Day 7: Many Adventures 9/12/08!

Giorno 7: Una giornata avventurata!!

The end of the first week, and the busiest day yet. Around 9am my student, James, came over so that we could try to resolve two issues:

1) A letter arrived for him a couple of days before he did, and he wanted to see if the Post Office (Le Poste) was holding it for him
2) Go to the city Lost & Found office to see if my backpack was there.

So, he came over, and with Isabella in the kangaroo, we headed off first to the Poste. Now, thank God I've learned the hard way NOT to trust and ATAF (Florence Bus) employee, so I now rely on Google Maps, which are AWESOME! You put in your addresses, then can choose auto, a piedi (on foot), or public transportation. Then it it gives you several options - if you put in a time, it tells you the next 3 "scheduled" buses... but I put that in quotes because the schedule means nothing. I use it just to confirm the bus numbers so I don't wind up out in the boonies somewhere again!

The night before I wrote down the directions. Bus to post office, from there to the Lost & Found, then to home. It worked out PERFECTLY! The directions were clear and the buses were correct. So we went to that post office way out of downtown (about 30 minutes) and asked about the letter, but they didn't have it. But the women at the post office were all nuts about Isabella... they all left their little windows and came over to see her (behind the glass of course). It was really funny! One thing that was quite striking to me was how incredibly clean this part of Florence was. Downtown is so disgusting with graffiti, but out there in the more business district there were huge supermarkets, like Kroger, and it was extremely clean. After that we went off to our next futile task... checking for the missing backpack.

We found the UFFICIO OGGETTI SMARRITI FIRENZE easily. But, they didn't have the back pack. I described it, but they said if it was last Saturday there was slim chance I'd ever find it again because the taxisti usually bring it within 24 hours. ARGH! At least I tried. So after that, we went back to get the #17 to San Marco and go home.

I met Lucio and Felicia at home for pranzo, then we had a 1:30 playdate with Susann, Nicolas, and Julian. Susann is Swiss-German, and the wife of the Dean of SACI. The kids had great fun together last year playing. I loaded the kids into the double stroller and went to the Piazza del' Azeglio. The city had put in new jungle gyms since last year, which we also noticed in the Piazza d' Indipendenza near our house. At least they are trying to make Florence more kid-friendly!

We arrived a bit late (go figure), but Felicia was thrilled to see her old friends. The kids ran around and climbed on the equipment, played with toys, etc. Another friend, Suzanne, who works at Syracuse's DIPA program - the one I studied at 14 years ago - in Piazza Savanarola, brought her son, Mateo who is also three. She also has a daughter, Isabella, who was born last June, but she was at home. We'll see her next time! Everyone had a blast!

After a while, we decided to check out the new Biblioteca delle Oblate where we could cool off a bit. It is a wonderful new treasure. The children's library is really nice - not quite as incredible as Toledo-Lucas County Public Library's Children's Library, but great for Italy. Felicia grabbed some books and took them into the igloo... she would look at the pictures and just make up a story. One thing that we noticed was that the Italian version of the Three Little Pigs has the parents kicking those 3 pigs out of the house because there was no more room (more piglets arrived)... somehow I don't remember that in our version, but please someone clarify if I just blocked that part from my memory. HAHAHAHA! It was great because Isabella hadn't had much floor time today, so we let her out to roll around on the floor... She was really fixated on shoes today, which our little friend Nicolas thought was neat!


While we were there it started POURING LIKE CRAZY. Lucio called me and said, "Hey it's going to rain really soon", and like 5 minutes later it was downpouring! So, we had to stay longer than anticipated since I didn't want to bring the girls out in the rain. In fact, Julian came back from the bathroom with a piece of ice! Apparently it had also sleeted! He was disappointed when it melted :( The library closed at 6:30pm, just after the rain stopped. I had planned on attending the opening of Jules Maidoff's exhibition at the Marino Marini Museum. Jules is the founder of SACI. However, it was from 6-8pm. By the time I got back to the house, go the girls settled, and nursed Isabella, it was already 7:30, so unfortunately I missed the opening. But I'm looking forward on seeing the show next week.

After that, Felicia was exhausted and went to bed. Lucio and I watched Richard Gere's "Dr. T and His Women", a kind of lame movie, but it was funny with the dubbing. That night I added up our receipts so far, and could not believe that in 7 days we had spent 700 Euros ($1000+). It's crazy! We can't continue like this. There were some expenses that were exceptional - taxi from airport, cell phone, etc., so hopefully next week will be much less. (fingers crossed).