A Couple of Little Stories

I Pooh - Last Friday, one of Italy’s rock-n-roll institutions, I Pooh (pronounced ee-pooh) played in the Prato, right outside our balcony window. Bill describes their music as “what Jefferson Airplane has become” (although Pooh has all their original members from the early 70’s), my aunt, who knows all things Italian, described them as “Italy’s version of the Who” (all Who fans would be offended at that analogy) and the local newspaper report on the concert the next day described the guitarist as the “best guitarist in Europe, in the manner of Jimi Hendrix & Van Halen” (whoa – that may be a stretch!). Of course, the newspaper also said they expected 100,000 to show up for the free concert, but only about 20,000 actually came. Isabelle fell asleep, but the rest of us had a lot of fun dancing and playing air guitar to these rock icons. It was great because we could watch them from our balcony and not have to go down into the crowd. It occurred to us later that the could have had a small party for those who would like the music, but not the crowd. I enjoyed the music (but I like almost everything), very 70’s-ish sounding, but really quite good and would be fun at a party – nobody would know who they were. I’ll get a CD and it will be perfect cottage or background party music. The boys liked them and Sam wants to download some I Poh onto his MP3 player. The picture is the boys standing in front of one of the 3 or 4 semi's used to carry the band's equipment as we were watching them set up.

My Little Bambina – Isabelle, right on “schedule” started big girl school (it’s called “first grade” but its really more like an advanced kindergarden program – its working out perfect for her) and lost her first tooth - middle right bottom tooth. Like all kids losing their first tooth it was hanging on by a thread for a couple of days, but no convincing, even from Sam who has had the misfortune of waiting too long and swallowing a tooth, could get her to pull it out or let someone else do it for her. Finally, on Tuesday morning, approximately 2 minutes before the school bus arrives, she decided it was ready to come out and pulled it herself. She came out of the bathroom with a big, slightly bloody smile and proudly showed us what she had done. Unfortunately, we could only indulge her glory of “girl who lost her first tooth today” for a quick minute and stuck her on the bus with a couple of paper towels and a quick word to Franco the bus driver. He told Bill (Bill thinks) that in Italy when the baby (“baby” is the term used young children, seems like most people use it to describe kids until they are about 6 years old) loses his or her first tooth you find a hole in the wall (everyone has plaster, so its probably not hard to do) and patch the wall with the tooth. I couldn’t really find anything on the web specific to Italy, one brief mention about the hole in the wall idea, but also another about a “little mouse” who comes and takes the tooth and leaves candy - apparently to insure a continuing supply of lost teeth! Anyway, since we are Americans, the tooth fairy on Europe-duty managed to find Isabelle’s tooth and leave her 2 euro. She was thrilled. And here she is, quitel proud to show off the new gap in her smile.

An Italian Picnic

Bill’s boss, Paolo, is a very warm, outgoing and gregarious man. He and Bill hit it off right from the start, which is another reason why we ended up here and not Bologna. He is the kind of person who sent me a bottle of wine when he had a last minute cocktail party which I could not attend because we couldn’t get a babysitter on short notice. I met him a couple of days after we arrived in Padova in July and the very first time we met he excitedly told me about the annual “picnic” for their department, out on a “farm” and how much fun we all would have at the “picnic.” There was no other information forthcoming other than the date, time and very fuzzy directions. According to Paolo, it was too hard to find so we should just call him from the autostrada exit and he would give us directions or we could follow someone. We called Paolo from the exit and got some bad directions which had us lost in the middle of who knows where and when we hadn’t arrived in about 15 minutes, Paola called us back and basically directed us onto the “farm” step by step. Weren’t we surprised when the picnic turned out to be at a vineyard and winery which was owned and run by the 80 year old retired chairman of the Biological Sciences department? We were also a little surprised that Paolo didn’t just give us one of the brochures to the winery which had a detailed map on it? In retrospect, I think he wanted to give us a little surprise about the “picnic” as he repeatedly referred to it. Thank goodness we were dressed for an Italian “picnic” and none of us was wearing flip flops or tee shirts. They had recently converted an old horse barn into a beautiful restaurant and wine tasting area. After appetizers & wine, we sat down and had a 4 course meal accompanied by the wines they make. We had pasta, vegetables, salad and meat. It is still unclear whether the meat was chicken, pork or rabbit – we kept the discussion about that somewhat quiet because I thought there might be some grade school dramatics about being served bunnies.

We were all a little tired because it was the afternoon after the big Marostica chess game and we had all gotten to bed way about 2 am. I guess we were probably too tired to do anything else other than sit around and drink & eat all afternoon anyway. It was an open, rustic area so the kids had plenty of places to explore and there were a couple of bird cages out in the yard with many pretty little parakeets. It was a warm beautiful afternoon, the food was wonderful and I think everyone at the party wanted a little nap after lunch. We got to meet all of Bill’s colleagues. Terri & I were sitting with a 30ish biochemist from Spain, Mehaney, her husband and her almost 2 year old who just wanted to follow Isabelle around (Isabelle in her typical behavior at parties with younger kids would have nothing to do with him - I tried to explain the idiom “getting a taste of your own medicine” someday, but was thoroughly unsuccessful). At one point we were all having so much fun, drinking and laughing, that Mehaney in her inattention mistakenly raised her wine glass instead of her water to give her toddler a drink who was at that point sitting on her lap. She was momentarily mortified at herself, but we all had a good laugh and no harm was done. Bill works with another beautiful biochemist who is always dressed like she just stepped out of a Milan showroom (even in the lab, according to Bill). She probably wanted to send us all home and redress us or better yet, take us shopping. But you will be comforted to know that most of the male scientist dress just like Bill, khakis and button down shirts – even in Italy, although they all have much better shoes on.

We had the opportunity to buy wine at the end of the meal for some shamefully low prices, but the line was long and it was a slow and tedious process. We knew we were in trouble when one person wanted to buy multiple cases and use a credit card and the cheerful answer was, “yes, but I have to run up to the house and get my book, I can’t remember how we process credit cards here.” We all had a great time and I think that everyone should grow grapes and make wine in northern Italy when they retire!

Marostica Pictures

Here are a few pictures from Marostica.
1) Sam on the chessboard in the afternoon
2) Entrance to the castle piazza
3) Chess "pieces" lined up to start
4) Chess board during the game
5) Fireworks at the end of the evening "raining" down from the lower castle

Marostica & The Chess Game

We went last weekend to the “Partita al nobil ziogo de li schacchi,” the Chess Game which is a tradition in a small hill town about 40 miles from Padova, Marostica. I can’t remember now how I found out about the famous chess game that is played only in the even-numbered years on the first weekend in September (so obviously it was our destiny was to attend), but I’m guessing that it was through Sam’s chess club or chess teacher. Chess in Italian is scacchi (pronounced ska-kee). The chess game recreates a story from 1454 when two men both wanted to marry the beautiful (of course) Lionora, the daughter of the lord of the Marostica castle. Instead of the usual duel, he declared that they would play a chess game, thereby saving the life of one of the suitors and the “loser” would win the hand of Lionora’s younger sister. The story continues that the game should take place in the square at the lower castle (there were two) and should include a festival, entertainment and armed living persons as the chess pieces. And that is exactly what we got to see – a Renaissance festival & chess game. There were over 500 kids & adults participating as actors, fire jugglers, clowns, archers with fire-bearing arrows, living chess pieces, flag twirlers, drummers, court jesters, dancers, fireworks, etc. We think everyone who lives in that town is in the show, community theatre at its finest. The whole show was about 3 hours (with no breaks) and the chess game itself was probably only about 30 minutes. But it was just incredible – the chess piece-people, including live horses for the knights were everyone’s favorite. Sam and Bill were very cute as with bent heads, they discussed each move as it was made. Although, they both said it wasn’t a very good game of chess and could see the mistakes that Black was making right from the start (White wins and apparently this is a good thing, because he is the guy that Lionora is secretly in love with, according to the story.) Also, the pageant itself was beautiful, although the kids were very tired when the flag twirlers came out (for the 10th time) at about 11:30 pm and since we were right in the middle of an aisle, there was just no way for us to gracefully exit – so we stayed.

Terri & David are here visiting from Seattle, so they came along with us and it was really a great fun experience of Italian culture and tradition. I’m not sure how long they have been performing this current version of the pageant. If you want to read more or see pictures, check out http://www.marosticascacchi.it/ Most of our local acquaintances have either seen it and or say something like, “I’ve always wanted to go to that. How is it?” We all loved it and have Sam to thank for his interest in chess in leading us to this grand adventure.

Bambini in Scuola

And "The Day I Thought Would Never Come" has come. I have just returned from taking the kids to their first day of school. Or more accurately, I rode the school bus with them and grabbed a ride home with some other parents I know. Everyone was so excited, including me. This kids are going to a private school, along the lines of a private prep school like Grosse Pointe Academy (for you Detroiters). The classes are taught in English, although I'm guessing about 90 or 95% of the kids are Italian - so we have the best of both worlds. The kids will learn Italian on the playground and they also have about 4 hours of Italian language and culture class a week and they have the comfort of their first language for most of the day from the teachers. They wear uniforms and everyone looked so cute this morning in their white polos, dark blue shorts and their blue baseball caps. The school put Isabelle in first grade and the boys in third grade because having English as their first language gives them a head start over most of the kids at the school. I think it may be more of a challenge for Isabelle because she is jumping right into a first grade curriculum versus the boys who are kind of in something that looks like grade 2.5. I'm a little sad for Isabelle that she is missing the soft and comfy version of kindergarden in the U.S. like the boys had. That being said, I'm sure she will have a great year and she (and I) are both ready for her to be in school all day. (And if she misses anything, no problem, she will do first grade again anyway next year.) Nick's teacher is a young Polish woman who grew up in Poland, Canada and Mexico and recently taught at an international school in India for 2 years. She has lots of energy and ideas for the class - for example, she wants each child to bring in a plant for the classroom to purify the air and already had all the mommies in an uproar because she wasn't going to have the kids study their spelling words over the weekend but wait until Monday. She and Nick will get along famously in the way that we were lucky to have had teachers at Richard who really understood & liked Nick for all his quirkiness. Sam's teacher is probably close to 60 years old and is the real life version of Professor McGonagall from Harry Potter - picture British school marm and you're there. Sam-structure-rules & order - can it get any better? She is a lot like his kindergarden teacher. Although, I know he had a huge crush on his first grade teacher, misses her terribly and will probably forever compare every teacher to his dear Ms. Bendure. Isabelle, who is now in her 3rd school at the tender age of 5 has a very nice teacher, who everyone loves and except for one other little red-haired English girl, none of the kids in the class speak a word of English. So we are expecting that Isabelle's Italian will be better than all of ours in about 2 months.

The kids ride a little bus to school and the bus driver is like having your smiling, friendly Italian grandpa give you a ride to school. There were a couple of other kids on the bus, one older boy from Maryland and an adorable 5 year old Italian bambina who was very proud to speak English to me and helped as a translator for me with the bus driver. And this being Italy, she stood up next to the driver for the whole ride so she could get a better look out the window. Sit down? Seat belts? Ahh, why bother?

The kids only have half days this week, so I will now go and enjoy my first morning of peace and quiet in a long time!

Postscript on the first day of school: Sam came home fighting back tears and said "You said my teacher was like Mrs. Schulte, she's nothing like Mrs. Schulte - she's Darbus!" (from the movie High School Musical which I am assuming that every child under the age of 16 has seen this summer - we know all the words to the songs, do you?) Mrs. Schulte was Sam's kindergarden teacher who he loved. He was also mad because they spent the morning learning to spell words in English that he already knew like head, bed, egg, etc. Although after some prodding, Sam told a great story about how the girl next to him in class, Sofia, asked him his name & age in Italian and he answered her in Italian. He was very proud of himself. He also earned 2 bonus points for being quiet when the teacher was talking. Isabelle came home with a big smile because the other little red haired girl that I thought was English (her name is Agnes) is really German and gave all the children in her class a gift from Germany. Isabelle got a little harmonica and spent the afternoon walking around Padova practicing to be the next generation girl version of Bob Dylan. Also, in gym class ("gynnastica" as Isabelle said) she won some running game called Bunnies & Foxes because she was the last bunny with her tail and proceeded to explain some game that sounded like a first grade version of flag football. I met the gym teacher, he is a great guy about 25, beefy with a shaved head & matching five o'clock shadow with a thick English brogue who just came back from teaching in Germany and as he told all the parents, "I'm a footballer and boxer" so the kids will have lots of fun with me this year. Isabelle thought he was a lot of fun. Isabelle also nonchalantly told me, "I chatted in Italian with one of the Italian language teachers today." When I asked her what they "chatted" about, she said "I don't know it was in Italian! Apparently, Isabelle's definition of "chatting" doesn't necessarily require that you really know much about what is going on in the conversation. Hmm, I know lots of people like that. Nick didn't have much to say, made a French friend and had big smiles on his face. Everyone was happy & ready to hop on this bus this morning, without me, which put a big smile on my face.

Ladies & Their Dogs

Buon Giorno - Let me sneak in two very short dog stories & a bank story before the ragazzi arise.

1) Motorcycle Nonna - We have a car this week and went out to the Italian version of Costco to stock up because it is kind of a pain to do using taxis and buses. (Of course when we got there they were closed because it was Monday morning - haven't quite figured that out, but that is just part of Italian shopping.) It is on a very busy street, like Woodward for you Detroiters, 6 lanes and a turn lane, the main shopping drag of a mall, sports equipment store, Mediaworld (kind of like a Best Buy or Circuit City), etc. We pulled up to the red light and stopped in front of us was a woman, easily in her late 60's on a full size motorcycle. While we are used to seeing all kinds of people on motorbikes, motorcycles and motor scooters, it is not often that they are with their dogs. This lady had her little dog, about the size of a beagle, sitting right at her feet (he must have been in some kind of little basket, but we couldn't see it from our angle). He was just looking around very nonchalantly. The light turned green and off they zoomed. As Nick so aptly put it, "That is sooooo Italian!"

2) Dogs Who Shop - Last night while standing in line at the very crowded Costco (it was finally open), a woman asked me if she could cut in front of me in line because she only had 3 things and I had a big cart, but more important she was also holding her little dog in her arms who was quivering - honestly, it was so crowded and noisy in there I wanted to quiver a little myself. So, of course I let her go ahead of me and we chatted (she had very good English because as she told me, her father was British and her mother was Italian). At this point a security guard approached her and told her she was going to have to leave because dogs were not allowed in a grocery store (can you imagine?). I could only understand about a third of the conversation between her and the security guard but it was something like,

"I'm sorry signora, no dogs allowed you have to leave."
"But I'm next in line and will be done in a minute"
"I'm sorry signora, no dogs allowed you have to leave."
"But aren't dogs are allowed in the main part of the mall."
"I'm sorry signora, no dogs allowed you have to leave."
"I'm going to pay for my 3 things and leave after that."
"I'm sorry signora, no dogs allowed you have to leave."
"I will leave when I'm done."

The security guard finally walked away out of sheer frustration - what could he do? She just rolled her eyes and gave me and the cashier a little triumphant smirk. You can't manhandle a 50 year old woman and her quivering little dog in line at the Costco in front of the hoardes of children who were all smiling and enjoying watching a little dog at the checkout. We all had a good giggle.

And one more fun vignette about life . . .
On Tuesday we were heading out for Aqua Paradise, basically a water park on steriods for the day. Its 90 degrees here again, school starts in a couple of days and we thought it would be a nice way to end the summer. We stopped at the bank to get some cash (almost all places prefer cash, and while some tourist places accept credit cards, it really is best to just have a big wad of cash with you at all times). The ATM was "non-funzione," and we were at the branch where we have an account. I went in to see if the Alessandra who opened our account for us was in and could let me make a withdrawal. She was not at work that day, so a teller stopped me and told me no problem, I could just make a withdrawal. I proceeded to tell her I didn't have my "documenti" and would go get my husband out in the car who did. She said no problem, what is your name? I had nothing other than my ATM card which is really no ID at all and this woman had never seen me before. I gave her my name, she looked up the account and proceeded to let me withdraw my 200 euro (about $240) and sent me on my way. Ah, the congenial nature of Italia . . .

Lazin' in Levanto

After our visit to Florence, we hopped on a train and headed over to the Ligurian Sea for a mini beach vacation. The train ride took us past the famous marble mountains in Carrara which were incredible to look out, even from a moving train window. Bill said his first impression, not knowing what those mountains were, was that they were snow-capped. Well, they might have been very white, but I think it is time for a new glasses prescription. When we came up onto the ocean with its rocky coastline, I think all 5 of us murmered “oooooh” at the same time, some of us louder than others. Technically, we were on the Riviera di Levante and stayed in Levanto about 5 km north of Cinque Terre Parco Nazionale. I planned too late (like the week before) to actually get a hotel room in the very popular Cinque Terre on the weekend of Italy’s national summer holiday, which is how we had the good luck to end up in Levanto. These places are all just south of the more famous Portofino and what I think is traditionally thought of as the Italian Riviera. That worked out great as because once again we were on a “road less traveled” by most visitors to Italy and included the ever present topless sunbathers. Interesting, most of the topless women are older, 30's & 40's in all shapes & sizes - the young babes keep a little bit of material on the top. Levanto is your basic beach town, reminded me a bit of Florida - lots of retirees, some hotels, 40 year old surfer dudes who came 20 years ago for college spring break and never left, souvenir stands and gelato stands. We stayed in a small hotel, Hotel Stella Maris, which I think had about 18 rooms. We had the “big” suite that was one room with a double bed, fold out couch with a metal contraption that actually made it a bunk bed and a roll-away. Since the top “bunk” of the bunk bed had no sides and was crammed into the middle of the room between the matrimonale bed and a dresser, Bill had to sleep up there with Isabelle down below and for just a split second I had a panic that he would come crashing down on her in the middle of the night – but a check of the metal holding up the top bed made us both believe that 2 or 3 people could have been on there and not brought it down. It was very cozy especially given that amount of furniture and decorative items in the room. The furnishings were very, very, very, very ornate (I can’t use the word garish because the people who ran it were just so darn nice.) as well as the frescos on the ceiling, pictures on the walls, lamps, various dressers, wardrobe, mirrors, curtains, bedding, etc etc. It was quite a contrast to the stark beauty of the rocky coast line and ocean. There was satellite TV in the room, but for some reason it was a German satellite service, so the kids were thrilled to see Nickelodeon for the first time this summer, albeit in German and is even more foreign to them than Italian, which they are reluctantly picking up. But honestly, Spongebob, Patrick and Gary (What? You don’t know who Gary and Patrick are? Go find a 6 year old.) are buckets of fun with or without the witty repartee. Right? And in case you are interested, did you know that in German Spongebob is Spongebob SquareHead versus the American Spongebob Square Pants and the Italians can’t be bothered with caring about either his head or his pants and he is known here as just Spongebob. (Oh my god, did you just read all the dialogue on Spongebob? I better get to work on my dissertation and quick.)

In the summer many of the places require that you stay “half-board” which means that you pay a higher price and in the price you pay for your room, breakfast & dinner. That was fine with us – we actually found a hotel room in a great place and the food was good enough, especially given that our fine dining options are limited with our traveling companions. The only problem was that dinner was at the sophisticated diner’s time of 8:30 and after a day at the beach, the ragazzi were STARVING! They chowed down the appetizer plate of all kinds of foods with textures and tastes they would normally shriek at (I loved it). Each morning at breakfast, the waiter took our dinner order from 3 or 4 items usually included some kind of pasta for first plate and second plate being fish, turkey, beef, salad, etc. One of the great things about Italy is that there is no such thing as a kids menu, so while there are kid friendly things like pasta, bread and broiled meats, the bad habit of serving children fried things ubiquitously coupled with french fries just doesn’t happen automatically and they are forced (by hunger if nothing else) to eat swordfish, clams and lots of other good things that for one reason or another I haven’t introduced to them as much as I should. (Probably just sheer laziness on my part.) Everyone staying at the hotel ate dinner together and the crowd was a mix of Italians, Germans, Dutch, an Australian couple, us as the lone Americans and a family from Toronto that had just moved to Geneva for the husband’s job.

The beach sand was actually very fine “gravel” and the last yard or 2 leading up to the water was very rocky – the kids were not bothered, it was just like the beach at the cottage on Lake Huron and so we are quite used to negotiating the rocks to get into the water. The first day the surf was very big and powerful, so the kids spent a couple of hours just running into the waves and being thrown back up onto the shore. We also got to see quite a few surfers practicing to various degrees of success. After the heat, crowds and museums of Florence, the ragazzi were happy, relaxed and having a great time which in turn makes the parents happy, relaxed and having a great time; a win-win as the cliché goes. The next day was rainy so we hopped on the train to visit Cinque Terre which none of the kids wanted to do after the fun of wave surfing the previous day and were only convinced because of the bad weather that there just wasn’t anything else to do and I believe we may have threatened them with a museum or church outing. Cinque Terre is a group of 5 hill towns literally built into the rocky hills on coast of the Ligurian. It is an internationally popular tourist/hiking destination and national park. (If you aren’t familiar with it, just google it and you will get more info than you could ever want about it.) There are a number of hikes along the coast and we took the easiest one which is supposed to take about 30 minutes but of course, took us over an hour because there were just too many rocky crevices to climb up, plants to look at, stones to examine, grape vines & olive trees to ogle and views to behold (the views are so spectacular even young children have to stop and be amazed!). We all love hiking and being outdoors so it was a great morning, the rain stopped and most of the clouds cleared. I had wonderful déjà vu from when I was introduced to Cinque Terre almost 10 years ago by Terri. We had lunch in a snotty restaurant, but it overlooked the ocean and had a view that compensated for the attitude. Then Bill spotted a playground and the kids had a great time playing on the monkey bars, swinging and doing all their other favorite playground things. It was just your basic playground like any small elementary school would have, but it had to have the most scenic view of any playground in the world. We had so much fun that day the kids did something they almost never do, they volunteered that they were glad that I “forced them” (I am so mean!) them on the hike. We only had one day at Cinque Terre and spent the last day at the beach, being beach bums, trying to catch little crabs, prying barnacles off the rocks, eating chips, pizza & gelato for lunch and enjoying the fact that even at the beach the espresso is hot, bitter, strong and served in cute little espresso glass cups. We got to watch a sailing regatta of small boats and asked about renting a small boat but unfortunately there were none available.

We headed for home on trains that we booked as “first class” and while we didn’t assume the stewardess type service we had on the fancy-schmantzy Eurostar, we (I) assumed a dining car of some sort. So while we had a 45 minute wait in the train station with mildly hungry children, I put them off with the idea that we would eat on the train. We had a 5 hour train ride back to Padova, so I thought it would be a good time-waster. Well, weren’t we surprised when there was no dining car, no food to be bought, we had 3 hungry kids and it was 1 pm – yikes! I think I had a stick of gum, a couple of cough drops in the bottom of my purse and a half bottle of water in the beach bag. (Bill wanted to feed the kids lunch at the train station but I talked him out of it and thank god, he was sweet and/or smart enough to not bring it up.) We were seated in one of the train compartments with an Italian woman who had just returned from a vacation in California. She told us all about how much fun she had at Yosemite and the Grand Canyon. The kids were very excited to show off and talk to someone in English but after about an hour proceeded to melt down with hunger and complain loudly and often “ho fame” (I’m hungry! I’m hungry). She pulled a small package of whole grain cracker/cookies out of her purse and offered one, but having little social skills and being famished, they embarrassingly gobbled down the whole package in about 5 minutes. I can’t imagine what she must have thought of us, but I’m hoping she got a good story out of it for her friends – a mamma with no food for her bambini. I’m lucky the Italian social services people haven’t shown up. We apologized profusely, she was very good natured about the whole thing and while it would have been too awkward to offer renumeration for a half eaten box of crackers, I did think of it for a minute. We arrived in Milan with only 15 minutes to change trains, so there was really no time to eat, but I managed to buy a couple bottles of pop and some chips from an overpriced vendor at the track. Luckily, there was a snack cart on the next train on we filled up on cookies and more pop to complement the chips.

We all had a fun little beach holiday and want to go back to Cinque Terre sometime before we come home – the kids like hiking as much as we do and they have deep water swimming right off the rocks along the ocean (you climb into the water on some rusty ladders that are somehow attached to the giant rocks and swim out to other big rocks more rusty ladders) and we (correction - he) told the kids they could try it next time. And that’s why you need two parents for any given situation – one who wants to keep you safe & warm (and sometimes fed) and one to nudge you into the water, no matter how cold & deep.

Our New Apartment

We have FINALLY moved into our permanenet apartment late Wednesday and it feels wonderful. The Bed & Bunnies was fine for a couple of weeks, but it was definitely time for some more space. The bedrooms were tiny, Isabelle was sleeping in the corner of the dining room and the second bathroom was over in the public part of the B&B. This was just fine for the first 5 weeks and the artwork and pottery was fantastic. However, that 6th week coupled with the late August doldrums that all grade schoolers get was, what's the word - @#%*!^&!

The apartment is beautiful, the garden (yard) is huge, we have a couple of 95 year old turtles living in the backyard (and more bunnies of course), the kitchen has a stove that Bill & I both want to get for our house in the States, and Isabelle is thrilled because she gets to share a room with the boys after years of complaining that she is the only one in our family who has to have her own room. "Why can't I sleep with someone like a REAL person?"

We have a perfect view of the famous, historic Prato della Valle, an enormous pubic square (oval actually) in Padova. Anytime there is a large public event here, it is held in the Prato. Right now barriers have been erected so that the Prato is a large (about half mile) in-line skating track, and there are races going on involving skaters from Italy, Germany, Belgium, Spain, and a country or two whose flags we can't identify. There is also a roller skating arena set up for exhibitions of figure (roller) skating and other performances. Last night we got to see some guys perform a juggling/dance routine with flags about 9 square feet in size that involved juggling with their arms and legs. Also, who doesn't like to see 20-something Italian guys wearing sequins and lace? We thought that there was going to be racing during the day and figure skating at night, but after the figure skating last night, they started racing again at 10 PM and went until after midnight and we are close enough to hear everything!

The couple whose apartment we are renting are Carlo & Silvia, two of the most charming people we have ever met. The B&B is owned by Silvia's mother who we got to live downstairs from for 6 weeks and now we will be living downstairs from Carlo's mother for the next 11 months. Nick said wryly, "You really can't ever get away from your mother, can you?" Poor child, he has already come to one of the core adult truths at the tender age of 8. Also, Carlo's mother is a psychologist and apparently sees people during the day upstairs so maybe if I can figure out how to describe all my emotional hot buttons in Italian I can get some free therapy while we pass each other on the stairs. Unfortunately, my Italian is so bad it will probably come out something like "my hair is a little sad in the morning when the visiting aliens eat dirt for breakfast" which will then cause the psychologist to call the people with straightjackets versus telling me to just get over it and exercise more.

I still have to tell you all about our trip to the poor folks Italian Riviera and Cinque Terre, but alas some suitcases are calling my name to be unpacked.