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 6: Caldo - (Hot)

It was even warmer today when I woke up. Heat is nice, but when you are sweating as you walk it becomes very unpleasant!

The weekend days are the chill out days. Alessandra and Stefano were working on repairing/modernising various bits of the house. They plan to run a section of it into a rental flat for tourists to stay in. 

In the morning I went with Bea to her horse riding lesson, she normally rides a horse called Cisco (Francisco) but today it was Parcifal (Percival). Interestingly they don't have canter in Italian. They just walk, trot and gallop - I guess they would consider a canter to be a very fast gallop. 

When we got back I played basketball with Fede luckily the court was in the shade today so it wasn't so hot. 

I also studied some Italian, the alphabet and the cardinal and ordinal numbers. I get so confused with Spanish and French! Whilst I was studying the builders who were working on the house found a ramarro (green lizard) in the garden it looked plastic. 

After lunch, me, Bea and Fede went on a bike ride to the middle of Rovescala (the village) and back again. There were so many hills we got so hot from riding the bikes. 

When we got back we went straight in the pool for a while to cool off. We had races and contests to see who could do a handstand the longest it was fun. We also climbed up the steps and jumped in. After the pool me and Bea sun bathed for a bit. I think I may have caught the sun on my face it begins to feel sore, my arms have tanned up though which is nice! 

For tea we had pizza!! The mozzarella is so much nicer in Italy than the plasticy stuff in England. After dinner we drove into Stradella to get ice creams. We walked through Stradella eating them, even at 9/10pm the shops are still open! And even in the evening the weather is still very warm, at night too it is warm which can make it difficult to sleep. 

Ciao. 

Day 5: Move to the Hills

Today is very warm again going up to highs of 28-29 degrees.

This morning Alessandra went out for an appointment. So at home I helped the children with their English homework, getting them to read out the English to practice their pronunciation. 

After that I helped Bea tidy dust and hoover the house. Then Bea went out to see a friend, so me and Fede went out to see the mercado (market). 

It happens every Friday in the morning. There are several in Milan but one is very close to the house. It is huge and they shut the roads off to have. It takes up maybe 3/4 long streets and they sell everything. Clothes (I saw some Levi's going for €5 but I was unsure of their genuineness) also fruit and vegetables and cleaning supplies, shoes, cheese. 

We walked up and down labelling things in English and Italian. I found out the difference between pesche and pesce! (Peach and fish). It was very hot though so we didn't stay for too long. 

When we returned, Bea was still out so me and Fede built some Lego models with his Lego bricks. He had instructions for lots of models. We built first an ambulance, a mini castle and cannon and then a transformer dog thing. Which was fun!

Then Fede did his guitar practice the songs are very nice, he can play jingle bells and also Frere Jaques but it is known by a different name. After that we went on the wii again. Then lunch - Austrian gnocchi which is spinach and flour it was very nice! 

After lunch we packed to move to the hill for the weekend. The drive wasn't too long but it is hotter here 32 degrees but it's pleasant. The house is much bigger and the air is nicer to breathe. I have the whole top floor to myself a huge bedroom with an en suite and balcolny. 

Outside they have a basketball court, table tennis and a swimming pool in. The huge garden. The pool is not in the ground and it is deep, it comes up to my waist. The water is very nice and warm because the sun heats it up although in comparison to the external temperature the water does feel cold! 

Me and Fede

I was squinting because the sun was so bright!

In the children's room they also have a football table so we spent a lot of time playing on that. 

For tea we had lamb and polenta. Polenta is cornflour and water I think it makes a kind of potato mash thing but it tastes nice. In ancient times it was a staple of the poorer peoples diet. The Southern Italians call the northern Italians polentini - polenta eaters. 

After dinner I watched some Italian television. I could understand some things they said but it was very hard to translate. But the pictures helped me understand what they would be saying. 

Buonanotte.