Where in the World...?

Well, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, cats and dogs, my Italian journey is coming to a close. I have added knowledge, kilometers, and kilograms to my meager collection of all three.

Starting in San Remo, riding to Alzano Lombardo for my first real week and a 15 minute drive to Bergamo for two weeks, with a weekend in between spent in Venezia, followed by a hectically amazing week in Casteggio with my two favourite tutors, two weeks in Mantova with a fitting trip to Verona for two banished lovers visiting the Arena for a night of Aida (luckily no one died. For real, anyway), a party week in Prevalle, and a Kansas City Shuffle to Malo and back to Padenghe (right next to Prevalle near Desanzano), I leave Sunday for Rome to spend four days with my beloved Corinne before completing this fantastic 10 week adventure in Italy.

The real adventure starts in September when I leave for South Korea to teach for a year.

Punk and Popovic

This past week defied the laws of physics by reinstating my Buddhist philosophy that perception is (not) reality because the world is (not) my mind. Existence is internal. Insistence is external. Time is relative and irrelevant. Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

The week went by bloody fast.

A group of extremely friendly Italian girls showed myself and the other two tutors a helluva good time three out of five nights.

Monday night we went to Cisano on Lake Garda to enjoy the sights and Chuck Norris jokes. Noemi is the funniest person I've met here. Picture a female Italian Jack Black with a dirtier mouth (the bilingual community can curse twice as much).

Tuesday we went to the hottest hangout in Brescia. Ok, the only hangout in Brescia. But it was hoppin'. College dreds and hippy dropouts lined the train tracks sippin' on God knows what while groovin' to a punk band jammin' at the abandoned station.

Wednesday my host dad and his brother-in-law took me to see Ana Popovic live at the Soiano Blues Festival. A blonde goddess demonstrating her dexterity on a cherry red Stratocaster to us mere mortals while sending shivers down the spine of the mike.

Thursday carried the buzz of the blues onto a karaoke bar where I took a stab at the limelight by singing some Muse. I left the stage in applause from strangers to my friend who was promptly booed off stage. I felt bad between bouts of laughter.

Friday found me at a town festival of Salsa dancing and fried cheese, all quickly ended by a tremendous downpour due to the gods' tears of joy.

After departing on Saturday to a camp in Malo of 118 children, 12 tutors, 3 directors, and Michael (the most intelligent and well-organized etymologist I know), I was promptly returned to Desanzano due to a tutor's family emergency back in the States. While I understand the circumstances and wish the afflicted parties well, I miss the camp in Malo.

Aida in the Arena

The hell with Arabian Nights, Verona is hotter than hot, and in a lot of good ways. My white button down shirt suddenly translucent from liquid pouring from my body as if I were Aquarius (and I'm not; I'm Ares), Corinne and I shaped our bodies around one another without any more contact than fingertips to shoulders, despite the infrequency of each other's company over the past two months, while we looked down incredulously upon some of Italy's most talented musicians and operatic singers performing Aida in the Arena of Verona. The ancient stone benches held the heat of the day long into the night and amplified the porous leakage. After spending all week with a class of only five eight-year-olds, a small class even for ACLE, who created more cacophony than an army of banjos waging war on a civilization of cymbals, I was simply awestruck at the pure and absolute silence produced by the couple thousand patrons filling the arena as the orchestra let flow a sound of liquid silver. Without any electronic amplifying devices, the singers showed no difficulty in projecting their powerful voices to even the individuals, such as myself, sitting on the rim of the giant's cereal bowl.

Friendly Reminders

Behave as Mother says.
Do not chastise others for poor manners; they act according to education. Plus it's rude.
Say thanks and appreciate.
Give what you don't need to those who do.
Smile back or smile first.
Cry for joy as well as despair.
Believe in something beautiful.
Sleep only when necessary.
Walk when you can, run when you can't.
Don't go out of the way to step on ants.
Wear shoes infrequently.
Don't pick flowers when you can grow them.
Teach what you know and
Never stop learning.

Pasticcerias and Irish Pubs

My new host family in Mantova consists of a young divorceé and her adorable 8-year-old daughter. She owns a pasticceria with her ex-husband, who is the cook. The woman drives like her car is from Maximum Overdrive and she's out to exterminate humanity, and she hates me because I don't speak Italian. She is hilarious, though I'm not entirely sure she's joking.

Upon arrival, she took me out to an Irish pub with her boyfriend and their friends. And her 8-year-old daughter. But she didn't drink or anything cause she was our DD.

At 2 o'clock in the a.m. I was asked if I liked dancing. My normal response is no because I can't, but I have actually discovered I can in Italy. At least, they call what I do to music dancing. So I said, "Yeah, sure." They asked if I had €50, which was met with a cocked head and a furrowed brow. "For what?" I asked

"For the dancers," they said.

"OOOOoooohhhhh," I said.

I politely declined their invitation to the strip-club, at which point they returned my cocked head and furrowed brow. They asked if I had a girlfriend, which I do, and where she was. I told them Pisa. They said, "Let's go." I dissuaded them from making a 3-hour drive to Pisa at 2:00 a.m., but they insisted we go on Friday after school. I said, "Cool."

Casteggio

I have finished my first two-week camp. Thank you, thank you... please, hold your applause. The last two weeks were spent at the most hospitipal household you could ever imagine. I had not just a room, but an entire floor to myself, equipped with floor to ceiling windows looking out at their meticulous garden (from which we ate nectarines and peaches on a semi-daily basis), a bathroom equivilant in size to the bedroom with a walk-in glass shower and jacuzzi, and a queen size bed with a window that allowed the sun to wake me up every morning. I know for you late-risers out there that may not sound appealing, but there is something about having the first light of a new day soak your body with its holy goodness that makes everything right with the world.

I am now with a new host family (my third to date), and they actually have a view that tops my previous family. We ate dinner last night on their patio overlooking the city of Categgio as the sun bid us buono notte and crawled under its fluffy white covers. I will only stay here one more night, though, for reasons unbeknownst to me. Apparantly I move host families tomorrow. My current family drove me past the house yesterday, though. They own and operate a vineyard in their backyard. I'm talkin' acres.

Venezia

After the most entertaining train ride of my entire life Friday evening, me and five other tutors arrived in Mestra, a small town outside Venice, or as the locals call it, Venezia. We spent the night in an economically priced hostel and stayed up sharing past experiences and philosophising about life and handshakes. We awoke at six a.m. to a typical Italian breakfast, which consists of biscotti and café (which is totally not the bacon, eggs, waffle, and cereal I normally gorge upon in the mornings at home, and I'm still adjusting after three weeks), and rode a bus for ten minutes before arriving in the sinking city. I have not heard so much English spoken since leaving JFK International. Tourists galore. Though we were no exception with Demetra and Nicole sporting hoodies boasting "I heart Venezia" and "ITALIA" respectively. Not to mention Charlotte leading the way in her Captain's hat. We totally blended in.

The churches moved me. I knelt. I prayed. I cried.

We also happened upon a free art exhibit displaying original musical scores by Antonio Vivaldi and various string instruments from 800 to 1700. One was titled "violina minuté con tromba" and was literally a violin with a horn extruding from its body. One piano had the strings extending out of the side so as to enable the musician extra control over pitch and timbre while also giving the option of plucking instead of striking. I felt like I was in an M.C. Escher painting of musical instruments.

The whole city was beautiful. Oh, and Bobo, I totally have your wedding present.

San Remo

Italian Education (read Catholic Education)

If you have never attended a Catholic school, watch Doubt. Don't focus on the topic at hand in the film, just look at the manner in which class is conducted. There are, of course, exceptions to this, but as it is with many stereotypes, there is enough truth to carry a discussion. Arrigo, the founder of ACLE, holds a vision I now share to abolish the obsolete methodologies still in play here in Italy. His revolutionary techniques that are constantly evolving with every new discovery of effective teaching stategies have spread like Nutella on biscotti for the last 25 years. The results speak for themselves, but the children love to speak up louder (in English, if they so please)

Once held in a noisy park or an unused gym, these English Camps are now held inside the very schools that once chastised new ideas that disrupted the comfortable atmosphere created by placing the teacher in an authoritarian role. In less than an hour and a half, I myself will walk through the doors of a private Catholic school to go straight back into the courtyard to lead a group of 84 Italian students in a group song followed by a rigorous game of Octopus. The beauty of it all is we did not have to run a Crusade-like vendetta to infiltrate the school; we merely continued to demonstrate how effective modern kinesthesiological techniques can be.

Italia

I have never sat through an entire meal and not understood a word spoken before yesterday evening. It is intimidating but educational. I learned more Italian in one evening than I did in my entire week at orientation. It is the most beautiful language I have ever heard.

Today was the very first day in classes. I am working with eight-year-olds who love to laugh, which is good cause they thought I was hysterical. Unfortunately, that wasn't quite what I was aiming for, but they taught us at orientation that the muscles relax and the brain stores information more efficiently when you are laughing, so I went with it. I have never dealt with students younger than 11 (not to mention students who don't speak English). Needless to say, the whole day was an adventure. I love it, though, and I have a much better idea what to bring tomorrow.

I am going to eat the source of this intoxicating aroma wafting up the stairs, so please, feel free to envy me during my succulent feast. Ciao!