Let the year begin!

Birthday dinner on Friday night

Serfs and wenches running to and fro.

The scene at the underground Taverna.

We even squeezed in a quick trip to Rome Saturday night. This is Eli and me in front of the Trevi fountain.

Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes. I had a great day on Friday. One of the host families hosted a dinner at a restaurant in Orte to celebrate the start of the new school year. The restaurant was fantastic. It's set underground in caves that were once used to store food/drink, and who-knows-what back in the day. The wait staff were dressed as medieval wenches and serfs. Anyhoo, the night was fun, but it's been hard getting ourselves on the Italian schedule. Italians have siestas like the Spanish, so everything shuts down from 1pm to 4:30pm. People don't eat dinner until 9pm. Difficult to adapt to with a one year old. Italians train their babies to sleep anywhere - just dump them in the stroller. Stay out til midnight? No problem. Unfortunately, Eli seems to be resisting this particular aspect of the Italian lifestyle. We're working on it, but I think it will take some time and willpower to accomplish.

Friday's high was followed by a weekend low. I'm suddenly missing home and everyone there. I had a horrible bout of homesickness and a "what are we doing here" feeling prevailed. It was compounded by my anxiety about transitioning to being a full-time mom... in a foreign country no less. It's going to be awhile before I can converse with Italian moms, so I'm resigned to having a lonely go of it for awhile. Also, Italians don't seem to take they're babies out for entertainment until they're older. Eli's consistently the youngest one at the playground/park/ etc. I'm going to look into some music or swimming classes, but I think the idea of taking a one year old to these types of activities is completely unheard of here. We'll see what I can scrounge up for us.

I'm feeling upbeat again today so I'm hoping my low point over the weekend was a momentary lapse. Sam is starting his first official day of classes. For Sam, last week was full of placement exams, abbreviated schedules, and long hours (ironic isn't it?) so today is finally the start of his regular schedule. I'm off to painting class this morning. If all goes well by the end of the day my cylinder of mud should be looking like a plastic cup. And I think Eli is quite enjoying his host family (as we affectionately call them). His first day with them on Thursday was a great success. We'll start with three days a week this week.

So all is well with the Savages.