Sans the marzipan and tea this time, I am ready for writing again. I left off on the visit to Michael and his friends at the army base. Great people and good memories. The southern Canadians (thatd be Mike and I, so-called by his friends) faithfully cheered the Badgers, seeing a sweet victory of the axe, and then we all walked to the Arena (the U.S. Army base bar) while singing a little Taylor Swift. We sound pretty good as a group, maybe well go on tour some day, ha. Then checking into the army base, I always have to get [View Full Entry]

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Ciao (hello) to the outside world! Im alive and finally writing on the computer again. These past three weeks have been rather a whirl-wind of seeing family and friends in Italy and Germany, and even though Im kinda sick with a cold that I caught from Gabri, I couldn put off writing anymore. So now Im cozy here with a piece of marzipan and a cup of tea, and semi-watching the movie Stranger Than Fiction. (My parents didn really like the movie, but I find it inspiring and witty. Will Farrell is actually pretty cute while playing "I go the whole [View Full Entry]

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Maybe this could be my "breakthrough" week since being in Italy... I tried strange foods, did some more traveling and met more people by overcoming some shyness. To start off, last weekend I spent Saturday riding the mountain bike around the Euganean hills surrounding Montegrotto Terme, this time finally finding the Monastero Santa Maria, that should have been an easy 45 min bike ride but took me much longer because it's route isn't labeled and I kept having to ask Italians for directions. Here's my thing with directions in another language... I understand the basic context of a convers [View Full Entry]

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I’ve figured it out: it’s a 9 to 1 ratio. About 90% of the time I enjoy working for a musically-talented, thoughtful and amusing family for 5 months as a side job for taking a break after college. Andrea and Cecilia are getting me back into playing the piano, which I’ve stupidly ignored for about 4 years, they are always recommending places to travel, and this Saturday night Cecilia and I are going to a performance at the Roman outdoor theatre in Verona. Can’t. Wait. Then there is the other 10% of the time when I want to pull out my [View Full Entry]

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August 23rd-30th - another sunny and warm week passes in Montegrotto Terme, and I feel like the phrase “every day you learn something new” couldn’t be truer! I constantly learn new Italian words and phrases, and things that were at first intimidating are improving. Plus, the so-called “work-life” has its daily rewards as well… like the other day I witnessed Gioia ride her bicycle without the trainer wheels for the first time ever, and I was sooo proud of her! I even happened to have my camera with me, to capture her giant smile as she did some shaky cir [View Full Entry]

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Week number 3… Getting acquainted to a normal summer schedule here, where I work 4 days of the week and have off on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. Not that bad. Pretty much I hang out with the kids in the morning by going to one of the parks in town, then we go back to the house where I make some lunch and they take a nap for a couple hours. From 3pm until the rest of the day I have off, although I usually join the family for dinner/hanging out. I don’t think I’ve mentioned it before, but wow [View Full Entry]

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For their second week of vacation, Cecilia and Andrea moved us to the Isle of Elba. We caught the ferry at Piombino and arrived in the main port of Elba, called Portoferraio. A little history: this was the island where Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled to and one of his villas is located on the shores of Portoferraio (yeah, he really suffered here with a couple of villas to stay in). Even though the campground premises were somewhat similar to those of Cielo Verde (a little too cheesy and convenient for my liking), this week was much better because we went out [View Full Entry]

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Well I am already falling behind on my travel blog, oops. So for the sake of time, this entry will be about my first week in Italy. As I last mentioned, we (Andrea, Cecilia, Gioia, Gabri and I) crammed into their small car to drive the 3 hours to the coast of Tuscany, and we stopped in Siena on the way there. Andrea and Cecilia felt that this was a decent-length road trip, so they were shocked when I told them how my 4 roommates and I had driven across the States for 15+ hours in one day to reach [View Full Entry]

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My third day in Italy (although it felt like the first real day to be on a normal schedule) we left our house in Montegrotto Terme to go camping for 2 weeks in the Tuscany region. And wow, we had a tiny car to fit beach stuff, clothes' bags and food for 5 people. I am a small person, but even sitting smushed between two car seats was a bit tight for me. Cecilia being so thoughtful, she decided we must stop at Siena on the way to our campsite because she wanted to show me around one of her favorite [View Full Entry]

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Despite having jet lag that lasted a couple days after the 9ish hours of travel to Italy (with thankfully no flight problems), I jotted down some of my first impressions of the people I live with and of the Italian culture because I knew I'd regret it later if I didn't. So looking back to those first few days when I was hungry and sleepy at all the wrong times, I'll start off with a description of my family (aka my employers) who will be housing me in a small apartment beneath their own house for the next six months and [View Full Entry]

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