My host family this week is nice and we have interesting political discussions every evening at dinner (pictures of Che Guevara adorn every room of the house), but they mostly just go about their lives as normal and we haven't really bonded that much. But it's a nice change to be given a key and told I can come and go as I please. Both the parents are former librarians and now work as employees of the local university, and they have three kids who have hardly said a word to me. The dad and the oldest boy are HUGE rock & roll fans and play guitar... so that was cool. Each night at dinner, we would either watch the World Cup or listen to a rock CD. On Thursday night, the dad gets a serious look on his face and asks "Can you tell me something? In a Green Day song, one of the lines is about a 7/11... and I've always wanted to know what that means. Is it a school for 7-11 year-olds?" It was hard not to laugh.
The school we are at this week is incredible; It's built inside the ruins of an old castle. The camp was 40 students and four tutors. I got the youngest class this week (a group of ten 6-7 year-olds). They were the most well-behaved children I have EVER worked with. At most camps, there are at least a monster or two per class, but all the kids at this camp were awesome. It made my job so much easier! For the final show, I needed something that only required them to memorize one sentence, and they really love animals at that age... so, confident in the fact that they are all Catholics, I chose Noah's Arc. It was really cute! I had Noah, his wife, and then four pairs of animals. I was even able to make a big arc out of an unfolded cardboard box. I did learn, however, that most 7 year-olds are too young to understand the concept of "no pain, no gain". A few of them decide to wait until 2 minutes before the show to tell me that their masks (and Noah's beard) hurt because I made them too tight. Already really stressed out trying to get them all dressed, and knowing they wouldn't understand me, I said "Deal with it... this is show business!"
When you work with kids that young, you really have to do completely silly and ridiculous things to effectively teach and keep them interested... I think if a psychiatrist observed me in class this week, he/she would surely lock me in an institution. Yesterday I taught emotions (happy, sad, tired, angry) and I made a game where I would turn around and act out one of the emotions and the kids would shout out which one it was. (Example: I would turn around and rub my eyes, stumble to the window curtains, 'fall asleep' on them and start snoring. They would shout: TIRED. Then I would turn around with my eyes huge, get right up in their faces and pound on their desks while grunting. They would shout: ANGRY.) I'm not sure I've ever had so much fun! All the kids were laughing so hard and I felt like I was deserving of an Oscar or something.
The other tutors I worked with this week also made the experience really great. I worked with a British girl, a Scottish girl, and an American from NYC. We all got along really well and laughed all week. The American and Scottish girls are travel journalists working on an internet documentary for Jet Set Zero (http://www.jetsetzero.tv/). So we had a camera-man following us around all week, which was really fun. Jet Set Zero follows Americans who decide to quit their careers and go abroad with no money. The upcoming season is in Italy, so these two girls post blogs on the website about their experience and then the episodes should come out later this year... so I guess I'll probably be on it since I signed a model release form. Anyway, it was neat having that additional aspect added to the week.
On Sunday, we all took a day-trip to Cortona, a beautiful Tuscan village at the top of a hill. It was the place where "Under the Tuscan Sun" was filmed, and is now the home of the book's author, Francis Mayes. We kept fantasizing about bumping into her at a cafe or something, haha. Unfortunately, it rained all day... but it made the experience really memorable. We had to climb this huge hill in shorts and flip-flops while sharing umbrellas in the pouring rain. If it weren't for us having the last remains of my mom's homemade cookies, we never would have made it to the top!! Once we were there, though, the view made it completely worth the hike. It was unlike anything I've ever seen. I'll let my pictures do the talking instead of trying to describe it.
Then on the way down the hill, between two rows of houses, some crazy guy walks up to us, spits on each of our feet, gives us the finger, and then slams his bag down in front of us, as if daring us to walk further. Needless to say, we turned and found an alternate route back down. Considering the huge employment crisis in Italy (Sadly, it's much worse than in America.), you would think that everyone would love tourists... I think he definitely had some mental issues though.
We took another trip on Tueday night to Firenze (Florence). I had never been, so I was really excited, even if we were only going for three hours. Once again, as soon as we got off the train, it started to rain... which meant that the symphony concert we walked by was cancelled and the tight-rope walker in the main piazza that we walked through couldn't perform... but we still had a blast. Lynne (the Scotish girl) used to live in Florence and she wanted to take us to 'the best pizzeria ever'. After walking for 25 minutes to find it, we didn't have time to wait in the long line. The only pizzeria in Florence with no wait was 'Pizza Man'... wonder why? Although the name, logo, and decor was horribly cheesy (pun!) and Americanized, the pizza was actually really good. And they gave us complimentary sparkling wine!... All's well that ends well, I guess.
Seeing as this post is getting too long and I need to catch my train for my next camp location (Sesto Firentino... 15 minutes from Florence!!!), I will save my awkward moments and funny stories for another post in a few days... there are several of them!!
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