This Will Be The End

I'm home, and I was also home for my last post but I wanted to pretend I was still in Italy.  My journey home consisted of three extraordinarily long days.

Samira and I spent Monday in Milan.  I re-visited the Duomo, this time including the roof.  I struggled to take pictures I hadn't already taken last year, but I did get a few good ones.  It was also a fitting way to end my 15-month relationship with my Lonely Planet: Italy, since the cover photo is of the roof.  I finally succeeded in buying some clothing in fashion-crazy Milan, although it was at H&M so I'm not sure how much that really counts.

Milan gets a lot of crap as the worst city in Italy.  I loved it the first time, partly because it was a beautiful sunny day, my first in Europe after 3 weeks in Prague, and I do think the center is worth visiting.  But aside from that, the canal district is nice, but the rest of the city is so industrial and un-Italian looking.  We tried to go out a bit on Monday night but no one was on the street after 10 pm.  It's the only village, town, or city in the country where that is ever the case.

Tuesday began in Milan, but I spent 4 hours in the Dublin airport and was in New York by dinner time.  I passed 3 alcohol sample stations in the Dublin airport (Bailey's, Jameson, and another one).  I got to see the same group of good people I saw on my way to Italy in June, which made for a great last night of travels.  Unfortunately I forgot my ID because I never needed it in Italy, but a taxi and quick subway ride resurrected the night.

My JFK-San Fran flight was delayed 3 hours, which would have been extremely frustrating had an Italian family coincidentally sat next to me at the gate.  I struck up a conversation and ended up bonding with one final Italian family.  I spoke to the parents in Italian, but the daughter spoke almost fluent English so I helped her practice the language for a while.  But that turned out not to be the best idea because this came out of her mouth...

"I want to travel to China, but my mom doesn't want to.  She won't go there because she hates the people.  She says that when they talk she gets a headache."

My smile quickly disappeared as I subtly/frantically looked around to see if anyone else was staring.  I don't think she was used to speaking English in a place where other people could understand.  Also, anti-Chinese sentiments are strong in Italy.  Europe is generally a more openly racist place than the US, and Chinese shops around the country (but especially in the south) offer discount clothes and goods, and a lot of people don't like that. 

But aside from that comment, I really enjoyed speaking with her parents and watching their adorable 4 year-old son say funny things in Italian (which made me pretty nostalgic for camp).  It was a pretty fitting end to the summer, and I think a good last story for the blog.

Thank you to all those who read a post or two, or all of them, knowing that you're reading has motivated me to keep this going for another summer!

Inside & Outside Cinque Terre

On Friday afternoon I left Florence for Cinque Terre.  The first time I heard about these five towns was during my sophomore year at Wash U, when I saw pictures on facebook of a few guys I know from school backpacking up a ridiculously colorful street at dusk with flags over their heads.  I asked one of them where that was, and they told me about Cinque Terre.  When I met my friend Samira at the Riomaggiore train station, the town we stayed in for the weekend, the first thing I saw after leaving the station was this street from their pictures (see picture).
 

Samira also has a very well-located friend, although her’s was actually her “host mom” a couple years ago at camp, but she now lives in an apartment just off the main road in Riomaggiore, the biggest of the five towns (meaning 1800 people).  I crashed on a pullout bed in the living room/dining room/second bedroom of her apartment.

The beauty of Cinque Terre is the color of the towns, but the localness was what made the trip special for me.  In Riomaggiore, there are no cars, everyone walks or boats.  During mid-day, tourists rule, but in the mornings and evenings, it’s still a pretty local place.  I went to a market on the main street to buy fruit for breakfast, and most of the people there were residents. 

Samira’s friend probably knew everyone in the town, and a few of her friends came over for dinner one night.  Two of them operate an “ice cream boat,” which is like an ice cream truck except they operate on the seas and cater to other boats, and serve alcohol in addition to ice cream.  We went by one of the main cafes and a friend of her’s who I’d already met was working there.  I’m a huge fan of visiting places where you have friends who live there, and this experience was pretty amazing.

The first night Samira and I went in to La Spezia, the main city near Cinque Terre, for dinner at the restaurant where her friend works.  We got to the station a minute before the train, and the ticket machine wasn’t working.  She already had a ticket, but I did not, and the next train wasn’t for 40 minutes.  So, we hopped on anyway, for the most nerve-racking 8-minute journey of my life.  We tried finding a conductor to explain the situation, but gave up halfway though.  As the train was slowing down, Samira spotted the conductor coming in the other end of the car.  Thankfully, he didn’t reach us in time. 

We got lost on our way to the restaurant but almost an hour later finally sat down for some delicious, albeit minimal, ravioli.  Samira’s friend gave us a nice discount, and we headed back home to Rio(maggiore).

Saturday was boat day.  We visited three of the five towns by a boat that felt more like a seesaw.  The fifth town (most northwest) is Monterosso.  It didn’t look that impressive, but we wandered upward and there were some amazing little paths and crooked buildings (see picture).  We wrapped around the hill that divides the town in two and found our way to a boardwalk along a beautiful beach that we returned to on Sunday.  There was also an excellent foccaciaria there.  Cinque Terre is known for foccacia, and I had about five pieces while I was there.

The fourth town is Vernazza, and it (along with Rio) is the most striking upon arrival.  There is a piazza bordered on three sides by colorful buildings and even more vibrant umbrellas, and the other side is the beach (see picture of Samira & I in the "snapshots" post).  We had lunch there, although I ordered spaghetti with fish, and the fish turned out to be several varieties of shellfish.  But the plain tomato spaghetti was pretty good.

We floated past Corniglia, the middle town which is not as accessible by sea, and moved on to the second town, Manarola.  The buildings here, although colorful, are not particularly beautiful, so we were disappointed.  But we walked to the back of the town and followed an increasingly narrow staircase up into the vineyards facing the town.  We wound up with an incredible view of the center, far below.

On Saturday night I finally had my birthday dinner, I was alone in Palermo for the real thing so there was no sense doing it then.  Samira and I went to a fish restaurant (there are only fish restaurants) right by the sea in Rio, which is a setting that will be hard to beat for any future birthday dinners.

Sunday was hiking day.  I got up early and set off hiking between the towns, visiting all but the farthest one.  The trail began pretty flat and going right along the water, but after the third town went inland a bit and resembled a typical hiking trail, which I actually enjoyed more.  I made it to Corniglia, the high town, which was refreshingly dull.  I say this in the kindest way – I had become overwhelmed by all the color, and there are a lot of old-looking gray buildings mixed up with the colorful ones in Corniglia.  The town is wrapped around a canyon of vineyards, so once again I followed increasingly narrow staircases into vineyards, this time to get pictures of the town, far above. 

We went to the beach for the afternoon and that night was the dinner at Samira's friend's apt, which consisted almost entirely of shellfish.  Because the table is small, our host ate on the bed next to the table, which was above my pullout bed.  Somehow things got moved around and when I woke up in the middle of the night because I was rolling over something, I pulled out a good chunk of lobster (including an antanna) from my sheets.  Not a kosher night's sleep.

28 Hours in Florence

I’m writing in the Dublin Airport on Monday afternoon, about halfway through my four-hour layover here between Milan and New York.  Hopefully I’ll get to post this soon.

As I wrote before, my whirlwind week was perfect. It began with the aforementioned road tripping around Sicily.  Then I was back with my last host family from last year near Milan for a few relaxing, adventurous days. 

  

On Thursday morning, I took the speedy train (which was disappointingly not so speedy) to Florence to meet a tutor friend from last year, Simone.  Luckily, she has a friend who has an apartment in the center of the city, and some of her roommates just moved out, so I had a room to myself. 

My goals for Florence were set:

1. See Simone 
2. Go to the Bargello, a statue museum I missed out on last year because Lonely Planet told me it closed at 1:50 every day (lie). 
3. Go to the piazza across the river with a great view of the city and the bronze (maybe copper?) David statue. 
4. Have really good gelato and possibly aperitivo

… and I did them all! The Bargello was fun, and it worked out well because that afternoon there were torrential downpours, which let up whenever we had to go outside.  We made it to the piazza on Friday morning, which was a much nicer day, and had perfect light/visibility for good picture-taking.

I re-visited Gelateria Dei Neri, one of the best if not the best gelateria I went to last year, and Simone’s friend took us to another gelateria across the river that I’d heard about, which was just as good if not better. 

On Thursday night we went for aperitivo, which I posted a picture of in my last post.  Pretty much, you go to a bar between 7-9 and pay for one drink, usually 7 or 8 euro.  With that drink comes access to an unlimited buffet of appetizers.  Sometimes there are only a few choices, but the place we went to had 20ish choices, including pastas, rice dishes, meat, veggie things, it was wonderful.  So I had three overflowing plates of a mix of delicious food, and a strawberry daiquiri, for 8 euro.

In Florence (and also in Milan), I realized that I should really wait more than a year before re-visiting these incredible places, unless I have specific people to visit.  Last year, the Milan Duomo absolutely blew me away, and this year, when I popped out of the metro and saw it, I thought, “I remember it being bigger.”  When strolling past the Florence Duomo on my way to Simone’s friend’s apartment, I really missed the “WOW!” factor I remember experiencing last year.  I’m still glad I went to these places because of the people I got to see there, but I’m wondering how long it will take for the shock value to regenerate.

Snapshots From The Last Few Days

I don't have too much time to write right now, but I'm at a hotel in Milan on my final night in Italy.  The last week and a half have been absolutely perfect, and here are some pictures from Florence and Cinque Terre.  I'll write more when I get a chance!

1) Amazing aperitivo with Simone (you pay for one drink and get unlimited appetizers)

2) Overlooking Florence with Simone

3) Riomaggiore, the Cinque Terre town I stayed in for the weekend

4) Samira and I upon arrival in Vernazza, another Cinque Terre town

5) Manarola, another Cinque Terre town, from above vineyards.

The Mason-Dixon Line Among Other Divisions

Now that I’m back in the north, I thought I’d reflect on a few things these last 6-7 weeks that were completely different from my experience last summer, which is only natural working for an organization that places me in a totally new environment every week or two. I also randomly inserted pictures from yesterday and today, a 20 km bike ride and a trip to Lago d'Iseo, one of Italy's great lakes, both with my host mom and siblings.

The South
This is the most obvious one. But spending a month in Sicily was so incredibly lucky. I feel like I studied abroad there. I spent an evening on the southern coast, an afternoon on the western coast, three days on the eastern coast, two weeks on the northern coast, and a week smack dab in the middle of the island.

SO MUCH FOOD
Last year I took no pictures of food. This year I took many pictures of food. For dinner on Monday, my first night up north this summer, my mom made soup, beef, fish, and a vegetable mix. It sounded like so much when she described the meal, but everyone ate so little of everything! Last week, when I went to a camper’s family’s house for a big dinner, my meal started with 3 big pieces of breaded beef, and there were about 10 other dishes spread across the table (no exaggeration). Last night I wasn’t hungry when dinner finished, but I wasn’t stuffed, which was a strange feeling. It's crazy to remember that last year this family fed me the most of all my host families. I officially have a Southern Italian stomach.

Italian
Even though when I was with this family last summer it was my last week and I’d picked up quite a bit of the language, I speak much, much better now. I didn’t really realize it until yesterday. But last year, my host mom spoke much more with my co-tutor who was fluent in Italian when the three of us were together. Now, I think she’s having conversations with me that she would have had with my co-tutor last year. I communicated much more in English with my host brother here last year, but now I even communicate with him in Italian much of the time. Unfortunately… I realized last week when trying to speak Spanish that Italian is not supplementing Spanish in my mind, but replacing it entirely. Hopefully this is not permanent.

Facebook
I know I mentioned it in my last post, but really, Facebook never came up last summer at camp. When I visited my convent camp near Rome in June, my campers from last year asked if I was on Facebook. And all my campers this year have asked. Lynne and I were teaching the first conditional tense when this happened:

Me: “If you go to China, what will you do?”
Student: “If I go to China, I will eat sushi.”
Me: “No, if you go to Japan, you will eat sushi.”
Other student points to Lynne: “You eat sushi for 24th birthday.”

Lynne’s eyes widened and she turned to me and said “Oh god, they’ve seen my Facebook.” Turns out she has no privacy settings, and she spent the next 5 minutes quizzing the class on her Facebook profile, and many of them knew quite a bit about her.

I always think about telling them that Facebook is from my hometown. If I did ACLE again, I would go around taking pictures of tech headquarters in Silicon Valley before I came to show what my area is known for.

French fries
Maybe they were around last summer, too. But this year, I don’t know if it’s a southern thing or what, but they were EVERYWHERE. Sicilian kids love French fries. I got increasingly frustrated that there is so much amazing fresh, homemade food surrounding them, yet they choose to eat French fries. But maybe it’s just my romantic idea of Italy and it’s offensive for me to not want them to change. A few weeks ago I made a vow to myself to not eat any French fries here, and I’ve stuck to it.

Lateness

Kids in the south all seem to go to bed around 11-12. When I was their age, I think I would go to bed around 8. In the north, kids stay up later than in America but I don’t remember them going to bed super late.

Families

For me, last summer was largely about getting to know the other tutors. I’ve kept in touch with a lot of them throughout the year. This year has been more about getting to know my host families, because I haven’t lived with the other tutors at any camp. Of course I’ve still enjoyed getting to know the other tutors, but I’ve just spent so much more time this year with the families. When I return to Italy, I will have to come south to see them.

Water

Last year, from my first week of camp near Rome to my last week here in Fontanella, I did not see the coast once. This year, I was within 5 minutes of the sea for 4/5 of my working weeks, and the other one was Pool Camp in the middle of Sicily.

Road Tripping

After spending 6+ weeks in the South of Italy, I’m in exactly the same room I posted from this week last year. My last-minute efforts to arrange an exciting last week have proven successful so far, thanks to host families. Hopefully my plans for the next several days will also work out.

On Thursday morning I’ll go to Florence to meet a Canadian tutor friend from last summer, and we’ll explore there until Friday afternoon. I saw Florence for a few days last May, but there are a couple things I missed that I really want to see. Friday afternoon I’ll head to Cinque Terre (5 beautiful coastal towns) to meet another Canadian tutor friend from last summer. Cinque Terre was #1 on my list of things to see this summer (I have so far crossed off Sicily, Pompei, and the Amalfi Coast –Sardinia, Ostia Antica, the rest of Tuscany outside of Florence, and the Dolomites remain), so I’m reeeeeeeeeally looking forward to it. Monday I’ll go to Milan, and I fly out from there the next morning.

But on to the past. On Sunday at 11 pm I was on the southern coast of Sicily. On Monday at 6 am I woke up on the northern coast of Sicily. On Monday at 11:30 am I was outside Milan, the biggest city in northern Italy.

Following the emotional show on Friday night, I spent the weekend road trippin’ with my host fam. On Saturday we went to Segesta, Erice, and the salt part of Trapani (the largest sicty on the western coast). Segesta is an ancient Greek town that has a beautiful incomplete temple and a small amphitheater with a view of both mountains and sea. We were there pretty early in the day, so there were very few tourists, and I get the feeling that in general its an overlooked destination because it’s not really near anything.

Erice is a Lonely Planet favorite. It’s a small town on top of a singular mountain near the west coast of the island. The town itself was a bit disappointing, nothing was particularly impressive, but the view was incredible. Because there’s nothing nearly as tall anywhere around, and the clouds actually seem close to hitting your head, it feels like half of Sicily is visible.

Our last stop on Saturday was the salt manufacturing part of Trapani’s coast. There were a couple cool looking windmills (if that’s the accurate name for them), and some of the pools of water were brilliant red. In the picture you can see a singular mountain way back, that’s Erice.

Sunday we took it easy until about 6:30 pm. Our destination was Agrigento, the largest city on the southern coast of the island, and about 1:45 away from the house. My host parents insisted on visiting the Valley of the Temples there at night. My host mom cooked a big dinner before we left and said we’d eat it when we got back. I was confused because we were leaving at 6:30… the place was 1:45 away… we’d probably spend a couple hours there….

The temples were beeeeeeeeeautiful, and I’m really glad they decided to go at night. There were only a few other people, the temperature was perfect, and the temples’ glow was amazing. We saw three of the ancient temples there, and each was very noticeably different. I’m always really thankful for host families that do their best to show you their favorite places nearby, and I think this was my host parents’ favorite place in Sicily (at least at night).

But then it was time to go. I was already hungry when we arrived (we’d last eaten around 2:30 pm), and my little host brother was complaining very loudly, as I’m sure I would have been in his position. We drove around the city for a little while, but it was Sunday night, so we didn’t see anything open. My host mom said that we’d just wait til we got back home (which would be 12:30 am) and eat the dinner she had made. Luckily, as we were turning to find the highway entrance, I saw a sign for a self-service restaurant that was open, so we got a pizza for the road. However, we did indeed have dinner at 12:30 am when we returned.

1 2 3 - Eyes on Me

My first two shows this summer were pretty typical. This last one was extremely memorable, for better, and for worse. I wrote this post over the weekend, but haven't had sufficient internet access to post it til now (I'm with my last host fam from last year, in Fontanella 45 min east of Milan).

Warning: The story that is most of this post is really, really long, and perhaps makes a huge deal out of something that wasn't really a huge deal, but it certainly felt like a huge deal at the time. I mostly wanted to write it out so I would remember it, but feel free to read the whole thing. To skip it, scroll down to the bold “The rest of the night began with tears.” That's the beginning of the happy part.

It all began on Thursday, when I figured out how to have iTunes start playing a song at a certain point in the middle, not at the beginning. This is SO useful for a show, because usually the kids only sing the chorus, not from the beginning.

I shared the discovery with my co-tutors, and Lynne wanted me to use the feature for her two songs, “Waving Flag” by Wash U WILD veteran K’naan, and Shakira’s “Waka Waka,” the indisputable song of the summer, at least in Italy. Both are songs of this year’s World Cup. We chose the starting points for both songs, although I went back to double check the starting time for “Waving Flag” because the lyrics were a bit off from what Lynne’s group was singing, but it was fine.

Fastforward to Friday night – the final show. Since the show was at 7 and not at 5 (when most of my shows are), the place was packed because almost all of the parents could actually make it. Everything was going fine, and then it was Lynne’s show. Her group was doing an international beauty pageant, with like 6 or 7 songs (usually groups do 1 or 2, but this group was amazing and Lynne had a lot of song ideas). I was the music man, and also the Loch Ness monster, when Miss Scotland’s turn came.

The show began smoothly, and then it came time for “Waving Flag.” I clicked the song, and it started at the beginning, not at the designated start time we had set. I looked up at the group and at Lynne, who were all staring at me, confused. I quickly remembered that we had set it to exactly 1:00 in, so I fast forwarded and everything was fine after a few seconds of hesitation.

I couldn’t figure out why the start time hadn’t worked (I later remembered that when double checking the start time earlier, I had unchecked the box that said “Start time: 1:00” in order to listen to the whole song, and had forgotten to re-check it). So I urgently checked “Waka Waka,” to make sure that one would start on time. That one was fine, but while checking I had forgotten to stop “Waving Flag,” which had gone on for a few seconds too long, and Lynne and her group were again staring at me.

Sufficiently embarrassed, I decided to again double check “Waka Waka.” While doing this, I missed my cue to jump in as the Loch Ness Monster, but caught the word “monster” a second later and jumped in, and I’m sure no one aside from Lynne and her group noticed. Still, my humiliation deepened.

I spent the next minute concentrating only on when “Waka Waka” would begin. The time came and I clicked the song. What came out of the speakers was a vague unrecognizable instrumental, with no vocals. Lynne looked at me and said, “That’s not Waka Waka.” Roberto, the camp director, picked up the mic and started talking a bit to ease the awkwardness, while the girl in Lynne’s class who was going to dance to the song just stared at me (pictured, leading kids and tutors in a lunchtime practice), and Lynne had her head in her hands.

Completely confused and nearing traumatization with everyone in the room waiting for me and Lynne and her group wondering why I kept messing everything up, I remembered that the cd with the two World Cup songs should be nearby, and thankfully it was on top of the pile beneath the AV desk. I put it in and before I knew it “Waka Waka” was resonating throughout the room, albeit from the beginning of the song.

Thus ended my role in Lynne’s show, and when it finished, her group was still standing somewhat paralyzed in front of the crowd, in disbelief that so much had gone wrong.

My co-tutors later helped me realize that the vague instrumental had indeed been “Waka Waka,” but our director had tweaked the sound levels for the previous song, and apparently he lowered the vocals way too much. This made me feel a bit better, but to the girl who was waiting to dance it really didn’t matter.

I had to collect myself because my group’s show was next, and it went smoothly, with no real blips. But I’m pretty sure I was only somewhat conscious after what had just happened, so I don’t remember it too well. Thankfully, all the music for my show was fine, but that only added to my guilt. It took me a full hour after the show to realize I'd forgotten to give my camera to another tutor during my show, so I have no pictures of the actual show, but we did take pictures before and after.

There are technical difficulties with every show, usually with the music. But I think this was so intense for me because the kids had been so amazing and worked so hard. I had told Lynne earlier that I thought my script was fine, but these kids deserved more than a fine script, and I really wanted my show to express how great the group was. Additionally, it was not even my group that suffered from all these problems, so I was causing another tutor to experience painful disappointment. Everything that was my responsibility in the show went wrong.

The rest of the night began with tears. I somehow managed to lead the crowd of parents and the campers in a final rendition of “The Jellyfish,” and when the show finished most of the girls in my class and Lynne’s class broke down. Not because of the technical problems (thank god) but because they were so sad that camp was over.

I think the show finished around 8 pm, and all five of my campers (as well as about 10-15 others) were still there at 10 pm. This is highly unusual. While explaining to some of the kids in my group how much I appreciated them and how because they were enthusiastic, all the little kids were enthusiastic. They asked me if I was coming back next year and I told them not for camp, but the next time I was in Italy I would certainly visit Casteldaccia because I would have so many people to see. This made the one girl who hadn’t yet cried begin. I was on the verge of tears, so I had to stop talking for a little while.

Lynne and I (whose groups had worked together throughout the two weeks) took pictures with our students in dozen of permutations, and the problems from the show didn’t seem to matter. I was hugging my campers (often to console them while crying), which I was especially happy to do because I much prefer the American style of hugging to the Italian style of kissing on the cheek.

The parents provided a tasty buffet outside, and then our kids initiated what is most certainly the indicator of a great camp: a closing warm-up circle (pictured). They sang one song from each tutor (at this camp we each had 2-4 songs that we would occasionally sing in the opening and closing circles, they chose “Baby Shark” from my repertoire), and the energy was unbelievable. The parents formed a circle around our circle, which was also exciting (but they didn’t sing along).

One thing that’s been new, at least for me, this year, is Facebook friend requests from campers. Before this camp, I’d rejected all of them, sending each a message with my email address if they wanted to keep in touch. It just didn’t feel right to be Facebook friends with 10-12 year-olds. But with this group? I was excited to get their friend requests. So far, I’m friends with 10/11 of my class and Lynne's class, her smallest boy who probably doesn't have Facebook being the exception.

Again, I apologize for the length of this post (literally 4.5 pages in Word), but I didn’t want to forget anything when I try to remember the end of Casteldaccia, and I’m sure I did anyway.

Sparking Gold & Shades of Blue

I stayed pretty close to home this weekend. On Saturday all 4 tutors from this camp spent the day in Palermo.  I was hesitant to do this because I already spent three days there this month, but I managed to see new things.

Upon arrival in the city, we walked over to the bus station to catch a ride to Monreale, but first we stopped at Ballaro market, the biggest one in the city, to have a quick look around.  I often see people who at first glance look like people I know, but of course are not, because I'm way down in Sicily and very few people I know are in Europe this summer.  But in the mass of this extremely long market, in a city far away from the Italian mainland, I walked right into a guy from my high school, who had also just graduated (Jonathan Morag to be precise, Rotem I think you're going to be the only one that knows him).  Describing it as surreal would be an understatement.  In my seven months abroad last year, I never ran into someone from high school, and so many people were abroad.  Oh, and here's a giant swordfish we more predictably saw at the market.

We made our way to Monreale, a small town in the hills above Palermo with an absolutely incredible church, quite possibly my favorite in Europe.  We explored the chiostro, which must translate to something like courtyard, thanks to my co-tutor's lie that all of us were from England to get EU discounts.  There are double columns bordering the courtyard, and each set has a different pattern.  I took waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too many pictures, but that happens in these places.

Inside the church, the walls are almost entirely covered with gold mosaics.  The church is Norman/Arab/maybe Byzantine, too (?), and is one of those only-in-Sicily things.  It's super old - 1100s - and just mindbogglingly beautiful. There are three or four levels of images in the mosaics, telling biblical stories.  And the ceiling is gold as well, with gold beams crossing it.

We returned to Palermo, and I got to re-visit some of my favorite spots (with company this time), and I saw some new places, too.  I realized how lucky I was to have visited during festival time, because all of the lights above the major streets were gone.  We were also able to stay out late (a rare ACLE night out) thanks to one of the other host fathers who works late at a Palermo restaurant and gave us a ride back to Casteldaccia.

On Sunday I took it easy, and the highlight of my day was driving around the local coast with my host dad and brother, finding the best locations for taking pictures.

It was a windy day, which apparently creates colorful chaos in the sea.  Near the beach, the water was a pretty gross, sandy brown.  But a little ways out, it turned into a gorgeous light blue, and then a perfect, deep blue that stretched as far as I could see.  One minute there would be more of one color, and a few minutes later there would be more of another color.  I'm guessing this happens a lot of places but I'd never really noticed it before.

We kept driving around the coast, and ended up on this rocky beach facing Palermo, where huge birds circled high above (my host mom told me they're albatross, but I'm not totally sure if she was right because google translate disagreed).  The water was a totally different color there, but also beautiful.

Camp is still going really well, although 2 of my 5 kids have been out so far this week, and my show is pretty underdeveloped.  We're doing a dating game featuring Beyonce, Lady Gaga, and Shakira, because a dating game is one of the few shows you can actually do with 5 kids (host, person searching, 3 contestants).

Next week I'll be off, meaning this is my last camp.  I wanted to work but all camps are in the far north, and it costs too much to get me there.  I'm creating my plan now.  I will spend this weekend with my host fam here seeing Erice and Agrigento, two places I really want to go in Sicily that I haven't seen yet.  Then, I will probably fly on Monday to Milan, hopefully see a friend from Prague there, stay with a past host family for a couple nights, head to Florence to meet up with a friend from last year, and then head to Cinque Terre to see another friend from last year (this last part is definite).  Most of it is up in the air, but if it all works out, or even if most of it works out, it'll be a pretty incredible week.

Cristiano Ronaldo is better than The Pope

It's only halfway through, but I'm pretty sure this is the best camp I've ever done.  Usually I have a favorite or two in a class of 10-12 kids.  It's hard not to.  But in this group of 5, I do not have a favorite, because they are all a pleasure to teach.  As previously mentioned, the director is great, and the snacks are unbelievable.  Fresh bread every morning and granitas every afternoon.  And there's always fruit around.  One of the campers already brought all the tutors presents (we still have another week here!) and we have multiple dinner offers from other campers' families for next week.  Oh, and we spent all of Thursday at the beach.


There are pictures throughout the post from this past week that are not connected to the stories they're adjacent to (except for the last one). So quickly here are brief descriptions of them:

1. The view from my host family's house
2. Lunch at the beach
3. How many campers can fit on a surfboard? (This was their favorite game that day) And one of my campers waving.
4. Morning snack one day.  The breads had ham and cheese inside so the director ordered two small pizzas for me and the vegetarian tutor.
5. My favorite anti-mafia poster in the school.  There are dozens.
6. This is actually connected to the story, it's my group's city.  Hopefully if you click on it you'll be able to see the pretty buildings when it's zoomed in.


And now on to the best part... Stories from the last couple days at camp:

1. One of my favorite games to use is this one where everyone stands in a circle.  Everyone has one action they act out, and describes the action in English.  For example, when teaching the present continuous, a kid says "I am swimming" and acts it out.  But you have to say your action and another person's action.  So it goes like...

"I am swimming (acts out swimming), and I am running (acts out running)"
The person whose action is running says "I am running (acts out running) and I am jumping (while jumping)"
And so on, until somebody messes up.

So yesterday my co-tutor Lynne and I were teaching the past simple.  So they acted out their verbs while saying them in past simple, and then acted out another person's verb and said it in the past simple.  It was all going fine until somebody unknowingly used a combination that caused Lynne and I to laugh pretty hard for a while.  It went something like this:

"I swam and I ran"
"I ran and I played"
"I played and I drank"
"I drank and I drove"

2. Another game that our classes played together was a simplified version of Taboo.  One of the words was... I'm gonna let you guess.

Describer: "It is a drink.  Red or white."
12-year old girl in my class: " Rum? Vodka? Bacardi?"

It actually took them about 8 guesses to get to wine.  They're Italian.

3.  Also during Taboo, a girl had to get the group to guess "supermarket."

Describer: "A place where you go to find pasta and bread."
Girl in Lynne's class: "Italy!"

4. Italian kids say funny things when they don't know what you're talking about.  One is "Bo," also pronounced "Buh."  Another is "COSA?!" or sometimes "CHE COSA?!"  Which mean "What" or "What is it?" And there's always "EH?!"

But for the first time, I have a girl (the same one who guessed several varieties of hard alcohol) who, when I say something she doesn't understand, scrunches up her face and exclaims, "WHAT?!"  I think it's the most shocking thing I've had a camper say this year.

She's the youngest in my class, but she just has these instinctive English sayings.  "What" is one of them, but when I say something that is apparently unbelievable, she says "Oh my god!"  Ok, so she might be my favorite.

5. To teach comparatives, Lynne and I assigned celebrities to each camper, and in groups of 3 they had to make sentences like: "Brad Pitt is stronger than Jennifer Lopez, but Michael Jordan is stronger than Brad Pitt." I don't think I've mentioned it yet, but Lynne and I combine our classes for the second lesson because we total 11 campers and they all use the same color book.

One group had Silvio Berlusconi (the rather interesting Italian President), Cristiano Ronaldo (soccer player) and The Pope.  They decided to compare them using good, better, and the best.  Their sentence was as follows:

"The Pope is better than Silvio Berlusconi.  But Cristiano Ronaldo is better than The Pope."

6. Friday's activity involved brainstorming a list of things that are in cities (supermarket, post office, bank etc.) and then drawing a city.  A few funny things happened. 

I tried to make the activity more interesting by providing anecdotes about the US.  So one boy suggested "toy shop," and I thought I would tell him that in the US, the most popular toy shop is called "Toys 'r Us."  They all nodded in recognition.  "We have in Palermo," one said.  Thanks, globalization.

Another one suggested "pizzeria." I was ambivalent because it's an Italian word but it is one we use back home.  So I allowed it, but only if the used an American "r" when saying it.  So for the next minute they were all laughing and saying "Pizzerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrria."

I can't remember if I suggested it or they did, but somehow the subject of a thrift\second-hand shop came up.  I explained what it was, and used "second-hand," but then decided that hearing Italian children try to say "thrift" was an opportunity not to be missed. They really struggle with "th" and "r," and "ft" never happens in Italian.  I got a lot of "trif" and "thrist" before anyone got it right.  None of them got it in the first 5 tries, and it took one girl 5 minutes, but she finally got it. 


All these stories are from the last two mornings, and they're such funny story machines, because they really want to learn.  I never really thought about measuring how much kids wanted to learn last summer, but one of my campers at Food Camp really made me think about it. When I asked him a question, he would respond, and then sometimes tell me something else that I hadn't directly asked him about.  And, for example, when I pretended to swing a baseball bad using a paintbrush, he said "Baseball!" and then asked me how to say "glove," which he described by just pointing to his hand and closing it.

When I was little I didn't really understand what other kids meant when they said that they "wanted to learn." I thought of it as something geeky, and that you had to be someone who wanted to learn meant that you had to really intentionally always inquire about things. And I thought of myself as someone who did what he was told, and if that meant learning, I did it.  But now I'm picking up on the little things that indicate that a child wants to learn-  Who knows why they want to learn, if it's an innate thing, or if they just want to satisfy someone.

In this group, they've never once chatted with each other while I'm explaining something (unless it's to help another camper understand). Part of that is because there are only 5 kids in the class, but part is because they really want to understand.  Today one of them wrote a period after a word on the city map, and I asked how to say it in Italian.  I've found that inquiring about Italian words for things often makes them more curious about the English words for things.  After she said the word in Italian, she asked me how to say comma... and then question mark... and then exclamation point.  And she was repeating all of them for a couple minutes after. 

I can't say how much of a pleasure it is to teach this group.  If it was at all possible, I would definitely do 3 weeks of camp here, and if I had a whole summer teaching them, I'm pretty sure I could get them like 5 years ahead.  But right now I'm just glad that I know I'll be working with this bunch next week.

On Sicily/The South

I've been here for 2.5 weeks now.  When I was at food camp in Calabria, I thought of writing on "The South."  I'm not sure if this post will be more about Sicily, or just the south in general, but we shall see.

Most tutors want to go south.  The vast majority of camps are in the north, so it's tough to get down here.  I did request to go to Sicily or Sardinia (the island to the west of the country), but those requests aren't often honored.  Yet here I am.

Why do we want to come down here?

1. The food
2. The hospitality
3. The sights
4. The beaches
5. The difference from the rest of Western Europe

1. The food has definitely been amazing all summer, and in general much better than last year, with the exception of my convent camp near Rome (which some would consider the south anyway). 

2. I've been in families all three camps, whereas I was only with families half my time last summer.  And they've all been great as host families.

3. Pompei, Napoli, the Amalfi Coast, Syracuse, Taormina, Palermo... the sights have been pretty good.

4. The beaches are beautiful, and the water where I am now is really warm.

5. But number five leads me into the next list, which is problems with the south that could be attractions or deterrents, depending on how you see them.

A) The mafia
B) The pollution (see A)
C) The heat
D) The distance from the more populated areas of the country
E) The disorganization/relaxedness

A) I have had no personal encounters with the mafia (yet).  But all my host fams have talked about them.  My last camp as 10 minutes from a town notorious for police raids on mafia houses (and within 30 miles of the town of Corleone).  At my current camp, murals and little student-made posters decorating the school walls ask for a world "senza mafia," without mafia (I will post pictures of these later).  Tourist shops sell so much mafia-related merchandise, which must be awkward for legit mafiosos strolling by.

Oh and in case you missed it, Italy just arrested 300 members of 'Ndrangheta, the mafia group based in Calabria, the region where I spent my first two weeks this summer. So yes, it's all still VERY real.

B) The area where I am now is the most polluted I have ever seen.  My host family and director have all apologized for this repeatedly.  Every morning on the way to camp, my host mom pulls over on the side of the road where a trash collection vehicle waits, and hands off a bag of trash to three or four guys who otherwise just sit there.  They have no house-to-house collection, and the sides of most roads are covered in litter.  Some of the beaches are especially dirty.  The mafia often takes funds away from local governments that would otherwise go toward these basic services...

C) Food camp was surprisingly cool, about mid-70s during mid-day.  But a few days ago it was hovering in the mid-100s here in Sicily, although it's been 10 or 15 degrees cooler lately.

D) I am really, really far from most things.  I am way closer to Tunisia than I am to Rome.  I may even be closer to Algeria than I am to Rome.  Ordinarily, this would be fine, but I'm meeting a friend up north in a couple weeks and flying out of Milan, so it could be very problematic.

E) Food camp was super organized, completely defying this stereotype.  But my Sicilian camps have been incredibly laid back. I'd heard that the south was like "a third-world country," and when I saw chickens in the street and donkeys in garages in Palermo, I believed it.  But for the most part, it's fine.  There are some problems, like how this is my first camp of the summer with fully operational bathrooms (toilets, toilet paper, and soap).  This was never a problem at the northern camps last year.


This weekend I'm trying to figure out day trips with the other tutors, probably staying in the Palermo area but possibly going down to Agrigento on the southern coast. 

Thanks for reading and I promise pictures in my next post!

A Seinfeld Post

I don't really have much event-wise to talk about, but I figured I'd share more general experiences from my summer so far. 

Language is interesting.  Sometimes it matters that I've never studied Italian, sometimes it doesn't at all.  And this really has nothing to do with whether or not my host fam speaks any English.  So I've been thinking about what makes it matter.

In my new family, I find that it matters.  I can find ways to get across pretty much anything using basic words and gestures, but that doesn't seem to be enough.  Yesterday was one of my worst days at camp so far this summer, perhaps my worst.  My new kids were great, and too quiet if anything, and my tutor group works well together.  Even the director is amazing.  But the heat kept me awake, as did the fact that I forgot to shut the mosquito screen after shutting the blinds before I went to sleep. I woke up sneezing before my alarm went off and, frankly, I never recovered energy-wise during the day. 

So when my host mom came to pick me up she told me I looked so tired I was dead, and that's actually about how I felt. But then on the car ride home she did not stop talking, continuing to tell me things she'd already told me about how I should say if there are places I want to go after camp or if I want to spend more time with the other tutors.  And she kept reminding me of how tired I looked.  I was pretty aware of how tired I looked, and all I wanted was some silence in the car, but I have nowhere near the vocab necessary to get that across politely.  So I listened and continued to process the Italian, which is an excercise requiring much energy in its own right.  Needless to say I was even more unhappy by the time I got home.

My last family also spoke no/very very little English, so all the dialogue was in Italian.  But, although a bit tiring, that was fine.  They seemed to understand that there wasn't always something I needed.  I didn't need the gentle vocab that I would find useful here.

Aside from the language bit, everything else about this host family is really nice, and I had probably the best tomato pasta sauce I've ever had last night.  They have a beautiful garden in the backyard, which is where the tomatoes came from.

My camp group here is super small... only 5 kids for the two weeks.  They're 12-15, which is a fun age if they're well-behaved, and these kids are.  My challenge is to get them to be loud, much like my last group in Mussomeli.  I think they'll get a bit noisier every day, which is nice.  Four of them are about the same English level, but one of them is way beyond, and she's awesome.  We played a game today (one of my favorites with older groups) involving one person in the middle of a circle calling out to one person in the circle that goes like this:

Hey (name)!
Hey what?!
Hey (name)!
Hey what?!
Show me the way to get down!
No way!
Show me the way to get down!
Ok!
(While dancing) D-O-W-N That's the way to get down! (clap clap)
(Entire circle repeats the dance while singing ) D-O-W-N That's the way to get down! (clap clap)

And this one girl got reeeeeeally into it, sass and all, because she actually understood that one is meant to display attitude.  It was great.

And now I'm realizing, I don't think I've ever talked about camp songs on the blog?  My favorite one is about a penguin drinking tea, involving a whole range of body motions designed to make everyone look like penguins.  My specialty is called "The Jellyfish" and it goes something like this...

Arms up!
Wrists together!
And........ The Jellyfish! The Jellyfish! The Jellyfish!
(During the jellyfish part, you wiggle your fingers to look like a jellyfish - or medusa as they say here)

The song goes on so that at the end you've added a bunch of body parts to make it absolutely ridiculous.  Usually I'll have a few kids who run up to me around camp screaming "The Jellyfish! The Jellyfish!" and doing the hand gestures, or sometimes "The Jollyfish! The Jollyfish!"

But anyways.  There's a little taste of camp and language issues.  In case it went over a head or two, the title is because this was really a post about nothing, which is nice every now and then.

Syracuse, Taormina & Palermo Solo

Strangely enough, after spending 16+ hours on trains over the last week, I'm writing from the same computer I used for my last post.  I'm back in Mussomeli to catch my breath at my last host family's house.

I could write a good 10 posts or so about the last week, but I'm going to try and condense it into 1 because if I fall behind, it's gonna be really hard to catch up. So I'll begin with my journey to Siracusa (Syracuse) with a stop in Catania, the island's 2nd largest city.

Catania

I had a 3-hour layover in Catania, so I thought I'd hop on a bus into the center. I got on a bus that would make two stops near the duomo (cathedral), and I assumed it would be fairly obvious when I hit the center.  30 minutes later, I was back at the train station. The next time I asked my fellow passengers, and I got off in the right place. 

After walking into the main square, I looked around and was not too impressed.  I quickly found myself going into any store that was open and looking around to pass the time.  But then, a protest broke out.  I still don't know what it was about, but there was a group burining flares and chanting in front of the university.  I would have rather been entertained by something more pleasant, but it was something.  I wished it could be another pride parade instead, but that was a ridiculous though, since it's July. But in Siracusa 2 guys at the hostel had seen the same protest and then asked me: "Did you see the gay pride parade after?" That was frustrating.  If only my layover had been a couple hours later.

Syracuse

I really liked Syracuse.  When I first checked in, the hostel guy told me to hurry to the supermarket before it closed to buy food for dinner.  I realized that I hadn't been to a European supermarket yet this year, and that I had nevr actually made dinner for myself in Italy.  So I grabbed a bunch of ingredients for pasta (and forgot to weigh my fruit), assuming that whatever I put in would be delicious because hey, this is Italy.  It was the worst pasta I've ever made.  But it was cheap.

On Sunday morning I went to the archaelogical park, where there's a Roman amphitheatre and a Greek theater.  I was worried I wouldn't actually be able to see Sicily's mixed history, but it really is everywhere.  The theatre was massive. But my favorite thing in the park was the Ear of Dionysus, an incredibly tall cave in a quarry.  The acoustics are amazing. 

Ortigia is an island that is part of Siracusa, and it was a blast getting lost and wandering there.  There's a beautiful piazza, definitely one of my favorites in Italy, and the main cathedral is actually a converted greek temple.  But you can still see the 2500 year old Greek columns. 

There's a Jewish quarter on the island, and I went to see an ancient mikve (spelling?) 20 meters below a hotel.  But aside from that there's nothing Jewish besides a couple street names (Giudecca, etc.). Palermo also has a Jewsh quarter, with nothing Jewish at all except for Hebrew on street signs (along with Italian and Arabic).

I watched the World Cup Final in Siracusa with a Canadian and a Colombian from my hostel.  We sat in a row of outdoor restaurants with big screens.  There were strong Dutch and Spanish contingents, which made it more exciting.  I was amused to see the Dutch dressed in all orange in a city called Syracuse (also one of the had a vuvuzela).  There were a few other people I met at the hostel, Brits, Australians, Poles. The two Brits were watching Glenn Beck on the hostel tv because they'd only seen Jon Stewart's impersonations and were curious about the real thing.  It was an episode slamming progressives for having supported eugenics 100 years ago in an effort to wipe out black people.  They changed the channel pretty quickly.

Taormina

I had walking directions from the center of the town to my hotel (my hostel cancelled on me so I had to book a real hotel). After getting off the bus from the train station, I begin my ascent.  It took about 40 minutes, entirely uphill, with all my stuff, often along narrow roads with no other pedestrians in sight.  I have never been so sweaty.  But then I arrived, and this is what I saw.  View of the sea, view of the city, view of Mt. Etna.

Taormina is extraodrinarily beautiful, extraordinarily expensive, and extraordinarily Amreican.  I actually felt like my country had come to visit me, and I wanted to escape into an Italian home. In Siracusa, aside from my hostelmates, I had heard absolutely no North American English.  In Taormina, about a third of the people are American. I saw the beautiful Greek theater... for free!! The cost of admission is 8 euro, 4 euro for EU students. I shoed my Czech university ID, which says "Foreign Student." She asked where I was from and I replied: "I studied in Praga."  She asked what I studied and I said "historia." She smiled and handed me a ticket that read 0.00 euro.  I had also gotten a big discount at the Syracuse archaelogical park using my Czech ID, but I'd still had to pay.

Walking around the town was nice, especially the staircases, but I started to realize all the things I couldn't do, or that just weren't as fun,  because I was traveling alone. I went to the beach/es, which were beautiful, but I couln't go into the water because who was going to watch my stuff?  I could go out to eat (but I had to go out to eat, there is no takeaway or supermarket in Taormina), but who would I talk to?  I didn't see anyone else in the town walking around alone, and because I was at a hotel and not a hostel, I couldn't really meet people there.

Palermo

Things turned around on my birthday.  In fact, things turned around because of my birthday.  I arrived at about 5pm that day, went to my hostel, and set off on a random walk around the city.  I immediately liked Palermo. In the same way that I can't put my finger on why I don't like Rome, I can't explain why I like Palermo. But I do.  It's the largest city on the island, and it really does feel like a city.  It's dirty and beautiful. I walked by multiple donkeys in garages, and a couple chickens, too. I didn't notice til just now, but "Palermo" is written on the wall of the garage. 

I found a new favorite church exterior, and it's the main cathedral in the city.  It's a mix between Arab and Norman styles, which is essentially what Sicily is (with a few more thrown in).  The interior is pretty disappointing, but I could circle it and be amazed for hours.

After my bday walk, I returned the hostel, kinda bummed that no one knew it was my birthday.  I struck up a conversation with the guy working in the lobby, a nice Brit who likes The Wire.  After an hour, an American girl joined the convo (the 2nd Hope from Louisiana I've met here), and an hour later a girl from Michigan joined in.  When the girl from Michigan heard it was my bday, she said, "We have to go get drinks!" So we did.  It didn't matter that it was already 2 am.  It was alot of fun.

I changed hostels the next day because there was a cheaper one, but I still identify with that first hostel.  On Wednesday I wandered again.  The most exciting thing that happend was when I went for lunch.  I saw a nice, busy cafe so I went in.  The guy behind the counter was serving everyone the same pasta, so I asked if it had meat.  He said it had chicken, so I said ok, I'll have that.  I sat down, and 15 minutes later, he brought me a big plate with an even bigger piece of chicken (actually the biggest I've ever seen), veggie, and toast.  I got really nervous because meat is much more expensive, and there were a lot of people in suit surrounding me.  But I ate it all because it was delicious.  I cautiously walked to the register, and the guy said "6 euro." I don't think I've mentioned it yet: Palermo is cheap.

The reason I went to Palermo when I did was for their festival honoring St. Rosalia, the city's patron saint.  I met up with my crew from the first hostel, and we went to the center to watch a procession of horses with giant colorful feathers towing carriages with colorful paintings. I was so happy to have a group to go with (Brits, Americans, a hilarious Austrian).

The hostel guy knew people who had an apartmet overlooking the route, so we went up to watch from there as the rose-covered statue of St. Rosalia passed below. I was excited about the balcony but realized the next day that my hostel had a balcony... and that it was literally directly across the street from this one. Anyway, there were a bunch of erasmus students at the apt (European study abroad), and I met a Czech girl who was also at the Beyonce concert in Prague last spring.

After the parade passed, we walked down to the coast for a loooooong fireworks show.  This is a picture of most of the crew that I went with that night.  I also met up with my last host aunt, who's studying in Palermo, and her friends for drinks last night, which was great.

I could write so much more, especially about thought as opposed to events, but it's1:30 am and this is already a ridiculously long post.  In Taormina, and even at the end fo Siracusa, I was SO ready to jump back into the ACLE lifestyle where time is structured, food is prepared, and I don't have to pay for anything.  Which made me realize how spoiled I am working here.  Spending a week in the hostel lifestyle gave me an immense appreciation for ACLE life that I will bring with me to my next camp in Casteldaccia, a beach town just east of Palermo. 

My experience in Palermo was important not just because I had people to do things with, but beause it was, in a way, my first post-college life test.  In a new city... don't know anyone... have to meet people to do things with.  And it as a blast.  I didn't talk at all about my day trip to Cefalu yesterday, but on my way to the station, I ran into the girl from Michigan.  In Cefalu (a beach town an hour from Palermo), I ran into the new Hope.  And when I got back to Palermo, Hope and I ran into two Brits from the hostel.  Not really sure what that all means but it seems like a fitting way to end the post.