So it’s day five, and time has been flying! I hope the whole summer doesn’t go so fast. It’s getting easier with the boys, I’ve learned some key words to look for:
Spiaggia-beach
Piscina-pool
Occhiali-water goggles
Calipso-a type of popsicle they like
Gelato-any kind of ice cream, more likely an ice cream popsicle thing than what we think of as classic gelato. They call that “gelato fresca”
Doccia- shower
Caldo/freddo- hot/cold. Especially important when it comes to the shower, Antonio won’t get in a cold shower.
Casa- home
Mama- basically if they say this around me it’s while they’re crying, and it’s pretty clear they want nothing to do with me.
These are basically the keystone communication points when it comes to my time alone with the boys. More and more Italian is making sense though, I hope three months is enough really learn a good amount. The kids are quite shy about attempting English, but I might try and sit them down and do some sort of official English lesson soon. I think I need to be more strait forward about my attempts to speak English with them.
It was Lorenzo’s birthday yesterday, so we had special pizza for lunch. It was their favorite pizza, but they’re not allowed to eat it very often. He also received a new Wii and some games to play with it, which I really liked because they’re easily entertained by it, which makes my job easier.
I got the after noon off the last two days and went for a walk the first day, and a bike ride yesterday. I got to know the city a little better, where the shopping district was, where some gelato places are. I bought some gelato yesterday and it was very nerve racking, my first time buying something on my own. It went very well, the lady was used to people ordering in English surprisingly. There really are no tourists here.
They had a friend take me out to one of the beach bars two nights ago which was fun, I made one good friend who spoke English well as she had been an au pair in Ireland before. She understands what it’s like so I think we’ll hang out again! The place we went to was a very relaxed atmosphere and they even played one of my favorite songs, Africa by toto. There were many different kinds of people there, for the classic Jersey shore bro, to men who looked like they were in LMFAO, to strange Italian versions of hipster. I discovered there’s actually a night club across the street from my house, so I’m going to try and check that out soon. As of now I’m way too tired when it’s time to go out. Waking up early and getting sun all day adds to being sleepy.
I’ve made some friends at the beach who rent palmas near ours. I really like that aspect of the beach, all of the umbrellas may seem annoying to tourists, but it allows the locals to create a really neat beach community where everybody knows everybody and they become very close friends. The first day a nice mom of three who’s also a doctor gave me delicious mini pizzas. Today Giuseppe, a policeman, tried very hard to talk to me for a long time, even though he knows no English. He bought me a cappuccino and I told him Italian coffee was way better than American and he thought that was hilarious, and it became the joke of the day. He told everybody he saw about the “acqua colore” water colored american coffee. I found a hermit crab for the boys which they thought was awesome. It’s apparently called a “paguro”. They also beach combed a little bit and gave me the shells. I will have SO many shells by the time I leave, I will have to come up with an awesome project for them. They’re very pretty. Not as pretty as tropical shells, but prettier than Washington shells.
Summer in Pescara 