Parla L'Italiano?

I cannot believe another week has come and gone! Time is flying by; we are so busy.

Cappuccino!

This past week we started language school in Florence. Our classroom is about a 3 minute walk (or less) from the Duomo. There are four other people in our class besides the four of us new Avanti workers. There's an American girl from New York, a girl form Columbia, a boy from Gutemala, and another guy from the Netherlands. On Tuesday we went on a guided tour with our school of the Duomo. We stayed with our class during the tour. I learned all sorts of interesting things such as: there is a rule in Florence that nothing can be built higher than the Duomo, the copper ball at the top of the dome has fallen off twice (they have one of the spots marked in the pavement), when the dome was built it was the largest one in the world, and apparently (according to our tour guide) when the ball on top of the dome fell off they built a wooden ramp and had two cows walk up the ramp and drag the ball back to the top. None of us really believe that, and none of the local Italians that we asked believed it either. It does make an interesting picture though.

The Arno

Giotto's Bell Tower

After our tour we walked around Florence with two of our classmates. Sebastian, the guy from Holland, knows a lot of history and has been here before so he gave us a bit of a tour. We finally walked across the Pont Vecchio (the old bridge with all the expensive jewlerly shops on it), and we saw the copy of the David statue, the Vecchio palace, and the Pitti palace. We learned that there used to be several other bridges with shops on them, but they were destroyed by the Nazis when they were retreating from the allies.

Tuesday, was Lindsey's birthday. We took her out to eat at a place called Pizza Man. It's probably the least authentic-sounding place we've been too, but it had the best pizza we've had so far. We now know how to sing happy birthday in Italian very well. Melissa made a delicious chocolate cake for the occasion.

On our way home from school one week, a car hit a moped just as we walked by on the opposite side of the street. For a second, I was thought that I was going to have to try to use my nursing skills to help this guy out, which made me nervous since I don't know any Italian. However, the man on the moped was fine. He did get thrown and had a blood nose, but he was up and moving. People here drive like the lines and lanes are suggestions, and people on mopeds squeeze between ridculously small spaces. Sadly, moped wrecks are not uncommon, I've been told.

There are tons of mopeds here. We've already seen a wreck!
It happened right across the street from us!

On Wednesday, Sebastian came home with us to the school, had lunch, and met everyone. He and Alan seem to get along well. Thursday, after class, we went to the San Lorenzo market here in Florence to look around. Everything in Florence is pretty overpriced since it's so touristy. However, since we live a couple of miles outside of Florence, everything is much cheaper in Scandicci. We also got to have the exciting experience of going to the Metro to buy food. The Metro is sort of like a Sam's Club. Alan and I found some cheap Disney dvds in Italian. He's been wanting to watch familiar movies in Italian to help with getting used to hearing the language. So we got Toy Story, Aladdin, and Brave. We've already watched Aladdin and Toy Story with everyone. It's actually pretty neat and helpful to start recognizing/figuring out phrases in Italian. Although, apparently, the song "A Whole New World" is more like "The world is mine, The world is yours...." Kinda loses some meaning there.

Friday we had a quiz in class. I only missed one question, and it's because I saw a picture of tomatoes and thought they were grapes. So I labeled them as grapes. Just so you know, I know the word for tomatoes too. ;) Sebastian is definitely the best in the class. It probably helps that he already speaks 3 languages, and the boy from Guatemala has the best pronounciation. The rest of us chug along behind them. Our two teachers speak to us in Italian only, unless we are totally lost. Then they might provide a few English words mixed with Italian to try to explain what we don't understand. It's difficult, and it really tires you out listening to another language for so long. After class, we helped clean out some things at the Florence church for a safety inspection and we organized some donated clothes that are going to be given to the homeless.

Kelly, an Avanti worker who was home for the holidays, came back on Friday. Also, we now have the other Italian boy that lives here back. His name is Giacomo. So our house is officially full with 12 people. Lisa, a lady from church, came over Friday night and made us all pizza as a welcome back party for Kelly.

Lisa, the pizza chef, and Melissa

Getting ready to pray.

Saturday was our day off! Alan and I found our way to the Scandicci market all by ourselves. He bought a pepper to use in some homemade salsa he made. Alan and I made a mexican themed dinner for all of our housemates Saturday night. We had fajitas, homemade salsa, and homemade tortillas. We've only been here 2 weeks and we miss mexican food.

Joele kept telling us all day that he was going to make us "crabs." We kept asking him if he knew we were making mexican food for everyone. He would nod his head yes, and then still tell us that he was making crabs. It finally all made sense when he started to make crepes after dinner for dessert! He and Giacomo made us crepes with neutella in the middle, and they were delicious!

Sunday was church. The only thing we could follow along with was scriptures and song numbers. I picked out a word or two here and there. It's unoftunate, because Paolo, a new Christian, gave the talk at the beginning of service. We've been told that it was sort of like his testimony and that it was very good. He might come tell us it in English this week. I hope so! All of us newbies can't wait to be able to communicate with others! At church we made an effort to greet pretty much everyone, but the grettings didn't go much past exchanging names, saying "it's a pleasure to meet you," and "how are you?" Oh well. Everyone is very encouraging that we will get there, and keeps reminding us that we've only had class for a week.

Kelly takes the guitar
with her everywhere!

Not much else is new so far. The school did just get a new used piano, and I'm enjoying playing on it. I'm giving Melissa C. piano lessons, and she helps me with my Italian pronounciation in the evenings. She's a lot of fun! Kelly is also determined to learn to play the guitar, Giacomo is giving her lessons, and Melissa F. is calling it a phase.

She literally takes it EVERYWHERE!

Sunday night we also went to the train station in Florence and fed the homeless. There were quite a few. As far as I know, a lady who used to be homeless herself started this thing up, and we, along with some nuns help her out when we can.

All of us girls probably won't be able to walk this week because we started Insanity, which is truly insane - first, because of how intense it is, and second, because we're losing another hour of sleep to get up early in the morning to do this.

Also, if you all could keep one of our Avanti workers, Lindsey, in your prayers it would be appreciated. She had a death in the family and had to return to the states for just a few days. She'll be back here at the end of this week.