What a Summer!

I just got an email from the family detailing what I will be doing this summer while the kids are out of school, and I must say, I will be busy!!! Take a look:

May - Last month for Tommaso and Eugenia school and for their activities (basket, swimming, skating,…) Your first week end here there will be a party for their birthdays on Saturday morning with all their friends (about 30), usually we do it on a soccer field

June - We are trying to book a week holiday at the sea side for the middle of june. Should be in the south of italy. Last week of june till middle july you are expected to stay with the kidos (and the grandparents) in the mountains. It is a big house where stay on different level also some cousins. The house is in a natural park about 100 km from Torino.

July - From the middle of july for 2 weeks, you will stay in the mountains (in Courmayeur, small tipical village 180 km from Torino,in a flat, at the feet of Monte Bianco, the highest mountains in Europe), with Eugenia for an intensive ice skatting camp. With you 2 in our flat there will be also 2 Eugenia friends. Tommaso during this period will do a camp for basket with his team.

August - Will be spend in the mountains again in Bardonecchia, 100 km from Turin, in my parents holiday flat, with all us 5 and for some period also my parents.

September - First 2 weeks will be always holidays, maybe in the country side to prepare the grape harvest (we produce a small quantity of wine, 100km from Torino). Somewhen we would like to have another week at the sea side, but we do not know when.

15 of September school start again, but this will be another chapter.

I'm getting so excited!!!

Plane Ticket

I went to the BYU travel office yesterday to purchase the plane ticket they had been holding for me, but my agent told me that servers were down all over the nation, and she hadn't been able to do anything for the last four hours. I sat there for a few minutes and talked to her about some other travel stuff, and all the sudden it started to work again! So I was able to buy my ticket, and this is my itinerary:

May 5 -
US Airways 1676 11:10 am Depart from Denver 3 hr 31 min flight
4:44 pm Arrival in Philidelphia
US Airways 718 6:05 pm Depart from Philidelphia 8 hr 40 min flight
May 6-
8:45 am Arrive in Rome
Alitalia 1421 11:20 am Depart from Rome 1 hr 15 min flight
12:35 pm Arrive in Turin

Then I will go through customs and Matteo will pick me up. The first ticket cost $539.40, and the second cost $126.90, so it was expensive for me, but pretty cheap in respect to the other $1500 one way tickets I saw. Yay!

The Phone Call

This afternoon after church I got to talk to my italian family for the first time. I was kind of nervous before hand because I had no idea what they were expecting, but it turned out fine. I got to talk to everyone but Nene, who it turns out is very shy. They all speak english very well. I talked to Matteo first, and he basically reassured me about going through customs and not having a visa, etc., told me that they have everything I need "housewise" (bedding, food, etc). He was very jovial. Then I talked with Bendetta. The first thing she said to me was, "I am very curious, because in your picture (one of our whole fam from last summer) you are all wearing blue and brown. Um, is this normal?" I had to laugh and explain to her why we were all matching, which she though was a hilariously strange thing to do in a picture. She was also concerned about the time of year that I was coming at, saying that I would be alone for a large portion of the day. Everyone will be out of the house from 8 am in the morning...the children come home from school at 4, but the parents won't return until 7pm. I think that I will probably be lonely, but I think it will be fine. Then she said, "okay, now I pass you to the tall one (tommasso)." His english was pretty good, but we didn't say much. He plays basketball so I asked him who his favorite team was (Cleveland Cavaliers) and that was about it. Then he "passed me to the short one (Eugena)" who ran away and I was told hid behind the couch. :) I am very excited to go, they seem very open and friendly.

Other random information I learned...
They will have a car for me to use (i don't know to what extent), and also a bike.
Bendetta goes out to sing Kareoke every wednesday night.
Matteo turned 41 last week and is not happy about getting old.
I will spend 3 weeks with the kids and their grandparents away from home in the summer, probably in the mountains.

They are also more than happy to talk to my parents, so I will probably be sending you their email address soon. :) I know that you must have some burning questions for them.

The First Event

Well, I suppose that today is officially the first day of "la mia vita italiana" (my Italian life). I have been looking for an Italian family to Au Pair for since Christmas, and now I have finally found one! They are a wonderful family and live in Turin, Italia (Torino, Italy) and I am so excited to meet them. Here is a general gist of what I know about them so far...

MATTEO - Father
Name Matteo
Nickname Teo
Age 40
Height 188 cm
School: graduate in economics; manager in an automotive company
Sports swimming, cycling, skiing, running (marathons)
Hobbies reading, running marathons
Languages Good German, English I think now you have an idea.

BENEDETTA - Mother
Name Benedetta
Nickname Benny
Age 40
Height 160 cm
School: graduate in physics, she works as a researcher in an R&D centre
Sports swimming, cycling, skiing
Hobbies reading, theatre, chatting with friends, cooking
Languages Good English and French.

TOMMASO - Son
Name Tommaso
Nickname Tom
Age 12
Height 155 cm
School 1st year of secondary school from September, good performance
Sports basket(team), swimming(team), cycling, skiing, running, soccer
Hobbies watching sports on tv; playing with friends
Very active, he wants always playing with the ball, very very very generous and helpful. We call him also Little Bear because he is really very near to what should be a bear cub. He likes to have friends at home playing with them. We spend a lot of time together, he cycles and I run for hours on Sunday, we ski also together and we are very close-knit. He is very curious and ask about everything he hears and sees.
My friends call him “why boy” because never stops to make questions.
Languages Basic English, very good Italian.

EUGENIA - Daughter
Name Eugenia
Nickname Nene the Princess
Age 9
Height 125 cm
School: 3rd classroom primary school from September, top performance
Sports swimming, cycling, skiing, ice-skating(team)
Hobbies playing with dolls and drawing
She is my Princess, a bit snob, with her strong ideas but loving and tender as nobody else.
She loves ice skating, the other activities she does if all us do as well. She spends hours playing with dolls and teaching them what she learns at school. She is very clever, likes to go to school and she want always to be irreproachable.
Basic English , very good Italian. She never stops talking, she is our mobile radio.

I am going to talk to them on the phone on Sunday, so i'll post more after that!

Ciao ciao,
Tiffany