May 21st

Ciao to my wonderful friends & family!

I hope this post finds you all well. As many of you know, it was a rough start to this week. Kevin and I had to put Aspen down. It's been sad for me, but I'm feeling better and am able to remember the good times.

As for my adventures in Italy, it's going great. I'm so glad to be here and they're so glad to have me. I spend most of my days basically hanging out with Amanda, Ross & Lola. We don't do a whole lot, get up, eat breakfast, play or do some grocery shopping, fix lunch, put the kids down for a nap, wake up, play, eat dinner & get ready for bed.

I do get some time off, usually half a day or 3/4 of a day. Most of my days off so far have consisted of going to Arezzo and window shopping. Once I went to get a sketch book and another time I went for a canvas and some paints. Although I haven't used either one all that much. About three weeks ago I was able to go to Florence, it was a really nice day. One of my old college friends happened to be in town and we went with two of the professors from Santa Chiara.

Other than that I've been getting back into running. I try to go every day, but I'm probably only averaging 4 or 5 days a week. I go while Ross is down for his nap, around 4 o'clock. That was really nice when the weather was colder, but now that it's getting hot it's kind of torturous. Oh well, sweating is good for me and there's no way I'm getting up early in the morning to go. :)

My language skills aren't progressing as quickly as I would like. I'm getting the vocabulary, but having trouble putting together sentences. I am however, picking up on more of the culture. It's really very funny, from my American perspective. For starters, everything happens later here. We don't get up until 8 or so and we don't go to bed until 11. That goes for Ross too. It just blows my mind because I know Wyatt and Sierra (Kevin's nephew and niece) wake up at like 6 and go to bed at 8 or 9. But it's just normal here. Since Lola arrived I've been learning more about Italian theories on babies. They believe the baby needs to lay flat all the time. So all the strollers are these big baskets that the baby lies down. Not so unusual until you consider riding in the car... They take these big baskets and put them in the car so the baby can ride flat. I just keep thinking, what happens to the baby when you get in a wreck? They just go flying around the car I guess...

Another funny thing I've learned is that Italians have a serious phobia about sweat on your neck and the wind. They never leave the house without something to cover their neck incase they get sweaty. They believe if you sweat and then the wind blows you'll get a stiff/sore neck. I knew about this phobia, but I thought at 80 degrees maybe there would be some breaking point to this phobia. Nope... Today we were driving home and we saw a woman out exercising with a jacket tied around her waist! It's seriously 80 today and there's no coolness, even in the shade. Ahhh, it makes me laugh. It also makes me wonder what kind of traditions we Americans have that other foreigners think are funny.

There's a lot of entertainment to be had here. I've got to meet some real charecters through Amanda. One of my favorites in John Franco, Adriano's business partner. He's like 40, not married, no kids, and squemish as can be. The other night he was closing with his staff at the Garden (their bar) and one of his employees had a ceisure. Adriano happened to be working at the 911 call center that night and he answered the call. He thought his emploees were playing a trick on him, but when he realized it was for real he thought, "Should I send two ambulances? One for Mateo and one for John Franco."

To interject here, Adriano has two jobs. he works as a nurse at the 911 (or 118 here in Italy) call center. Half the time he answers the emergency calls and dispatches the ambulance, the other half of the time he rides in the ambulance to work at the emergency. His other job is working at the two bars he is co-owner of. One bar, the Velvet Underground, is the winter bar. It's underground and they have bands often. It's a great pub and I spent many nights there when I was here in 2006. The other bar, the Garden Underground, isn't underground at all. It's a bar in the middle of the park in town. It's really a great setup. They serve lunch & dinner and it's open until 2 in the morning as a pub. Parents bring their kids there in the day to play at the park while they socalize at the Garden with the other parents. At night the young crowd comes out to drink & socalize in the cool air. Oh, did I mentchion it's all outside? There will be pictures of it on my flickr site soon so you can get a better idea.

Anyway, we spend lots of time at the park & the Garden. Other people I've loved meeting are all of Amanda's American-Italian friends. There are a large group of mostly women who moved here after coming as students and have since married Italian men and have children. They're all really nice and friendly and I love hearing their stories. Another guy I really enjoy is Palo Bucceti. He's an older man and the music coordinator at the Velvet. He doesn't speak much English, and really doesn't want to try. Unless you get him talking about music. I got him started on Red Rocks (a concert venue in CO) and we had a 20 min conversation. He's verey good natured. Oh I could go on, there's Sorana, who is married to Mark. Mark moved here after college (a former Santa Chiara student) and eventually married her. She's very sweet and they're both fun to be around.

Really, there are lots more characters, but I'll save some for another day. That's about it for me. I'm going to get my hair cut today from a Lady who doesn't speak any English. That'll be interesting... :) Wish me luck! On Monday we're headed off to the beach for 4 days. Later this summer we will go for two weeks, but this is just a warm up. I hope I don't frighten anyone with my ghostly white legs!

Well, hopefully I'll be able to update once we get back from the beach. Until then!