What Have I Gotten Myself Into...

So for all of you who check this hourly wondering when I’m going to write again...here it is!! I did fall off the face of the earth for about a week but I am alive. We were in Rome until Wednesday morning and then went to Minori until Saturday. Now that I’m settled in Siena and will have internet more regularly, I will dedicate some future blogs to my favorite things about Rome and Minori, but first let me just give you some details on my new life here...

Saturday night we rolled into Siena via an eight hour bus ride. I would not recommend this method of travel. However, I did have the pleasure of watching The Newsies and Cool Runnings, both fantastic films. My 'parents' arrived shortly thereafter and were very excited to see us. It seemed an impossible feat to get all of our luggage into their teeny car, but it worked out. We quickly established that they don’t speak any English. Rachel is not too keen on this, however, I was excited. #1a. I decided that if I’m going on this adventure let’s just go all out; might as well put in a huge language barrier, it adds excitement. And #2b. I can actually understand a lot of what they say while Rachel cannot.

Here’s the down low on my family.
Paola and Marco are both 60. They don’t have any kids and they flipped out when Rachel and I told them we both had five kids in our family. Marco has been retired for two years but he was in banking before that. (Side note: They tried to say that they are way too old to work and I informed them that my father is older than them and still works...shocked again.) As far as we can tell they just go out all day and shop. Yesterday they brought home some pastries-which they literally force fed me at dinner, and today they brought home some vases. Looks like a pretty good life.

Marco is maybe my favorite older man ever. He is so animated and is set on teaching us Italian. If we speak in English he says “NO! Italian!” and then I spit out some odd grouping of Italian words that he somehow understands. Last night at the dinner table we busted out a dictionary and he looked up fifty million words to teach us. We are slowly starting to understand each other. Last night I gave them the present that Mom sent for them; a book of pictures of Arizona. They were VERY excited about it. Marco proceeded to whip out literally 15 photo albums of their trips to the U.S. and told me all about the places they went. They’ve seen more of the U.S. than I have. Lastly, a key fact about Marco: He frequently wears polo shirts and pops the collar; obviously a good sign.

I'll continue to post whenever I can, the internet here at school is hit or miss, but I have lots to tell you about!!