Finally woke up to a cloudy day. We've had weeks and weeks of hot and sunny weather. It was a great relief to have clouds, a nice breeze and a lower temperature. A couple hours later we had a huge electrical storm. The Arno River was looking pretty low so I'm sure it was happy. A crazy thing happened as I watched the storm from the window. As I was standing there I heard some sort of cracking noise but didn't think much of it. About a minute later I screamed when I heard a huge smashing sound. The glass cover to our stove smashed into a million pieces. It happened just when there was a big bolt of lightening but I don't know if it had anything to do with that. It's more likely it exploded because I tried making coffee on top of the glass cover thinking it was made for that. I did it once before when we moved here but then only cooked directly on top of the burners. The glass of course heated up and then during the storm the air cooled just enough to make the entire glass shatter. Thank goodness it didn't shatter all over the place. It stayed right on the counter. Hardly one piece of glass made it to the floor. Anyway, I'm not sure if our landlord will believe lightening struck it. The storm let up, the sun came out and I decided to go see the most famous tower in the world. THE LEANING TOWER OF PISA. It's only about an hour away. Jonathan's leg is still bothering him so he's walking around on crutches so he decided to skip this trip. I quickly looked on line to check train times and chose the 1;57 becasue it stops at the station nearest the tower which ended up being stupid because this station was in the middle of nowhere and there were no signs. I recharged my camera battery, and ran off to the station.
After searching for the tower for about 45 minutes I finally came upon it. You would think the most famous tower in the world would have signs leading to it. NOTHING. Where I was walking around not one store or bar or anything was open. I knew it had to be somewhere because I saw it from the train window and I was in PISA after all!! Oh well, it was fun to find it this way. It was as if I was discovering it for the first time.
I don't know about you but when I see something as famous as the LEANING TOWER OF PISA I'm never impressed. I mean, how many times have I seen this thing? The amazing thing is- it's only famous becuase it LEANS. Just because they didn't realize how loose the soil was there is an international airport in this little town in the middle of nowehere!!! And it didn't take centuries for it to start leaning. It started sinking once they built the third floor. At one point it started leaning too much and they didn't let people into it so they spent millions of dollars to support the tower so it wouldn't fall over as tourists are climbing up it. Of course they spent millions to support the lean. What would have happened if they had totally straightened it out? Would more people have started coming to see the corrected tower or would it have been ignored? Hmm. It was a nice afternoon, not too hot, lots of grass and beautiful buildings. The tower really is the most uninteresting thing about this collection of buildings. I did want to go up it but they next available climbing was two hours later. Oh well.
Had a late lunch. Read a book and watched people go by on double tandem bikes. They were the thing to do for the tourists. Before going back home I decided to check out the historic area of town. I thought it was beautiful even though it doesn't have a great reputation. A big river runs through it with colorful buildings on either side. I just continued walking aroung until eventually I found the stazione centrale. The next train was in about 20 minutes. Had a nice ride home and went to Hong Kong for dinner with Jonathan.

I couldn't resist. Everyone else takes a picture of them holding up the building but NOT ME!

We've decided to take a five day trip to Stockholm, Sweden from July24-29th. We got two tickets for the total cost of 175 Euro. Ryanair is dirt cheap. We are very excited to spend some cool, refreshing days there. I lived there 28 years ago. WOW!! I know my Swedish family will be at their summer house so this time I'm not going to contact them. But we are going to get there again before the year is over.

Good morning. It's Saturday morning, 8:45. I'm still in bed. Jonathan just brought me coffee. What a life. We are both a bit tired these days. Jonathan is having a little trouble with his leg. It may be a very tight muscle. It hurts him when he walks. You can't get anywhere without walking so we may just hang low today. There are a million places we want to see but you just can't do it all.

The last two weeks I probably learned more about teaching than ever before. The reason being I had a really bad teacher. I've been very blessed with a great class and great teachers. These last two weeks we had our first male teachers. We have two teachers. One teaches grammar and the other conversation. The grammar teacher was a bit dull but we did a ton of grammar. The conversation teacher was hopeless. He had no lesson plan and very few of us actually talked. One woman from Brazil was practially fluent in Italian so she ended up being the only one talking. I finally talked to the school about it. I think the director had heard the complaint before. Lucky for me I am taking private lessons with a dear Italian woman Marta who works near Piazza Santa Croce. Her store is closed from 1-3:30 so we have a lesson during that time. We have two good teachers for the next two weeks.

I do more speaking in Italian with her than I do all day at school. We have an hour lesson but then we end up speaking English for another hour. She has very few costumers in her store so even if it's opening time it's easy to continue talking. She gives me a great insight into the minds of Italians. NOT an easy country to live in! I know America isn't perfect but there sure is a lot to be grateful for. THIS COUTNRY IS SO CORRUPT! And the sad thing is the Italians have just given up trying to fight it. The government just doesn't seem to really care as long as they are rich. The school system here is horrible. Not enough schools and not enough teachers. The hospitals are a mess. Social services a disaster. The list goes on. I think the Vatican alone has enough money to improve all those systems! Marta said the only time Italians will protest is if a soccer match is cancelled. I think she siad Napoli shut down for three days becuase they had to cancel a game. It's the only thing Italians are pround of (according to Marta). They worship soccer and the players.
Salaries in Italy are lowest in Western Europe and the cost of living is high since they got the Euro. Fewer and fewer Italians can go out to eat or even have a coffee. In a city like Florence the prices are so high you seldom see Italians in the restaurants or cafes in the historic area. It has become a city for Tourists. Because it's so hard getting good paying jobs most children stay at home until they get married. 75% of men between 18-35 are still at home. Mom does everything. Marta, who is 35 and divorced never dates anyone who lives at home or likes soccer. I don't blame her! The trains are on stike all the time!! I've experienced it twice already and I don't even take the train that often. The good thing is they always tell you when the strike will start and end and they will provide more busses. They guarantee that everyone can get home. Is this really a strike? This kind of striking could last for years and it has!!
I'm sorry if I sound so negative this morning. I'm not complaining but just telling you the truth about what is going on in this beautiful yet complex country. Jonathan just came into the bedroom and wants to go to the Baptistary. This is where Dante was baptised in 1270 something.
All for now. Take care. I miss you all.

The view from our classroom.

Our class.

Our Weekend in Roma!

Julianne (I spell her name differently every time.) Jonathan and I spent the weekend in Roma. Julianne found a wonderful hotel for us in a great part of town. The most exciting part of the trip was having air conditioning in our rooms. I realize how spoiled I am in Tokyo always having the air on in our apartment. I slept like a baby both nights.

We took the 5:53 train from Firenze. As we took the Eurostar the trip was only 90 minutes. One lady in our car, however, had a much longer trip home as she was on the wrong train. When she realized her mistake it was too late to get off. The first stop was Roma. She was headed home to Bologna, only a short distance away. Anyway, we arrived in Roma, took a taxi to our hotel, freshened up a bit and went out to find a place to eat. Now, that we have been living in Italy a while we don't worry about everything having to be so perfect. We, more or less, just ate at the first restaurant we saw. And yes, the place had VERY CUTE waiters. Even Julianne thought our waiter was cute. She never thinks ANYONE is cute. It they aren't tall and Danish she doesn't even look!! Crazy women with all these cute Italians around. After dinner we walked around a bit, had a gelato and went to bed.

The next morning we had a nice buffet and we were off to see the city. It was hot hot hot. We were planning just on taking a hop on hop off bus because there is not point trying to get everywhere by subway. We did that but we didn't exactly hop off and on too many times. It was just too hot and there were too many tourists. We got off at Vatican City and toured the Basillica. But there were too many tourists to be that moved.

In the meantime poor, poor Jonathan was having horrilbe pain in his gums. He had no idea what was going on but he could hardly stand the pain. We were worried it was TMJ again. (That's the tight jaw thing.) He suffered the entire day. He was a great sport and did everything with us. That night we visited Torj, his cousin and Jason her husband. Jason works at the US Embassy. We rested at the hotel a little before they came to pick us up. They actually lived in the neighborhood. Jonathan didn't know how he was going to last the night. Well seeing family helped him a great deal-he could at least endure the pain-severeral beers helped as well. We went to the riverside where bars and restuarants were set up for the summer months. We sat at bar for at least two hours and just talked and talked and talked. It was great fun. finally at 11 pm we decided we should eat something. We finally got a taxi home at about 1 am.

Tory and Jason live in Embassy housing so they of course have a big three bedroom apartment.

They will stay in Rome one more year.

The next day Julianne really wanted to go to a big mall out by the airport. I wasn't really in the mood to tour so I went with her. I know, we are in Rome and we are going out to a huge mall. We keep waiting on the wrong platform for our train so it took forever before we got there and didn't have much time to shop. NO PROBLEM. Julianne was able to find plenty in that short time. We met Jonathan at 4. We were then going to take the Archeobus for a tour before heading back home. Well, we had our luggage with us so we weren't allowed on the bus. We were so disappointed. We argued awhile but that didn't work. Usually lots of discussion works in Italy. Not this time. Well, we decided to change our tickets and head back home earlier. Yes, it was a weird trip to Rome but we DID have fun.

By the way, Jason had antibiotics and gave Jonathan some to take in hopes that would do something. Jonathan woke up the next day feeling almost perfect. It must have been some kind of infection. We were all relieved. We thought we would be taking him to the hospital the second day. Thanks Julianne for a great weekend.

On our way in the Eurostar.

Happy Julianne waiting for our cute waiter at our first restaurant in Rome.

Looking lovingly at Jonathan.

This is what I ordered.

Our first subway ride. A very colorful train painted by Da Vinci.

ROMA!!!!

Dancing at the Vatican.

Trevi foutain.

Trevi Fountain

Some church!

Very enthusiastic tourists.

A wonderful man we met.

Gorgeous Julianne.

Tori and Jason.

What is Jonathan looking at?

Our view of the river as we talked and talked and talked.
I think Julianne is learning more English than Italian. Her Italian is great by the way!

Off to Rome for the weekend. We may get together with Tory (Jonathan's cousin) and her husband. (They live there.) Julianne is joining us. Hope my pants dry in time! Got a 95 on my Italian test today and I still can't speak!!!