Abbondanza di Vita: February 2011

Monday, February 28, 2011

I see Monaco, I see France

Good morning American friends!
On Feb. 18th, we drove up the Italian riviera into the small country of Monaco, then up the French riviera into Nice. Both are SO very beautiful; here are a "few" pics:

On the way to Monaco and Nice

Monaco

Steps to the theater and gardens

A great lunch spot :)

The Monocan coastline

Melodie

Hermes

St. Nicholas Cathedral (where Grace Kelly got married)

The palace

Nice, France

Opera theatre

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We also started our Base, Intermedio, and Avanzato ESL classes this past week. We've been busy prepping lessons and teaching, and so far it's going very well! The students who attend are quite friendly and open, and some of them are pretty funny.
Here are a couple pics from our Base and Intermedio classes:

Days of the week

Some of the Intermedio class

View of the upper and lower levels of the restaurant

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Since these pictures, we went to the Parco Botanico Villa Rocca here in Chiavari, and on Saturday, Santa Margherita and Portofino.
We are also starting our second week of ESL classes.
More posts up and coming!

Friday, February 18, 2011

ESL Classes

Hey everyone!
So after distributing well over 1000 fliers around town, on Tuesday and Wednesday we held sign-up for ESL at O' Sole Mio Ristorate. I believe there were around 32-35 people who called us or personally came in to fill out the form. Our students range from pre-teens to people in their 50s and 60s, from Moroccans to Sicilians, from quiet to the most talkative people I have ever met. Can't wait. Classes start on Tuesday, and all of tomorrow we will be preparing for teaching by going over the lessons, etc.

Today we took advantage of our last weekend before classes start and drove to the little country of Monaco and then to Nice, France. Both were really beautiful. We will post some pictures later. It's nice to get around and travel some, it keeps things interesting.

Hope y'all are doing well!

Love,
joanna

p.s. Not a huge fan of wine so far, but I'll try a few more before I say "guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree". (pertaining to you, mother.)

Monday, February 14, 2011

Valentine's Day

Yesterday, we bought 140 roses from a flower stand and tied a paper to each rose-- with a little history about Saint Valentine as well as some Bible verses about God's love. Today we handed them on the streets of Chiavari to people walking by. While some people ignored us or simply did not believe we were actually giving the flowers away for free, many people took them with huge smiles and said "Grazie!". Others stopped where they were and read the text on the paper, looking back at us curiously. One elderly lady, obviously touched by the flower we handed her, started crying and telling us about her husband who recently passed away. Each of these people we came across are individuals who God loves desperately and who we want to bless and minister to in whatever small way we can. I'm grateful for today and know that because God ordained it, He will use our simple actions to further his free grace in this country.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

We found a place :)

Hey guys!
It's Joanna. We've been having a great time here. We walk around Chiavari every day on errands, and it's been really interesting meeting the people here and talking to them (with our limited vocabulary).

Some really exciting news for us is that we now have an official place to hold the free English courses we'll be offering to the community! The owners of a local pizza restaurant are very interested in what we're doing and are letting us use their top floor on weeknights for our basic, intermediate, and advanced level classes. It's a beautiful place - I am so stoked about this working out. We will be starting classes next week, and so we're going over the lessons and getting prepared. Outside of class time, we will be getting together with the students over coffee and for different events to get conversation going and to build friendships.

We're going to try and keep this page updated as the weeks go by - we'd love to hear from you!

Love,
Joanna

Monday, February 7, 2011

We're here!

Ciao amici!
Wish we could have posted before we left, but there was just too much to do! We landed in Genova on the 3rd and were picked up by the Walti family at the airport. We meandered around Genova for a bit of sightseeing and cappuccino. Then we drove into Chiavari (our town now) and it is beautiful! A coastal town of 28,000, with narrow streets, a river walkway to the beach, and a million mopeds! Even though we barely slept on the plane the night before, we stayed up until bedtime so we could adjust to the time difference. Friday and Saturday were a bit of a blur of settling in, walking around town, going to the market, walking to the beach. Sunday we went to Cinque Terre (a string of five coastal towns) for my birthday. Today was a low key day: housework, grocery shopping, the 30 Day Shred, and babysitting with Hannah.
We love staying with the Walti family. The typical day includes the kids going to school, housework, studying Italian, playing with the hamster/gerbil Lily, walking around town, having family lunches and dinners, and watching movies. We will start teaching English soon, once the location is final.

Anyway, on to the photos! Here are some Joanna and I have taken so far: