my head is spinning

I've had my first italiano class tonight, and my head is spinning! It's making sense, but it's going to take a lot of practise to remember and put it all together. First observations:

• nouns ending in 'a' are feminine, 'o' are masculine, 'i' are plural
• pronounce every letter - there are no silent 'e's on the end of words
• vehicles (boats, cars, trains, etc) are generally feminine
• meat is masculine, as is milk (don't know how they figure that one!)
• fruit is feminine (makes sense)
• there are informal and formal versions of just about everything
• 'ciao' has only appeared since WWII, and may be derived from the US 'cheerio'
• c (as in ciao) = ch; ch (as in bruschetta) = k
• there is a 'gli' sound that has no equivalent in English, and is going to take some odd oral contortions to master!

I have a pile of handouts and worksheets to look through before next week. I'm exhausted, but loving it! So very very glad I enrolled :)

And onto the gratitude list for today:

• obviously, the opportunity to enrol in courses and further my education :)
• a husband who can manage wrangling the kids to bed on his own (I hear on good authority that some can't!), thereby giving me the opportunity to do this course. And he'll have to do the bedtime thing twice on his own next week - Monday is the course, Tuesday is the first School Board/P&C meeting for the year :)
• some shred of organisational ability that enabled me to think ahead and make enough dinner last night for planned leftovers for tonight (so I could get to the course on time!) :)
• lots of work coming in - meaning that the trip is becoming ever more of a reality :)