3 Strikes, You're Out?

Apparently NPR recently ran a story on public transit strikes in Italy. For those who are worried, yes, I take the bus and/or tram to and from work. Yes, there are strikes. No, it does not really make that much of a difference.

Strikes are a regular occurrence around here, and from what I've heard, in Europe in general. As far as the transportation strikes, the workers are quite considerate! They stop working for a matter of hours, not days, and try to avoid peak hours. They don't all strike at once, either, so you'll probably have a longer wait but still be able to get where you are going. Furthermore, they give advance notice on the website and occasionally, even on posters around the city or at the train station.

What surprised me more are the public school teachers' strikes. They seem more common, happening several times last year, and the kids suddenly, without notice, have the day, or several days off. We would occasionally have a few extra kids at our school when IST teachers had taken their kids to public school to find out the teachers weren't there and had to bring them along to work.

Watching a lot of F/S, fuori servizio, or out of service, busses go by can be annoying sometimes, but it rarely causes the serious problems that would be expected with a transportation workers strike. 

It's a lovely day for a picnic.

Today was the first Agape of the new school year. These are monthly church potluck lunches and fellowship times, and this month was a picnic! The kids, and some of us bigger people, had a ball playing a version of Spherical Objects, then we ate. There was a ton of food still left at the end, even after we'd all had our fill. I made a corn and pepper salsa that I learned from a former awesome roommate, but the predominately Italian attendees of this picnic did not know what to do with it. Most just ate the salsa with a fork and had the tortilla chips on the side. I tried to explain at first, but decided it didn't really matter.

After food, the games began in earnest. There were potato sack races and water balloons, as well as a somewhat bizarre (to me) English game involving throwing an old boot as far as possible. I did not try, but this is apparently harder than it first appears. (Perhaps this could become a new aspect of getting The Boot in the Miller family?)

Matt's winning!

Resting afterward while receiving congratulations. 

 Somewhere among all the games was the tug-o-war. First, the kids were split into two teams. Then they decided that all the donne, the ladies, should play. My shoes were sadly too slippery for me to be of much benefit to my team, but I tried. After the guys had a turn, the kids suggested a girls vs. boys match. It was decided that the number of men should be limited, making it 4 to 8, plus all the kids. We beat them easily, of course.  Once they recruited the rest of the men of the church, us girls held our own for a while, but eventually fell. 

And... We're Back!

After nearly 3 weeks back, school has started again! We all survived the first (half) week with kids, and I have now met the nearly 90 students I will be working with this year. Routines are still being worked out and I'm constantly looking at my schedule, both my school schedule and my after school schedule, and wondering just what I've gotten myself into!

Some things have come back really quickly, like the bits of Italian I happened to learn last year. When I got back, I was surprised to realize just how much I had retained over the summer. Basic signs are easy now, and I was able to help some new staff decode a menu. Of course, menus have always been my strongest vocabulary area!

Answering questions for new friends has also shown me just how much I didn't learn the first time around. There are parts of the city left to explore, and I don't think I'll ever master the bus system completely, at least when they keep changing it every few months. What time's the next bus?

Countdowns

We lost the first of the staff this morning when Sara flew back to California.  It hasn't really sunk in that she won't be at school tomorrow, but watching her leave is a sure sign that the end is near.

I have...

5 more days with the kids,

17 days, 20 hours until I get to Newport News,

22 days, 12 hours until I go to camp, then on to visit relatives and friends, and

68 days until I'm back in Trieste.

That's my life!

Yesterday, I was sitting in Piazza Unita, waiting for a farmacia to reopen after the afternoon break. I was alternating between just enjoying the weather, eating a snack, reading a book, and people watching.  To the left, one of my students was kicking a ball around with his brother and determinedly ignoring the fact that he saw me in public.  On my right, a young couple was playing with a toddler.  Towards the water, a group of tourists was learning about the post office building.

The next time I looked up, a middle-aged man was photographing the authentic Italian boys playing soccer in the historic piazza.  He wants to preserve that image of my student as part of his vacation memories.  I wonder if he'd be interested in taking my recess duty this week?


In the day to day stress of school, I sometimes forget that this life really ain't so bad.

Venice

There is a 10.05 Euro, 9:18 train from Trieste to Venice and I have been on that train twice in as many months.  Back at the beginning of March, a huge group of us ventured out for Carnevale.  Italy is obviously a Catholic country, so the beginning of lent is a big deal, and Venice hosts one of the biggest celebrations.  

We got our faces painted...

 We threw (and dodged) confetti...

 We gawked at the beautiful costumes and masks...

 The theme this year was "Renaissance."

And then we slept on the way home.

 Just under a month later, a smaller group headed back.  This adventure started when I received a phone call Friday night informing me that I was "expected" in Venice the next day.  Fortunately, I didn't have any plans I couldn't reschedule, so off we went, in search of the Ruyi as part of a grand scavenger hunt crossed with "choose your own adventure" crossed with awesome.

We read legends of Venice...

Solved puzzles... (MadAdder at your service!)

Discovered hidden beauties under tiny porticos off of little streets leading from back piazzas...

Browsed the coolest bookstore... 

Which was also home to this amusing sign...

And reveled in exploring the other, relatively tourist-free side of a lovely city on a beautiful day.

 My next (tentative) trip to Venice is almost exactly a month after this one, and I'm already excited!  What sort of adventure will it bring?

Pesche Aprile

In Italy, April Fools Day is called Pesche Aprile, or Fish of April. Instead of switching the salt and the sugar, people stick fish on each others' backs, kind of like "kick me" signs. The kids aren't very good at it. They'll walk up to a teacher and ask for a piece of tape, then a few minutes later, awkwardly pat the same teacher on the back. My students were not really into the process, but some of the teachers had entire schools of paper fish on their sweaters by lunch.

It was Friday and the weather was absolutely beautiful, so after school we headed out in the city. After a first stop at Zoe, we walked over to a nearby fish shop that was having an April Fish Day party. I drank a bright green (!) spritz and got "fished" by a student walking by with his family. The shop had fish stickers out and E left his soccer game with his brother for long enough to grab a few and stick one to my back.

I told him he needed to learn to be more sneaky.

3 Things

1) I was in Istanbul, Turkey for February break. Congrats to Katharine and Chrissy for being the first to figure it out, and Francie for being the only one who figured out how to leave comments!

2) I have officially accepted a job offer to stay in Trieste for next school year. I will be working in both the Elementary School and the Upper School Science/Math department.

3) I will be home for the summer in 100 days! Can't wait to eat barbeque and American Chinese and salad with salad dressing and see everybody!

Auntie Em, Auntie Em!

All of last week the bora was blowing! It's wind from Siberia that this area is known for, and wow, is it strong. This last week was apparently one of the stronger boras in recent memory, reported at 160 km/h. That's 99 mph. Shutters and roof tiles were blown off of buildings, and even the tar paper from underneath the shingles went flying in some areas. Phone booths are down and a giant shipping crane was blown out to sea. The pictures of the boats trying to pull it back in are pretty amusing.

With all this debris blowing around, simply walking home can be a bit of an adventure. I don't know anyone who was hurt, but the news was saying that at least 90 people were in the hospital. Because of wind. You know those ads for the endless pools, where you just keep swimming without ever getting anywhere? Walking into the bora feels a little like that. Sometimes you just have to stop and hold onto a pole and hope it switches direction soon, even slightly, so you can keep walking.

It's a little like a hurricane, but the wind doesn't blow in a circle, it can go on for days, and there's not necessarily any rain. When there is rain, it's pretty miserable, and an umbrella is completely useless.

Some other things I have learned:

- Those chains on the sidewalk really are to prevent you from flying away/into traffic. And they are useful.

- While Trieste is super-safe as far as crime rates and such, homeowners and car insurance are super high because of the wind.

- With the gusting and rattling the buildings, it's hard to sleep well, and combined with the extra effort it takes to just walk down the street, the whole thing's exhausting.

But now, the wind has stopped. It's super sunny, starting before I get up at 6:30. It's still cold, but I'm starting to believe that spring might actually come, and maybe, someday soon, I can stop wearing my earmuffs (which I had to chase down last week when the wind blew them off.)

Where in the world?

Not too many people back home know where I went for my Winter Ski Break. Egypt was too dangerous, Liechtenstein too expensive. So, in honor of Carmen Sandiego, where in the world is Kaitlin?

- I had a fancy bath today.
- I ate beets. I don't think this counts as a clue.
- I have been drinking apple tea for breakfast.
- On Tuesday, I visited a beautiful Mosque and a building that was first a Christian church, then a Mosque, then a museum.
- On Wednesday, I saw a palace and paid extra to see the Harem.
- I'm overwhelmed by the Grand-ness of the Bazar.
- I went to Asia for a few hours yesterday.

Any ideas? Need more clues?

It made for an interesting Monday.

I watched the Super Bowl this year. This isn't especially spectacular. I have always watched it, and my team was playing against my roommate's team. It is worth writing about here, however, once you start to think about time zones. Kick-off was at 6:30 EST, and I live 6 hours ahead of EST. The game started at 12:30 am, went to about 4:15 am, and I watched the whole thing!

During playoffs, one of the guys at church mentioned that he was planning to host a Super Bowl party. My first thought was, "oh, fun!" My second thought was, "Wait a second... what time is that?" He explained that after church that day, you go home and go right to bed. Around dinner time, we were to come over and hang out, then watch the game, take a nap and head to work.
And so we did. We ordered pizza, played video games, made posters to support our respective teams, and watched the Packers beat the Steelers. :( Well, some of us saw it; others watched with their eyes closed!
The Super Bowl on Italian television has a few, ah, alterations. First of all, it's on ESPN America. It's the same station as baseball games, college basketball, and pretty much anything else sports-related that the rest of the world doesn't care about. Because it's not CBS, or whoever showed it this year, the commercials aren't shown. It's very sad. Instead, you get fun trivia facts about football and Super Bowls past.

Also, they explain a lot more of what's going on: "In American football, instead of an extra point, teams may try to carry the football into the end zone again, resulting in two extra points instead of just one." Because I have watched the sport all my life, and occasionally cared enough to try to figure it out, these were mostly amusing, rather than informative. I suppose they could be helpful for you average Italian insomniac who stumbled across this strange sport in the middle of the night, however!

Happy Birthday

to my parents, who both turn 50 this week! I wish I could be there to help you celebrate (and eat mayonnaise cake), but I'll see you in a week!

Scouting Mission

Wednesday was a school holiday for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. As we are not Catholic, many of us decided to forgo the feast and travel instead. One group wanted to go to an authentic Austrian Christmas market, and as none of us have strong Austrian geography skills, managed to pick pretty much the furthest away, in Salzburg. Tuesday morning, they mentioned that there was one more spot in the car; would I like to come?

During my planning period I made a hostel reservation, then rushed down the hill after school to pack. We set off by six and made it just out of town when we realized we may have a problem. Several of us had written down how to get to the hostel from the highway, but getting to the city from Italy was more of an immediate concern, and much less sure. Some hazy memories of viewing the google map the day before and plenty of sign reading later, and we actually got there!

Tuesday night and Wednesday were spent wandering the city, looking at sights from The Sound of Music, enjoying Gluhwein and roasted nuts at the Christmas Market, and visiting a brewery.

Not bad for a random Wednesday... living in Europe has some advantages.

Quite a Day

Vomit and Lice, all in one day. All in about an hour, actually. Fortunately, neither were directly on me, though both my classroom and apartment currently smell strongly of cleaning chemicals. Huge thank you's to the science teacher, art teacher, learning specialist, and school cleaning ladies for making that happen!

I suppose that's life in an elementary school. Now, off to celebrate the music teacher's birthday!

Thanksgiving

First, last weekend's second adventure was Ikea! It was raining, so we passed on the chance to go back to Slovenia. Ikea is quite the place- a sort of Disneyland of home goods. There's people and stuff everywhere; there's even a map of the store. We finally got a mirror for our apartment, as well as lamps for our bedrooms and throw pillows for our bright yellow couch. We chose green and black pillows, so we now have a Packers half and a Steelers half of the couch.

This week was crazy busy, with a chocolate themed birthday party on Tuesday, conference night on Wednesday, a field trip on Thursday, and then a crazy day Friday with Thanksgiving dinner to cap off the week.

Friday was scheduled to be an in-service day, which means the kids leave at noon and we have professional development all afternoon. For the morning, we finished a movie we had started after the field trip the day before, then I talked about Thanksgiving as a World Cultures lesson, then we ate lunch and sent them on their way, through the SNOW! Between the two groups for the Thanksgiving lesson, it had started to snow a bit, mostly just flurries, but we closed the curtains to keep the distractions to a minimum. Our curtains don't close all the way, though, and from where I was standing near the computer, I had a perfect view through a gap to watch the flakes getting bigger and bigger, and the beginnings of accumulation. By the time we sat down to lunch in our spot next to a wall of windows, the full-on snow storm meant that the third grade ate very slowly as they all turned around to stare out of the window. I couldn't really blame them, and after they left, I wandered around looking for someone to go play outside with me. My southern CA friend was up for it, and we slid around in our not-appropriate-for-snow shoes for a few moments before heading back inside for professional development.

Four hours later, and we we off to very carefully walk to the first grade teacher's house for Thanksgiving dinner. The turkey had been cooking all day and everyone brought their favorite parts of the meal. We learned that Italian homes are allotted a certain amount of electricity at a time, and when you go over it, your power goes off. To turn it back on, you just have to hit the circuit breaker. Simple, when your circuit box is on the inside of your tall, electric-operated gate. That is not the case at this house. At this house, M runs and vaults over the gate to get to the box. The first time the power went out, we were confused. The second to fifth times, we were amused. The last two times, we were just tired of it!

We had so much food- turkey, potatoes with nuts (without the nuts), green bean casserole (without the topping), home-made stuffing, gravy (made by the science club leaders!), cornbread, macaroni and cheese, other mashed potatoes, broccoli casserole, eggplant, Indian chicken, stuffed squash, Spanish omelette, apple pie, apple cobbler, pumpkin pie, cake, and that't not even touching on the appetizers! We finally got all of the food warm at once (Congrats, Mel!) and ate around the fire and recorded football game. I inhaled my food, but I think it was all delicious. We sat around and talked and drank wine for several hours, then had a dance party in the basement before finally heading home around 3 am. Quite a Thanksgiving, I must say.

When do you go to another country to see a movie?

When it's the first half of the last Harry Potter, of course, and it's showing in English. After downloading some of the earlier movies to re-watch during the week, we set off this morning for Koper (Capodistria) in Slovenia. We had chosen not to go with the group that went on Thursday night, because we didn't want to be out that late on a school night. We're so boring. (Yes, my friends saw it before you, if you're in the States, as they were home just before midnight, and we're six hours ahead.)

Anyway, my roommate and I met up with another teacher this morning, rented a car, and drove to the mall in Koper. It's only about a half hour drive, so it's really not that crazy, but it was a fun adventure. The movie was really good, though I won't say anything about it as to not ruin it.

After the movie, we wandered around the mall for a little while looking at art supplies and clothes, then got some food at a decent-for-Europe Mexican restaurant and just generally enjoyed the company.

We still have the car tomorrow (and the pass to get into Slovenia), so we'll see what sort of adventure transpires... I'm sure it will be something!

P.S. Post about my trips to Florence and Strasbourg will probably get written at some point...

Halloween

After carving all those pumpkins, I was ready for the Halloween party at school. I was planning to dress up as a ballerina, as usual, since it's an easy costume, but my students didn't like that. Here, Halloween is strictly spooky; all my kids were vampires and witches and zombies and a mummy. When they heard my plan, they were clearly dismayed, though my suggestion to find a witch hat was also met with little enthusiasm. One child sadly told me, "well, that won't win the costume contest." I heard that all of the fifth graders were going as more normal things, like a soccer player, "but dead." I decided to embrace this philosophy and went as a dead ballerina, which was basically a simple ballerina costume with dead/zombie makeup.

We had quite a party, starting with academic stations, then a costume contest, and then dancing and snacks and games. We tried to watch the Halloween Charlie Brown to settle everyone down at the end, but we couldn't really hear it.

After we got everyone packed up with all the parts of their costumes and ready for break, all the teachers took a deep breath and went out for drinks.

I'm scared I'm going to turn orange.

I've got a big backlog of blog posts, so you'll have to bear with me. (And, in my continued procrastination, I just googled the etymology of that phrase. It comes from either a request for forbearance or bearing a burden together. And now I've put off writing for another 10 minutes.)

Three Sundays ago, several of us set off by train to the lovely medieval town of Venzone for the annual Festa della Zucca, the Festival of the Pumpkin. We explored the entirety of the little town while enjoying a whole range of pumpkin themed foods. These included pumpkin pastries and the absolutely delicious pumpkin pizza. The pumpkin gelato was sold out by the time our group got there. I also found the first type of wine that I actually liked! Unfortunately, it's pumpkin wine, which is kinda seasonal and pretty obscure anyway.

This was only the beginning of my pumpkin-filled week. The school PTA bought every class a pumpkin for Halloween, but most classes didn't have time to do much with them. I volunteered to carve ours, so that we would have a Jack-o-Lantern for the school Halloween party on Friday. I had a fun planning period with pumpkin guts up to my elbows and carved both a face and the number 3. By lunchtime, I also had 345 pumpkin seeds! (Yes, I counted. The kids estimated, so I needed to know the actual number.)

After lunch, both the fifth grade teacher and one of the fourth grade teachers had spotted the pumpkins and requested that I do theirs as well. Another face and the number 5 made me only a few minutes late for Italian class, and more than doubled my stash of seeds. That night, I added some oil and salt and roasted them. Once they were done, I had enough to fill a recycled spaghetti sauce jar! Interestingly, the fourth and fifth grade pumpkins were two different types. Though they looked the same from the outside, the insides were completely different.

Friday morning, the other fourth grade teacher mentioned that her pumpkin need carved as well, bringing the week's total to four, and well over 1000 seeds, which I kept as payment for the carving. After 5 batches of salted seeds, I started to get bored, so I also made a spicy version and my personal favorite, caramelized seeds. Yum!

Friday's lunch at school was Halloween themed, with pumpkin rice, pumpkin chicken, pumpkin soup, and pumpkin bread. I chose the chicken and bread, both of which were quite good.

It was all delicious, but I still don't think I will eat much more pumpkin soon, at least for a few weeks...

SotL in dance class

I am taking a dance class each week (in Italian!) and have been reminded of SotL things on more than one occasion. The big two:

1) The word "cambio" means change or switch. That guy from Taming of the Shrew was seriously not creative.

2) We did push-ups and sit-ups to "Personal Jesus" last week.

If that doesn't mean anything to you, you have never been in SotL.

Other notes from class:

1) This is my third language and fourth country for dance classes!

2) I am getting quite good at the numbers 1-8 in Italian.

I ate pumpkin pizza...

and it was actually really good.