Today I went to the local hospital for a check-up on my poor wounded foot. The doctor on call had not seen me before, but he looked over the case history contained in the documents I’ve been accumulating and glanced at my photos of the wound from the weekend.

He was satisfied with the progress, and told me I could stop the daily footbaths with a bleach solution (Whew!) and also the subsequent application of antibiotic cream and rebinding. I have another appointment for Friday afternoon (no trip to Milan that day, in other words), but he was carefully optimistic that I might be able to resume the pilgrimage in another week.

I didn’t get much reading done today, although while I was at the library this morning I read all the way through a Berenstain Bears story. (In Italian, it’s La Famiglia Orsetti.) In other words, I’m reading Italian at about a kindergarten level‎. 

My level of verbal comprehension continues to surprise me. Given the contextual framing and all the cognates with French and English I suppose it isn’t all that remarkable, but I still get a real sense of satisfaction after concluding an interaction. One thing I’ve noticed both here and in the francophone countries I’ve visited is that I am paying VERY close attention to the speaker when they’re talking to me. With anglophones, I can afford to let my focus broaden to take in peripheral information, but not while I’m struggling to apprehend what could be very important information. (Dosage of medication, time and location of appointments, etc.)

So there it is. I’m planning to attend Liturgy in Vercelli this weekend, and hopefully visit Turin and Milan next week before starting to walk again. We’ll see how it goes.