How I ended up in Italy - part 1

One of my readers on the Norwegian blog asked me if I could tell something about myself; how I ended up in Italy, what I'm doing here and so on. I've already answered my Norwegian readers, but maybe there's someone out there who doesn't understand Norwegian that would like to hear my story (or at least I hope so...)

I'm born in the middle of the 1960s so at the moment I'm halfway to 90... At the beginning of the new millennium I was living a completely normal life in Norway, working at an airport and raising three children as a single parent.

However, in 2006 I started my studies in Italian language and litterature. A bit weird studying Italian when at that time I was a real Hellenophile, always travelling to Greece, loving everything Greek. But if I wanted to study Greek I had to go abroad - which at that time wasn't an option for me because I couldn't leave my children - so I decided on the Italian studies instead.

Since I hadn't been too interested in anything Italian before I didn't know very much about the country when I started at the University.  You can take a look at the pictures below to see exactly how much (or how little) I knew.......

Pizza

Pasta

Berlusconi

Picture is taken from Wikipedia

Alberto Tomba

Picture borrowed from here

Pavarotti

Picture is taken from this site

Not much, huh?

In 2008 I went to Florence as an exchange student - a rather mature exchange student that was.... I had my little studio right beside the "Duomo", the beautiful Cathedral in Florence. The studio was really very, very small, but it didn't matter to me. I was in Italy, in Florence, living so close to the Duomo that I could almost just reach out and touch it from my window!

I spent my time mostly at University studying among other things the Italian dialects. But of course I found time to drink cappuccino with friends....

...or I took the train to other cities to explore the place just for the day.....

...or you could find me sitting close to 

Ponte Vecchio 

just taking in the atmosphere, eating gelato (ice cream) and looking at all the tourists and hoping that the year would never end so that I wouldn't have to pack my suitcases and head home to Norway again.....

(to be continued)
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Uno dei lettori del mio blog norvegese mi ha chiesto di raccontare un pò su di me. Perché sto qui in Italia, che cosa faccio di bello ecc.

Sono nata negli anni -60. All'inizio del nuovo millenio facevo una vita più che normale in Norvegia, ero divorziata con 3 figli e lavoravo all'aeroporto.

Nel 2006 ho cominciato a studiare all'università - lingua e letteratura italiana. Un pò strana forse, perché amavo tanto la Grecia.... Comunque, per studiare la lingua greca dovevo andare all'estero, che al momento non potevo fare. E così, anche se sapevo poco o nulla d'Italia, ho deciso di fare il corso della lingua italiana.

Puoi vedere le prime 5 foto per sapere quanto poco sapevo d'Italia... Non tanto, eh?

Nel 2008 sono andata in Italia, a Firenze per stare un anno come studentessa di scambio. Avevo preso in affitto uno studio vicino al duomo, così vicino che potevo quasi toccarlo dalla mia finestra. Lo studio era piccolissimo, ma io ero felicissima perché stavo in Italia.

E che cosa facevo a Firenze? Quando non stavo studiando i dialetti italiani, facevo dei piccoli viaggi col treno per vedere altri posti, andavo nei bar con le mie amiche per prendere un cappuccino (ancora non bevevo il caffè...) o stavo seduta sul muro vicino a Ponte Vecchio sognando che non dovevo fare le valigie e tornare in Norvegia dopo gli esami....  

(Per essere continuato...)