I want to learn Italian in the next two weeks using Anki. It seems like an interesting experiment, and the language could be somewhat useful too. Any recommendations?

Specifically, when you use Anki to remember a foreign language vocabulary, how do you design your cards? How much it is useful to have cards in both directions, as opposed to only one direction (my language to foreign language)? How do you cope with situations where one word can have multiple translations? What are other best practices?

I already know that it is better to read full sentences than individual words. So I will use Anki to memorize words, but I will also write and read some short texts, to remember those words in the contexts. Specifically, my girlfriend loves operas, so we will translate the texts together. (The vocabulary in operas is somewhat unusual, but you never know when "la strega è nel fuoco" comes handy. And it is more fun, therefore easier to remember.) By the way, how much reliable is Google Translate when translating from Italian to English?