Our First Week

Challenges:

1- Driving to School Each Day:

I think the biggest challenge for me this week was my anxiety about getting to my school each day. Cipressa is a tiny town north of San Lorenza al Mare and straight up the mountain. My first concern was seeing where the school was. Roy drove us up to the school on Saturday the day after we arrived in San Lorenzo. We arrived after a 10 minute drive straight up the mountain. I thought to myself, “I have to get myself here on Monday, I guess I better drive back”. I can’t recall the last time I drove a standard shift. Certainly not in decades. I got into the driver’s seat with great trepidation, but it all came back! It really is like riding a bike, some things just come back to you. I drove all the way back to the apartment without stalling once! On Sunday we drove to a parking lot and I practiced shifting into reverse. On Monday, I drove all the way up to school alone. Now you may think this is easy. Ok, let me show you the road.

It is a two lane, very steep, very windy road. In addition to cars passing you from behind and coming at you from the opposite direction, there are a constant line of cyclists on the road as well. Let me tell you this is not a ride in the park! My greatest accomplishment of the week is that I drove to school and back every day…. Alone, and without injury…a few stalls, but no injuries. Yes, I got stuck on a hill and couldn’t find reverse and rolled back into a hedge, but no injuries!

2- Health:

Roy’s greatest challenge of the week was health related. He is still weak from the surgery and so…after one week in a school, he caught a cold. He is resting as much as possible this week-end and we are hopeful that he will feel better by Monday.

3- A comfortable place to sit and relax in our apartment:

OK, couches! Believe it or not the couches are our biggest challenge in the apartment. The stairs we thought might be an issue, but no, it is finding a comfortable place to sit and relax together. It has taken a week, but yesterday, I tore the couches apart, reconfigured them, replaced pillows, laid down blankets and covered the whole thing with matching throw covers that I found in the closets, and we now have a comfortable living room. You may laugh, but having a comfortable place sit and relax, it turns out, is very important to us.

4- The internet:

We do not have internet access provided in the apartment. That means that we have had to figure out how to provide this for ourselves. Roy is still working from the apartment every day. We need to make and receive phone calls and I am blogging with all of you. We have spent hours and at least 4 phone calls with Verizon to revise the service that we thought we set up before we left the US. It has been an amazing challenge. The take away for us is: Never rent a place again without internet service!

Surprises:

Garden view from our widow. San Lorenzo al Mare, Italy.

1- Springtime:

It is spring in San Lorenzo al Mare! The flowers are blooming, the sun is shining and the temperature is in the 60’s. This is a photo of the garden I see as I look out our window and write to you each day.

2- The food:

We have eaten dinner out every day since we arrived in San Lorenzo and we have not had one bad meal yet… and some have been truly spectacular. San Lorenzo is a very small village on the northern Italian Rivera. It is a big tourist area in the summer months. When we arrived, just one week ago, there were only 4 restaurants we found that were open. All of them were good. Today, Saturday, we found that other restaurants are beginning to open for the season. The food, no matter where we have eaten has been wonderful! Let me give you some examples:

 

3- Tutoring English in the Schools:

The children, the teachers and the schools have been a real joy for us! Today, Saturday, we walked around San Lorenzo in the afternoon and met several children from our classes who were as delighted to see us, and introduce us to their families, as we were to see them. The teachers we work with are hard-working, skilled, professionals with high expectations for their students blended with compassion, and good humor. Both Roy and I feel that the tutoring we are doing is meaningful not only for building English language skills but for building relationships as well. We are surprised and grateful to find ourselves here in Italy, after a very difficult year, having this amazing adventure!

Ciao for now! More to come….