, so i had to change in a restroom.  Flights all fine. Turbulence, but not bruising levels. The worst was in clear skies over Tucson, from a combination of mountain winds and 95 F temps. Floated off the seat a few times, the kind of experience I used to pay for on amusement rides. 🙃

My flight to Madrid was on an Iberia Airbus 330, which is huge, a flying city. Every seat was full. Announcements were all in crackly Spanish, which French and Italian don't help much with. I stayed calm in my ignorance, figuring if they were truly important messages, passengers would be screaming. Food was... well, airline food. No protein, so was glad I took jerky. I slept on the 10 hour flight, but after a week of sleeping on Rome time, I had to sleep later than ideal. 

Passport control/immigration happened in Madrid, zero questions. Once you are stamped/approved in any Schengen country, you're good to go for 90 days. It is open borders otherwise, through all 29 countries of Western Europe. Madrid Airport isn't signed well, and no one would speak English or Italian at security. It was long going though that checkpoint. What this? A cord. What this? Another cord. What this? A european adapter plug. And on and on. Was it his first day?  Was it a test? Weird. I was one of the last 3 people to board as a result, running over a km, panting as i boarded. Advice: don't try to run a mile at age 70 carrying 20 extra pounds strapped onto you. 

Bus from Rome Airport dropped me at Vatican. I walked to the hotel. 2/3 of the way there, a nice man said he lived 3 blocks away, and he walked me to my door. (Down, girls, he was 25 years too young for me.) i met my host for first days, Francesco. We slipped back and forth between  2 languages and talked for 30 minutes. Here is my sweet single room in a great old building with ancient cage elevator! (Think:noir movies) Full bathroom, with bidet, and a common room for his 3 guests with fridge and coffee maker and table Tomorrow, hunt down new shoes, walking early, and tennis ! Jannik  🦊❤️ at 3. Casper and Matteo at 7:00. (Ask Charlotte)

 Everything went as planned... Except for forgetting shoes, Size 39, European. Tomorrow at 8, experience a real Roman coffee bar, at 9, atm for euros €€, at 10 shoe store, wander around perhaps St Peters Square then walk 20 blocks to Tennis.

Fitness for travel

You have to walk, a lot, in Europe. Walkers and wheelchairs won't function on cobblestone streets. 

I've been lifting weights for 28 years, and I kept that up. I raised my daily walking mileage from 5 to 10 km (3 to 6 miles). I fully expect to have some 15 km days there. 

Occasionally, I've walked with my new backpack, loaded with towels. Today, I did my first walk at 3 a.m. with my 20.4 pounds of packed luggage. Figured 2.5 miles was good enough with the added weight.

I did the first mile in 17 minutes, the last half mile in 11 minutes. So I did slow down at the end, but not badly. 

I've booked hotels and apartments mostly within a mile of the main train stations, 17 in total. Now I know I'll be fine with that, plus the strolling along embarcaderos, through old cities, and climbing around Medieval castles I have planned 

One day to go! Except for giving away a bit of food, unplugging things, and taking off car battery cables, I'm ready and excited for a new life adventure. 

P S. Thanks to pal Pat for the luggage-weighing dodad!

what I learned about adult language learning

I have developed opinions about adult language learning. This approach would work for me next time I tackle a new language, and I suspect it would for others.

1. Learn the 1000 most common words + one example sentence using each word. Use mnemonics if it helps. Draw little pictures of anything concrete on a flash card. Drill yourself. Go through them 3 times, twice with the new language on top, once with your mother tongue on top, so you are forced to come up with the target language.

2. Get a short library audiobook for travelers. Work your way through it, a half hour per day. Speak aloud.

3. Learn 5 main irregular and regular conjugations of verbs. It's maybe 8 little charts in romance languages. Even people who scream in fear at grammar should handle that fine. To have, to be, to speak, to read, to want are  verbs you'll hear, and need, often.

4. Then start listening to free YouTube videos aimed at language learners, all in your target language, with target language subtitles on. Jot down new vocabulary on new flashcards. Do ghosting with one video per day, which is pausing every sentence to parrot that sentence aloud.

5. Walk around and talk to yourself in the target language. "Look, a pretty tree. I like trees." "I drive to the grocery store. I need chicken, milk, potatoes, lettuce, and canned tomatoes." Look up words you are missing using Google translate. 

6. Then hire a tutor for 2 1-hour sessions per week, or talk to chat GPT, for free, 20 minutes every day.

7. Only now try reading, graded readers or middle grade level books, mangas, maybe cookbooks. Or try listening to TV or watching movies, especially documentaries on topics you like. QVC in your language and cartoons are good beginner choices too. Before this point, it will all just be confusing noise, more depressing than helpful.

8. Don't wait until 1 month before a trip and expect to do all this in a month. Step 1 will probably take a month. Unless you are in Middlebury's pricey immersion program or army intelligence immersion training courses, it will will likely take a year of daily work.

9. Take some A1, A2, B1 tests as you progress, via YouTube videos, to see where you are and what you're missing 

10. As you progress, change from listening and reading  to speaking and writing for more and more of your study time.

11. Bonus hint: It may take you more than 500 hours to get to B1. (A figure you find online.) It takes as long as it takes. 500 hours would be 80 minutes a day for a year. 

Also, this is not too far off the book Fluent Forever's advice. Read it if you are interested in well researched information. 

No, you don't have to be a child to learn. If fact you could get to B1 level in one dedicated year, but after 5 years of having everyone around them tutor them daily, children require 5 years to end up sounding like 5-year-olds. You can do much better! You can talk to native speakers, at an adult level, after a year of work.

studying italian birds

They aren't the same! 8 months of studying the language, some study of customs. (Never special order food, don't drink milk after 10 a.m., shake hands more gently.) hotels and apartaments reserved through August 1. Two new travel debit cards.  And Now birds.

map of trip

Rome, Pompei, Bari, Foggia, Ancona, Rimini, Ferrara, Modena, Verona, Torino will be my main stops. Plus day trips to Bolzano, Laga Guarda medieval castles, overnight in Genoa and Pisa. Back to Rome to fly out. 87 days.

I tried several ways if making a map, and it's hard on a phone.