For those of you who have been asking, this is my car. It is not a SmartCar, though I got to drive one of those for about a week while we waited for this one to come in. It is a 2010 Citroën C1. When I got it the odometer said 150. I have never in my life seen such low mileage ... probably because I have never owned nor driving a brand new car. After the weekend trip to Verona the mileage says 548 (hum... do you still call it mileage if it is kilometerage?). I expect that it will be a lot higher after a year of driving to all corners of Italy, and Europe. :)
This is part of the city wall the surrounds the old city.
The Arena. 
This is Piazza Erve in Verona. One of my favorite places on earth. It was so beautiful. I know I keep saying that, but I don't have the right adjectives. It had such a feeling of old Italy, that you could really feel how people lived hundreds of years ago, but it's not a museum. It is completely inhabited even today, so it feels very lived in, and that makes it more alive. I really couldn't get over the details. There was so much detail work put into every little thing, and it didn't go unnoticed. 
Again, I was so impressed with the detail, and the murals on this building are an example of that. 
We stumbled upon a Greek festival that was happening in the center of Verona. There was a group who did a Greek dance, and we were most impressed with the musicians. 
After the dance we walked around to a back alley and found a less maintained area. This well was just in the middle of the street. 
I arrived in Rome and made my way to Villa Hotel Cecilia, which was a charming little villa in a beautiful part of the city.
But I met my flat-mate Matt the Italian-Canadian who is another teacher at the school and we clicked immediately and really get along, so that was a relief. Nikka and Fabio, the school coordinators invited us over for dinner. They live just a few houses down from us and in between lives Nikka’s family. I barely had time to shower and unpack from my flight when we headed over for dinner, which was an assortment of sliced salami, and hams, with chicken, and breads and melon. They eat the cantaloupe with the sliced ham.
After dinner we decided to go to a medieval fair that was going on at a nearby village. We strolled around this ancient village that was set up in the traditional medieval style. People were roaming the streets in costumes and selling their crafts. We purchased some wine, which might have been made like it was back then, and Fabio got a non-alcoholic beverage that ended up tasting like sugar and water. He was not very impressed.That night Matt and I stayed up pretty late talking. It is a bit of a challenge meeting and new person that you know will be a major part of your life for a year. I was anxious to get as much information about him as possible. So far I have no complains.
On Tuesday I started classes. Right now I am just doing a few private lessons in the evenings. The group classes don’t start until October. My students are great, and the levels are similar to what I was teaching in Brazil, so I don’t foresee any major challenges there… with most of them. I do have one student on Fridays who might be a challenge. She is seven. I have never taught children before, so this is definitely a learning experience for me. She is about as good a student as a seven-year-old can be, so I think she is going to be the perfect warm up to my possible class of elementary students starting in October. Sandra was very attentive and she is here because she wants to be. Her mother is just supporting her interests. So hopefully we will both learn something from this experience. 
On Friday night Matt and I decided not to stay in the apartment so we went to Asola, which is only about 5 minutes from Castelnuovo, where we live, and it is a little bigger town. We wanted to get some ice cream, but it seemed that everything was closing when we got there, so we walked around the piazza for a bit and then sat down on a bench and people watched. 
Then we walked around the city of Mantova to see all the parts that we missed the day before. It’s really a diamond in the rough, because it doesn’t get very many tourists, but it has some really beautiful old buildings, a magnificent castle on the lake, a cathedral, lots of parks and piazzas. It was a good time.
The second thing that struck me is that I don't speak German. I know that may seem obvious, but after Brazil I sort of got used to partially being able to communicate. I don't speak any German. I was trying to sleep on the airplane with my blinders on and my ear plugs in, and had just lightly dozed off when I woke to the sound of a female voice, very close. I lifted my blinder to see a flight attendant standing over me. I took out my earplug and stared at her. She continued to repeat herself, but to me it was total gibberish. Usually I can sort of guess what people are saying. Like earlier when they were passing out ear phone. When she came to me, I could guess that the question was either "would you like one?" or "did you get one?" (inconveniently each had a different answer, but I could communicate my general answer without a problem), but this women was getting more and more stern and I continued to stair at her like a deer in headlights. I think that's when it occurred to her that I probably didn't understand German and she said, "do you have your selt belt fastened?" I should be able to figure this language out, at least a little, right? I mean, it is suppose to be a lot like English, and I noticed the sign "Welcome aboard" on the plane was translated to "Willkome an bord." So that's not too difficult, but then "sorry" is "entschuldigung"... which I can hardly even sound out, let alone use when I bump into someone.
The third thing that I noticed about Germany... or at least the Dusseldorf airport, is that it appears that they haven't yet discovered escalators... or elevators. My 50lb luggage on wheels, did not appreciate this. Oh, and for not knowing about escalators or elevators... they have somehow managed to invent the multiple story airport. I mean, I have never had to go up and do so many stairs... I am pretty sure that the airplanes all have to pull up at the same level, so I really don't understand how there are gates right on top of each other, and how my gate seems to be at the highest story.
I spent Labor Day weekend with my parents at our cabin in California. On Sunday Green Valley Lake organizes a day of activities including kayak races, a sandcastle building and the main event, a dam to raft swim. 
The swim is particularly difficult, it is about 1000 feet, in 66 degree water at 7000 feet elevation. And the elevation is by far the hardest part. Most of us are winded before we start. This year we didn't get any trophies, but we all finished.
