Here is a picture of some of the local sights close to were we are staying. This picture is Via C. Colombo, San Lorenzo al Mare, Italy. A street near our apartment.

Welcome to our first blog!

Many family and friends, who knew about this trip, have written to us recently to ask: “how’s it going?”; “how are you doing?”; “what’s your experience like?” So, we decided to try our hand at blogging about our adventures. We will keep a blog over these next 6 weeks in an effort to share our experiences here with all of you.

For those of you who don’t know, Roy and I are in San Lorenzo al Mare, Italy tutoring English for the month of March. Roy is working in a middle school in San Lorenzo and I am working in an elementary school in Cipressa. Cipressa is a very small mountain village just above, and about a ten minute drive from, San Lorenzo centro.

How did we happen upon this opportunity? The initiator, as you might expect, was Roy. Roy was recovering from surgery last spring and had to spend a great deal of time housebound and in bed. He was bored and kept dreaming of vacations. I said no to every vacation idea he offered thinking he needed to become stronger. Finally, out of sheer desperation and many hours of web research, Roy hit upon this opportunity. It was almost a year out and so met my criteria of his need to convalesce, and it met Roy’s criteria of ‘getting out of here’. I said yes, Roy completed the application process, we were accepted, and, here we are!

We are working through a non-profit group called International Experience. (www.internationalexperience.eu). Our contact person in Italy is Sara Landriscina. This group connects volunteers who want to tutor English in school settings with teachers in schools in Italy who desire to have someone come to work with them to tutor their students in ‘the everyday use of English”. There is a larger group, (www.volunteerworld.com) that connects volunteers who want to tutor English in school settings with teachers in schools around the world. So if any of you are interested in having a similar experience either in Italy or in another country, these are the websites to look at for more information and an application.

I am working with an elementary school English teacher, named Anna Ellia who has set up the program in this region. Roy is working with a middle school teacher, named Cinzia Vassallo.  The students I am working with are in 5^th, 3^rd and 1^st grade. Roy’s student are pre-adolescent middle schoolers.

For a processing fee of $800 for the two of us, we applied, were accepted and were placed in these two Italian schools, in these two communities. We have been given a two bedroom, 2 bath apartment in San Lorenzo within walking distance of the town center and Roy’s school. We arrived on Saturday, March 2nd. We spent the weekend getting ‘set up’ and began our tutoring experience on Monday, March 4th.

I will post photos and tell you more about our apartment, our schedule and our tutoring experiences, as well as this beautiful region of Italy in subsequent blog postings!

So please stay tuned. I hope you will enjoy traveling along with us!
Best,
Patti