FOOD Camp

Last year, most of my camps had themes.  Convent Camp, Prison Camp, Mini Camp, Easy Camp.  This camp is most definitely Food Camp.

I am in the arch of the boot.  I headed down here on Saturday... and it was a pretty incredible train ride.  I've never been south of Rome, so it was all new to me.  Napoli looked as industrial as I'd heard, and the train went into the mountains too much around the Amalfi Coast so I didn't get to see it, but the entire second half of the trip was along the west coast of the country, sort of a Highway 1 of Italy, with the Pacific being the Mediterranean/Tyrrhenian.

I was stranded in my transfer station (where I wrote the beginning of my last post) for two hours.  I was having trouble figure out which substitute bus to take, but a random guy that was standing around the station offered to help.  He didn't speak a word of English but I was able to figure out exactly what he was saying, and he ran around asking bus drivers, TrenItalia employees, and other people to figure out what I should do.  It completely turned a frustrating time into a fun one.  But in the end my assistant director's sister-in-law came and rescued me.

My family picked me up and took me straight to their son's friend's birthday party.  It was outside his house, near the beach, and it was great.  Within 30 minutes, my host dad Luigi gave me:

2 slices of pizza
10 pieces of cheese
A few pieces of bread
Several refills of Fanta
2 huge pieces of cake
2 long rolls of something ricotta-ish
Spumante wine
Chocolate and limoncello liquor

That was my welcome.  Sunday we went to the grandma's house for lunch and to watch the Italy vs. New Zealand game.  I met most of the extended family, and they all had a lot of questions for me, some in easy-to-understand Italian and others that my host mom translated.  I showed them my house on google streetview and I think the now know more about me/my family that any of my host families last year.  Oh and the first course there was a plate of pasta, I was the only person who didn't have a full second plate.  There was the meat course afterward.  I don't know how they do it. (This is a pic from my house the next night, but it's pretty much the same group.)

We picked up two of my co-tutors to bring them over for the game.  They're New Zealanders.  We walked in a minute after NZ scored their goal, to everyone's tremendous surprise.  The game was pretty frustrating.  But the Kiwis loved it.  One even knew some of the players from high school and recognized friends in the stands.  Small country.

I'm also including a picture of a bridge to Catanzaro.  They're really proud of it, and it is pretty impressive.  Apparently it's the second biggest single-arch bridge in Europe.

I could post about camp, but I'll leave that for tomorrow or the next day.  But the kids are great and the camp is super super organized, which is good but stressful.