16 April 2008

le belle giornate

The last few days have been one amazing thing after another.

Over the weekend I went to Parma to visit an amico I met 3 years ago while studying in Macerata. We met at a Kaiser Chiefs concert in Rimini and this time we attempted to repeat that same casino. Met his bravi roomies, ate great food, drank good vino, and drank a lot of beer... also good, but as you may or may not know, good beer does not come from Italia so of course this beer was from Germany, Ireland and Belgium. Spent the weekend in giro per Parma and made some amazing new Sardo friends (from Sardegna).


After elongating my stay in Parma for an extra night, I returned to Salò where I promptly booked a ticket to Sardegna to see two of my favorite ragazzini, Nick and Kris, in the beginning of June.

Then I met a very nice German girl from München who is also living and working here as an au pair for an Italian family. We had an aperitivo together and she definitely got rid of the bad impression that last German girl left on my psyche.

Today, many of the students I've been working with individually took their specialized English exam. It's offered by a London-based company so a woman flew in from England to test them. They had to talk, completely in a casual, conversational manner, for anywhere from 10 to 25 minutes. All of them did well and some very, very well... abbastanza bene.

And after some time of weather has been proprio merda (kinda like Oregon often is at this time of year), we had a beautiful, sunny day with bright blue skies. But because the weather has been bad, there is a lot of snow in the mountains and even the hills on the gulf behind Salò.

So I went for a jog and a couple kilometers out I decided to stop by the lakeside to stretch. I tried to skip some rocks but the water was too turbulent and choppy today so that was a no go. Then I saw something about the size of a milk jug floating about 50 meters out — about the distance from the end touchline to midfield on a football pitch.

It took me about 35 or so throws but I nailed it. Che belle giornate.

Now, to top it off, I am on the way to the grocery store to buy my favorite crunchy, spicy grissini con peperoncini AND my birthday is this Saturday. Festeggiamo.

1 comment:

Ashly Stewart said...

I miss you! I am glad you had such a good weekend. I can't wait to talk to you again someday. :)