Oct 5-12

Happy Thanksgiving!!!! Hey everyone its Sam L and Natalia Z. So another week, another blog. Things are continuing to be amazing here. It’s been a fairly normal week schedule wise. We are becoming more immersed in our routine of waking up at 7am, going to breakfast, and leaving for school by 8:15am. We then stay at school until 1:10pm and we usually have a time table of English, Religion & Art history, Classical Civilizations, and then Italian, with different variations if we have a class with the Italian kids. So far we have had two classes with the younger sketch class group, and the grade eleven group. They continue to be entertaining and educational, encouraging us to interact more than we would in a normal Italian class. We have a class scheduled with the sketching group for almost every Wednesday, and the other group on Thursdays, and we have been given more offers for other classes so we will see how that goes.
In the afternoons after school we have lunch which continues to be delicious and fairly unrepetitive. We then we hang out, doing work or watching movies, and going to the gym to work out. Then we have dinner and do much of the same we did in the afternoon in the evening. We continue to go out for gelato and we try to go to the beach if we think it is warm enough. Our weather is holding up fairly well, and in fact today was the first time it’s really poured all day. It’s not very cold here yet, with the weather determinedly sticking above 20°C. We even went in a massive group sun tanning this week. Envious yet?
Cesare, who works for the mayor and gives us guided tours, took us to Fermo on a bus this week. It was pretty fun, minus the constant walking uphill. It’s a strange city, with tiny streets and very old buildings. Although there was a lot of complaining coming from us, because we all wanted to do some shopping, we had a pretty fun night. A few students even made friends with the owners of the little shops. There is a lot of staring coming from the Italians, and it’s quite amusing, actually, how much we amaze them. The teachers here are always telling us that the Italians want to learn English as much as we want to learn Italian.
Today we celebrated thanksgiving at lunch. The owners of the hotel generously made us a turkey, and man that thing was huge! We each got quite a bit to eat. They were concerned about the stuffing, since they don’t usually make turkey, but in our opinion, it was quite delicious and successful. Before we dug in, Dylan led us in the Hail Mary in Italian (by memory!). We also went around the table, with each student saying, in Italian, what we are thankful for. Overall, it was a nice holiday.
Annamaria joined us again last night after being away visiting the other group of kids from Canada, and some of her family and friends here in Italy. We are glad to have her back with us and look forward to spending time with her again. Some of the kids participated in making a thank you card for her and everyone signed it to show our appreciation for everything she’s done for us on this trip.
Mr. Petrolito also left us a few days ago for a family wedding that he must attend. We miss his presence here, but we are somewhat surviving. But we miss his funny jokes, grandfatherly demeanour and random history lessons.
Here’s a list of what each student is thankful for (everyone is thankful for their friends and family but this is a list of other things they are also very grateful for):
1) Kasia: sock slippers
2) Natalia H: Easy Bib and Bears
3) Peter: Newton’s discovery of gravitational acceleration
4) Sean-Patrick: for having the chance to go on this trip
5) Samantha D: the chance to experience a new culture and new country
6) Marisa: Saturday nights
7) Clarissa: New friends, Kinder, Fanta, and Saturdays
8) Julia: Amazing roommates and learning a new language
9) Alexandra: Naps and gelato
10) Ricker: The beach
11) Dylan: Weather over 20°C everyday
12) Silvana: Italy’s delicious gelato
13) Heather: The opportunity to be in Italy and experience new things everyday
14) Chelsea: For having the chance to come from one great country to another
15) Michelle: Internet to connect with people and gelato
16) Claire: The internet to connect with family, friends, and entertain myself
17) Melissa: 5 euro phone cards to contact family
18) Mr. T: Gravol and ear plugs for long Italian bus rides
19) Ms. C: For this experience and for her students
20) Natalia Z: Agendas, iTunes, and books
21) Sam L: Free will

We've been having some difficulty posting this week's photos to our flickr site but please check www.flickr.com/photos/tcdsbinitalia as of tomorrow (Tuesday) and you'll hopefully have some awesome new photos to view!