Calcio

While three of the kids are playing soccer (Mary is doing swim), they are not yet allowed to play in games (in fact, they won't even take our money while the kids "train" twice a week) until we have proof of residency -- which we need to apply for within ninety days of arrival for Daniel and kids (my EU citizenship through Ireland streamlines my process a bit).  So no weekend calcio games for a while. 

At training (what we call practice) this week, Sebastian took off his sweatshirt.  His coach and teammates told him that he had to put it back on because it was slightly raining.  The Italians are concerned that you might get sick if you go out with wet hair or get caught in the rain without an umbrella or jacket. 
Sebastian told me, "The coach asked if I had a jacket, and so I told him, A casa." 
"But you don't have one," I said. 
"I know, but I couldn't say that!"

Add that to the list for the weekend.  (In truth, it's been on the weekend list for at least two weekends because I don't want Paradiso to get after us directly or, worse yet, via my colleague who is our contact.)

Connor's gone to one practice because he was sick for the other two.  We walk the one and a half kilometers there, get him out on the field with Roberto, the coach, and a bunch of eight-year-old boys we've never seen before.  Connor doesn't like to sign up for activities much: he likes to be at home or with his friends or making up his own activities (last week he looked up how to make parchment paper and made it with paper, water, and an iron).  But he agreed to try it out.  (I insist on one physical activity because I see all of us happier when we have some physical exercise going on.)   I read Othello in the stadium.  When I look up, I see Roberto showing Connor how to pass properly.  I see Connor passing and running and wearing himself out well.  When he runs up the stadium steps to get his water, he says, "It's hard for me to leave the house to come, but once I'm playing, I love it.  I just love it."

Hannah's team is a co-ed team, but no other girls are playing this year.  The first time I watched her practice, she had her hands in the pockets of her sweatpants.  She kicked the ball some; the kids didn't really pass to her.  When she came over to get water, I said, "Hannah, play like you would play if you were with your siblings or the Raymonds."

Yesterday I watched the end of practice.  The kids were scrimmaging.  Hannah was running.  She scored.  A little boy ran over, gave her a big hug, rubbed her head.  "Anna!" he shouted.  A bit later, she scored again.  "Anna!" three boys jumped up with exuberance, surrounded her, jostled her with glee.  Hannah hid her smile as best she could.  But I smiled big, not able to hold it in as well as the seven-year-old: the boys know her name.

from September...
Metano e benzina

Benzina I learned from Pimsleur.  Pimsleur became my music, my NPR, my car phone conversations, my company for chores around the house.  Pimsleur taught me Italian for thirty (or sometimes sixty or ninety) minutes a day from late April through July.

My favorite line was, "Dove a imparato l'Italiano?"  (Where did you learn Italian?)
The answer, according to the trusty CD, "Ho imparata da un corso di Pimsleur."

Walking, talking advertisement for Pimsleur!  I laughed out loud when I learned the sentence.  No one asks how we learned, likely because we haven't shown off (ahem) our learning quite yet.

Macchina and benzina and caro I remember: car and gas and expensive.

The owner of the car sent a text advising us to get metano rather than gasoline.  She told us, It's less than half the price of gasoline.  Only certain gas stations have it, and it takes about ten minutes to fill up the tank with twenty euro.

Over the weekend we added 15 euro of metano, saving our pennies and the environment at the same time.  We drove away from the gas station and noticed that that the gas gauge hadn't adjusted at all.  Today I watched the gauge line go down and down and down.  The gas light was on, and I couldn't figure out whether we had already used up all the methane.  We figured out that we need to press a button that activates our using either the benzina (gasoline) or metano.  Then the car uses that source until you switch it over to the other.

Conversation in the Fiat:

So methane is a natural gas?
Yes.
So it's better to use it, right?
Yes.
How do we get it?
Don't we get it from cows?
From their flatulence?
Or just their poop?

Food

Roberta took me Friday to a government building (I followed along blindly) which reminded me of the RMV; we are starting the permit process for staying for the year.  While we waited, I asked Roberta about politics and her favorite food.  (I'll get to politics another day.  I've been listening to too much U. S. news this week with the Kavanaugh hearings.  Troppo.)  Roberta is Italian, grew up in Viterbo, married a Brit and lived there for many years, then returned to raise their son in Viterbo.

"You mean, any food?" she asked.
I narrowed it down to dinner.
One favorite was too tough, so I requested three meals she loves.

"Well, pizza, of course," she said.  "We Italians love our pizza."

As our kids can tell you, there's pizza croccante, which they say is the same as pizza bianca.  Folks eat this for breakfast or a morning snack.  It's basically crispy pizza dough with yummy oil and salt.  At school, the kids buy it for 50 cents for snack.  I like it with scrambled eggs (not an Italian dish at all.  Italians don't eat eggs for breakfast).  There's pizza rosa, which has sauce but no cheese.  The most popular pizza in our house is pizza margherita -- crust, sauce, mozzarella.

"Melanze e ??????"...in other words, eggplant and something I couldn't understand.  After she finished her description, I said, "So eggplant parmesan?"  "Yes," she said.

Her next meal was rabbit.  She said, "I don't even usually eat meat, but this dish is delicious.  Oh, it's so good."

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The boys and Hannah have tried cingiale.  In the Asterix comic books, Obelix can eat three wild boars for dinner.  The kids love Asterix; hence, they are enjoying cingiale.  This morning on my run (when I run around the walls or up and down random streets outside the walls, I listen to my music -- many from my sister's playlists) and I laugh thinking about friends at home; I jog along at a speedy ten minute mile, proud of myself for getting out there once a week, and I think about these friends, this couple who run 10k's with barely any training, marathons with no trouble) I saw a sign: cingiale crossing.  And there was the picture of the boar crossing the road.  Late Saturday afternoon we drove to Lago di Vico for a mini-excursion, some nature time.  Daniel found a sign that warned of cingiale.  As we headed back to the car in the dark, we told the kids to make lots of noise to keep any wildlife away.  "Why?  What's here?!" they asked.  "Oh, we don't know, but in Prospect Hill at home we'd do the same thing if we were there in the dark."  The myth of the Calydonian boar was becoming a little too vivid as we got through the dark up to the parking lot, kids screaming loud.  (Thank you, kids.)

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When we got off the bus in some town near Terracina, the director told the students, "Be back to the bus by 3pm.  That gives you enough time to eat lunch and to wander around and see this town a bit if you want."

Two hours? I thought.  I could eat a sandwich and get a gelato and be back on the bus in thirty minutes.  What are we going to do with all this time?

Rather than go off by myself, I followed the other teachers.  An Italian colleague had gone ahead, found a restaurant, and gotten the owner to open up another room for the group of us.  We sat in this small room, the owner pulling the wine from a shelf right there on the wall behind my chair.  He took orders, walked outside and around the corner to the kitchen where his wife was, returned later with many plates of cacio e pepe -- a Rome specialty my colleagues told me.  It's not as good anywhere else, and now we're close to Rome, so it will be excellent here, they told me.

At 2:45pm, we were on secondi piati, and still minutes away from dolce.  The director sent a message to the students saying to postpone ETD to 3:15pm.

The next evening for dinner, we ate finely sliced meat -- I am inept here in describing the food as an Italian or food connoisseur would.  There were potatoes and prociutto and caprese and melanzane and this melt-in-your-mouth meat.  There was wine and a chocolate cake that hid warm gushing chocolate in the middle.  There was the after-dinner drink.  Then the coffee.

Food is everything.  There is no embarrassment about eating or talk about being hungry really.  It's just time to eat and to eat well often.  There is a pride in the food and in sharing one's dish.  It's quite beautiful.

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At home we eat turkey bacon and turkey sausage: here we eat sausage and porcetta.

At home we drink tea: here we drink tea, cappuccino, latte macchiato (warm milk with a drop of espresso), espresso/cafe.

At home, I'll eat Kind bars and saltines and Trader Joe's dried fruit and Arnold Palmer for lunch: here I eat leftover pasta and salads.

At home, we eat Joe's O's (i.e. Trader Joe's cheerios) for breakfast unless Daniel's cooked for us: I've traded Joe's O's for Noi Voi's Honey Loops (store brand at Emme Piu), and everyone other than Connor and me eats Daniel's cooked breakfasts.  Or, on a special day, we grab croissants (the typical Italian breakfast).

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Mary has been experimenting with her baking and cooking.  She began in September with her cupcakes.  This past week she made stuffed zucchini and pasta for dinner and biscotti for dessert.

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I wonder, Will the kids want to change our Waltham Christmas Eve dinner tradition from the Chateau when we return?

"Yo?"
"Yo mi llamo."
"Como te llamas?"
"Mi llamo Mary."
"Como?"
"I got to get to bed, Sebastian.  Thanks for helping me."

I was so excited that they were helping each other with Italian.

Then I realized that this was Spanish.  The middle school starts Spanish in grade six.  I've no idea how their brains are processing this.  On Saturday morning there was a WhatsApp thread for SYA Italy faculty: birthday wishes for Santo, the SYA Latin and Greek teacher -- Tanti auguri!  Auguri auguri!  I felt bogus sending wishes in Italian, even lamer sending them in English, so I sent them in Latin.   A brain freeze: happy birthday in Latin?  My self-consciousness with Italian was now affecting my ease with Latin.  This was more than uncomfortable: this was frightening.  I typed in my pathetic slow way: Felix dies natalis, Santo!  I knew it didn't look right, but I just sent it.  Moments later I thought, How embarrassing -- there are much more elegant ways to say Happy Birthday in Latin.

But my language confidence was down, so far down.  While I'm feeling good teaching English (even if the students/parents are concerned that their children are not getting A's in English, and it's junior year....she grades too hard!  We need A's for college applications!  Luckily, the director responds to kids/parents, supports, communicates), last week I was feeling despondent about Italian.  I'm not even close to first grade level yet.  I'm not having full-on conversations yet.  I don't understand when people answer my questions in Italian (though I'm excited that they answer in Italian rather than respond to my Italian question in English).  I was thinking, I may just have to give up on this Italian thing.  If I could get myself to one of Ale's Italian sections each day, that would be super.  But I've got Othello and senior college application essays and vocabulary quizzes and my walks and my kids.  I have many excuses.  And I want to learn, I do...but, my goodness, it takes a lot of energy and vulnerability in putting myself out there when I am going to make so many mistakes.

Thursday afternoon I walked up Via Cavour to our apartment.  A familiar looking man stopped me on the sidewalk.  He gestured, said, "Buongiorno!  Finito oggi?"  (or this is what it sounded like to me)

"No, non ancora," I said. (No, not yet.)

"Ahhh, solamento per pranso," he said.  (Just for lunch.)

"Il tuo italiano sta megliorando," he said.  (Your Italian is getting better.)

"Oh, no no!" I said.  "Ho bisogno imparare molto." ( I need to learn much.)

We talked a little more.  He pointed to the Edicola, the newspaper store across the street from SYA, and told me that he reads to learn.  Terrible at facial recognition, I could almost place him now: he works at the Edicola (sells newspapers, stamps, etc.).  We parted ways, and I smiled the rest of the way home.

What I was needing was not just language acquisition but connection, some indication that I could break this language barrier and connect to people outside home and work (and gelato and cappuccino) here.  He gave me this.

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When I go into my office the next morning, on the second floor of the building, I open wide the shutters and look down at Via Cavour.  I wave to the three men standing across the street each morning.  They wave back and smile.

This morning I realize: those men are standing in the entrance to the Edicola, and there's the man from yesterday afternoon.

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An Italian colleague told me this morning, "Hey, I went into the Edicola this morning, and the owner was saying that he was talking to you and how well you're doing -- how you're smiley a lot."

I confessed to Daniele my hopeless feeling last week, how I was thinking, I'm never gonna get there.  He said, "You've got to stay positive.  You just keep reading and talking and putting yourself out there."
I look at Daniele (he teaches Italian Culture and Global Citizenship), fluent in Italian and English and I think, Spanish, too.  The next language he wants to take up is Arabic.  It takes years to learn a language, he says.  But you just keep working at it, being positive.

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But then, last night, Mary wanted to google the Italian fable she needed to read in Italian for homework.  It was over two long pages, small print, and eight o'clock was looming.

"Would it be cheating to look up the fable and then just answer the questions?" she asked.

I say yes.  Daniel says yes.  We tell her we'd rather she read only half of it and not worry about finishing the whole thing.

 I offered to sit and read with her.  She slouched, angry with us.

Half an hour later, a sister had saved her little brother from Baba Gaga in the woods, then gotten help from an apple tree and a mountain of milk and some other fantastical foods who agreed to hide her and her brother from Baba Gaga if she tried their wares.  We read, laughed, guessed.  We didn't get every word, but we got enough to know what was happening, and we had a great time sitting on my bed reading.

Were we reading at an A level for a sixth grader?  Not even close.

As Mary headed off to bed, I said to her, "Mary, there is no way that we could have done that a month ago."

"I know, right!?"

Breaks

A friend in college told me once, "You're the only person I know who plans relaxing."

I thought, Is there any other way to do it?

The American in me judges my day by how productive I am.  Or by how much is not checked off my to-do list rather than what I have checked off my to-do list.  Actually, I don't know whether it's the American in me...or just me.

But sometimes I get lucky.

Last Monday the students were done for the day, I was prepping, figuring out residency documentation, then meeting with a colleague about a student.  Colleague said, "I know you're a pathetic drinker, but want to go have a sip of the good stuff?"  Weeks earlier, when someone had asked what kind of drinkers Daniel and I were, I had answered, "Pathetic.  We are pathetic drinkers."  I had explained that we can handle a glass of wine at most, likely not an entire beer, and often we even share one of these.

"Sure," I said.

He grabbed wine glasses, and we headed down to the school garden where the Agroecology students have been making wine, where Daniel helped carry barrels of grapes, where we watched the students grind the grapes, where Daniel and our own kids got to help mash the grapes one Saturday morning.  He poured us each a few sips while we looked around at the kids' work.  A ten minute excursion and a little wine on a Monday after work.  Not my usual Monday afternoon anywhere.  I walked up Via Cavour to our apartment smiling, grateful for the simplicity, the invitation, the ease.

The next day during morning break I went a separate way from my colleagues: they headed to Bar 103 for morning coffee; I headed to the sports store to get cleats for Sebastian, who was trying out soccer that afternoon.  As I walked around the walls on the way to De Marco Sport, I felt a little bad, thinking that I could have gone to break and dealt with the cleats later.  But I was a bit attached to my walking, my getting the cleats, my getting back to do some work before my next class.

I walked, got the cleats (lucky store number two had his size), and then sat back at my desk and settled in to watching Act 1 of Othello (Kenneth Branaugh, 1995) to prepare to show it later in the week.  Amy walked in.

"Ale and I are going out.  Want to come?" she asked.

"Where are you going?" I asked.

Amy headed over to Ale to ask where they were going.

I stopped her.  I realized that it didn't matter where they were going.  I could just go because really, that was all that mattered, going.  Taking a break.  Being with people.  I was getting a second try, a redo from morning break.

The three of us headed to Bar 103.  Sat in the sun.  Had a snack.  Then lunch.

It was so civilized.

It was not on my to-do list.

It was perfect.

Peace: Perugia to Assisi

Late Saturday afternoon SYA cancels its participation for the Sunday Peace Walk because of the rain.  Daniel, the kids, and I -- in Perugia since Friday night -- balk at their backing out and buy provisions for the 24 kilometer walk on Sunday.

At 4:30am, Daniel tells me, "I can't do the walk.  I have too much work to do.  I'm going to find a cafe to do my work."  He's got law work for a client back in Boston and his sixth grade English class here at St. Thomas'.

I expect that the kids will be devastated, want to back out without Daniel, want to stay out of the rain.

But when we wake them two hours later, they are anything but deterred:

"SYA cancelled, but we're not gonna be slackers!"
"Let's go!"
"I can't wait to tell them that we did it.  We are so going to do the whole thing!"

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The boys get ahead fairly early on, and Mary, Hannah, and I take our time.  We stop to eat almonds, cheese, raspberries.  The boys call us a couple times an hour to see how far behind we are; to find out if we also got the free Perugina chocolate at one stop (yes, we did!  turns out we could get it free right here without a tour at the factory); to ask where the closest bathroom is (I have no idea).

We walk up and down a country road, through a town, along a road parallel to the highway.  The scenery changes, but somehow, always we can find some green.  We are surrounded no matter where we are on this walk.

Daniel calls to check on us.  He walked two kilometers with us, then returned to the car, stopped for some folks needing a ride, and then drove them back to the walk.  He's not even begun his work.

At 2:30pm (we started at 10am), Sebastian calls and says, "There's a church here!  Everyone is stopping here, and there's music.  It's awesome!  We made it!"

I tell him, "You must be at that dome we can see in the distance: you're at the St. Francis Basilica!  We'll be there soon!"

Many chocolate and water breaks later, the girls and I reach the church.  It's immense.  Inside is a line of people waiting to go into the small chapel in the middle of the church, apparently the original chapel of St. Francis around which this church was built  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portiuncula. A friend told me that there were paintings of the life of St. Francis on the walls; I can't find them, but that's okay.  It's nice to sit, look around, rest our feet.

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We sit outside in the piazza, shoes and socks off, depleted, waiting for Daniel, who has gotten an entire hour of work in today, to pick us up.  We wait some more.  Finally, we catch each other on the phone: he tells me, "I think you're at the wrong church.  Are you at Santa Maria del Angeli?"

He's not kidding and he's right: we haven't actually finished the walk or spent the last hour at St. Francis' Basilica. We are in the comune di Assisi, but we are not at the top of the town, that structure that we could see high up from a distance during the walk, a structure that looked like a fancy fortress from afar.  We're in Assisi, but we're not in the old town of Assisi (I suppose this would have been like if we have made it to Bagnoregio but not over the bridge to Bagnoregio Civita, the old city -- there's no comparison.).

It's the journey.  It's the journey, I remind myself.  Sebastian tells me, "We were  happy before we found out that we were at the wrong church, before when we thought we had completed the walk.  Let's get some gelato."

I tell myself, Get over it.  But gracious, my mood has shifted.  The kids are physically exhausted.  I'm grouchy.

I nudge and nag the kids who have no interest in getting their feet back into sneakers.  We trudge a mile to the train station to meet Daniel, who thinks he can get the Fiat close enough to pick us up.  When we finally see him, the kids collapse into the car.  

Except Mary.  Mary wants to finish the walk.  She wants to get to St. Francis Basilica today.  She said she was doing the walk, and we came all this way to do it, and she wants to finish it.

The Fiat takes off with everyone except Mary and me.  Mary and I, fortified by way too many potato chips and determination, walk fast and hopefully and happily.  We are completing the walk!  Yes!  The final 4K is uphill, and we are just fine.  Happy, even.  Daniel and the kids cheer out the window as they pass us, and we cheer, too (picture above).

The top -- o the top!  This is what I could see from afar on the walk, and I wondered what it was.  The basilica is on the corner of the town; it looks like the top of the cliff.  It takes over the entire corner.  It's immense and majestic.  But when we go in, the ceilings are low and painted, and it almost feels cozy.  A priest is saying a mass.  The final song almost makes me cry and I don't even know what it is, whether it's Latin or Italian.  But it feels familiar, like home.

These guys walked most of the walk on their stilts.  Our goal was not to be behind these guys.

Connor's feet at the end of his walk

Green only in the distance here..but we're walking on an ancient Roman aqueduct!

Umbria

An Italian colleague organized SYA folks to do the Peace Walk October 7, 2018, from Perugia to Assisi.  Daniel was all in.  We were all all in: 24 kilometers, a chance to see Perugia, a chance to see Assisi.  We were so excited that we made reservations to stay in Perugia for Friday and Saturday nights at an Agriturismi Turistici, a bed and breakfast spot with a farm, outdoor pool, fresh breakfast, gorgeous grounds.  Having gotten economical deals at airbandbtype spots for every family excursion thus far, we were ready to treat the kids to their own mattresses (okay, three mattresses for four kids...but one was a queen, and this was still a step up from one or two kids on the floor, bribed with the prize of not having the middle seat in the Fiat for a day or choice of movie next family night...the latter not yet fulfilled from almost a month ago...need to get on that...) and a pool.

If you want to go the Perugina chocolate factory in Perugia, make your reservations well ahead of time: by Saturday morning, not only were there no available tours for Saturday, there were no available tours for two weeks.  Ah, well, we can still find chocolate in Perugia.

Also, if you are actually going to book the place with an outdoor pool, perhaps go to that place when it is still hot out and the pool is not covered for the season.

Rain.

Rain.

Rain.

But here's the thing: I, who need the sun, easily accepted this rain because I have been feeling starved for more green.  In Viterbo, the window boxes are vibrant, and the mini-palm trees on balconies add that Mediterranean feel; green hangs down some outside walls.  But Viterbo is also a medieval city with winding roads (intentionally confusing to stymie invaders) and a big wall around it.  It feels dark at times with the tall buildings, the cobblestone streets, the maze of roads.  Outside the walls, a mere thirty yards from our apartment, there are trees and grass and even a small park.   But I'm used to the green of our yard (admittedly not as green as those of our neighbors), Prospect Hill trails two blocks away, Thayer Academy's campus and fields.  I'm used to spaces a bit more open.  I'm glad that we live in the city and within the walls of Viterbo: being new, we need the easily accessible liveliness and stores and people and Italian.  We need to be able to walk everywhere.  We are part of life here because we are within these walls.

And still: I've been needing a nature fix.

Umbria is the landscape I've been craving: green upon green.  I don't know the name of trees or the particular mountains I see, but I know that, even with Act I of Othello not yet prepped for Monday morning, I am so glad to be here in Perugia.  Everywhere we look we see grass and trees: at the agriturismi; on the ride into Perugia; from the vista spots in Perugia.  We don't have to make a plan to find a hike because we are surrounded by the green.

On the walk home from soccer today (first time!), Connor told me that he liked Tuscany, where we hiked in Bagno Vignoni.  He said, "I liked the forest around us and the hills and the fields.  It was awesome."  I agree with him: Tuscany was picturesque in every way.  It was like so many postcards and photographs and paintings that shout Tuscany.

But Umbria.  Umbria went beyond all expectations: green.

When I told a colleague about my love of Perugia and Assisi Monday morning, she said, "Yes.  The Italians call it il cuore verde d'Italia."
I gave her a blank look instead of my usual, ubiquitous, signalling-yes-when-I-really-have-no-idea -what's-going-on and want to be agreeable and appreciative response, "Si.  Si."

She smiles, "The green heart of Italy."

Almost two years ago I got texting.

Three months ago I got WhatsApp.

Usually Daniel picks the kids up from school.  On Wednesdays, the SYA students often have excursions, so I can pick up the kids from school.  Han and Con are out at 1:30, and the big kids are out at 2pm.  So I picked up the little kids and hung out with them for half an hour.  Two other moms were in this same position, picking up elementary grade kids and waiting for middle school kids.  They were wonderfully friendly.

(Waiting outside a seventh grade birthday party weeks ago...a Friday night at 10:30pm, we stood outside the pizzeria for the party to end; a circle of parents was nearby; one looked over at me, nodded to the others and said, La mamma de regazzo Americano.   I walked over the ten feet, introduced myself and put out my hand, "Buona sera.  Mi chiamo Maureen."  I shook all their hands in turn with a "Piacere."  One woman's face lit up and she cried, "Ciao!  Mi chiamo..."  I can't remember her name, but I remember her kindness. 

So pick up on a Wednesday.

Sonia is the mom of Francesco, and she is delightful and funny and friendly.  She offers to add me to the WhatsApp group for Hannah's class and for Mary's class.  Daniel is already on the WhatsApp group for Sebastian's class.  (We should hook ourselves up with Connor's class...when a boy in his class wanted Connor to come over to play, his mom called the SYA director to get our contact information.  This family is hosting an SYA student for the year, so they could contact SYA.)  I am thrilled: how kind of her!  I'll know what's going on!  We can help the kids know what's going on!  Maybe I can practice my Italian -- reading and writing.

Alas.

Fifty-six messages daily from Hannah's class.  What's the math homework?  There are seven October birthdays.  Please bring money for the birthdays.  What's the English homework?  Here's an invitation for Leonardo's birthday.  What's the Italian homework?  We'll bring a snack tomorrow to celebrate the feast day of St. Francis, so the second graders don't need to bring snack.  Did your kids write down what pages to do in the blue book?  or is it in the red book?  There's another birthday next week.

Some nights I sit on my bed with WhatsApp on my phone and google traduttore on my laptop, and I read all the texts.  Other days, I am lazy, and I ask a colleague to listen to the message (troppo veloce per mi!), and they tell me, "There are birthdays.  Bring cash."  Or they tell me, "Yes, ask me.  You do not need to read all these messages.  Ten just say, 'Grazie.'"

Last night I rsvp-ed for Hannah for Giorgio's birthday party next week (at McDonald's...apparently McD's here uses real and local beef...and KFC uses local chicken...while I've not yet tried either, I am still quite pleased by these small details -- go, Viterbo!). This morning I bragged to Hannah, so pleased to be on top of things for her.  I showed her the WhatsApp message I sent.

Alas.

It's the party for Giorgia.

Junior English

Day One

SYA classes started yesterday.  After reading students' intro letters to me three weeks ago, in which many expressed enthusiasm for the Harkness approach, I decided I had to do it.  Not entirely, but twice a week.  Some years ago our TA English department had a Saturday workshop on Harkness.  I loved it, embraced it, and then tried in with my ninth grade English class about three times per year.  I've been a little scared of it: what if the discussion falls flat?  what if the kids don't get anything out of it?  is it lazy teaching on my part?  what if we don't get do all the themes that we should during these discussions?  In truth, I worry about this final question whether we are doing Harkness, or I am leading the class myself.  I'm not sure whether this is my insecurity in my teaching or in my knowledge, or whether it is a product of my going to Catholic school for thirteen years -- being told and believing that the best answer is always the right answer, that there is, in fact, a right answer.  I find myself even now thinking that there is a best answer to questions or a best way to teach a book.  I know there's not because I've seen colleagues approach and teach the same texts myriad ways, and I admire more than one approach (I often sneak an extra copy of a nifty handout on things I'm teaching and things I'm not from the copy machine in the foreign language office at TA...it could be assignments on the same book from two different teachers.  I don't judge whether one is better than the other.  I get greedy for the ideas of both...and how I can use my ideas plus theirs in my class).  But still, sometimes this thought creeps up on me...what if I'm not doing it right.

When I was working out essay questions on Flight, I emailed a friend who had taught it before.  She answered my email request a few hours after I posted my questions -- which, actually, were based on the discussion questions and exit tickets of the students that day.  I was pretty excited about my posted questions, about the kids' questions really.  But when my friend's email arrived, I couldn't help myself: I read her questions with a critical eye, not towards her but towards myself: had I covered the topics she had found most important?

This second-guessing myself is not new.  I always want to be the better teacher, the best teacher, as I say, to make sure I'm getting it as right as I can.  And I know in my heart and in my head I that the most important thing is to prep well, be totally present in class, and to listen.  Above all, to listen.

Day Two

Three minutes into first period the students let me know that, while I did post the homework last night online, I did not publish the date so it did not show up on their online calendar, so the majority of students haven't done it.  I have no back-up: my lesson was based on that homework assignment.  The only thing that comes to mind is to swap plans for day 2 and day 3.  We're doing Harkness with no more debating or self-doubt or analyzing or researching (will I be put one day into this position when I have to drive the standard Fiat?).

It's good I had no more time to plan and read about Harkness discussions, to search again my google drive for my Harkness workshop notes.  We spent ten minutes talking about what makes a good Harkness discussion with kids who hadn't done Harkness asking questions (e. g. what is it? what's the purpose? how's it different from a discussion?)  and kids who have done Harkness contributing most important aspects (don't interrupt; listen; use the text; include everyone; three before me; be concise; be patient with the pace; let silence be okay; disagree respectfully).  I made a student map while the kids took a moment to think of questions and topics on Sherman Alexie's Flight, and then we -- or rather, they, jumped in.

They amazed me: they covered more ideas and quotes and themes than I possibly could have navigating the discussion from one idea to the next.  We have work to do -- we need every single student to speak during discussion, but we got a super start.  I read in one spot, Don't do Harkness unless you can do it regularly and often.  New plan: twice a week, no exception.

Reverse Teaching/Coaching/Club Leading Paradigm

In independent schools, many teachers coach sports and/or lead clubs.  The reasoning: it's good to get to know kids outside the classroom, to see them in another way, to learn about them, to work with them as they shine or struggle, to develop another relationship with them.  I coached for seven (I think) of my twenty teaching years.  During and after that, I advised clubs.  The reasoning works in reality: I have developed relationships with students outside class; I've gotten a new appreciation for certain kids; I'm a better teacher because of these outside interactions.

This year, the order of knowing was flipped: I worked with the SYA students for three weeks outside the classroom before we ever had a real class together.  I talked with them as they worked through orientation activities, adjusted to host families, retreated in Terracina for three days.  One student approached me about starting an SYA literary magazine; three others came to see me about moderating the academic work that accompanies the orientation activities; an advisee set up a meeting about food issues with her host family.  I read the students' homework and essays, so I knew some about them as students, but I didn't know their classroom personae at all.  I knew some reading and writing skills, some homework routines and standards, some issues or interests outside the classroom.

In this first full week of classes, I had some of my observations and assumptions about students challenged.  I learned that one girl was a lot brighter and more engaged with the literature than I had imagined; that one boy was less cocky than he seemed and a better listener than I had seen outside class.  Some kids, whose writing was mediocre, gave brilliant comments in class.  A girl who seemed to have it completely together was paralyzed by a writing assignment since her home school does different types of essays (and her teacher grades different from how I do...do all teachers hear this accusation yearly?).  After class this week one kid recommended I read Siddhartha; another recommended the short story "The Lie" by Kurt Vonnegut ; another the website mcsweeneys.net.  They told me about the difference between Ted talks and Ted X talks.  The morning after I assigned Brene Brown's Ted talk on vulnerability, one boy started the conversation with the comment, "I'm so glad that you assigned that Ted talk.  It's really relevant to our experience this year in SYA, and it gave me a lot to think about in terms of putting myself out there."  Another girl soon followed up with, "I related Brene Brown's points to Flight and to Zits and to his journey in becoming more vulnerable and letting people in."

Teenagers have so much to say.

So much to teach.

Just listen.

(Well, prep and grade and listen.)

A few photos before I erase them from my phone...

First day of school at Santa Maria del Paradiso

Star Wars bamboo saber fight at Lago di Vico

Capalbio...life imitating art

Santa Rosa Procession -- awaiting the macchina at Fontana Grande

Boulder climbing at Cimmino beech forest 

Friend took this photo at Sperlonga and sent to Daniel...that's me in the distance taking a walk -- such a September school day treat.  Daniel responded to friend, "Now I'm thinking perhaps we should have come on the school trip."

August 30, 2018: Hannah's birthday: Hannah and Connor licking up her spilled birthday Fanta from dining room table lest any go to waste

Polyphemus (reconstructed) sculpture from Tiberius' grotto at Sperlonga (SYA trip)

 SYA faculty (there's me!) at Sperlonga

Cinqueterra hike at Monterosso al Mare

Hannah in a faghetta (beech tree) at Cimmino (20 minutes from us)

Stop on way to Cinqueterra: the well-kept, gorgeous Capalbio

Sleeping quarters for one night: a yurt in Rosignano Marittimo, Toscania

Con and Hannah imagining another yurt on site?

Connor at the terme -- hot hot! (10 minutes away...recently filled a water bottle here and used the natural spring water to heal my stye...it worked!...or was it the eye drops from the Farmacia...or the chamomile eye drops from a colleague?...we'll never know, but thank goodness my eye is opening more easily again...)

Nostalgia for Summer: Viterbo by Gelateria

Gelataria Antica
The first gelataria I went to here in Viterbo, and the first one I took the gang to the day they arrived.  Daniel's favorite.   Super flavors.  At Porta della Verita.  A five minute walk from our apartment which I can turn into thirty when I take a wrong turn.   (Not kidding.)  Also on possible route home from kids' school.  How many days will they stop by on way home if they are walking home themselves?...only gelateria open tonight at 9pm since it's gotten colder, and summer is over.


Cream Italy
In Medieval quarter of town (= easiest place to get turned around).  Daniel claims that he got smaller scoops than the rest of us.  We've gone back to test his theory and to see if we can get him bigger scoops.

Polozzi
A Mary find: They put chocolate in the cone before the gelato.  Then, when you get to your cone, the chocolate has hardened, and the cone has become a sort of cookie.

one up the street from us -- I can't figure out the name
When it's approaching 9pm and too late to motivate the adults and the gelato intake is at a negative for the day, the kids say, "But we can go right up the street!"  We parents give in, and up the thirty yards they go.  Smaller scoops if they get an employee-in-training; bigger scoops if not.

Gelateria Gelart at Piazza del Erbe
Great seating area outside and open late.  Also across from Tiger, a store the kids frequent for a massager, slime (which I am now officially banning), hair scratcher, caramel sticks.


Polozzo
Not a chain to be confused with Polozzi in Piazza Plebiscito (which the locals call Piazza Commune).  This one is special because it's a gelataria and pasticceria in one.  On Sunday afternoon, half of us got gelato and half of us got cannolli...and then Daniel went back in and got everyone more cannoli and pastries.  We sat on benches and tried everything, walked to the park across the street, then back home, where Daniel's sweet potato pie awaited us for dinner.  When we arrived home, I tried to get the internet working (it goes out every three days or so), Daniel worked on dinner, the kids discussed which movie they'd watch (big news last week: we signed up for Netflix...first month free...).  We agreed on Back to the Future, classic '80s.  The next day as we ate lunch Mary said, "You know, we didn't eat dinner last night."  Gelato, cannoli, pastries, a movie.  She was right: we forgot to sit down and eat dinner.

Bagno Vignoni

When we get out of the car at Bagno Vignoni, Sebastian is teary.  I think he's just hungry.  We're going for another 3pm lunch; one of these trips we'll master the art of planning and finding restaurants open for meals at the right times.  Finally he tells me, "I had planned for us to hike, then have lunch, then go to the hot water spring, and now it's 3:30, and we don't know what of those we're even going to do."

He's right.  Entirely right.  Last night Daniel and I flipped through Italy guidebooks looking for a spot for a day visit.  When the kids were antsy, we said that they could participate in the planning.  The two of us had been going back and forth, indecisive, open to too many options and not enough at the same time.  Ten minutes later Sebastian told me, "I found a place.  We're going to Bagno Vignoni tomorrow.  We're doing an 8 mile loop trail hike, then lunch, then going to a hot spring."

Daniel and I were thrilled.  An hour and a half ride, a hike, food, a terme.  We were in.

The next morning we grab colazione at Happiness Cafe two blocks over, feeling like normal, relaxed folks on an Italy Saturday morning.  When Daniel goes to get the car, some of us pop into the cartoleria (stationary store) to get school supplies.  We text Daniel, and he decides to go get some of the kids' books laminated/covered (per school policy).  We buy more pens at another store, meet up with Daniel, then head to Upim (department store) to get school clothes for Connor.  When Upim doesn't have all the clothes we need, we head to OVS (another department store).  When Upim and OVS don't have the pencil cases all the second and third graders have (who knew?), we stop at Ipercoop.  Then.  Then we leave the environs of Viterbo and head to Tuscany.

So, yes, Sebastian's right: he made a super plan, and we are not executing it.  Or we are executing it six stops and four hours later than planned.   We can't even find lunch.

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Hannah and I find the red and white trail signs while we await cold sandwiches (post gelato) at a bar good enough to serve us at Bagno Vignoni.  We meet a man who advises our calling a friend of his in Viterbo ("the richest man in Viterbo," he tells us.  "Call him!  He'll have you over!"...this fact, that this man is indeed the wealthiest landowner is confirmed the next day by a Viterbese at the SYA picnic).

We hike the eight miles with the Tuscan hills around us and the river nearby.  Hannah gets soaked in the river as we all jump from rock to rock.  The kids play some bodyguard game in which we often hear Connor jumping out of the bush to scare someone.  We chat.  We admire the country.  We take breaks.  Talk.  Sit.  Walk some more.  We wonder, Can we do that peace walk from Perugia to Asissi in a few weeks?  Is it double this?  We know we have more walking to do.  Our feet hurt (no, we're not experienced hikers).  We're so proud of ourselves (okay, likely all of us except for Daniel, who knows that this is not a very long hike in real hiking terms).

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We find our accommodations when we are about half an hour from finishing the trail.  Alto Vignoni. Daniel contacts the apartment owner, who has not actually received our reservation.  No matter: within moments of the phone call, the owner's wife and son and daughter have made up beds and welcomed us and are ready to drive us to a nearby restaurant for dinner for a 9pm reservation.  It's 8:30 now.

But Sebastian wants to finish the loop back down to Bagno Vignoni.  We don't want to offend the owner, but we respect Sebastian's wish.  He's 12, and he's planned a simple, good, doable family trip.  In halting Italian I explain some to the owner, and Daniel explains some more to the owner, and his wife expresses her opinion that we're crazy to walk in the dark, and the son offers us his flashlight, and off we go to finish our loop to and find dinner in Bagno Vignoni.

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Sunday morning.  The final part of the outing is the terme: the hot springs.  Preferably free.  We are almost ready to leave, grab breakfast, and find a terme.  And I slow everyone down.  I feel pain that I have never experienced (other than childbirth) before.  I can move only slowly.  I am reminded of having small kids with diapers and cleaning up after them, but there is no one to clean up after me except myself.  I can't believe it.  I am entirely incapacitated.  I will forever have more compassion for those with constipation and diarreah (don't we always think we will?), and especially for those with both at the same time.  I cannot fathom how this has happened.

Luckily, I have extra shorts and Sebastian's long shorts fit me, too.  A Dutch woman and her twenty-something daughter see me sitting in pain in the piazza and overhear my talking with Daniel trying to figure out what to do, how to move, what's next.  When it's just me and one kid again, the woman turns to me and says, "You're not feeling well?  Your stomach?"  I nod yes.  She says, "Here.  Take four of these with a lot of water.  They'll settle your stomach.  They take care of bacteria."  I don't know this woman.  Likely I'll never see her again.  And yet she is so kind, generous with no agenda.  I trust her entirely.  I take her pills (which have the town Amersfort written on the back...and this, to me, is a sign, a good omen, since Daniel's brother and family used to live in Amersfort, and we visited there four years ago).  A friend from home sent me a short video this summer on reasons it's good to travel.  One of the reasons was something along the lines of, You learn to have faith in people, to trust others.  Here's this random woman and her daughter and their pills.  People in the world are really this kind, this generous.

We see cars at a bath, but there's no parking space, and we keep driving.  When we finally park, we cross the road and check out some waterfall-esque steps where the spring comes down.  The kids immediately climb up.  I think the sulfur might cure me.  I walk in gently, climbing slowly.  It's warm, but not hot this low.   The kids climb and climb, laughing laughing, slipping, laughing, screaming.  I hang on to long blades of grass, the clay-ish ground beneath, using hands and feet to move, afeared of more internal accidents.   (And I'm thinking that even though I really hate the spot I'm in physically, I'm still pretty sure that it's easier that it's me rather than one of the kids.  There's so little to do for them when they're in this position.)

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On the way home, we go to the SYA family picnic -- for students, host families, faculty, staff, families -- at Lake Bolsena.  The kids swim and play chicken fights.

It feels like summer again.

And the pills work.

Cliche

I'm trying to think of a better cliche than the honeymoon is over.  But it's 5pm, and I've just finished grading 44 homework assignments (all reading questions on novel Flight), and I still need to use google traduttore to read the Paradiso form that I've now signed and handed in twice -- once for Mary and once for Sebastian -- about policies and procedures at Santa Maria dell' Paradiso.  So I'm sticking with the cliche: the honeymoon is over.

Honeymoon was gelato every night, dinner at 8pm, a walk every morning, some stretching every day, talking with Daniel, kids reading on kindles for hours on end.  Today Daniel was up at 4am prepping for his sixth grade English class; I head out tomorrow for a three day trip to Nympha (sp?), Terracina, and Sperlonga with SYA (Daniel and kids could come, but they have opted to stay home to get into a groove here...I am regretful that they're not coming because Sperlonga is a beautiful beach and Nympha is a stunning garden and we'll see Tiberius' grotto at Sperlonga and sculptures of the adventures of Odysseus...and I know that it is good for Daniel to teach this week, only his second week of classes, and I know that our kids should be in school not for the academics as much as for the getting some Italian practice, continuing to get used to the school, the kids, the language...); the kids have homework and are way behind on chores (baskets of unfolded laundry await the folder; baskets of dirty laundry await the runner).

We haven't grocery shopped in over a week, and not because we've been to Costco.  We did go to Tuscany over the weekend and eat at the SYA family picnic at Lake Bolsena on Sunday, but now we have no excuse other than...well, other than being overwhelmed.  The past two mornings Hannah has gone across the street to the pasticceria to get cannoli and pastries for all of us for breakfast.  We've eaten lunch at the Mensa (where SYA faculty and students and faculty families eat -- a gift).  We've eaten the picnic leftovers for dinner.

Pathetic of us?  Entirely.

Alas.

We are learning.  And trying, trying to remember to give each other a little TLC in the process.  Not always, but sometimes.

There are some big changes going on, and we are all feeling it:

1.  Connor and Hannah need to wear jeans and white polos UNDER the smocks.  They thought they had freedom.  We did, too.  After day one, Connor told us that he needed said clothing, so Saturday we hit four stores to find what he needed, and we still didn't find short sleeve white polos.  As I passed Hannah in her school hallway yesterday, she pointed at the other second graders and whispered, "I need the clothes, too!"

2.  Homework.  For the most part our parental involvement in homework has been, "Have you done your homework?" and sometimes we even forget to ask this until breakfast.  I generally look over the little kids' work not to check the work itself, but to see that they have been neat (often not).  Now they actually need our help.  I realize that soon we will need theirs.  But my goodness, we need to set aside an extra hour or two a day to do this Italian with them.  My goal this year: to be almost as fluent as a second or third grader, or, if not that, to be able to complete second or third grade homework (sans google).  Last night Connor and I read about a girl who wanted to wear a silk dress for the first day of school.  Rossa, scuola, nuova, gonna (maybe?), vado, compagni, sole, sia, va, sono.  We'll get there.

3.  Kindle reading in English now limited to 20 minutes per day for kids.  This is so harsh.  SYA director's wife/also a friend/colleague and our contact for Paradiso (yes, they do call her and not us to communicate what kids need, kids' behavior and attention, etc....puts a lot more pressure on us as parents -- no slacking!  At home in Waltham we are forgiven for being late, missing deadlines, forgetting things at their elementary school...here we actually need to do the correct parental thing.  This is entirely daunting.  She is becoming the parent of us parents.) has suggested such kindle limitations (and really, the kindles have no apps, only books) nicely...after Paradiso direttore called her to offer to meet with big kids out of class daily to help them learn Italian.  In other words, Paradiso is doing its part, and it's time we did ours.

(Sebastian requested that I follow this 20 minutes only of English reading daily...I pulled the adult card -- I just can't commit to this.  A friend once told me that it's good for kids to realize that, along with responsibilities, there are benefits of being an adult.  I am so going with this rationale so I can read before bed -- not that I find myself with more than 20 minutes to do so anyway...hmmmmm...)

4.  No movies in English.  Only Italian.  See #3 for source of this idea/mandate.

5.  Italian practice every day at home.  (Again, see #3.)  Duolingo accounts for everyone by the time we went to bed last night.

6.  We need trip #8 to cartoleria to get school supplies.  We never get it all.  We think we do.  By the next day, we realize we don't.  After our third trip, the owner started to like us.  (On our first trip, he just spoke in fast Italian, and I nodded unknowingly and returned to the shelves of notebooks.  He looked disgusted...or perhaps I was self-conscious and imagined such.)  Yesterday he and I even shared a laugh over the kids' dropping things again and again.  Me: a total look of frustration and mortification.  Him: a gentle and amused smile.

7.  We've got to get kids to school on time.  At Paradiso, one minute late = one hour late.  8 hours = 1 missed school day.  Do I care if the kids are absent some?  No -- in fact, we plan to pull them for my vacation weeks and school trips (other than this week).  But I can't have Paradiso reporting to my colleague/friend/our contact that we are not getting the kids to school on time.  Tricky tricky.  And yes, I know it's good for the kids to get to school on time.  I do.  New habits are hard.  (At home, it's easy to get to TA on time.  Of course, since Plympton is three blocks away, it's much harder to get there on time.)

8. Bedtime has got to be earlier than 11pm for everyone.  Challenging for all.

9. Parenting must kick in again -- it's time to find ways to get kids involved in life here.  Soccer or dance or basketball -- just activities that will help them meet kids and do things they like.   But this means we have to find where and how and when, and then work that into the schedule.  And we might even need to speak Italian to sign them up.

[When Sebastian was almost a month old, Daniel took him out for a morning, and I was home by myself.  I went for a walk and ended up along Lexington Street, just a busy, ordinary street in Waltham with Blockbuster (where I went in for a movie -- I loved Blockbuster.  It was like a book store for movies.  So much better than shopping online for renting movies or buying books...).  I remember walking along and suddenly being struck by our having a newborn.  And I panicked.  I thought, Oh no!  How will we know what activities he likes and what to sign him up for?  How will we sign him up?  How do you do this?  How do you help him with life and hobbies and fun stuff?  How will I know how to do this?  How did mom know how to sign us up for life?  I cried.  There on Lexington Street outside Blockbuster, alone, likely still bleeding and exhausted.   Feeling overwhelmed manifests in all different ways for folks, I suppose.  I'm not feeling that dire at the moment.  This feels practical, doable, get-my-head-around-able...and yet...]

10.  We need to work.

What's still normal: we're hanging out, not being a well-oiled machine, laughing, crying, talking, listening, working, fighting, eating, nagging, making lists, figuring things out.

At 9 o'clock last night as I finished up homework with Connor and Daniel finished up with Mary, I say to Mary, "It's not like we thought this was going to be easy."

Through watery eyes, she smiles.

Paradiso at last (i.e. kids' school)

Day One

I rush the kids down the streets and up the streets, and Daniel follows with Connor -- all of us attempting to get there by 8am.

Hannah's teacher squishes Hannah's tiny cheeks and pulls her in for a huge hug.  Hannah looks a little scared, and I think her eyes fill up...or perhaps my eyes fill up and I am projecting on her. 

Connor's teacher pretty much does the same thing.  Oh, sweet pea.

(When we pull the kids back out of class for a quick kid photo, they all look like themselves, not scared or sad or anything.  I look at the photo on my phone all day, reassuring myself that they are just fine.)

Mary tells us that some kids shared snack with her.  No greater love...

Sebastian says the boys at recess let him play foosball first since he's new.  He's invited to a birthday party of a girl in his class -- at a pizzeria next Friday night.  He doesn't want to rsvp until he knows whether some boys are going.  I'm not sure how he is going to figure this out, but he'll find a way, I imagine.

Day Two

I rush the kids down the streets and up the streets, and Daniel follows with Connor -- all of us attempting to get there by 8am.  (We're working on it.)

Hannah tells me that she played tag with some girl at recess.  Afterwards, the girl says to her, "Domani qui."  (Tomorrow here.)  Hannah does not know the girl's name and does not care.  She has a buddy for recess tomorrow.

Mary comes home and talks about "my friends" at recess and how they rejoiced when she said a few Italian words. 

Connor holds hands with Federico on way to morning prayers.  Sure, all the third graders have to, but my goodness, it is quite precious.

Sebastian does four math problems for homework and is amazed at how long they take.  He sets up his duolingo account to practice Italian at home, motivated because there's a leaderboard (sp?) (this word has always confused me...I've imagined that it's much more complicated than it is...forse like finding and listening to a podcast or downloading music?), and he likes games and competitions.

Culture Shock

Today I sat down with our director and watched a Ted talk called something like, "Why Culture Shock is Good for You."  The speaker talked about how the more new a situation is, the more uncomfortable we are, and the less new it becomes, the more comfortable we become.  He had a nifty graph and everything.  And even though we were watching this to prepare for advisee meetings next week, I kept thinking variations of the following, Yes!  That's me!  Oh, that's so true.  Oh, gracious, I did that, too.  Man, I'm glad that I came here two weeks before Daniel and the kids.

It took me over a week to go to the fruit and vegetable stores one block and two blocks away because I liked feeling more anonymous at the Emme Piu, the grocery store just a seven minute walk away.  I could linger and struggle with the names of the foods, and no one was going to care or even notice me.  I was likely not going to offend anyone if I walked in, looked and looked, turned items over, didn't find what I wanted, bought very little, and left.  At Emme Piu I could listen to Italian pop or American pop (uncensored, no less -- gracious), putter, debate, wander.  There was a strange comfort in music and weird lighting and no one I knew or who knew me.  (I felt the same way about cappuccino: the first time I went to a bar for a coffee I went a town over (on my bike ride to Lago di Vico), very comfortable where no one was going to recognize me two hours later.   Someone here might notice my discomfort, my self-consciousness, and I might do something wrong to offend.)  Kristopher Gilmour (Ted talk guy) calls this culture shock -- my avoiding the local store in favor of something more comfortable.  I hadn't considered it this way, but I can see it entirely.

Yesterday Daniel and I went for a walk around 6pm.  (As we ate gelato afterwards, sans kiddos who were at home, I was thinking, When at home do we ever take a walk together at 6pm, then go for ice cream, and then deal with children and dinner and work afterwards?...then I had to consciously recall those two hours at 10pm when I was still grading reading questions on Sherman Alexie's Flight...which, side note, is quite wonderful to read with high school juniors...)  At one point Daniel stopped to use a restroom and I kept walking.  I walked up a pretty, shady, green, narrow street, and I had to laugh.  I thought, "Oh, golly, Maureen, you thought this road was so scary your first week here!"  Now I'm more comfortable and I'm not scared at seven o'clock at night on the exact same road.  This was the road I biked on for maybe half a mile my first week here.  Then today, the Ted talk....yes -- I'm more comfortable now, so this road is less scary.

This is not to say that I'm always comfortable.  I'm still working on the morning coffee break, which my colleagues are often nice enough to remind me of/invite me to.  At home at work/school during break time, I talk with a friend or colleague (often one and the same) in the hallway or check email or get started on the walk I want to take between classes.  I often do the same at the lunch break at home -- snacking on my Kind Bars and saltines and carrots and whatever else suits me.  I take a break from people-time, get a little more work done to avoid doing it at 10pm, eat what I like.  But here, I'm the newbie.  And I'm the American.  I know it's good for me to head to Bar 103 on the corner with the others, order my cappuccino (Nadia, the owner, now knows me, and this is good and lovely...and also somewhat confirms my thought weeks ago that someone would get to know me and I could totally be screwing up some custom or cultural norm), and stand there awkwardly while my Italian colleagues chat with each other or other folks who wander in or with me.  I just stand, try to drink quickly even though I really, really don't want to (I want to sit outside and sip sip sip and use my little spoon to scoop out the last of the sugary -- I add a good bit -- steamed milk that's in the cup at the end), and try to catch a few phrases.  No doubt I look horribly awkward, gawky American.  But it's okay.  I'll keep going.  I like the cappuccino, and even though I say little in halting poor Italian, I like the company.  Perhaps in a few weeks or months, my bar-coffee-break-awkwardness will be less new and more comfortable per Kristofer Gilmour's graph.  (I love the little glass of fizzy water the servers put out with your coffee.  I always think, Perfect: it will be so good after the coffee for hydration and for getting rid of coffee breath.  Yesterday I had an inkling that I was doing this backwards, so I asked my colleague Ale, "Are you supposed to drink the water before or after the coffee?"  "Oh, before," she said.  "You need to cleanse the palate before your coffee.  We take our coffee very seriously."  She smiled, not critical of my gaffe, just happy, I think, to share Italian culture with me.  Interesting...I feel just fine about my gaffe when I had so much concern/fear about making one for weeks...)

The kids start school tomorrow.  Unanticipated culture shock may be an understatement.  (Daniel and I feel it for them.  They seem strangely okay and even excited.)  They have gotten so comfortable around Viterbo: the guy at the pasticceria across the street gets them their cannoli when he sees them come in (they tell me); they've got their asking for gelato in Italian down; they can find most places we send them (including the olive oil store/museum I assigned them a couple days ago...and where they paid nine euro for half a liter of olive oil.  Wow.  I mean, that was the assignment, and it is really good olive oil, but....); they feel strangely confident that they'll learn Italian soon enough.  Connor and Hannah are actually excited about the blue with white collar smocks: this shocks and thrills me.

So many articles these days praise the lost art of letting kids just do whatever they like instead of structured activities.  For good or bad, we have aced this practice these last three months.  For every error we have made parenting in the past and present (losing kids; having kids not do homework; being snappy with kids; upsetting kids; getting updates from teachers because kids are not doing what they need to in school; dealing with electronics issues; being late for school; missing deadlines at kids' school; being late for activities; missing kids' practices because we just forget or fall asleep; etc.), we have been outstanding at scheduling very little for the past three months (even if it drives me batty at times when I get home from work and people are sprawled out reading or doing whatever they're doing and the house/apartment is a mess).

Here's what they've been doing for the past three weeks with virtually no schedule:

• They read a ton (Kindles have been a lifesaver, Daniel says.  If not for them, they would fight even more.) 
• They practice conflict-resolution (read: they fight a LOT).  
• They found origami paper this week in a bedroom, and the boys spent hours making who knows what shapes that have taken over the dining room table.  
• Hannah bought some pearl clay -- that made me think of slime and consider banning it; she and Connor made it into an octopus today.  To ban or not?
• They make forts (again, it thrills me and drives me batty as I think, Oh no, now this room needs to be cleaned up, and we now need to wash those sheets, dang it, and at the same time I say, Kids -- this is so cool! as they show me the entrances and exits and windows and nifty bells and whistles of their creation).  
• They sit around.  
• They lie in their forts with their kindles.
• They bake (Mary has made at least three batches of cupcakes and frosting, improving with each one as she finds substitutes for baking powder or vanilla or other ingredients that we get easily at home but with more difficulty here.  Again...the joy of baking...not so much of cleaning up....).  
• And yes, they go for walks (which we encourage) and use their spending money (which we don't) to buy gelato and cannoli and random silly things at Tiger.

Strangely, they never say that they're bored.  (But perhaps their fighting indicates they are?)

I grade a lot, meet with kids about showing versus telling in their essays, work on my cappuccino and bar visits.  Daniel works out how to keep his eleven sixth-graders engaged, running ideas by Mary and Sebastian and me (bad wife moment: Daniel, what are you doing for your first class today?  Daniel: We're going to read Wonder some, do an activity, work through a grammar worksheet.  me: A grammar worksheet on the first day?  Death by grammar on day one, eh?  Daniel: Thanks for the pep talk.  Oops.).  The two of us have been adjusting to work life a bit, and I'm sure we have more adjusting to do.  I've felt exhausted this week, and I'm not even officially teaching yet -- online teaching = assigning writing and reading and grading homework and essays every day...lots of grading...

Santa Maria dell'Paradiso tomorrow for the little people.  I have to wonder how many awkward cappuccino/bar moments they'll have.  Likely quite a few.  And I'll have to remind them afterwards that the awkwardness is okay and they'll get through it.   And it's likely even good for them.

I have to remind myself, too.

When summer is approaching and people are talking about summer plans and trips, I often find myself saying, "We hang out."  I mean, we do things: we go to Scituate; we go camping; some years we rent a small place for a few days -- one year in western MA; one year in NH.  But we don't usually take huge trips (unless we're going to visit Daniel's family in NM).   The kids play with their friends, we bike around town a lot, we go to the Y pool, we eat dinner together on the back deck.  We hang out.

Yesterday I had the same thought.  Sure, we're in Italy.  And travel generally sounds exciting.  And it is.  But really, when we're traveling, we're just hanging out in new surroundings, adjusting some, finding ways to be comfortable some, getting to know a place some, learning some.

Saturday Mary, Connor, Daniel, and I wandered the outdoor market in search of pants for Connor, then caught up with Sebastian and Hannah at the sculpture I call The Giant, but which I think is properly called The Awakening (similar or original in Washington, D. C., I think).  A huge head sticks out of the ground, so big you could climb on it.  But easier to climb is the left knee or the right foot.  The kids climbed and then slid down the shin.  We sat on the grass.  Daniel took a video or two.

When the kids got antsy and we all got hungry, we came home, ate lunch, read, napped (disciplined Hannah did some of her Italian workbook since school is starting soon; Mary started to set up a blog so she can do some writing).  Then we headed out to Baita La Faggeta, a forest twenty minutes away, where there are beech trees, trails, boulders.  The kids climbed rocks, ran, made up a water-bottle-rolling game.  We hung out.

We got hungry.  We ate.

The kids begged to return to the terme to wade around, so at 9pm we headed to the hot springs, strangely crowded and festive.  While Mary read her book, the rest of us sat in the hot pool.  Connor lost his watch en route from one pool to another; Sebastian returned with him to search, and they returned successful. (Phew.)

Daniel made the kids practice closing the windows of the car, closing the door to the apartment.  We talked: Mary is considering becoming vegetarian; Daniel may join her.  We called our nephew to wish him a happy birthday.  We called lights out too late, yet again.

A good Saturday.

Hanging out.

Adventures in Keeping Kids Occupied Until School Starts

Inspired by this year's experiential learning approach to orientation at SYA, some days I assign the kids excursions within the walls of Viterbo.  Here's a sampling:

Kid Challenges

Excursion #1: Lesson in Bad Parenting

Find:
4 gelaterias
4 fontane
4 chiese
4 piazze (they may not be in conjunction with fontane)

Kids left apartment at 6:30pm to start their scavenger hunt.  Viterbo is a manageable town inside the walls, and it was still light.  Daniel and I took advantage of the non-kid time to walk to the grocery store since we run out of food every three days or so (no Costco size store or American size fridge here).  Pleased with ourselves, we returned, hung out, and then, as dusk settled and darkness started to settle in at 8:10pm, I got worried (clearly not a new theme here even though I don't actually consider myself a worrier) and went out searching for them.  Nearly panicked, I called Daniel at 8:20, and he agreed that we needed reinforcements (his word).  I called colleagues Amy and Warren, who reported for duty, made the plan for stupefied (right word here?) me; unflappable Warren told me how he talked to the kids early afternoon while they looked at the map of Viterbo at SYA, so he had an idea of which piazza they might be in.  Five minutes later, Daniel called Pat, the SYA director (and a friend), and he and his wife prepared to drive over to help search.

At 8:40, the kids arrived home.  Upon arriving home, Sebastian exclaimed, "We did it!"

Mary had encouraged the group to head home earlier not because she was nervous (they were just fine) but because she thought that her mom would be nervous once it got dark.  (Good job, Mary.)

This day scared me plenty...but didn't stop me from assigning another excursion for the next day.  I did learn, however, to have the kids go out earlier in day, to give an ending time, and to give them one of our phones.


Excursion #2: Sweets always available.

Find:
4 pasticceria
4 porta
4 scalini/staircases
4 tabacchi

Savvy: Shockingly, kids could find only 1 pasticceria, so they ate cannoli there. Fortunately (?) for them, this pasticceria is across the street from our apartment.  Fortunately for me, they did not stay out til dark or past dark searching for other pasticcerias that don't exist within the walls.


Excursion #3: Practical

Find your way to Paradiso (their school...which begins -- finally -- September 14) and back, using a different porta by which to return.

They did this one easily and were quite proud of themselves and pleased with me that this excursion took under 45 minutes.

(Daniel was informed this week that he must drive the kids to school when it rains.  He hadn't planned on it.  He said to this colleague/friend, "Would it reflect on my parenting if I don't drive them when it rains?"  The answer an indisputable, "Yes.")  (Truth is that they'll be soaked anyway because it takes seven minutes to walk to the car.)



Excursion #4: Viva Santa Rosa!

Find all the sostata (stops) for the procession of the Santa Rosa macchina, thereby following the route of the macchina.
AND
Find names of all gelaterias we have frequented within the walls.

Not surprising: They texted me while they were searching and I was out walking, "Want to meet us for gelato?"  Of course.

Surprising: There are five stops, not four as they thought, on the route.  :)


Excursion #5: Mangia mangia!

Go to Emme Piu (the grocery store) with Daniel and learn the names of five foods.
S = farfalle, uva, uova, sausaggio, tostate, salsiccia
M =  lievito, zucchero, uova
C = latte, noi voi (not a food, but the store brand), mela, nutella (biggest jar I've ever seen)
H = ciccoria (my preparation was subpar, but I've had delicious versions of this green vegetable), insalata, arancia, pomodoro, melanzane, cocomero (full disclosure: Hannah had no foods when they arrived home, and I wanted ciccoria, so she came across the street with me to Frutte e Verdura and we picked up a few things)

This evening after dinner I noticed the kitchen door was closed.  Daniel and Connor were in there doing dishes.  Closed door set off alarms in my head: they are finding the Nutella that Sebastian hid!  I ran in, caught them, and revealed the hiding place (the tin in which we're keeping kitchen towels).  How did you know what we were doing?  Connor asked.  How do I tell him that 1) I have much practice in hiding and finding certain forbidden foods, and 2) I am as sneaky as they are so of course a closed door was a tip-off,  3) I so wanted some nutella, too, so I wanted to get some before they ate it all (not that there is truly any danger of such since this jar is huge).