I can't believe it has been a month since our last post. Sorry about that. We'll, my family's visit was busy and awesome. We saw a lot of Rome, ate very well, spent loads of q.t. with the family unit. Caroline's brother John arrived shortly after they left, and he leaves tomorrow. Sarah and Blake arrive from San Francisco today. We're on quite a roll as far as visitors coming through. It's great to see everyone, but I'd be lying if I said all this hosting wasn't tiring. On a different note we have just planned our next two trips for just the three of us. In two weeks we are headed to Sicily for 10 days, and we are wicked psyched about that. In June we are going to send 8 or so days down in Puglia (the heel of the Boot) at the beach. Life isn't so rough here. Tomorrow I am going on a school fieldtrip to the Colosseum and the Palatine Hill. We'll see what we feel like this weekend. Maybe lunch in Umbria or an archaeological site or two. (suckas)
A few highlights in the last few weeks include:1) a fresh truffle pasta dish in Orvieto that was absolutely out of this world, 2) Eli now says "car", "doggie", "bowbow" (that's what dogs say here in Italy), and "Daddy" consistently (we're working on "Mommy" but he is stubborn about that one), 3) the Villa Farnese in Caprarola which John told us about; it is 10km away and pretty impressive, 4) I took a trip to the States to interview at Deerfield Academy in MA, and I am waiting to hear from them about whether they will offer me the job, 5) Eli and I went to a kids' Carnevale party on the Saturday before Fat Tuesday where Eli dressed as a Roman; it took him a while to warm up, but when he did he had a blast running around and playing with the other kids, and 6) our apartment building has turned into a massive construction zone since they decided to replace some damaged stucco work and found a massive water issue that deteriorated the water and gas lines to the point where they need to be redone. I also went on a nice bike ride last weekend with Rolf and Chris, fellow American teachers here, to Monte Romano and then through Blera and back to Viterbo. It was a 65k ride with a 35mph headwind for the last 35k. It was the best I have felt on a bike in a long time, and I am looking forward to getting out more now that the depths of winter have passed.
There are some other great stories to tell, but I will leave them for Caroline since she's got the first person account. I have to run off to a calcetto (small field soccer) tournament to play in the first game of the playoffs. My team is in first place after the round-robin, and I am getting pumped up to do some more damage. The teams are made up of American students, Italian students from local schools, and three of us older guys who work/teach at the school. There are only four teams in the tournament, but it has been fun to get into some competitive sports after a long break from anything like this.
I hope you all are well. Alla prossima,
Sam
