Author Archive for Lauren

Being a Tourist in the Veneto

Published by Lauren on October 22, 2007 in news. 1 Comment

My family came to visit us about a week ago! It was fantastic, though now our 2 person apartment seem quite a bit quieter after being inundated with 4 more people for a week and a half. It was very fun though because we had saved up all these things to do with them. You know when you don’t go do the things that there are to do in the town you live in until people come to visit. Well that is what we did and it turned out great. First there was a flurry of food….there are so many good cheeses and wines and salami objects that are to expensive and heavy for everyday that are perfect to eat when there is company and no one is thinking about dieting or staying in shape.

Good food you need to try if you come to the Veneto:

Sopresa di Schio with or without garlic

Asiago cheese…all types very old to very young

Seafood if you are by the sea

and white sparkling wines!

The biggest food hit though was chocolates from our local chocolate store where they make them in the back and sell them with coffee out front….passion fruit chocolate is the best ever!

Besides the food we went to see a lot of the things we’d saved up, wanting to go see them but, putting it off based on we live here laziness. It was good to see the places, it was good to be a tourist for a week but, in some ways it drove home the fact that we are only in Italy for two more months.

While seeing Soave castle with it’s perfectly kept ramparts that give you a sweeping view of the valley, (a castle we pass every time we get on the highway and that I’ve been wanting to go see since April) was amazing it also meant that that untied up end wasn’t loose any more it was done. In some ways it felt like the store of undone things was part of our reassurance that we actually lived here and as people that live here we can always go look at it later. Soave and the museums in Vicenza itself were more like that for me. Riva del Garda and Sirmione and Aquileia were less so because they are further away I think.

So now we’ve showed off our church and our life to someone else outside of ourselves that will be apart of our life after we leave Vicenza. That part of it was really satisfying because without it when you get back you have this uncanny feeling that in everyone elses eyes you were just missing for 2 years not actually living a real life while you were gone, just gone, dormant somehow. Now that my family has seen my life I feel less like leaving is an approaching doom for my memories of being here though I do feel like it is more certain that we are leaving now.

The church is doing well. There was a baptism during the Ghanaian service this Sunday and about 3 weeks ago there was another in the Italian service. Which is something to praise God about….I’m specifically excited about them because it also is an answer to prayers that Matt and I have been praying since we got here. It is just really good to see the church grow, I do pray though that the church will be capable of supporting the new christians that have entered it, I worry about that one.

In the next couple weeks we’re really busy (by our standards) one last schebang I guess before we wind down toward packing. There is a conference, a women’s day (yay! the women are actually doing it and they are actually coming and people are actually invited from all over north italy and yay! in general) and then starting the same day as the women’s day there is a youth retreat. Pray that we get through it ok!

The very busy Month of around Easter

Published by Lauren on April 11, 2007 in news. 3 Comments

I just noticed that it had been to long since we last wrote. So to keep you guys up to date, here is a run down on why we’ve been so busy we haven’t written.

About a week after our very bad day we decided that it was about time that we went back to Florence to check up on people, students and friends, the church and our fellow avanti Italia workers. It was really good to see people if only for a couple of minutes and to tell them again that really we did love them very much and were still praying for them. It’s fun to still be able to be apart of peoples lives even if you’ve moved. Usually my moves have been so drastic as far as distance that it is nigh on impossible to even try to visit on a semi regular basis. So moving to only 3 hours away by train is a really rather lovely and refreshing experience. Anyway so while we were there we also “accomplished” some things. Matt wrote a search engine and catergorizing program for the school library, and I managed an impossible feat! I managed to get a promise of a reimbursement of 300 euro from the region of Tuscany!

As far as buracreacies go the italian one is pretty monstrous so when the guy at the insurance/health office in Vicenza told me that I had to pay for our health insurance again and that if I wanted money back from the last time I would need to ask the Region of Tuscany for a reimbursement I thought that the were sending me on the wild goose chase of all fools errands. But I thought hey it’s worth a try. So when we got to Florence I found the number for the region of Tuscany and then began to call. Twice I called and managed in those two calls to talk to close to 30 different people … the conversations went about like this…”Pronto.” “Yes I would like to speak to the person in charge of finances and reimbursements. I want to ask to be reimbursed for a double payment of health insurance in 2006. Do you know who I should speak to?” “Hold on.” “ok” “could you tell me again what you want?” “yes, I would…..blah blah blah” “Hold on.” “ok” “um…we’re not in charge of that I’ll forward your call to another department maybe they know.” repeat same conversation 15 times. So I decided that phone calls weren’t the best method. The next day I went down to the offices themselves and had the equivalent conversation in person except this time I was there in person and they knew I was american and they felt that they needed to do something. Turns out that they didn’t know who was in charge of those payments and that the account they were made to had changed anyway and wasn’t directly visible in there system but they still looked at my stuff said yes we will reimburse you and gave me a tracking number for my paper work, and asked me for address et. info so that they could send me the check. Whooo hooo! we’ll see when the check actually shows up but at least that is one step down.

Ok so after Florence we came back and had a week preparing for me to go to the Women’s Convention in Rome and for Matt’s Dad Bob and his wife Mona to come. whirl wind cleaning and food buying insued but we managed and they came and the visit was good (matt will have to write about that) and the Women’s Convention was awesome. I really love them they are my favorite conventions of the year. This time was interesting as well because I translated for about half the time for a couple of Ghanaian women from the churches who had come for the first time. It was good though I must say that I was rather tired by the end of it. When I got back Bob and Mona and Matt and I went to visit Padova. It was my first time there and I must say it really is a great city! I had alot of fun…and found the church where San Antonio was buried and went to the oldest botanical garden in the world! and saw a 500 year old or there abouts palm tree, it was planted in like 1572 or something fantastic like that! I do need to research who San Antonio is the patron saint of because I’m curious.

That brings us to last week. The week of Easter. So saturday Franco Verardi came he is a Italian missionary to Southern Italy that the church of Vicenza supports. So Saturday night the church met to here from him and encourage him and be togther with his family. Then Sunday we got up at 5:30 am to go to a sunrise service we’d been invited to on the base. Vicenza as you guys probably know from the news at least a little, has an American army base. It’s interesting though because even with all those americans living here we rarely actually see them. They tend to stick to themselves though I think if Matt and I were more involved in the discoteco scene we’d see more of them. Anyway so a couple weeks ago this american guy called up and asked to speak to the pastor. We called him back and told him we didn’t have a pastor and then he just hung up and didn’t tell us whatever he was going to tell the pastor. A week later we recieved a series of phone messages inviting the pastor to a sunrise service at the base. In the end Matt and I and Davide Fergani ended up going though all of us are under 25 and certainly not the church leaders. It was kind of cool though really quite too early! they had a black gospel choir and everything. And we got to meet the “Americans” I hadn’t realized before how many chaplains an army base would have. there are like one for every battalion or so I think.

Then later that day we went to our church and had a united service where everyone came Ghanaian and Italian. The place was packed there weren’t enough seats for everyone. That was a cool feeling. France Verardi spoke and also Abraham a preacher from Ghana that had just arrived to work with the churches with Ghanaians in the north of Italy until mid July. He’s really nice and Matt really likes what studies and sermons his given so far. I was with the little kids upstairs so I haven’t heard him yet. Then the Agape or potluck which is an interesting affair with that many people in such a small space. we do it basically in shifts because the line is long enough. After the Agape was over we got ourselves packed into cars with the raggazzi and headed up to the mountains. There were 8 from Vicenza and 6 from Aprillia and there were supposed to be 2 from Bologna but when we called them to see where they were on the road because they were already 30 minutes late they said they were still at work in Bologna and no weren’t planning on coming. This time we also had help! two adults from Aprillia to help with kitchen and crowd control and et. Milady a beautiful Venezualan women from Vicenza as cook. Marco Massini and Kelly Fann from Florence to help do Bible studies and Davide Fergani too! Marco and Kelly left on Monday morning but it was still night and day better as far as discipline than last time. We all slept for instance! counselors and raggazzi too! and all the studies went well too! Davide did his first camp devo ever and it was good. Marco and Kelly did a study Monday morning on purity and morality that was really great. Caterina, one of the girls from Vicenza, and I taught a evangelistic skit and everyone participated and had fun! Then for the grand finale….we did a passover dinner, complete with unleaven bread and all the traditional fixings of the Jewish holiday supper. It was really fun to watch the kids when they sat down to dinner and looked at there plates and saw only romaine lettuce (bitter herbs), a chicken bone (representing the lamb sacrifice) and a pile of brown stuff. “what is this dinner is this all! man … I’m actually hungry why can’t we eat something good what does this mean anyway! ” They lapped it up I have never actually seen them pay such acute attention to what was going on around them as at that dinner. They were even silent when Matt spoke! And the general excitement over the feet washing was good too. Only one most stubborn one refused. I don’t think that they will forget it any time soon anyway.

and then we came home yesterday evening. and slept. and this morning I’m writing you all this incredibly long post. Hope you have the patience to read it. God bless.

Un Giornaccio

Published by Lauren on March 7, 2007 in news. 3 Comments

You know those days that don’t seem to be made for being out of bed? Those days where really it feels like you should have taken warning and not let your feet venture forth from under the covers? Well we had one. Sunday was great! It was beautiful, felt like spring and we had a good day at church, a rousing lunch of good conversation and exquisite eggplant, went out to the park with the ragazzi (kids/guys/teens really its quite a useful word, has an intonation of youth as well as intamicy and recklessness, often used as quasi swear word by older type people) and then had a relatively good study with them! and got home by 7 at night to have an evening all to ourselves relaxing and finishing a season of 24.

Monday however we should of taken warning and stayed in bed. We got up early to go to a rather traumatic but essentially uneventful doctors appointment (don’t worry we’re not sick or in danger) it is amazingly hard no matter how much you can communicate in other situations how difficult talking to doctors in foreign languages is. I got upset during the appointment because the doctor was speaking to Matt about me in front of me instead of speaking to me, something that IS unthinkably rude in English but, however is …… the polite formal way of speaking in Italian, which it would be rude for her not to use in a patient doctor setting. Actually (cool grammatical fact of the day) in Italian when you speak to someone with whom you need to be formal you address the persons aura rather than the person, which is why the formal is always feminine even if your a guy. I didn’t realize that I had made this rather aggregious mistake until about 2 hours after the appointment had ended. So thats hours 7.30 am till 11 all spent on the doctors appointment.
Then at about 12 guess what…..we get a call from one of the other workers at the Bible School saying that the Questura (or police station) of Vicenza has called looking for us 3 times that morning. They were slightly concerned since the policeman wouldn’t say why he was looking for us just that he needed to find us. After freaking out for about 5 minutes we figured out why. About a week ago now my purse was stolen from the church building (I was stupid, you shouldn’t leave things downstairs with windows looking out on to the street and then leave the room) luckly no documents, passports or anything was in it. Anyway they used my credit card once before I blocked it but oh well that’s life. So the police had found this guy trying to use my credit card again passing himself off as a woman, and they needed me to come and declare my purse as stolen. So we went to the police station, they were nice but that is always slightly unnerving.

So we get out of the police station at like 3. And then go get some lunch that we had not managed to eat. A Kebab in fact at an Indian restaurant. We munch our kebabs and head for the grocery store. Our hard part of the day is over right…let’s breath. But then lucky us, one of the 20s we got as change from the kebab place turns out to be a fake… a counterfeit… we were hoodwinked!! and now have another reason we need to go to the Questura. Back home Milady a friend of ours from Venezuela shows up half an hour later and then I’m in full swing getting the women’s bible study together. That was nice though. Wonderful infact. God has given them enough wisdom to share with eachother that I get so much from listening and have to do very little to keep the ball and discussion rolling. They really are a group of amazing women! So back home by….11.30. Then bed … it was time to put the day behind.

I just want to praise God that he is so clearly visible and beautiful even in the giornacci though. So full of love for me that even at the end of the day I know I am loved and am reminded by those who surrond me that he is protecting me even on days of the sort. Plus hey it makes the other days much easier to deal with I suppose!

Today is good.

The move to Vicenza

Published by Lauren on February 6, 2007 in news. 0 Comments

Moving is always interesting. The whole come and go between places and people is both heartrending and exciting … every single time. We moved to Vicenza over the span of a week. Partially this was due to the fact that the electrical company said it could take up to 3 days to turn on our gas and eletricity, so we decided why not hang out in Florence instead of a cold lightless apartment in Vicenza. Partially it was due to showing Matt’s student Joel the chruch in Prato. Showing Joel and his family the church in Prato was an enourmous success so I’m glad we stayed for that! It was really great to see them so happy in a church setting! and the Prato church is one of the most welcoming I know. They are just thrilled that you are there. No matter what language you speak or where you come from. By the time Joel left I think he had three or four phone numbers of church members just in case he might need anything.

After church in Prato we went to a dinner held by a group of Eritreans, which was really interesting. I decided Eritreans are really quite beautiful as a general rule. They are all thin and tall and dark like chocolate with almond eyes. And their food is very spicy. The church members kept warning us against eating (even though they had invited us there for lunch) because the food was spicy enough they deemed it uneddible.

So then Monday morning we got on the train after many goodbyes and packing up the last of our stuff and moved to Vicenza.

Our apartment is nice. In the most fantastic spot possible actually right on the main street of downtown in the walking district so no traffic noise. It is also only about a block from the church building. There are these wonderful grecian statue type things that are on top of the building oppostite that make our view. It has needed some cleaning. I have decided that smoking should be listed among things which most easily bring down property value. We’ll have to put up pictures! the most hilarious part of the apartment….the full wall pea green velvet armoire.

So we’ve spent the last week getting things together and getting our marching orders from the church. Health insurance, change to Vicenza…3 full mornings and more to come. Internet and phone service one morning and one afternoon and up to one month wait time. Washing machine…3 days looking and convincing our landlords to buy one like they said they would. (difficult not because they aren’t willing but more because the space for the machine is 5 cm smaller on each side than the standard washing machine size).

Now we’ve started working at the church as well. The church wants to keep it’s doors open for a period each day so we are going over every afternoon to do our work and clean up and be there. Will work on things actually happening there that people will come to instead of just having it open gradually starting with ….english lessons.

We are moving!

Published by Lauren on January 18, 2007 in news. 3 Comments

If you’ve read the newsletter you know already….we are moving! Actually we are currently actually in the process of moving (yes as I type my fingers are in motion therefor I am techincally moving and could claim that most of the time but, seriously…) we took all of our stuff to Vicenza on Monday, picked up our keys and turned on our gas and lights. Right now we are back in Florence wrapping all of the final things up (and getting our fill of Italian television since we will not be watching tv for the next year). We get on the train to move for good to Vicenza on Monday.

Everything has flown like a speeding bullet train. In mid-october I was sure moving anywhere was one of the longest shots in the world. I was so sure we would stay in Florence for our whole time even though it would have been great to go out and work with one of the churches. By mid-november the church in Vicenza is planning all of the things they could possibly do with us and we’ve vocally agreed to move into an apartment in Vicenza. It’s been two months since then now and those months have flown by as well….Christmas and saying goodbye to students and finishing work in Florence. Time telescoped big time.

Our apartment is wonderful and a blessing from God. The story goes like this….we went to Vicenza the second week of November to visit and kind of scope out the possibilities for places to live and how much they would cost and all that jazz. Thirty minutes after we start looking on Saturday morning barely after we had actually decided to go call any of the places we had circled in the ad pages, we stop into this shop owned by a Jennifer’s friend from highschool (Jennifer actually grew up in Vicenza). They say hello, How are you?, all of the appropriate questions … and then… What are you doing in Vicenza? The answer well… we are looking into apartments for Matt and Lauren (let me introduce you to Matt and Lauren, They’re great!) Hmmm…..well….you know what oddly enough we have an apartment for rent would you like to see it? it will cost ________ THE EXACT AMOUNT MATT AND LAUREN CAN AFFORD PER MONTH_________ and we go see it and it has two rooms a bathroom and a separate kitchen! unheard of on Italian apartment renting size scales for the price……and oddly enough it is only 5 minutes walk to the church as well as being on Vicenza’s most beautiful main drag. So we hmm and haw because that is what you are supposed to do right and say well we have to think about it we’ll call you later. After that we went to a rental agency and asked them what was usually available. They told us that for the price we were asking we would only ever be able to find apartments half the size and that nothing would be available now we would have to come back in January to even start looking. So God provided exactly what we needed when we needed it before we even tried our own solutions…isn’t it cool!

Next week we start this new project…pray that we do it well and that God will use us to the utmost. Pray too that we will find people at the church who will be willing to join us in working with their teenagers so that whatever we jumpstart will continue past this next year.

And just so you know our New Years resolution….communicate! so expect to see alot more of these posts….talk to you soon.

Lauren

Salvo e Sane….ma….just a little bit tired

Published by Lauren on July 26, 2006 in news. 2 Comments

So we are finally back….back home …. back to our silly bedroom behind the silly computer room…and it is wonderful. I am ready for the best of all vacations now, the one where you sit in your room and don’t move for several weeks.

Albania…is….. absolutely gorgeous! those communist stricken, still recovering from 600 years of dictatorship people are sitting on the biggest tourist gold mine I think I’ve ever seen. We had camp in a place called Llogara (i think can’t be sure of the spelling because albanian definetly still escapes me as far as that goes…besides the other more than 20 words I learned there ways it escapes me)…Llogara is a set of mountains on the neck of a peninsula that sticks out into the Adriatic sea or the Ionian…it gets kind of fuzzy right around there which sea it is. Anyway, so this mountain is a heavily wooded, fern glade enchanted, breathe of cedar filled beauty between rocky cliffs covered with sage and thyme that look out and down onto a sparkling blue serene expanse that finds Corfu and Greece as it meets the horizon. Like I said gorgeous! the camp is in one of the valleys so to see the panorama you have to hike or drive out onto the mountain tops but the view of the mountains themselves is breathetaking.

The problem is that in Albania you really want to be able to be permanently near sighted. The things you see up close … like houses and tables and restaurants or bathrooms are not great….to which comment I have to add that I was expecting much worse. Albania is no worse off than the parts of Mexico I’ve been to which on the scale is not actually third world. I found out that the United States sends Peace Corp people there which makes me wonder if we send them to mexico which I didn’t think we did. don’t know. Any hoot.

so our three weeks or camp were best known … near Greece I remind you… for rain! It rained 3 days a week while we were there. Which was taken as proof by the people we were with that global warming was really impending upon us because they said it never rained more than 3 days a month the last 6 years they’ve done the camp. Which didn’t turn out too great for us because since it had rained so little before they really hadn’t worried about making camp water proof, rather they were worried about making it cool so … for example our out house had no roof! great idea if you don’t want the out house to get hot and stinky, bad idea if it’s poaring and you need to answer the call of nature.

So we were a little damp but over all it was a good experience. Kind of hard to talk about in a way. I don’t think I’ve processed the experience well enough to really know what I think. It’s been one of those trips that has kind of left me speechless as far as that goes. I know for sure that we were supposed to be there, why though I’m not really sure except that I hope we were an encouragement to those who needed encouraging and a light to those who needed light….I hope God reflected himself in us.

other comments: Albanian teenagers, which I think is a miss nomer I think it is just teenagers as a general rule, are difficult to get excited about anything. and I hereby give an official apology to all the people who tried to get me to do things and participate when I was 16 … you have my full sympathy now.
Roads in mountains can be very scary especially when there is a sea at the bottom of them.

oh and here is the albanian or shiepe ( I think ) that I learned;

Une jame Lauren. Une nuk flasse sheipe. Boscone. Hest. Natenamire. Mire Pafshim. Hiede. ti je maymun.

(translation: I’m Lauren. I don’t speak Albanian. Shut up. Be quiet. Good night. Good Bye. come. you are a monkey!)

(most of which I just wrote horribly wrong I know for any Albanian who may be reading this)

So I think I’m going to head toward bed now …. I’ll let matt write more and make the story of the last three weeks more full fledged.

Summer and Vacation

Published by Lauren on June 8, 2006 in convengo, news, scent, summer, trip and vacation. 4 Comments

And now it’s summer which seems absolutely unreal. Not only is it still cool spring weather, but I seriously couldn’t tell you where the weeks, no really I’d have to say months, have gone. Notable fact for the moment, there are an insane number of three to four day weekends in Italy from the beginning of the month of April till the beginning of June…..like 6 really….4 of which are in April. And I didn’t know about a singal one of them till three days before. Which means every week or so I said… “what you mean it’s festa?”

Now everyone has begun thinking of going to the beach on the weekends… by July all the moms who don’t work will be there for the weeks and everyone will visit them on weekends…then in August everyone will be on vacation. I’ve decided I kind of like the system. Though being gone from your own house for so long seems tiring but I guess it isn’t really gone from their own house since they all have houses in the mountains or on the beach that are actually their houses. Second notable fact, I think in general italian houses are smaller but that they tend to have more then one as a general rule…which means they kind of even out with us, unless we have a monstrosity.

I’m just getting back into the swing of things again because Matt and I just got back from traveling last Wednesday late in the night. We started out going to a convegno in Rome, at a camp ontop of the mountains outside of it actually, which was great….more exciting than we expected though since our car broke down…. the italians have decided WE’RE OK!!!! it’s so cool really…. before this it’s mostly been…well your here and well… but at the convengo they decided we were even worth talking to … which really is such a blessing … because they appreciate us at Avanti as a concept tons…they love the thought of us as far as that goes it seems…the reality though of who we are, each individual person who comes and is apart of their lives for a shortwhile is different though, and for good reason. Avanti has earned their trust, judgement, respect or otherwise and is attached to a series of old memories. We, ourselves, individually, on the other hand are an unknown young and probably on the dense side though well meaning american until we prove otherwise. So Being OK!! is a big step a wonderful one, one that means budding friendships and the ability to actually converse in their world. And I thank God hartily that it has happened not just with the Florence church ( whom I love so dearly just so everyone knows! they are incredible, awesome, human and yes, quarrelsome, but they are so dear to me!)

After the convengo Matt and I went early the next morning to catch a plane to get to the United States. The visit went really well….I love being with my family! My sister is learning to drive, my mom is looking for the next play to do with her drama class, my dad broke his foot playing soccer, my brother is beginning what looks kind of like an actual business making wooden Animai cartoon swords for people who want to look cool a comic conventions, and the dogs and cats are up to their old mischief! I love just hanging out with them all….but I missed here alot, I missed the people I’m attached to at the moment the watching them grow and be from week to week (same for my garden here!! the radishes were to big to eat when we got back). Partially that is just me… being a visitor, is hard on me from the been longer than a week to less then four weeks slot…I don’t have stuff to do I am required to sit and relax which makes me ansy after I’ve gotten all my sleep back in that first week (by 4 weeks I’ll have made up enough new projects to keep me fully satisfied).

The smell of Italy when we got back astounded me. It was the same smell that I had left, but when I walked out of the bus I realized that I had missed it. Now it is again different because the jasimine are all in bloom, wafting tantalizing enchantments through the streets. I read a book last week that talked of the US being surprisingly void of smells and scents. I don’t know if that is true. I realized though that it is certainly devoid of one scent, the scent of Italy.

Plans: Albania … for the month of July!

So It’s Spring!!!

Published by Lauren on April 5, 2006 in thoughts. 3 Comments

SO this is spring in Italy. I forgot how beautiful it can be…. and the irises aren’t even blooming yet! I can’t wait for that it is wonderful to me that my favorite flower just happens to be THE flower of Florence. The trees are all timidly letting their leaves out and a soft green is everywhere.

Last weekend we finished digging in the garden between parties (there was a April Fool’s part for our students on Friday… did you know that for April Fool’s in Italy you put paper fish on peoples backs?…and then a baby shower at our house on Saturday night…Phoebe is 1 month old…and Natilynn is 3 months old…So many babies there are 2 more coming in the summer). It was wonderful to dig… the ground is very nice indeed and the worms are absolutely ginormous! the dirt squishing in my toes was the most gushy and fantastic feeling… though it did make my feet kind of cold. I just don’t know what to say I guess right now…. I’m just excited by how God made the world, watching seeds grow and everyday seeing them become larger and more fully what they are. Frederico the son of one of my students wants to have a garden too so I think he is going to come over to help and I hope some of the seedlings are ready in time for him to plant them. I’ve been thinking that there really is nothing more human than wanting to make or grow things…like baskets or letters or dinner or sweets or friends or babies or music. I think that might be part of God that we actually got when he made us in his own image.

full, full, full…. life is very full right now, two new students this week and I am just now also full of the idea that I will be on the beach in Albania for 3 weeks this summer and that means bathing suits. Which really does seem less than the point (which it is since it will be at a summer camp where there aren’t even showers… but somehow I still care a little)). We just found out that the summer camp will be studying Empty Baskets a book about spiritual worship through stewardship, which I haven’t read but have now ordered… hope it gets here in the mail soon. Anyway… very full but it always seems to me that when my life is fullest I still get lots of time to come up with other things I would like to do.

Students today… 2 the twins … Salvatore and Donato… if they aren’t late getting here because of soccer practice…they are eleven right now and in prima media which of course means they are completely booked like any self respecting eleven year old right now. Soccer practice and French lessons and then the English tutor (that’s me!) feel kind of sorry for them so we mostly play games since I figure they are learning grammar in school so they really just need to practice using what they learned with me. It’s cool though because the Mom is completely mystified by our presence (the Bible School … a group of ragazzi that think it is important enough to go across and ocean to teach people about the Bible). Ok enough for now should go eat something I think….. Rosa is in Puglia right now so have to fend for ourselves…which doesn’t mean we don’t eat well…just more often really … and not delicous Pugliese food!