There is a family here from the North for the weekend. The husband, Christoff, used to study with Alessandra when she lived in Germany. He is Italian. Later, her met his wife, a German woman, and now they have a wonderful biligual family. They have three kids, but only brought two. It is actually perfect: an boy Leo's age, a girl Benny's age and another girl Sarah's age. This is the one they left at home with Grandma. (Aren't Grandma's great? I sure think so.) Anyways, they are not staying with us, but at a hotel quite close, and the family has been spending the last two afternoons and evenings with us, making Christmas decorations, playing games, checking out the sights of Urbino since this is their first time here. It's fun! They are really very nice, however, as per usual, they speak English with me. People LOVE to speak English with me. I can carry one a conversation now and talk about my day and answer and ask most questions in Italian. But as soon as people who have studied English find out I'm Canadian, and English (the second question after "Where are you from?" is usually "Are you English or French?") they automatically want to practice with me. It's alright with me because they rarely get to show off their wicked language skills, but it's really hard to switch back and forth. I just keep speaking Italian and they speak English. It generally works out.
Uli, the german girl in my Italian class, invited me on a trip to San Marino with her and two other friends. Another girl from Germany and a girl from China. They all live at the College. There is a college apart from the University here, and there is a huge residence at the college. This tends to be where everyone I ever meet lives. Sounds like fun! I am going there on Wednesday night before the movie night to have dinner with Giorga and Lucia, two girls I met at the movie night who I have had the pleasure of getting to know over pizza and beer in the last nights. (They speak Italian with me. I like this.) Also, we checked out the market that is currently set up in centrale. It is AMAZING. I want to buy all of the chocolate, jewellery, handmade clothing, antiques, soaps, teas, local crafts, home deco and books. I suppose I can leave a bit of the jewellery for other people.
The market at night. These are the blue lights of Urbino surrounding the fountain in the Piazza. There are tents like these ones lined up and down two streets connecting to the piazza.
A band playing! They've been here all weekend. A guitar, spoons, harmonica and vocals. Pretty much my ultimate band.
Close-up pervy picture! Like I'm good at.
Santa. Wait! No. Oops. Babbo Natale (Father Christmas) climbing into an apartment window!
Benedetta and Erik, one of the children here for the weekend, in the market during the day.
Leo at a modern exibit for peace on earth.
What Leo is looking at in the above photo in in the below photo.
Anyways, the trip to San Marino, a town about an hour away by car, was originally planned for Saturday, but it rained something awful, so we went today! I suppose I should mention that San Marino is not just a town, it's its own seperate state, like the Vatican. They're pretty much loaded.
So, this morning after helping Alessendra clean the entryway to the building and sending some postcards, I hopped in a car with Uli, Ria and Yan and watched as we drove the winding roads through the hills of Italy's Marche Region with the fog tumbling on and sun shining valiently.
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I was truly going to publish this now, but since the dog needs a walk, you are left with this epic cliffhanger.
Correction time!
ReplyDeleteImmaculate conception, not immaculate birth, although the two are related. Means there was no touching involved. And the guy who was immaculately conceived was Jesus. You may have heard of him. And the thing I learned from my brief time in Italy is that virtually every weekend is a long weekend... or maybe it's just because they don't like to work, open their stores, run their restuarants, etc.
Didn't you miss my smug know-it-all-ness?