Storybook Life

Sometimes it feels like I’m living in a storybook! As I go about my daily life, I just look around and can’t believe what I am seeing – mountain vistas with snow covered peaks, cobblestone streets as narrow as sidewalks, quaint old buildings with shutters and window boxes, charming villages on the shores of Lake Lugano or high in the mountains, and the church bells tolling every quarter hour, from every tiny village, remind me to stop and marvel at it all – it’s real, I’m not just looking at pictures in a book!

 TASIS continues to amaze me….at conferences this week the Headmaster walked around serving parents and teachers water and hors d' oeuvres. After, we feasted on more appetizers, a delicious lunch, wine and dessert, and then we were treated to the afternoon off! It was a gorgeous day for a hike…can it get any better than this?

Thursday afternoon hike.

 Navigating around Lugano has been rather difficult for me. It is a tangled maze of winding streets, many that don’t even have streets signs. If you think of a jigsaw puzzle, I know a few pieces, but I don’t really know how they all fit together. I have to admit it is getting a little bit easier.  On a hike Thursday, I figured out how where I ride my bike out of Lugano fits into where I drive the van to swim practice. I’m proud to say that I used the GPS on my phone to walk 2 miles to bible study Thursday night. I went the back way down through tiny streets and paths to Paradiso.  It was probably cheating though because I just followed the little blue GPS bubble and made it stay on the route marked on my phone. I felt tike I was playing Tickle Bee in real life! If I turned the wrong way, my bubble left the path telling me I was going the wrong way. I have to admit it was fun!

It has been rainy and cold here the last three days. I dislike riding my bike in the rain, however I am very thankful for fenders! Not sure if you get wetter walking or biking, but at least I’m in the rain less if I bike.

Today I went to Parola Vivente church. The service was in Italian and translated into English. I enjoyed singing songs I recognized, and we sang them in both Italian and English. 

Sometimes living in a different country can be challenging. It took me forever to figure out how to get my dishwasher to work; I still don’t know how I got it to start; when I got out of the shower one morning it was running! I thought my landlady was trying to save energy and was not letting me use my floor lamps past 10 PM. They worked one night, and the next night they wouldn’t. I tried every combination of switches and they just wouldn’t workL. But alas, a few days later I discovered one had come unplugged. Since I live alone, let me know if you can figure out how that could happen! The other one is plugged in and still won’t work. I’ll take suggestions for that too. (Bulbs are good!)

An interesting thing about Swiss schools, they air out the rooms every morning, even now when it’s getting cooler the windows are wide open when I get to school in the morning.

I’m enjoying learning Italian. As is true for most language learners, reading it is the easiest, understanding what I hear is hard, and speaking is very difficult. I learning more and more vocabulary words, however putting them together into a complete sentence with correct subject verb agreement is beyond me. I’m like a one year old learning to talk. Even repeating sentences from Rosetta Stone makes my tongue feel like I’m saying a tongue twister, and I can’t even remember what I’m supposed to repeat after I get half way through the sentence. Frustrating, but I WILL learn to speak Italian! Better get to work on it…ciao!

The Christmas season starts early here too!

Light dusting of snow on the peaks, and clouds in the valleys.

Ordinary Week in an Extraordinary Place!

Found out the true meaning of a traffic jam on the way home from swimming Thursday! Picture a large, nine passenger van, on a two way street only wide enough for one car to pass. Cars have very politely taken turns for the last several weeks. However, on Thursday I found my van centimeters from construction barricades on one side, with cars going in the opposite direction centimeters from a rock wall on their side. I’m not exactly sure how this happened as I was following another car, and I assumed they had decided it was clear to pass through the road. No one honked! People just got out of their cars and started directing cars to “centimeter” forward out of the jam. With mirrors tipped in and patience, we all made it out of the jam! Only in Switzerland!

Sometimes I wonder where I’m living! There was snow in the mountains this week, but the trees haven’t started turning colors yet. And as I walk around my neighborhood there are palm trees, orange trees, bamboo and lizards as if I was in Hawaii, holly bushes and rhododendrons as if I was in Oregon, hydrangeas, geraniums, pansies, cone flowers, and pine trees like Minnesota.

Hard to see, but those are bamboo trees.

View while walking home from church.

Friday I got busy at school and cut it close for riding up to dinner. Much to my dismay, dinner ends 15 minutes early on Friday and Saturday. I brought home 4 pears to eat, and had peanut butter toast with bread that had been in my refrigerator for two months! I had gone grocery shopping last week, but I only got things I needed for a potluck dinner, not to fill my empty cupboards. You’re probably thinking, why doesn’t she just go shopping? Well, it’s not as easy as shopping at home. The stores are a couple of miles away. I could ride my bike but I then I couldn’t get much.  I could borrow a car, however traffic is really bad after school, and I coach then anyway. Go in the evening? Nope, the stores close at six, except on Thursday evenings, and they are closed on Sunday. And who wants to waste a Saturday grocery shopping when you could be biking or hiking?!?

Saturday I watched Jen’s diving meet at UND thanks to live video streaming! Wish she could have heard me cheering! As I was watching, Shelley called my Magic Jack number on my phone. Then Tricia called my Magic Jack number and it rang on my iPad. Couldn’t believe I was watching Jen and talking to Shelley in Minnesota and Tricia in Chicago, all at the same time, from my apartment in Switzerland.  Later that night I was Skyping with Shelley when Becca called my phone. Then Jen started ringing on my iPad. Plus my friend, Gail, was ringing on my phone, all at the same time! Go figure how that can happen, but it felt good to be wanted!

Today I went to St. Edwards for church. They were celebrating their 110^th anniversary of the first service. They had a great potluck after. The walk home after was beautiful.

The middle school and high school go on Academic Travel this week. I have to admit I’m envious! Elementary conferences are Thursday morning, no report cards due :), and we have professional development on Friday. I missed MEA last week, but this week will be a nice change of pace.

Random thought – light switch placement is not standardized in Switzerland.

Questa è la vita!

I don’t know where the time is going but another week flew by! 29 days of school down, and only 139 left to go! (Only kindergarten and first grade teachers could tell you that!)

Got in a 38 mile ride around the lake before the rain on Saturday. Then I went shopping in Italy to a market and a grocery store - thanks Tracie! Things were  much cheaper there. The market reminded me of the street vendors in Seoul, except here the food vendors had olives, bread and fresh fruit contrasted to fish in Korea. (The aromas are much better here!) I bought a much needed bungie cord (imagine me trying to mime that – it’s an “elasteco” if you ever need one in Itally) to hold my bikes from tipping and rolling in my storage “crate”. I have to stand them on end to put them in my storage closet. Can't figure it out, some days they just roll right in and stay put, and other days they have been really naughty and tip and roll and stick their handlebars in each others spokes, and hook their pedals on the wooden slats. Go figure! FYI - The bungie cord works great!

Bungie cord sellers!

Grocery shopping was an adventure, albeit much easier than in Korea, at least I could sort of read the labels. Milk comes in boxes, (unrefrigerated with expiration dates of 12.31.12), flour is Farina, and toilet paper comes with flowers printed on it.  On Wednesday I’m hosting a potluck for about 18 people. Wednesday evenings the students eat with their advisory, so all of us without advisories decided to eat dinner together. It’s been fun gathering at everyone’s homes. I found it difficult to give directions to my home when I don’t know my address, none of the streets are straight, and there aren’t really corners, but you just veer to the right or left….I sent a photo of my entrance with my invitation to the potluck. Hope they all show up or I'll be eating veggie pasta for weeks!

This morning I went to St. Edwards for church. It is the only English speaking church in Lugano. They will be celebrating their 110^th anniversary next month!

After lunch I decided to go exploring and find out where the streets behind my apartment would lead me. I walked for two and a half hours and was exceedingly lost much of the time amidst tangled streets and paths, however I made my way down sort of near IKEA, and then I walked to Lake Lugano. From there I needed to ask directions to the train station to buy a half price train card. I’m excited to say that the people I talked to understood my meager Italian, and I understood their responses!!!! Yay me! (lontano a piedi – far on foot) When I was learning those words I didn’t think they would ever be important and was miffed that I should be learning them. (I asked more people for directions than I actually needed to because I really wanted to practice speaking Italian. It was disappointing when occasionally they would reply in English.

Street behind my apartment.

Guess cars aren't supposed to go here!

My mom's favorite flowers, geraniums, as a tree!

Lake Lugano

I walked up, but you can take a funicular up the hill.

No real street signs, just arrows pointing to different towns (neighborhoods).

I’ve been really working on my Italian – Rosetta Stone, Mango, Italian Mind Snacks, flashcards, eating lunch with Claudia (an Italian teacher), just really trying to speak Italian whenever I can. I must sound like a one year old trying to talk because usually I can only say one or two words with some miming. This week I said a whole sentence though! Yay me again!

Tidbits:

I learned that the street I live on, Collina D’oro, means “golden hill”. It was an “ah hah” moment when I realized that collina means hill. I live on a “golden hill”, not a mountain! My professional development goal is to learn Italian. It’s pretty neat that my PD goal is very meaningful to me, as it is the personal goal I had set for myself, along with being able to ride up mountains. (Now that the hill I live on doesn’t count as a mountain I’m going to have to get working on that goal!)

Can’t say enough about how happy I am here. I’m very blessed! That doesn’t mean I don’t miss my mom, my kids, my puppies, and all of my friends from home though! I really appreciate all of the emails, messages and phone calls (even if they wake me up).

Questa è la vita! – “This is the life!”

Biking Weekend

It was a biking weekend. I rode 30 miles around Lake Lugano on Saturday. It was a great way to warm up for the race on Sunday. Unfortunately, Paul had 3 flats on Saturday. We were pretty creative by the time we repaired the third one; ended up patching the tire because we didn’t have any more tubes and didn’t want any more flats!

Italian Cafe!

YIKES! Not sure what I was getting myself into. I registered for my first bike race in nearly 30 years! Gianetti Day was a 52 Kilometer ride starting in Tenero, Switzerland. Luckily it was a relatively flat ride, only1526 feet of climbing.

My nerves weren’t only worried about the ride, I was also very nervous about driving to Tenero. They don’t really use street signs here, so you can’t just take 55^th street east, north on 52….Roads are labeled with an arrow pointing to the next big town you are headed towards. If the arrow is green in means it’s a freeway, blue means smaller roads.  And there may be three, four or five exits off the turnabout that you need to navigate. I don’t think you can appreciate how unsettling it was for me to take off on my own for a 45 minute drive to Tenero, so come and visit me and experience it for yourself!  I’m grateful for Kent and Paul for giving me detailed directions.

CRAZY ride – navigating roundabouts while trying to go fast, people lining the course and cheering and ringing bells (I felt like I was a “real” racer!), not really knowing where I was going, narrow streets/paths, and even a few tight turns. Loved it! When the courses split between 52K and 100K I wasn’t sure I was on the correct route. I actually used my Italian to say 52K??? The person understood me and said, “Si”. Good thing I studied my numbers last night! The 100 K ride had some huge climbs that I did not want to do!

Can you tell I'm scared!?!

Pasta Feed after the race

Tidbits…

*In Switzerland one uses a key to lock the door from the inside and outside.

*I can successfully navigate my way out of the maze of streets by the laundry drop off!

*I really appreciate eating all of my meals at school! I haven’t gone grocery shopping in nearly 2 months! I think it’s time to get some food in my cupboards though. It would come in really handy if I miss a meal in the dining room.

*I’m feeling an intense desire to learn Italian. They offer classes for teachers, but I coach swimming when they’re offered. I’m using Rosetta Stone and Mango programs, plus some flashcard apps. I’ve attempted a few one and two word sentences mixed with mime, with some success. It’s probably the mime that got my point across! I’ve also started eating lunch with an Italian teacher who is helping me learn Italian. Admiration and awe goes out to my students who are learning a third language through a second language! Increased compassion and understanding of the difficulties the parents of my ESL students face everyday in a new homeland.

*Down to my last two bags of M&Ms!

**Really loving it here, but that doesn’t prevent me from missing everyone from home. Thanks for all of the messages, comments and emails; they are greatly appreciated! 

Ciao!