Intensive Italian Week

We started classes today. By classes I mean we had to start going to class. Our regular classes start next week; this week is devoted to Italian; from 9-3 with an hour break in the middle I sit in a room with 6 other girls (there are no boys at my level) and our teacher, Francesco, and learn how to tell our landlord that the stove is leaking gas or the power doesn't work - like it didn't tonight. Somehow the power is our apartment went out so instead of going to dinner at 7pm like we planned, we left at 8:15. For that hour we sat in the dark. Well, Julie had a flashlight and was doing her homework (the only one of us to get homework on the first day), and I sat in our window reading Cosmopolitan to my roommates where we learned some very interesting things like that smoking can kill unfertilized eggs in the womb. But back to the subject - Italian class. Francesco, our teacher, is surprisingly not Italian; he's French but has a flawless accent and also a droppy left eye. He's a good teacher and, of course, we only speak Italian in the class which is a little hard, but at the end of the week my Italian will drastically improve. After classes Julie and I went in search of hangers, a hair dryer, and some plug converters since all the electrical things I brought have their own power converters so I only need to change the plugs! We first went to United Colors of Benneton for the hangers; we heard there was just a big box of free hangers in the front of the store. We were glad to get them so now we can hang up some more shirts and skirts, but why would a store just throw away its hangers. That seems like such a waste of money when they could reuse the hangers. Oh well, now I only need like 8 more hangers until all the clothes piled on my desk can have a home in my huge closet. Jeanette has lost her voice, and we constantly find ourselves all whispering when we talk to her since she has to whisper. When someone comes home and they find Jeanette and one of us talking to her, they instinctively whisper back and ask what the problem is. This wouldn't be that funny, but she hasn't had her voice for a couple days now. I was afraid that I handed off my cold to her, but they seem to be doing 2 completely different things to us so I now think she has something else. We are also in desperate need to go grocery shopping. We have to go out for every meal right now because as Erica put it, "When I open the fridge I have the option of salami, cheese, or coke." We also have orange juice, 2 types of milk (not sure if they're 2 different types of milk or what types they really are either), and some orange fanta.