November 1, All Saints Day

I wanted to learn about this holiday which I am grateful for because my boys have tomorrow off! Here is the scoop: All Saints day is a festival honoring all the saints, known and unknown. Pope Gregory III changed the date of the festival to November the first.
May 13, 609 was the First All Saints Day and was the very first day that a pagan church was transformed into a Christian place of worship in Rome, and was of all places the Pantheon! (You must see the Pantheon when in Rome)! Pope Boniface IV received permission from the Emperor to change the Pantheon from a temple which had been dedicated to Jupiter, Mars and Venus to a Christian church, which he consecrated to the Virgin Mary and all the Martyrs. What is incredible is that it is said they took sacred bones from the catacombs and placed them under the altar... 28 cartloads of bones! Many early Christians prayed and worshiped God among the graves and bodies of their dead, for they were in hiding from, and persecuted by the Roman Empire, and lived hidden among the catacombs. (The catacombs are another must see when you are in Rome. It is mandatory to see the catacombs as part of a tour group, but it was very informative and interesting. It was probably my favorite tour of Rome. It was very sobering when I looked around and saw the small passageways and grave niches... and thought of the lives of the Christians who had actually lived there).

Il Castello

Imagine that you are a young boy of 8 or 10 years old. You move to Italy and have to go to school there. The first weeks of school are a blur. You spend so much time immersed in Italian that you are exhausted by the time school is over. After school you wake up when you arrive home, and if it is a nice day you go play outside with the neighborhood boys, and if the weather is not nice you play inside. Then you try to do any homework on your own that you can. But you must still go over what you studied and did in school that day with your dad who is Italian and can help you. Then you sit down with the family and have dinner together and talk about the various things that happened at school, and anything else that comes up. If you are lucky you have finished the homework and can relax and play x box or watch a movie... otherwise the studying continues.

I can't really imagine what it is like for a child to be a foreigner, suddenly adapting to a new language and a new set of school rules. It must be overwhelming at times. Several times Gabriel has said the class is too noisy to effectively do work. When I want to hear Italian, I turn on the tv or radio... but I only have patience for this a few hours at a time, while the boys are inundated with this Italian all day long at school. They did not complain as much as they probably had a right to. Last year was full of obstacles, and the feeling of exhiliration as we broke through yet another one... and learned to manage. I am so proud of them! One of the teachers who really made a difference for the boys took all of the foreign students, a few from the U.S. and a few from Germany and England, and started teaching them basic Italian. The students weren't with her for more than an hour each day, but what she taught them was incredible. Once they were able to say some sentences, their life in school changed. Their classmates realized they were kids, not just monkeys in a zoo. They were so thrilled to finally start making friends, but the tightest knit group were the kids in the basic Italian class. One of the projects their Italian-class teacher had the children do was to write a story, design the cover and artwork, using cut fabric and glue, and make a book. In Italian. My children each wrote a story. Here is Matthew showing his, Il Castello:


Now these two boys will always have a keepsake of their first year in Italy. Maybe they will remember the hardships, but I think they will be reminded instead of all the hard work they did, and how good it feels to learn, and to do well! I think they will be self confident when they are faced with new situations, because they have already proven themselves capable. It was a difficult first year... a time of transition. But this year is going so much more smoothly. Full immersion works. I am amazed at how quickly children adapt, but I know they also put in a lot of effort... I am so very proud of them.

chocolate & coffee!

Mmmmm... I just love them. For me coffee is a daily need, and chocolate a special indulgence. They are married in my favorite candy here in Italy. The boys sometimes bring them to their teachers on a Friday... I think it is a nice improvement on an apple! These little gems are no where to be found in the summer months, and believe me I have looked! But come September, they are back in the stores. Ok, I have just shared my favorite candy addiction! What is yours?

Afternoon tea with the boys

Maybe it was because of the scones that the boys and I made last night. I am not certain. But today I was inspired to have "Tea" with the boys rather than give them an ordinary lunch after school. I have been trying to find little ways to brighten their days, ways to show them how much I love them, and am happy to have them in my life. It feels like we have been inundated with homework, and studying, and I wanted to spend a quiet moment with them. A moment in which I didn’t need to urge them to do yet more studying. I put on a nice table cloth, put the saucers and teacups on the table, started heating the kettle, made sandwiches and waited for the boys to come home. They were pleasantly surprised, and it was a nice interlude. They talked about the flavor of the tea, the merit of adding sugar, and various details about their day at school. It is amazing how much more you find out when you don’t say "So, how was your day at school?" I found out how Matthew did on his spelling test, and what Gabriel’s English teacher said when he didn’t have today’s assignment ready. Yes, I know... having tea is ordinary, but we don’t usually do it- and just look at their beaming faces!

Baby girl turns 1!

Buon Compleanno Delta! I am happy to report that the dog lasagne birthday "cake" was a success! I added just enough kibble to it to make myself feel less guilty for giving her all that pasta and cheese in one meal. She loved it, but couldn't finish it all at once. I noticed though, that she finished it off about an hour later.

Our Dog

Delta our doggy princess will turn One year old on Saturday! In this photo taken yesterday, she was sleepy enough to let me give her a kiss. We plan to make her a special doggy lasagne with kibble in it for her birthday cake! We will let you know how it turns out. Also I will be posting here some of the best photos of her first year (the cutest ones!)

Too good to pass up!

Ok. I'll admit it. I have a warped sense of humor. But I just had to buy that frozen pizza when I saw it, at least to have a photo! See, I knew what my family and friends would be thinking when they saw it. And to set the record straight, I am sure that is not a statement on Americans' waist lines, but more of the perception Italians have about Americans' pizzas. See, we do everything big in the U.S.! Pizza here comes on a thin crust (very thin.... if you haven't been in Italy, you can't imagine how thin). And compared to the way it is done back home in the U.S., the toppings are pretty sparse. But, it is good. The pizza here is good, even if it is different. When I am in the U.S. I think the pizza there is the best... for one thing there are all the choices, and strange combos that they haven't heard of here.  But when I am here, I think the pizza is the best! It is done differently of course, but really... this is the birthplace of pizza, and that counts for something!

Crema di Arachidi Tostate

Say Crema di Arachidi Tostate as fast as you can five times! No you won't win a prize but you might actually sound like you do have peanut butter in your mouth. One of the joys about moving to a foreign country with children is hearing them complain about missing some of the things from their past... and sometimes being able to find that very thing here, in your new country! After months of hearing the boys wish for a simple peanut butter and jelly sandwich, you should have seen the whooping and hollering with happiness that occured when we came home from the supermarket here in Torino with our very own jar of peanut butter! I am not sure if you can see from the photo but the label on this jar lists the ingredients in five different languages: English, French, Greek, Italian and I am guessing German. Recently I discovered an item that had me jumping for joy. Gina showed me where I could buy cilantro! I am going to make some fresh spicey salsa. I really have been missing Mexican food. Grazie mille Gina!

Ignorance Is Bliss, Not!

I love the Italian language. Really I do, it is just that it is so time consuming to learn! Italian is rich with words, often there are at least 5 different words with the same meanings. And don’t let me get started on the verb conjugation issue! Just thinking of it exhausts me. But when you listen to Italians speak... it is always a pleasure. The way the words are pronounced, it is like poetry, fluid and moving.
So... as a very naughty student should do after an extended time of laziness, I am properly penitent and am going to commit to studying more. I have decided (after first gauging my ability by reading a few pages) to read this book.

It seems interesting. I plan to read at least three pages a day, and believe me, that is plenty! It will take me a while to look up the words in the dictionary that I can’t figure out by sentence context. And that brings me to this next photo:

This Italian/English dictionary is "the weight of my ignorance." I weighed it folks. This is 2.5 kilos of ignorance! It equals many many long hours of studying. I will need to keep it near me while I read the other book. The only danger is getting sidetracked. I know from experience I will look up a word, and then out of curiosity look at the next... and soon I am in my own little wordy world. I probably shouldn’t admit to occasionally reading the dictionary... I am afraid I sound like a vocabulary geek, but ... Italian is so interesting!!! Here are some eloquent words as an example: sospiro - sigh, amore - love, sussurro - whisper, baci - kisses, piangere - cry. Don’t they just sound poetic? But Italian can be tricky... even if it sounds beautiful to your English speaking self. Doesn’t Ascella sound like an elegant or exotic name for a woman? It’s not. It means armpit.

A Good Example

I guess this was part of someone's bicycle once. Of all of the great pictures I could have taken today while I was out and about town, this is the sole photo I came home with. But it is a good example of how not to chain up your bike. The chain and lock looked strong, and looking at the bent tire I get the feeling that somebody had a difficult time attempting to remove it. I do feel sorry for whoever owned it.

Straniera

Some mornings I wake up and find myself here, somewhat to my surprise. Often times I am happily surprised, thinking upon all of the blessings in my life. Then there are other times where I ask the question "What am I doing Here?" with a slight tinge of hysteria. I think this is natural, a normal occurrence to anyone who is a straniera a foreigner, in a new land. I am trying to give a balanced description of my life here, being honest about the things that are wonderful and the things that aren’t so wonderful. I think it is also normal for a straniera to notice and highlight the differences between their new life and their old life, even if there are probably more similarities than differences. But in the spirit of honesty, sometimes living here has been challenging. Our house is like a little American island in the big sea of Italy... a comfortable place for the boys and I. Even if we know better, we usually speak English here, not always from laziness, but also for comfort. There are real differences, too numerous to count between life here, and life back in the U.S.A. But we are happy. There are so many things to love about living here; the food, the culture, the art, the new friends and family, and the great opportunity to try something new, just to name a few. Yet in the same spirit of honesty, I must confess that there have been moments of frustration, anger, and a lot of head shaking by me... and muttering under my breath about how strange this or that is! Even if I do seem to complain a lot about the differences, or at least to mention them doesn’t mean that I don’t love this beautiful country. I am sure that if we returned to Oregon tomorrow, there would be things about Italy that I would truly miss. The moments of feeling out of synch with this life here, are thankfully few and far between. 

And just look at this next photo my friends! Where in Oregon could we find a view like this?