Everydayness - marzo 21

Here are a few photos from everyday life....the first couple from my walk along Fiume Entella (Entella River, which flows to the Ligurian Sea) and some from our ESL planning meeting at Baia del Silenzo in Sestri Levante.

Fiume Entella. We leave Italy on Monday (tomorrow), and I am going to miss very much walks along the river.

Baia del Silenzio in Sestri Levante

ESL planning meeting on the beach

Must be the best gelato in Sestri

Milano - marzo 19

Saturday, March 19th, we went to Milan for the afternoon and evening. There was a Christian march followed by a concert, which is very rare in Italy, considering there are not many Christians here. We all visited Il Duomo, and Joanna and I stayed for part of the Mass service. We didn't stay for the whole thing because 1) It was extremely long AND in Italian 2) We wanted to get to the concert that was starting soon. As we walked out of the cathedral, we saw that it was raining, thundering, lightning, the whole shabang. We waited for a bit for it to calm down, then we walked to the concert, which eventually was cancelled after a few songs because of the lightning. The trip was pretty pleasant, though. Milan has a different feel than other Italian cities - it feels modern and spacious. It was fun to be able to walk and window shop among all the among all the designer stores. When we're together, we have fun. :) Here are some photos:

Shopping area with Il Duomo in the background

Christian march

Inside Il Duomo

Joanna outside Il Duomo

Having fun

Surveys around Chiavari - marzo 18

On Friday, March 18th, we walked around Chiavari during the weekly market to take surveys of the city. We asked basic information like age bracket, marital status, if they lived in Chiavari or elsewhere, and religious beliefs, in order to get an idea of what life and spiritual beliefs are in Chiavari. Most people ignored us or said they didn't want to when we asked, but those we did talk to were very friendly and more than willing to chat for 5 or 10 minutes about life. Here are a few pictures.

This lovely elderly couple reminds me of my Great Grandma and Great Grandpa Hess

Viareggio - 8 marzo

Carnevale occurs throughout Italy during February and part of March. People dress up in costumes, wear masks (especially in Venice), look at floats, and throw confetti at each other. We went to Carnevale in Viareggio (in Toscana) to the south. The floats were very creative and some of the costumes were as well. Here are a few pictures. (P.S. When we get back home and have time to load entire albums of pictures to facebook, we will paste public links on our blog.)

Jacob, Joanna, and Hannah

Pippy Longstocking

Pisa - 7 marzo

On March 7th, we went to Pisa in Toscana for a few hours with Jeannette, Hannah, Jacob and Elijah. We saw the Leaning Tower, and Joanna and I went in to the cathedral and baptistry. The structure of the cathedral itself is beautiful, but it was a little strange being in the cathedral. Some of it was very beautiful and awe-inspiring, but there was so much ornamentation, so many statues, places to donate money and light a candle. After being in Italy and already seeing so much art, architecture, and landscapes, I appreciate beauty even more. But part of that appreciation is simplicity and naturalness. Nonetheless, it's fascinating to look at what people created and and to get into the Renaissance mindset. Here are photos:

On the way



The Leaning Tower of Pisa (rather self-explanatory)

The cathedral

Inside

The ceiling

The baptistry (apparently the largest in Christendom)

Baptistry, Cathedral, and Tower

Had to

Celebrity Game at ESL - aprile 5

This post is a little out of order, but we need to post some more pictures of ESL among all these travel pictures. At our Intermedio class on April 5th, we played the Celebrity game. All our students speak Italian, but for this game, each student had the name of a famous person on his or her back, and had to circle through the room asking the other students yes or no questions in English, in order to find out who they were. We wanted to emphasize the difference between the verbs "to do" and "to be." They asked questions like, "Am I a woman?" "Do I sing?" "Am I dead?" "Am I an artist?" "Do I have blonde hair?" "Am I black?" "Am I a scientist?" After everyone figured out their identities, we took some pictures of the students with their names. Here is part of our Intermedio class:

This is sweet Eluvia. She is Guatemalan, but moved to Italy to get married and now she lives in Chiavari. She is part of one of the local churches, which is how we met her through a mutual friend.

This is Velina. She is from Bulgaria, so she is working on her third language (I think). She is very good at English, and she is the most dedicated and enthusiastic student.

The two ladies together

This is Mario. Mario is a nurse (woot!), and has quite the sense of humor! He (together with Cristian [below]) is a riot.


This is Cristian. He is Romanian and very funny. He always makes jokes (especially bald jokes) and he and Lee Walti have a bond of recent nose surgeries.

This is Alexandru. He is Cristian's son, so he is also Romanian. He gets along with everyone. Abby likes to tease him a lot, but he has been very patient and good-natured about it.

This is Joanna -- you all know her.

This is beautiful Soukayna (or Souky). She is Moroccan and speaks very little English, but she is trying! She is very sweet and we have had good times at the beach and the boardwalk.

This is Achraf and Alexandru. Achraf is Souky's younger brother, and he really only knows how to say "Hello," "Bye," and "I think you are a very beautiful girl." That's really all you need, right?

Souky and Achraf

This is Giosue. He is part of one of the local churches, and we met Eluvia through him. Despite the crazed picture, he is actually a really chill and kind person.

This is Samuele, Giosue's oldest son. He is picking up English very well and he likes to play with the Walti kids.

This name was just a joke of Cristian's, as April Fish is a sort of April Fool's thing in Italy.

Too good not to put up

And some of you know Hannah Walti, our lean, mean, Italian-speaking machine. We've had SO much fun with her these past few months.