Week 12: Ultimate Week

Sunday:

No church today as no way of getting there instead I went with the family to watch Fede participate in his first moto race. They took his older motorbike but then found out it wasn't powerful enough to take him up the hills so they had to drive back to take his other one. It takes about an hour to drive to the race place. He did okay, stalled the bike a lot but he isn't as used to it as the other one. But he managed a lap of 7 minutes which was good. It started to rain later in the afternoon surprise surprise. Last day in Rovescala tomorrow morning we go back to Milan. 

Monday:

Left Rovescala at 10 they were all sad to leave but I'm glad to be back in the city I prefer it there. It's busier and more alive, peace and quiet is nice but after a while I longed for a noisier place. The kids don't understand why I prefer Milan and Fede said as much that I must be stupid to prefer the city. I don't think they realise that not everyone has the same opinion as them. I half unpacked and then repack my big suitcase so the things I use I can just throw into my small one. Took Fede to the park most of his friends are back from holiday now so he had people to play with. 

Tuesday:

Didn't get much sleep, I think because I changed beds hopefully tonight will be better. Bit of a slow morning as Bea and Fede did their own things homework etc so I just had to supervise. Fede was making a book that he had written gluing various pieces of paper etc together. Bea was translating songs for me from Italian to English and English to Italian. She was very good. When she wants to she can speak English well...she just often does not want to. Fede loves the 'What does the fox say?' song and keeps asking to replay it he likes the video too. Went our to the park and took an ice cream at Massimo's as he was back open. 

I found Rebecca the cat sat on my bed.  

Wednesday: 

Early awakening. I go to bed too hot so I sleep without the covers but then when morning comes I'm cold so I wake up tired. Today is colder, yesterday was very warm even too hot and the all the mosquitos come out so the cool is better. 

In the morning I did English with Fede then tired him out by walking to Porta Romana to see the hole made by all the rain but we couldn't find it. Then we walked into the centre and I picked up some final gifts for family. I read the map wrong at one point and we ended up going the long way round Fede wasn't impressed and we took the tram back. 

After lunch we went to see some friends of theirs. They live in Porta Romana near the hole so we got to see it after all. 

It was bigger before but they have already stated repairing it. All the heavy rain washed the ground away because underneath it is hollow where all the underground parking is for the flats. 

Another ice cream from Massimo's. I had salter caramel and passion fruit. The caramel was nice not too salty and not too sweet. 

Thursday:

Last full day. In the morning went out to the centre. I picked up some more bits and bobs. Gifts for the kids to say thank for the summer. Alessadra bought me a book, it's cool because on one side of the page it is in English and on the other side it's the same page but in Italian! I choose A Midsummer Nights Dream. After lunch I finished packing had a dilemma run out of weight space. Why I brought so much stuff with me is beyond me I didn't use half of it. They gave me a load of pasta to take back but I don't know if I can because of the weight. When I weigh it in at the airport tomorrow fingers crosse there will be enough room. Had a last last ice cream at Massimo's. Mandarin and Passionfruit the two best flavours. 

Built a race track with Fede out of kapla - jenga bricks. And we raced ball bearings down it. 

For my last dinner Alessandra made Lasagna yum! 

Day 33, 34, 35, 36: I've fallen behind

My perfect streak of blog entries is ruined!

Here is a quick summary:

Day 33 (friday): had a final ice cream at Massimo's and left for the hills

Day 34 (Saturday): really hot day, why horse riding again still painful but managed to trot better. Went to a superbike show in Carpi, called carpi night show. It was amazing! I liked the freestyle event best where they ride up a ramp and perform moves in the air. One of the three freestylers - Kevin Ferrari did a back flip! On a motorbike! I also got his autograph and one of the others too but I don't remember his name. We got back at like two in the morning!!

Apologies for the swear word! 

Day 35 (Sunday): trains were running so managed to get to church, they had friends round for dinner which was fun I played monopoly with their kids old fashioned set with Italian lira. 

Day 36 (today - Monday): First day of the first week in the hills. Bea isn't currently on speaking terms with me after a fun filled meal yesterday evening so I spent the day doing English with Fede. She currently only communicates to me with glares or a quick yes/no. Alessandra says it's normal and not to worry about it. I went on a bike ride with Fede but my legs and butt gave in two minutes into it, I couldn't sit on the seat because I was so achey from horse riding. We watched Cars 2 in English much to bea's disgust. Actually quite a nice movie. The weather wasn't so good today, very cold. I had an afternoon nap. 

Probably from now on I will just do a weekly update/summary. Probably I shall try and upload it every Saturday. As I have no wifi and am needing to conserve my 3G I may have to skimp on pictures! 

Day 32: 33 Degrees

Today was meltingly hot. As proved by the increased melting of the ice creams me and Fede got from Massimo's as soon as we stepped out of the cool interior of the store. Today was my last ice cream from Massimo's. It was the best ice cream shop ever!

This morning the same routine English, homework, clean and tidy. I went to the post office to stamp my post cards. Instead of giving you stamps they put them through a machine which printed a coded stamp on them. 

Fede and Stefano went out to a motorcross shop in the north of Milan to pick up some gear - helmet trousers and gloves. So me and Bea spent t rest of the morning doing some English work. 

After lunch me and Fede went to get ice creams and Bea went to visit her friend Valeria who is going on holiday tomorrow. 

We also packed up for the hills as tomorrow afternoon we leave. Thankfully I managed to get everything back into my suitcases! 

Two jam packed ones! 

We will spend a week in the hills and then we go to Tuscany. It has come round so fast. 

It was so hot we had the air conditioning on all day. It's a cool machine it sucks all the water out of the air and condenses it into a bucket outside. We had to empty the bucket like three times already. 

Day 11: Museum

It was raining again this morning, how delightful! It makes it hard to go out to do anything.

This morning Alessandra had to go out to the office, but afterwards we were going to go to the Museum of Natural History about an ten minute drive away. However, once at the office things came up that meant she would be engaged the whole morning. So, we shuffled plans, Alessandra rang Elga and we arranged that I would come and tutor in the morning for an hour so we would have the afternoon free to visit the museum.

I took to the tutoring an English Fairytale book for the children to read aloud to practice their pronunciation. It worked really well and we made a lsist of all the words they struggled on to be practiced for the next day with pronunciation guides written next to them. However, I forgot to bring the book back with me so I will have to pick it up next week.

After lunch (which was hamburgers, gherkins and cheese and salad), myself, Alessandra and Federico went out to the Museum. Bea does not like museums, or anything really that is not a shop so she stayed at home. It was about a ten minute drive. It is strange because usually we walk everywhere or get public transport as there is very little parking in Milan, and also there are not many areas cars can drive in. The internal city is split up into zones.

The Museum was huge and in a lovely 19th century building with arched windows and coloured stones. It had a large exhibition inside, however they do not keep good care of the displays, the glass was very dirty and in need of a good clean. They had displays on insects, dinosaurs, animals also a mineral section but it was closed.

The museum

It's name

Fossil that looked like flowers 

Colourful shell 

Dinosaur

Giant clam

Ceiling above the stairs

Part of a huge whale skeleton

The museum is set in the grounds of a large parkland, so we explored it after. In it was a dodgems, carousel, pond-lake thing with ducks and playpark areas.

After we got back from the museum, Alessandra and Beatrice went out to see a friend of Alessandras who is near her pregnancy due date. Whilst they did that, me and Federico walked to Massimo's to get ice cream (Fede got chocolate and cream and I got mandarin  and cream) big plus I ordered correctly in Italian!

Massimo's 

When we got back to the house, we watched the other DVD we borrowed from the library - Aladdin. We watched it in English with Italian subtitles so he can get used to hearing English spoken and some new words.

I also called my family again on google hangouts, as tonight we go to the hills and there is not any wifi up there and internet connection is poor and slow. We will probably be at the hills until sunday, hopefully the weather will be good like last week and we can go in the pool again and on a bike ride.

I have all my train times sorted for Sunday as well! So everything is prepared.

Fino a domani.

Day 4: Technology

I slept in a little later this morning, the long days and warm weather make me more tired but I am coping well with it.

This morning we went out to the big supermarket. The local one is called 'Pam' the big one was about the size of the Asda in Wakefield/Tesco in Leicester. They have smaller frozen sections and larger fruit and vegetable bits. Also, they have very large meat, fish, bread and dairy counters. The meat is huge!! 

At the supermarket there is a holder on the top of the trolley to place a machine you can pick up as you go in. This machine scans the barcodes of the items in your trolley and keeps a running total of the cost. I think they should do that in England it's a clever idea especially if you are shopping on a budget. 

We drove to the supermarket and it was very strange sitting on the right seat of the front of the car without a steering week being there! But Alessandra says that when we go to the hills there is a empty parking lot where Stefano can help me practice driving the left hand drives on the road. 

After the shopping me and the boy went to the larger park. It has a jogging circuit and play area and lots of green open space. It's not far from the flat so it's possible for me to jog there on a morning with Bea. We didn't stay long because none of Fede's friends were there, and a pre natal class were using the play area for young children. 

On the walk home we practiced speaking sentences in English. For example 'io mangio pane' (ee-o man-gee-o pan-e) is 'I eat bread' and 'Loro sono donne' (lo-row sonn-oh donn-e) is 'they are women'. 

At home we practiced more English/Italian with the phrase book and the learning app. Fede is getting better at pronunciation which is great! I keep forgetting how to pronounce January in Italian - gennaio (je-nye-o) instead I say jan-ee-o oops! 

For lunch it was penne and pesto it was very nice. Also salad with a vegetable called focchacio which is a root vegetable and tastes like aniseed, also cherries and chocolate salami (doesn't contain meat is just the shape of a salami). 

After lunch Alessadra had her Arabian language class again. Bea had a friend round so whilst they had fun me and Fede went on the wii again. Still learning English - Livello = level. We unlocked ninja and dinosaur level on the shooting game. 

When Alessadra came back we went to Massimo's patisserie again for ice cream. It is so nice! They make it all themselves. €2,50 for a two scoop ice cream, this time I had mandarino (mandarin) and crema (cream) it was very tasty. However they melted quickly because of the heat - about 28 degrees. 

After the gelati (ice creams) myself, Bea and her friend - Matilde, went back to Matilde's house, she had to pack for a church holiday camp. After that we watched a movie in English with Italian subtitles. The Alessandra and Fede went to the park. 

Then we came back about 7:15pm for dinner. We had chicken, courgette and beans (pollo, zucchini e fagioli). And after that fruit (frutta) cherries and watermelon. It's such nice weather we get to eat outside on the balcony. 

 Bea, me and Fede

After dinner I google hangouted my family  and when I called my dad I saw some of my friends too! It was nice to speak to them and for them to meet the family I'm staying with and them to meet my family. 

Ciao. 

Day 3: Parlo Italiano

Another great day! Jam and bread and milk for breakfast.

After Alessadra went out to work we did a lot of things at home. Yesterday we bought an English to Italian phrase book so me and Fede used that to teach me Italian and him English whilst the Bea practiced at the piano. Then when she'd finished we all made labels to tape to furniture with the English and Italian words e.g armadio is a wardrobe. 

We also played on the wii, it's very hard when you can't understand the instructions for the game as they are in Italian. It was wii play motion plus, the have some very fun games on it. On one ice cream fell from the sky and you had to catch it on your cone and not let it unbalance, then in another you had to hit moles on the head with a hammer when they popped out of the ground and on another one you had to pick up stones and skim them across the lake as far as possible! I played it with Fede and we had a great time!

We also went on the 'duolingo' app which is great for learning other languages. I use it for Italian and now Bea has it on her phone and Fede on his tablet for learning English. It's a fun app and they are enjoying it. 

Alessadra came back for lunch and cooked us breadcrumbed chicken and salad. After that she had an Arabian language course so we stayed at home and learnt some more English/Italian. Then we went to meet her at the library where it was held, they have English books there in English. Also DVD's which are free to take out! So we borrowed Aladdin and Open Season which is called Boog and Elliot in Italian. 

For tea we had cous cous with tomatoes and cheese it was lovely. Then this orange melon thing which I've never seen before but which was nice. 

A patisserie nearby the flat called Massimo's had a happy hour on for a new cocktail/champagne thing which we all went to - they were serving water as well. And also little pastries and mini pizza things they were nice. I met a lot more people. 

My Italian is slowly improving. I can count in numbers to a hundred and sort of know the days of the week and months of the year! 

Buonanotte!