Saturday, October 19, 2024

Scuola Per Me!

 A few people have asked if I have started studying Italian here yet, read on to learn more!

We arrived in Italy on August 27, and since Sept 3 I have been a full-time student (with a little time off to do a fun project I will share more about later).  Being full-time here means 20 hours or more per week.

Every weekday I arrive at school around 9am and have a two-hour grammar lesson with a small group of other people (non-Italians, mostly from Australia, Japan, Germany, and Holland- often I have one other American with me in class).  We have a native-speaker Italian for a teacher.  The grammar we practice is both real-life applicable and tied to an official 'Italian as a Second Language' curriculum and ultimate credential we can achieve.

This is a photo of the narrow vicolo where our school is located.  The little green archway behind me is at the front door to the school (ARCA Bologna), it's a 16th century building.

At 11am we all head to the bar, where we get a coffee or a capuccino and maybe a cornetto and chat.  You coffee comes with a little shot glass of sparkling water to rinse it down.

Here's a photo of our capuccini, and sparkling water chasers, my cappucino is soy.  When I walk in, I smile and say Ciao and the barista already knows my order.

Then, from 11:30-1pm we have the conversation section of class.  This is held in the same room, and with most or all of the same people, except that we have a different native-speaker teacher.  We talk about all kinds of things, including Italian and Bolognese history, culture, current events, as well as experiences we each bring to class.  I love learning from and with my classmates and teachers.

This photo is from Friday- three Australians were having their last day with us.  Every Monday new students arrive and most Fridays someone leaves.  We have to check on Monday mornings for our level, class configuration, location and teachers.  I started in B1 (intermediate) and then moved up to B2.  Then, last week they combined B2 and C levels.  Annalisa (the one in the front) was our grammar teacher this week.

On Mondays there are little afternoon opportunities to go for a walk and learn more about local food, history, or culture from one of our talented teachers.  Every week is a new theme and host. Last week we had a food tour of the center (pictured below)  On Thursdays there's another fun cultural activity, like eating out together or going for an aperitivo (pictured at the end).  This past week, the Thursday activity was a gelato-making field trip with a local master.  I missed that one.

I am in awe of my classmates who are motivated to add deep language and culture learning into their travel plans, and then who teach us all kinds of things from their home cultures.  I highly recommend my school, check out the ARCA Bologna website if you're interested.  I love getting to be a learner!  I'm also picking up lots of new tips for teaching a second language from my teachers.  





Sunday, October 13, 2024

Il Sistema Sanitaria

If you're curious how to get a presciption filled in Italy, read on.

We don't have healthcare in the states this year.  COBRA for me or Gibbs were both ridiculously priced (~$2,000/mo), and if we were going to be abroad for the year anyway, it made sense to just get travelers medical insurance (less than $900 for both of us for the whole 10 months).  We 'should' be covered if anything comes up. It worked great 16 years ago for the whole family, but I'm older now and I have daily maintenance medicine.

I needed more hypothyroid pills just a couple of weeks into our stay here, and I had not yet completed the Permesso di Soggiorno application that gives me access to getting an Italian doctor through the public system.  Luckily, I had already found a docotor through the private system for my swimming pool membership.

I braced myself for another bumpy ride as I reached out to my new doctor.  I shared my latest thyroid level test (yay for Mychart!), and he emailed me back right away with a prescription and a request to use the farmacia that rents him his medical office space.

Gibbs and I happened to be walking nearby just a couple of days later, so I pulled my prescription up on my phone.  It seemed awfully informal, but we don't have a printer and so I figured if this is the first of a series of attempts, at least I should learn something. I greeted the farmacista and showed him my phone.  He said thanks, leaned over and grabbed a box, set it on the counter and said, that will be due sessanta.  My first two thoughts were:  

1) What? No waiting?  No, come back in a couple of hours?  Don't you want to file this prescription somewhere?  Don't I need some kind of account? and

2) Uh, oh!  The honeymoon is over.  I'm paying unsheltered medical prices now: 260€.  I guess I'll submit it and see what I can get reimbursed.

It turns out it really was that fast and easy, and two months of hypothyroid pills cost 2.60€, I guess I just added the due CENTO sessanta in my head.  Here's the receipt:



Saturday, October 5, 2024

Vado in Piscina, e me serve un certificato medico per attivita sportiva non-agonistica

I'm working on my 1000 mile swiming goal while we're here in Italy.  I found a pool about a 15-min bike or bus ride from our apartment.  It's a pretty nice 25-meter pool with 6 very wide lanes.  Everyone swims in  a circle, vs splitting the lane.  Most mornings I have been we've been about 10-20 lap swimmers with more men* than women.  The showers are the kind in a big room with no dividers (separate for men and women) and you can't turn them on and keep them on, you have to push a button every 30 seconds or so.  

The pool is part of the Football Club Bologna 1909 stadium complex.  Swimming here costs about half of what going to the YMCA in MN costs me, a year-long membership at the pool is only 350€.  
But there are other challenges!  If you want to be member, you need a certificato medico per attività sportiva non agonistica (a non-comeptitive sports activity medical certificate).
Getting this certificato medico means finding a doctor, which I was able to do by going through the private system (more on becoming fully legal here later).  My new doctor advised me that for this certificate I needed to get an Echo Cardiogram.  Yikes!  That seemed extreme to me.  He said it was no problem, I just needed to go to a pharmacy and tell them my doctor said I need an ECG, and they would help me for a small fee.

He was right.  I went to a pharmacy he recommended, they made an appointment for the following week, and when I came back they lead me into a little closet off to the side with about the same privacy and formailty I would expect from a vaccine clinic.  The pharmacist told me to take off my shirt and then covered the little suction cups from the machine with goo and stuck them all over me.  She had to do it twice because the device wasn't linked to the computer properly the first time, but about 20 min and 35€ later, I had a ECG printout.  Along with my visit to the doctor, the whole thing came to 55€ and kept me out of the pool for a week longer than I had hoped, but now I am all set for a year.

*picture speedos all around, no such thing as shorts here



Reportage Speciale: Gibbs Va a Scuola

The third in a three-part series on our man of few words, Gibbs.  In this special report we will learn what Gibbs thinks of having gone back...