My First Week of Teaching and Exploring Cuneo The high school I…
ITC Bonelli (aka the High School I am teaching at)
Outside view of the school
Apperitivo with the English teachers 🙂
Ottocento (800)
The Via Roma in Cuneo is beautiful at night
Amazing architecture everywhere
My beautiful host mom
Mercato
Shopping in Cuneo
My host brother 🙂
My First Week of Teaching and Exploring Cuneo
The high school I am teaching at is called Instituto Technico Commerciale (ITC) Bonelli. It is a high school specializing in languages and economics. I think the school is a good fit for me because I have experience in business. In Italy, there are three different types of high schools Liceo, Instituto Technico, and Instiuto Professionale. 14 year olds get to choose which type of high school they go to based on what type of career path they would like to pursue. For example, a Liceo may focus on subjects like “the Classics”, humanities, science, or art; an Instituto Technico, may on subjects like the economy, humanities, administration, law, technology, tourism; and an Instituto Professionale may focus on subjects like engineering, agriculture, gastronomy, technical assistance, handicrafts.
ITC Bonelli is located in a city called Cuneo. If you look Cuneo, Italy on a map, you will actually see that Cuneo is also the name of the comune. It’s a beautiful city and I will probably be posting many pictures of it so stay tuned. The city is famous for Cuneese al rum, rum chocolates that were so good Hemingway came to Cuneo just for them. I found the chocolates to be good but strong.
My classes have been good so far. The students seem very interested in learning about American culture, and they seem excited to have a native English speaker from America teaching them. I’ve learned that American music, movies, and television seem to be extremely popular in Italy. If I turn on the radio for example, there will be songs in both Italian and English. It’s nice to hear American music even when I’m miles away. It reminds me of home.
On my first official day of teaching lessons, I went to Ottocento (Eight Hundred) for aperitivo with the English teachers a my school. We met up at the school and walked over to where the restaurant/bar was located. On the way we saw the Via Roma, which is one of the main streets in Cuneo. It’s very beautiful at night because the street is decorated with lights. It was nice to walk around and have aperitivo with the teachers because we got to know each other. Aperitivo includes appetizers and a drink. For example, we had many types of salumi (salted meats), olives, formaggio (cheese), frittata and bread. I also had a sweet red wine. As I’ve said before, the food here is amazing.
During my first week, I also went to the Mercato (market) in Cuneo’s town square. It was a very large market with many vendors, and everything seemed like it was on sale. This is the season in Italy where everything is on sale. I came at a good time. My host mother bought me a scarf and some slippers at the market. She is very kind. I really like my host family. They have been very welcoming.
I feel like there is still so much to write about and I am a bit behind on my posts. I’ll try to update the blog again soon, but in the meantime follow me on Facebook to see pictures from my travels. After all, they say pictures are worth a thousand words.