Ciao from Italia!
Today is my last day in Brische with my amazing famiglia. This afternoon Claudio is taking me to the station and I'm off to Padova ( Coli Euganee to be precise) to take up my "Mrs Doubtfire" job. Cecilia from Padova phoned me this morning to confirm that Andrea will meet me at the station. She will be home a little later and we will eat together around 8pm. The children will be with their grandparents and will be brought home later.
I've had a wonderful, Bellissima eight days here. I have been treated like the visiting celebrity and have had numerous invitations from many people to wine and dine all over the place. As well as Brische in Meduna di Livenze, I've visited Motta di Livenza, Orderzo, Portogruaro, Pordenone,Treviso and more which are all belong to the Veneto region. Nadia came twice to visit and all the relatives and friends were so kind and generous. It was also wonderful to meet up with Valentina and her lovely family again.
It's been an amazing experience to be with my Italian family and this time to be able to converse with them a lot better than last time. Its another tick on my bucket list! As long as they don't speak too fast, I can usually understand. I have continued most days to work from my second textbook that I bought from the language school in Florence and poco, poco, piano, piano, my Italian is continuing to improve. There are actually many words that sound similar in both languages.of course, there are a few words that are " false friends" ; eg parenti in Italian doesn't mean parents, but relations, and genitori means parents. There have been a few hilarious moments when I've used the wrong word ; I remember when I was at the language school in Florence I wanted to say I had met my friends but instead I said I had bought my friends ;) I still struggle with the irregular verb endings and different tenses when I am talking, but everyone is very patient and understanding.
Daniela and I laughed yesterday as we noticed that when the two of us talk we"ll start the sentence in one language, throw in a word or two from the other language, then revert to the original one. She is still keen to study English in New Zealand for a month or so some time in the future so I hope to be able to look after her as well as she has looked after me.
I have been delighted to realise that I have started dreaming in Italian sometimes. The first dream in Italian was when I was at the railway station with Celina and she told me in Italian to watch where I was walking because of all the dog poo! Great vocabulary! Obviously I was deeply psychologically affected by the dog poo in Florence!
On Monday I went to Riccardo's English class at his school. They all seemed happy to learn a little about New Zealand and the teacher used her touch screen whiteboard to bring up a map of the world so they could see where I come from. They were intrigued that we drive on the other side of the road, have a 10 hour time difference and that it's a different season on the other side of the world. They were about 9 or 10 years old and asked some good questions about the little country so far away. I showed them a few photos on my ipad of NZ; they thought Amelia was really cute and they liked seeing some of the location shots used in the film " The Lord Of The Rings".
I went salsa dancing with Daniela last Friday and loved it. The teacher made a special welcome to me over the microphone and later asked me to dance. I had several fun dances throughout the evening and was happy that I was able to still hold my own. My core muscles were sore a couple of days later so I guess they were out of practice from lack of salsa and Pilates over the last two months.
I haven't yet managed to find a wifi connection so will just add that I am now in Padova. I checked with a lady on the train and ended up getting off at the wrong station. Deja vu! Luckily my sixth sense told me to ask another girl who said I needed the next station. Luckily the train conductor saw me running back and furiously waving so I managed to leap on board again trying not to look too flustered! Andrea was there to meet me at the correct station and we chatted until Cecilia arrived home. The two children arrived a bit later and are both cute. I have a small apartment on the bottom storey. The house is very close to town and also the station so hopefully I'll be able to do a day trip to Verona and also Venice. Daniela suggested we meet in Venice one day so that will be lovely.
It was sad to leave my wonderful Italian family this afternoon but I hope some of them will come to visit me in New Zealand at some stage. So now it's on to the Mrs Doubtfire part of my adventure.
