First week of school!

17.9 School starts today. Both girls pretty excited. I am personally completely terrified about leaving my non –Italian speaking babies to the tender mercies of a tiny village school, but it is what it is. There’s a parent-teacher meeting on Wednesday. Mamma and Elise are getting haircuts while I go. I hope my Italian is up to it.

19.9 Actually did some reading for the book today, my English language book about Etruscans. It wasn’t TERRIBLY helpful. Had a look at the Italian language book, sigh, much more material there. But got some notes. It’s a start.

Elise got a beautiful haircut from Elisabetta, the parucchiere, but she came home in an odd mood. I was afraid she didn’t like the cut (it wasn’t exactly what she had described as being what she wanted), but she said no, she loved the cut. She was actually very happy: the other kids in her class had made a small poster for her that said “We’re glad you’re in our class!” and all signed it. SUCH a difference from those horrible kids in Milton.

I spent the afternoon at the parent-teacher meeting. Elise’s teachers are all pretty excited to have her, especially her English teacher, as he doesn’t actually get to teach more than the most basic English; he’s working on getting her some more advanced reading and writing to do, since she can. Not sure how Aurora’s going to do – the teachers are not at all warm and fuzzy, and are not particularly thrilled to have a non-Italian speaker in class, but there it is. I asked about the lunches, since lunch is 6E a day, gack! But it seems they’re not allowed to bring lunch to school – what if the other children got jealous of what is in the home lunch? Dissatisfaction in the ranks, can’t have that. Some kids do, in fact, bring lunch, but they have to leave the school building to eat it!

On Friday we will have our first bellydance lesson.  Delighted beyond measure that we can do this and she will come to us. It’s good exercise and it’s fun (I always want to get my exercise via dance classes, and working at BLS it’s all but impossible to do). A week from Friday we’re going to Florence. It’s only for a long weekend but we’ll get a taste. If the girls like it we can go back. Mark Margolin arrives on 14 October and will take us on tour of Milan, so we’re getting a lot of touring stuff in these days.

I helped E with her Italian homework tonight. She had to read this very weird little story, that as far as we could tell was about Kid A making a horrible joke about Kid B’s newly deceased grandfather, and somehow the two kids become best friends because of it. I remember reading some odd things in English class when I was smaller, but this is uncomfortably weird. “You were cruel to me when I was at my lowest, so now I can’t live without you.” Uh, ewww.

We have really good brown rice and brown rice pilaf here (Tre Cereali, pearl barley, brown rice, and orzo). Tonight I assayed brown rice risotto with onions, carrots and of course lovely fresh parmesan, and it came out pretty well! It helps that the rice is partially pre-cooked. Usually I hate brown rice because it takes forever to cook and then it’s STILL crunchy. This comes out firm and chewy but not crunchy. I foresee shipping many boxes of Integrale and Tre Cereali home.

 21.9 I headed up to Rosetti, the local equivalent of Home Depot and Bed Bath and Beyond combined in one giant building. The clothespins that were here were all old and sun-damaged, and most have already fallen apart, making hanging up laundry more challenging than is strictly necessary. So I have acquired many new clothespins. I also got a new plastic tablecloth for the kitchen, because yesterday Elise made cookies and put the hot sheet onto the table. VZZT! Welcome to the giant hole in the tablecloth. I also increased the population of coat hangers in the house (we have a lot more clothes here than I think the standard summer visitors ever bring), and light bulbs. Roisin has about 15 different types of light bulbs and of course about 6 of them have burned out at this point. She has some replacement bulbs, but naturally not of the ones that are out. Equally naturally, not of the expensive halogen ones. Grrr. However, I did also discover that very cheap gas is right next to Rosetti, so it’s fill the tank whenever I go that way. (1.65E/L as opposed to 1.89E/L here. Not worth going to Alseno just to get gas, but at what works out to over a dollar a gallon cheaper there, ABSOLUTELY worth getting anytime I have to be out in that direction.)

First bellydance lesson today, and it totally rocked. We’re all tired and sore and feel really good about it! Aurora of course is all enthusiasm and no attention span, but Marcella, the teacher, thinks she’s adorable so it’s ok. I’ve ordered us bellydance hip scarves from a vendor in Germany that should be here in a few days, so we can all jingle appropriately. Elise really enjoyed it. It’s a little on the expensive side, so we’re only doing it once every 2 weeks. But dance is my favorite kind of exercise, and this is a good thing for us to do together. Have to keep an eye on the budget, though.

For dinner we had mystery meat. At least, it was a mystery to the girls, and deliberately so, because I am unsure of their reaction to it: it’s horse. I mixed it 50/50 with regular 80% beef because it’s pretty rich. I had one little hamburger of it for myself just to get an unadulterated taste, and it was LOVELY. Made very nice hamburgers. I actually managed to get the grill hot enough to cook things on, so we cooked out. Quite delicious. Yet another grocery item I don’t anticipate seeing in the US. Not quite ready to try horse steaks yet, but they’re cheaper than beef, so maybe sooner than later!