Tu parli Italiano?

Sue here taking over the keyboard for the first time. I have now graduated from my two week intensive Italian course.  I am quite sad that it is over as the experience with the language and the other students from different countries was far greater than I ever expected.  Our teacher was fun and energetic and never learning our names, we became known by our nationality in Italian.  There were the Tedescians from Germay, Giapponese from Japan, and I was Canadese.  Other students were from the Czech Republic, a few from Brazil, Holland, New Zealand, and Poland.  Not one American in the bunch.  Stereotypes do not lie as after spending 5 minutes with each of them and seeing their appearance and mannerisms, you knew exactly where they were from.  I was the only one in the whole group that didn't know at least two languages.  Most of the students knew at least 3 and some knew 4 not including Italian.  North American is so tightly bound by a huge bubble.  

Likely due to my German roots, I immediately became friends with two German guys who were just older than Chris and Miles.  They helped me immensely with exercises and always made sure that when my turn came to announce the answer, that I was correct.  They were at the school for "tax reasons" as the German government  not only dictates that employees take 5 weeks mandatory vacation, if they choose to pursue additional education, they not only get it paid for, but they also get the time off to pursue this new learning (up to 2 weeks)!

The other students progressed much faster than I did and I have countless excuses as to why - they have already learned multiple languages, the other languages they do know are very similar to Italian and therefore translation is similar, and most were under the age 30.  The last time I took a language course was 30 years ago!  Those are my excuses and I'm sticking to them.  I am also proud to say that I wasn't the weakest in the class. Giapponese only appeared to master the Italian phrase for "I don't know". That being said, I am quite able to understand a fair bit and I'm starting to feel more comfortable communicating.

Dove si trova la toilette e devo portare Kleenex?

(Where is the toilet and do I have to bring Kleenex?)