School finished!

Today was the last day of school for April. We wrote our final exam - it didn't go too great, I don't know if I passed it! Doesn't matter though, I never came to Italy to write exams! I have found learning the italian language challenging to say the least. I think its a combination of the speed at which we learn things, and the fact that its so different from english. In the last 2 months of school we have learnt various tenses - present, past, future and the imperative, as well as the pronouns, prepositions and possessive words. The encouraging part of it all is that I understand everything they have taught us, its just that there are so many rules and exceptions to the rules that I have a massive "checklist" in my brain that I need to run through prior to trying to say anything! And every week the checklist seems to get longer! So the challenge is to not sound stupid by talking too slowly! I guess over time it will come a bit more naturally. I wont be attending school this month, as I leave Rome on the 15th. If all goes according to plan I am looking to return to school in September. This should hopefully give me a good opportunity to work on what I have learnt and too practice this with my Italian speaking family up north.

The children return from Sicily today, and they are on holiday for the rest of the week, so I am hoping we might squeeze in a trip to the beach if the weather is good.