Giuseppe had made it to the top table, and had a wistful smile on his lips. They had certainly got that right.
 My fate was to go into Intermediate ll. It sounded like the half way house between kindergarten and proper school. Nothing could be further from the truth.
We were Anne ( Seattle) Carlos ( San Diego) Trudy (Canada,Australia) Angelo (San Francisco) , Sarah (Atlanta) and yours truely.
The morning session went from 8:45 to 10:15, a 1/2 hour break to 10:45 and then late morning session to 12:15 ,1/4 break to 12:30 and the final session to 13:15.
It became obvious very quickly that there was a huge range between us.Some had a richer vocabulary, others spoke more fluently but with errors,whilst a few had more hesitancy...that included me. Yet the group worked together and the teaching was a delight. For each session there could be a different teacher yet there was a cohesiveness between the lessons,even though different aspects of grammar were being examined. The  enviroment was non competitive except when it comes to struggling with your own demons. So for me, it was pistols drawn every time...something had to change if l was going to survive.
So it was  GRAMMAR that was our short suite and that brought back the idea of  my relearning the basics of English grammar as l did 60+ years ago, and which l have been grappling with ever since.
We started to cover the grammar that we had all learned before. The 'imperfetto' tested our sense of humour as we struggled to understand how much of the 'past' was in the 'past' and not just recently passed, but really all over and finished with...kaput as our Northern neighbours say..., before the next event in the 'past', happened....if this is lost on you, then, then 'just' stick to English or German....but if you do you will be missing out.
Homework also meant looking at the 'past' until the fog of uncertainty lifted and a quiet confidence started to shine through....there was going to be a lot of this and l wondered how much mental stamina it took to make it to the end ?
We hadn't even touched on the 'congiuntivo' yet.
Ever played TABU
Now it was time to be introduced to parlour games, and l wondered if it might have something to do with Christmas  that was  just 2 months away.. It turned out to be better....it was  to help us with  our ability to ask questions and give a straight answers  something that all our very self important  politicians could consider if they had any sense;  BUT that's really a no brainer.