Thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! We certainly did here...

Thanksgiving, of course, is a very American holiday, so we took the opportunity to host the party for our friends and students, both American and Italian. All together, we ended up having around thirty or so guests. We tried to fix the traditional feast: Turkey, ham, homemade rolls, green beans, corn, sweet potatoes, dressing, salad, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, apple pie, and a dessert (the named translates to something like 'chocolate sausage'; it is chocolate with nuts and cookies and such crumbled in it shaped into a sausage-like roll and then sliced) that Melissa, our Sicilian friend who is visiting for a few weeks, made.

It was all an interesting undertaking since our stove, which is broken, only has two temperatures: off or 600 degrees. So, most things either cook very quickly, or we cook with the door halfway open (yes, it gets a bit warm in the kitchen at times...), or the oven must be turned off and on every ten minutes or so. But, everything turned out fine. Even the 'sweet potatoes.' Sweet potatoes as we know them in the U.S. do not exist here in Italy. The closest thing is a type of potato that is considerably sweeter than a regular potato, but still white and with a regular-potato texture. So, Matt mashed them and added a whole lot of food coloring. They turned out reasonably orange, and we pretended they were real sweet potatoes. They were actually pretty good, though not quite as sweet as real yams.

Everyone seemed to enjoy the dinner. I invited some of my friends from language school, and one of my students, Laura, came by. She was expecting a regular lesson, so she was in for a bit of a suprise. However, it turned out to be quite a good English lesson for her, anyhow, as she learned a lot about Thanksgiving and our traditional foods, and practiced her English with my friends. We learned a few Italian words, too. I told my friends how my great-uncle always says, after every big meal like Thanksgiving, "I'm full as a goose." Turns out 'goose' in Italian is "oca."

The funniest part of the evening was Tiziana's poem. Tiziana, a friend and frequent guest here at the Bible school, is both an English student and a member of the church here in Florence. In the past few weeks, she wrote a long poem (in Italian) telling the story of Thanksgiving. As we finished eating, Greg (as a pilgim), Gary (as an unusually blonde Indian--I guess we don't have any darker wigs), and Matt (as a turkey) acted it out while she narrated. It was all the funnier because she read the poem in imitation of Gary--in a major southern accent. It was hilarious to hear the Italian language redneck-style. :) I got a video of the whole thing, luckily.

Anyhow, it was a great evening and I enjoyed spending time with all of our guests. Anyone want any mashed potatoes? We still have entire heaping bowl! Or maybe some salad, or dressing? :)

Wednesday, November 1, was a holiday here in Italy: All Saint's Day (Ognisanti). Traditionally, it is a day to honor the dead--to visit cemeteries, put flowers on graves, and remember the ancestors who made you who you are today, very similar to our Memorial Day. And, like our Memorial day, it has become over time a great time to take a long weekend and get out of town. It's late-fall date lends itself well to trips to the mountains. For us at the Bible school, it meant a taking a day off from our regular students and classes (most of whom were out of town anyhow) and spend a day in Alfredo's Olive grove.

Alfredo, one of the church members here in Florence and a good friend to all of us, owns some land in the hills just outside of Scandicci. He has several hundred olive trees on his hillside, and November 1 generally marks the beginning of the olive harvest. We met him at a nearby gas station at 9:00 and followed him up the steep, winding hill. At points, it didn't look likely that our van would fit on the narrow curves. Greg was driving, as usual, and he said, "Just think, this is a two-way street!" It was one of those roads that are so narrow that you have to honk when you come to a curve to make sure no one is coming around it from the other direction. It was peaceful up there--you could see the buildings of Scandicci down in the valley, but we were far from the noise and traffic. We parked in the middle of the olive grove and walked down to a corner.

For us first-timers, Alfredo showed us how to put the huge round tarps, specially made for the purpose, around the trees. Then, those on the ground use small rakes with short handles to rake each branch, knocking all the olives down onto the tarp. A couple of people would climb up into the tree or lean a ladder against it to reach the higher branches. Luckily, olive trees aren't exceptionally tall. You have to be very careful where you step while working, or you will have olive oil on the tarp a little too soon. After the tree was sufficiently relieved of its olives, we would pick up the tarp and dump them into crates.

It was a cloudy, rainy-looking day, but after a few sprinkled in the morning it never really rained. At first we were all expecting to freeze, but as Alfredo explained the process to us and we got to work, we realized that it was perfect sweatshirt weather so long as we kept moving. We would have gotten hot climbing around and under the trees if it had been sunny.
We worked all morning, usually doing three or four trees at a time. At lunchtime, Alfredo left us a little early and built a fire in a little clearing near the top of the hill. By the time we came up the hill, he had sausages and ribs grilling. They smelled great after a morning in the grove, and the smell of a bonfire reminded me of camping trips, burning leaves in the fall, and the wood stoves my grandparents used to have. He also had brought along a huge round loaf of bread, gouda cheese, and of course a bottle of olive oil from last year's harvest. We ate the bread with the brilliantly green olive oil and a little salt. Now, I'm not always such a fan of olive oil, but eating out in a field on top of a hill after a morning of gathering the olives, it seemed to taste unbelievably fresh.

After we finished our meal, we sat around our makeshift table on the ground and talked and rested. We picked a few more trees in the afternoon, and then tallied up our crates. We gathered fourteen crates of olives that day, off of about so many trees. It was a fun experience to see a bit of rural life in this area, and I think we all appreciate what goes into the bottle of olive oil on our table a little more.

And if you want to see my pictures of the day, they are here: http://outdoors.webshots.com/album/555384596EWQFii.

Aprilia Convegno

On October 27-29, the Aprilia congregation held a convegno (convention, similar to a youth rally, in this instance) for young people. Aprilia is a town about the same size as Columbia, and is about an hours' drive south of Rome. All of us AI workers, and Robbie, the director of the Harding University study abroad program here in Florence, piled into our 80-something model Volkswagon van on Friday afternoon...

Not far from Rome, we were driving along when we passed a bright red van with white letters down the side. "Hey, I think that was the Vicenza group!" someone called out. We slowed waaay down, trying to get the van to pass us so we could see if it really was them. Finally, they did, and sure enough, it was the Vicenza group. They recognized us and waved (our van isn't marked, but most of the other church groups know it well enough--they've prayed at past convegnos that we'll actually make it home in that thing...:) ). We honked and waved, and we passed each other a few times and then they followed us all the way through Rome.

We made it into Aprilia pretty late. Kelly, Anna, and I stayed with a couple from the church, Roberto and Rosa, and their daughter Cristina. The next morning, we all met at the church at ten. The theme of the weekend was a song, "La Vita di un Mediano," by a popular Italian singer, Ligabue. The title means the life of a mediano, which is a soccer player who plays a certain position. (You know how little I know about sports; don't ask me what exactly a mediano does!) The point was to compare us as church members to a team. We all play different positions, but we all have to do our part for the church to do well. Robbie was the main speaker, and then several of the young people gave short talks about the church as a community. Later, we had discussions about being active in the church. As we were all getting ready to leave that night, some of the members from Aprilia began to sing, and several of us joined in. We sat around and sang for quite awhile. Although I'm no star singer, I love to sing and I enjoy singing together with other Christians. It reminded me of the many times when my friends and I would sit around with a song book and sing for hours when we were teenagers.

The Aprilia congregation has a large group of young people, and they did a great job organizing the weekend. I believe we would all agree that the best part of the weekend was meeting so many people from various places around Italy, and for those who have been here longer, seeing old friends from past convegnos. Since the Christians here are such a minority, they appreciate each other and their time together all the more. There were several people who came all the way from Catania in Sicily in the south and from as far north as Vicenza. I don't know the exact count, but there were probably 50-60 of us.

Overall, it was a good experience for my first convegno, although there were frustrating moments when I had a hard time understanding the discussion with my still-limited Italian. I am looking forward to the next convegno, when hopefully I will speak more Italian and be able to get to know all of the people I met.

Halloween Festa!

On October 20, we had a festa (party) and invited many of our students, as well as friends from church. I invited a couple of friends from my language school. We cooked a ton of food; you know how that goes. I was debating making more lemon bars that afternoon, but we had so much food that we ate it all week.

I dressed up as a Christmas tree. That's what I was the last year I went trick-or-treating as a kid, and I happen to own a lot of green clothing at the moment. However, I'm still trying to get all the glitter out of my room, and I'm pretty sure a few of the people at the party did not ever actually find out my name--I heard, "Hey, Albero!" (hey, tree!) several times... Matt and Lauren dressed up as the king and queen of hearts. Anna dressed up as a redneck, and Greg was a soccor player (a USA team jersey, no less...he's very brave considering the Italians never let anyone forget that the Italian team won the World Cup this year...). Kelly dressed up as a butterfly, and her boyfriend Marco carried a net and was a butterfly-catcher. David wore the only scary costume...an American tourist. Shorts, tall socks with loafers, fanny pack, visor, camera around neck, guide book, and all...). Several of our friends dressed up, too.

Halloween is just now beginning to be popular here, and so most people are still a little embarrassed to actually wear costumes. It's catching on, though...one guy came as a toilet-paper mummy. Anyhow, we had a pretty-good turnout and I enjoyed meeting all the students who came.

Random comments

In other news, the week and a half of unbelievably perfect weather has finally come to an end. For the next week and half, we're supposed to have steady rain to make up for it. My nose is already cold. I am very happy that wearing scarves is very popular here. I love them; they are so fun in all the different fabrics and colors. I need to stay out of the market; they are such a tempation. :) I bought one a couple of weeks ago that has quickly become my favorite. It's a bright olive-green color.

Italy is known for being a major fashion center. It is certainly a serious thing here. Well, for those of you interested, I have good news and bad news from the front lines of fashion (judging from a good amount of window shopping when riding the bus through Florence's version of 5th Avenue)...

The good news is that navy blue (my favorite color) is now very much in fashion again after several years of not being able to find much in this great color. I also consider it good news that it will be fashionable to be warm this winter...corduroy, suede, fur, and velvet are all very in. That's about it for good news.

Now for the bad news. Purple is huge. It is the color of the year here. Everything comes in purple...and it never was really my favorite. Hot pink and leopard print are also disturbingly common. Leggings are back in in a big way. Those don't look so good on just anybody. Especially since the thing is to wear them with obscenely short skirts. My favorite fashion of all times, bell-bottoms, are nowhere to be found. :( Instead, there are tight jeans TUCKED IN to floppy ankle boots. In other words, I hope you kept your stuff from the 80s, because they're back!!! I've even seen leg warmers!!!

Anyhow, I know most of you probably don't care much about what is going on in the world of fashion. I just felt like reminding everyone that if you want bell bottoms or anything in a pastel color, you had better get it now before you find yourself in 1985 again. :)

students!!!

Well, I'm finally getting my own students. :) I have been waiting to see how this language school program would go (it's a new program none of the others have done before) before taking on students, but the homework isn't bad and I have plenty of time for students. So, I now have two assigned to me, and may get a couple more soon. Lucena does not want to start until November, but today I met briefly with Laura, and we will begin lessons next Thursday. I'm a little nervous to finally start teaching, but I am also glad to be getting started.

Tuesday Night Bible Studies

On Tuesday nights, we have a Bible study here at the Bible school. Several church members come regularly, and it's a good time for fellowship. It's also a good thing to invite any of our students who are interested in the Bible to, as it is less of a major step than going to church. It is a smaller group, and in a familiar place.

Alfredo, one of the church members, is teaching a series on the ten commandments right now. Greg, one of the Avanti workers, is helping out, too. This past Tuesday night, Greg led a discussion on the commandment about keeping the Sabbath. We talked about why God thought a day of rest would be good for his people, and what the Jewish ideas of the Sabbath are. I don't think I posted about it, but a few weeks ago we all went to the Jewish temple on a Saturday morning and attended a service, to see what it is like. We were invited to stay for their Shabat meal afterwards, too. We all learned a lot about the Jewish way of seeing the world, and it gave us a new understanding of what it takes to try to keep the Law of Moses. I'll write a post about that experience soon.

The ten commandments have been an interesting study (well, for the group in general; they are becoming more and more interesting as I begin understanding more and more of the lesson!) because they are probably the most recognizable teaching of the Bible. Even people who know almost nothing about the Bible have heard of the ten commandments. However, most people don't really know what the commandments meant, or what they mean to us now in the Christian era. It is also good to discuss these fundamentals because we have such a diverse group of people and cultures and religions here in Florence. Many people have a Catholic background, but there are also Jews, Muslims, protestant Christians of many types, and a growing number of Buddhists. One woman who comes fairly regularly, who was baptized in the Romanian Orthodox church, found the teachings on graven images interesting. I don't know what point I'm trying to make exactly; I just wanted to share what we are studying here and a little bit of what goes on.

The picture in this post of is Via Armando Spadini, the street we live on. The Bible school is the second building on the right, in between the house with the red roof and the one with the scaffolding.

Taking Pictures

I also wanted to let you all know that I have been taking pictures around Florence, and in the different places I've been. There is a link to "my photos" in the left sidebar if you want to see them. I've just added some of here in Scandicci and a large album of pictures I've taken wandering around the city of Florence. I'll try to mention in my posts when I update my pictures... I would like to post more pictures on here, but it tends to be cranky.

Hey, it worked for once!!! This picture is of a castle ( know when you think of a castle, you think of massive gray stones and high turrets, but this is one of the Italian versions) that is just across the park from the Bible School. It is called Torre Galli, which means the tower of the Galli family.

Language School and exploring the city

Hello everyone! Sorry it's been so long since I've posted. Nothing much of general interest has been going on, and I was sick all last week. I didn't figure anyone wanted to hear me complain. :)

Anyhow, I'm now in week two at the language program at the University of Florence. We aren't going as quickly as we did in the other school, but much more in depth. In the morning from 8:45 to 11:15, we have class. My teacher's name is Irene Zaccone. We have been doing a lot with learning to use prepositions correctly this week, as well as learning vocabulary. From 11:30 to 1:00 everyday, there is a lecture in Italian on various topics--Italin history, art history, Italian literature, Italian food, etc. It's a good chance to listen to the language. Some of the lectures I still can't make much sense of, but in some (the literature one is my favorite, of course! Having studied literature as part of my English major, that topic is easier to understand) I can follow the lecture and get most of the lesson, even if I can't understand every detail.

I'm beginning to see a difference at church in Bible class, too. For the first few weeks, I was just sitting through the lessons, but now I am catching the scripture references and understanding the major points. This past Sunday, Giovanni talked about Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, and next week will will study His trial before the Sanhedrin. I have an Italian Bible, and I am learning to follow along. I still have a long way to go, but I am beginning to see progress.

I'm also enjoying meeting the other students in my class, as we will be spending the next two months together...There are a few Americans; I have become friends with a girl from Oregon, Cheryl, and her French husband. We usually sit together in the lectures. There are quite a few Japanese students, too. One, Shihoko, speaks very good English. Her husband is a chef who is working in Italy for a few months, so she is trying to learn some Italian while she is here. The others seem very nice, but they speak no English. It is definitely a good incentive to learn Italian when you are put in a classroom with others from all over the world, and you have to speak Italian as a common language! There is also a woman from Nigeria who sits behind me. Her name is Uduam (or at least that spelling is close...). She said something the other day about how she goes to church every Sunday, so I hope we might find some common ground to talk about.

Anyhow, language school is going pretty well. I only wish I could learn faster!

A Perfect Ramble in Perfect Weather

I don't know when I've seen a day with more perfect weather.  It's sunny, not a cloud in the sky, but breeze and in the mid-seventies now; it was almost cold this morning, and I wore a sweater and a scarf most of the day. 

After class today, I sat in Piazza Savonarola as usual.   I wrote a few postcards, then started walking along the route of the 13 bus.  I bought pizza and an apple at a bar and ate in a little strip o graass with benches across from the old cemetery.   Sometime, I'd like to explore the old place.  Anyhow, I read my new A. S. Byatt book while I ate: The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye.  I read Possession a few weeks ago, and Elementals over the summer.   She is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors.   Her characters are usually from within the field of literary scholarship, and she makes many interesting references to mythology and literature.   What she writes is what I wish I were writing, or, at the least, living. 

After I ate, I took the 13 bus.  The guy sitting behind me asked me in broken Italian how far to Piazzale Michelangelo, and some other questions, before we realized that we both spoke English. He turned out the be Mexican, but lived in Switzerland for some time, and is now from Chicago.  He, Rafael, and his fried were traveling through.   We talked the rest of the way to the Piazzale, and for a while while we took pictures.  

It was of course a perfect  day to take pictures, and I took quite a few from up there.   I kept trying to put my camera up, but I had to take it back out again because I kept noticing more good shots as I walked down the trail to the river.   I crossed over at the bridge before Ponte Vecchio from that direction.   I took a few pictures in the Piazza degli Uffizzi, and of the states there--the copies of Michelangelo's David and Donatello's David being two of the most famous. 

About that time, my camera batteries finally died.   I wondered over a few streets, and bought some gelato, half chocolate, half strawberry.   I ate it leaning on a light post in Piazza della Repubblica.   And now, here I am on a bench next to the carousel; a street performer is playing sweet, sad music across the square, which seems so fitting to this angelic, almost too-good-to-be-real sunny day.  The crowds wander through slowly; the horse-drawn carriages are out in full force today--I have caught the faint smell of them all afternoon.  As I've sat here, the piazza has gone from sunny to mostly in shadow as the sun moves lower. The top of the Duomo's bell tower is visible over the Savoy hotel.   It's my favorite time in the city---late afternoons with warm slanted sun rays, with the crowds out but unrushed, relaxing after the day. 

First Week at the University

Today is an amazingly beautiful day--one of those fall days when the sky is such an exuberant blue that the green trees--barely tinged with orange--and the yellow and white buildings stand out sharply against it.   it's the first really "cool" day, when a jacket is actually needed.  After the humid haze of summer, this time of year always seems so clear and bright. 

I have finished the first week of class at the University of Florence.  I think I will like it. We are learning very practical, useful sorts of words in class.  Not being the slowest, like in the last school, is really helping; I think I am speaking better already because I am not so afraid of being wrong. 

It's fun to meet such a wide variety of people, too.  I've spent quite a lot of time talking with Cheryl, who is from Oregon, and her French husband, Matthieu.  Yesterday, Cheryl and I walked around Centro together while we waited for the bookstore to reopen after lunch so we could buy our workbooks for class. 

Today, I talked with a group of Japanese girls and a Nigerian woman during our break from class.  Tomako, one of the Japanese girls, taught me that in Japan, holding up the thumb is a gesture meaning "man", and the pinkie finger means "woman."  I don't really know where that came from, or why she wanted me to know that, but there we are. 

Now, I think I will take a bus back to San Marco or somewhere, and do some picture-taking.  It's the perfect day for it, and I figure I ought to get my looking-like-a-dorky-tourist in before I've been here long enough that I want to try to blend in as a local.