MONDAY June 1, 2009

A rainy day, never left the house but still enjoyed it. Woke up with the intent to go for a run, saw out my little third floor window that it was raining and snuggled up with a book. It’s fairly chilly up here when its rainy…hope we don’t have too many of these days. I don’t quite have the wardrobe for it.

The queen of cardigans somehow only packed two…

So I spent the day reading…still on “Eat, Play, Love” thought it would be too cheesy for me but have identified…(maybe too much) with the author. She goes through a terrible drawn out divorce, an up and down disaster of a follow up relationship and takes a year to soul search and heal. Four months in Italy to experience pleasure (the Italians value pleasure and beauty above all else) then four months in an Ashram in India to search for god, devotion, peace…and then four months in Indonesia to learn how to balance the two.

Reading her version of Italy…what learning the language…meeting the people…living the lifestyle was to her was kind of inspiring and an appropriate read for my first days here. Got me thinking of what I want to get of my time here and she more eloquently puts my thoughts into words. She poured herself into learning the language (the most beautiful language in the world) and I found that a bit of a motivator for me. It’s quite a challenge to actually be conversational by the end of my time here but it’s a nice little challenge; an enjoyable and productive way to spend my time. We will see how it goes. I’ve only just started making notecards…did not bring enough…bought more in Castiglion but that they were a bit pricey. I’ll have to find some not in a tiny hill town. If I need anything mailed to me…adding notecards would be beneficial.

So my Italian for the beginning has been some studying but more listening and observing…trying to get a grasp on what would be best to learn first. I’ve picked up a lot of basics I need for communicating with Elia by just listening to others and Vanessa was very helpful in giving me some basic phrases:

“are you hungry?...do you want to play?....go outside….and the most used of course…

Non si fa (don’t do that)”

That one is used to sum up..don’t throw rocks…don’t play with your food…don’t kick….and all those lovely don’ts that I have no clue how to say.

I do say them in English and try to include Please with the request…to teach him good manners and he is a sweet kid and does respond well to “basta per favore.”

He still is only good with me when the parents aren’t around so I hope they believe me! When they are near he pretty much wants nothing to do with me…sometimes even to the extent of running from the sight of me! Yikes! I know he just identifies my presence with them leaving and panics when he sees me. Alfonzo says not to worry…he is like that with him about being away from “mama.” Today he was pretty bad…crying so hard when Alfonzo just ran out for 2 minutes to grab something. He was great all evening though…alice slipped out for the night while we were playing with blocks ( I build he destroys…”bam”) and he never cried for her. A bit bratty and whiney after some family stopped in and said hi (they were eating at the restaurant). Bath time ended abruptly when he wouldn’t quit splashing me…he sulked for a while, cried for mama, wiped away my kisses but then wanted to be sweet when he went to sleep.

Have not written all week….quick summary of what Ive been up to. Really not all that eventful. My sleeping habits have been pretty erratic and I figured out that the allergy meds I got were making me crazy drowsy. Didn’t catch it at first because I thought it was just jet lag but quickly realized after popping a couple extract and knocking myself out one morning that it was for sure the pills. I think I grabbed the off brand of Benadryl (which never made me drowsy) but whoa. Ill see how the next few days go…may take too long to have more meds sent to me, might just need to try some from here. Hopefully I will adjust…Not too bad…just got submerged into a lot of nature…and seeing as how Im allergic to trees and grass…

Oh and they have a cat and dog. Allergic to both but again, just mildly and usually adjust.

luna the lab - very sweet - 9 years old

My room was Michi’s (the cat) and she has sense relocated to the stairs and makes for a nice little obstacle in the dark.

So for the most part I have been waking up…going outside with a blanket and reading, ipoding, and studying Italian. I come back for lunch at 1 and usually do the dishes afterwards. Figure going back to our rule growing up “if you cook you don’t clean” which I always hated (I don’t cook) was a good deal. I don’t mind at all seeing as how every meal they provide is amazing and way better than I could have ever imagined eating. They do not keep leftovers (alice acted appalled when I suggested that she could just re-heat lunch for our dinner).

One of my favorite meals was a lunch outside the bar where Alice said she wasn’t going to cook anything for lunch but then comes back with a way more impressive spread than I could throw together for a well thought out endeavor. She grilled round blocks of cheese so that they were kind of crisp on the outside and gooey on the inside…topped with this really smoky ham (from northern Italy). It was heaven…and yes I’m well aware of how much of a fat ass I sound like but it was so amazing!

hehe. I knew Emily would appreciate it. I pictured her in Barcelona eating our dinner…enjoying each bite with her eyes closed and the locals laughing at us (well her)!