Another Week Flew By!

My Italian has it’s ups and downs……I have been having simple conversations with the women who help with lunch and do the cleaning at school. Being able to understand each other makes me feel like I’m making progress. However, I tried to talk with the school bus driver, and he couldn’t understand me at all. To make it worse, he asked one of the first graders to interpret for him. Very humbling and disappointing! As I practice repeating sentences from Rosetta Stone, I get discouraged when I get to the middle of the sentence, I can’t even remember what I was supposed to say. What a difference in language learning ability compared to a six or seven year old. My EAL students repeat phrases and sentences all day long, and can create their own sentences with ease. They amaze me!

It was a very rainy weekend. The only fun thing I did was go to Gandria, a very quaint village on the shore of Lake Lugano. It doesn’t have any streets; the residents park their cars up on the hill above the village. It was eerily quiet on a rainy Saturday morning. None of the stores or restaurants were open, and we only saw one other person. It felt like I was in a Twilight Zone film in some deserted place.

Gandria Flower Boxes

It was hard waiting for the election results to come in, but it was worth the wait. I’m proud of my kids, and all of their hard work with the Rochester United for All Families and the Vote NO campaign.  Several of us at TASIS got together for a victory party with Obama!

My super star girls, Shell, Becca, and Jen!

Here are some reasons why I love my school:
      

We use a real school bell!

Fabio, our chef!

Sweetest little Russian girl ever!

My brother, Tom, left Wednesday morning; it’s quiet around here again. It sure was fun having him here.

Swiss pencils are far superior to US pencils. I hardly ever have to sharpen them!

It was beautiful here all week, and then it rained ALL weekend! Second week in a row like that. Can't say I'm a fan of all of this rain!

Swim team starts tomorrow; I'm excited! 

Fun Weekend, Although Not As Planned!

My brother, Tom, came to visit on Thursday! It was great having him here. He visited school on Friday. We had planned on going to Venice for the weekend, however much to our dismay they are struggling with flooding. Then we were going to go to Florence, but the train tickets were sold out. Then we tried renting a car, but because it was a holiday, All Saints Day, weekend, there weren’t any cars available. We were really lucky that there was a school van available, and I was given permission to use it for longer than 4 hours. So off we went to Interlaken!

Leah and Ryan, friends from TASIS, went with us. Thanks to Ryan’s GPS we made it! Neither streets, nor highways have names here. It was a stunningly beautiful drive. When we emerged from the third longest car tunnel in the world, 10.2 miles, we were out of the rain and in the sunshine! There were numerous other tunnels as well. We planned on going over a mountain pass instead of going on the highway, and got a good way up the tiny road, without rail guards, only to have to turn around because the pass was closed for the season. I had the privilege of turning the 9-passenger manual transmission van around on that tiny road!

It was amazing how different Interlaken was compared to southern Switzerland. The people looked German and spoke German. All of my hard learned Italian was of no use. I was tongue tied at the checkout counter. I couldn’t understand what the clerk told me, and was embarrassed when “grazie” came out of my mouth!

We were disappointed to learn that the cable cars around Interlaken were closed because of high wind. I will definitely have to go back because you’re supposed to see some of the best views of your life from there.

After walking around Interlaken we drove to Grimewald - more tiny roads, spectacular views, and exquisite food. We had cheese and tomato fondue and raclette - a special melted cheese dish - YUM! This was my first “Swiss” meal, and it was worth the wait!

Raclette

  See the photos below of Interlaken and Grimewald!

Sunday Tom and I went to Como, Italy. It was another rainy day, and most everything is closed on Sundays here. The leaves were in full fall color; the architecture along the lake was absolutely charming, they even had tiny bridges going over the streets. I can only imagine how beautiful it must be in the sunshine!

Como

Tidbits:

Our room moms put on an elaborate Halloween party, with life size chocolate pumpkins and mega amounts of candy from London. However, seeing all of the Facebook posts on Halloween made me nostalgic for home. 

I love listening to English spoken with accents and intonations from countries all over the world; it’s music to my ears. And, I’m still incredibly jealous at how adept my students are at learning English and Italian. Sort of makes me wish I was seven again.

Did you know it rains A LOT in Switzerland? I have to admit, I’m not too fond of lots of rain!

Ciao!