bella vita

well first, the house is beautiful and perfect. My Italian family lives above their nonna (grandma) and she takes care of the cherry and apricot trees, the beautiful roses and flowers-pink, purple, yellow, red, fuschia .. and brings in zucchini, lettuce, and tomatoes . She doesn't know any English so her charades  and  frantic loud voice  make me think that the basement is flooding, she's upset about something,  or there is a fire somewhere.
At the train station, Merri-mother, Samuela-daughter, and Claudio- her friend that reminds me of Chunk from the Goonies, met me with a hand drawn welcome sign and quickly asked if I wanted ice cream(gelato).  with 'Lauren, ice cream?' being the most popular first week question..I  quickly learned 'non ancora' = 'no more/ not another'.

The children are very talented. Alessandro is the best on his water polo team. This week, they won 18-3.. Samuela is great at figure skating on roller blades. At the match last weekend, the girls seemed almost good enough for tv. When sports are over, they love playing ipad games. We're up to level 39 in candy crush. Rigazzi also like to play Foosball or 'Bigliardino' and hide & seek or 'Nascondino' as they call it.
We take about two hours a day to learn English. It's difficult to come up with material but  there are some books and videos, games, that we use.
I enjoy going for walks after dinner by the beach with Merri. We spend a lot of time at the beach and at a mini sports complex/cafe where Merri works. Its also where the girls have skating lessons and hosts hip hop dance classes on fridays.

I love the family and community bonds here. Small town, safe, everyone knows everyone, and they socialize constantly. For me, its overwhelming to listen to Italian the majority of day. They will try to speak English every so often, but give up easily. I am learning more Italian every day..
The father, Maurizio is very nice and makes a point to try and speak in English with me. We went for a long bike ride around town the other day and learned some traffic words.

Last week, we went to their church which was beautiful like any European catholic church and actually completely full to my surprise. I didn't understand anything and every song, response, was from memory.Finding a video feed of the Celebration community services made me feel more hopeful.

Finished the Dan Brown, Infermo. The history thrown in between the action in addition to Italian phrases and trips to Florence, Venice, and Istanbul made it a perfect read for this trip.

Living with another family is taking a while to get used to.. the schedule is not mine and requires total flexibility. I almost feel like I was adopted because the family is very nice and including and because we spend a lot of time together.

This time of year in Italy, feels like Florida. With limited a/c, no exercise is required to start the day off sweaty. But if I'm not already glistening, being put in a large group of new people will take me back to fifth grade first day of school jitters.

But at night, the air is cool, the windows are open, the streets are bustling and carefree. Gelaterias offer  stracciatella, fragola, pistaccio as the town takes its evening passegiata on the lungomare seaside street.  Bars serve Morretti, Granita and espresso. When life gives Italians lemons, they make Limoncello. Which tastes like a drop of sweet sunshine. And once or twice in a blue moon, the night is illuminated not only from the street lights glowing in the distance on the surrounding hills.