The Friday blahs

I still don't have a good system of adding pictures to my blog other than doing them individually. Plus we have very slow speed internet here so it takes forever to load them.

It is Friday so we had another Italian test. It was very easy. He has become less demanding as time goes on, which is disappointing as I want to learn as much as possible. I did run, without Dave, but didn't see any more boars. I thought I heard them shooting them very early in the morning in the park so I am now running the farm course instead.

Sometimes I feel homesick, especially when I hear nothing from home or from some of my friends. I do appreciate mail and those of you who have written. Shanna did send me pictures of Oliver today
We did get a lecture on how Italians eat the other day. It is extremely bad manners to leave food over. Antonietta is always yelling about how the kids are so wasteful and has threaten to kill some of them. Of course in the US, it seems obsessive if you clean your plate and leaving a little shows that you aren't a pig. But the Italians are into slow, very slow and each food has to be tasted individually. No mixing of courses. No salad dressings as they mask the taste and sauces are only for pasta. We had a wine tasting yesterday and every aspect of that was in slow motion, which the kids had absolutely no patience for.

Tommorrow we go to Rome. So many things to see and it is not compact like Firenze. If I didn't have all this work for cinema, I would stay overnight. Tuesday we go for a Frog and gnocchi festival in Molina. A strange combination. We go another day to a winery. Hopefully they don't repeat the hour long spiel on how to taste wine. The kids petitionned to have the cinema final early so the weekend would be free next week but we still will have the Italian final that last Monday. I will try to see the Adriatic sea that weekend in Pescara, which would be an hour car ride but will take some tricks using public transportation.