Ciao Italia

Last week we had several days off due to the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha, which is the sacrifice holiday. It remembers when Abraham was told by God to sacrifice his son. In Turkey, in Ankara, the government regulated the sacrifice of the sheep; here however, there is no government regulation and so it was an opportune time to leave the country. Italy was a perfect choice! Two of my former students live outside of Pisa, in a nice town. Their family was gracious enough to allow me to stay with them.

It had been a year and a half since I had seen Giulia and Riccardo. The main purpose of my trip was to spend time with them and just to get of Africa and enjoy being in Europe. Italy is so beautiful that being anywhere is Italy is lovely. I love just listening to Italian. Since I was staying with an Italian family I was treated to real Italian home cooking. I know I gained at least five pounds from a four day trip! Giulia's mom made an amazing lasagna and risotto. Every morning we had cappuccino and tasty pastries and sweets. Italians have sweets for breakfast, I rather enjoyed it.

I loved spending time with Riccardo and Giulia. Riccardo was in 6th grade the first year I taught him, he's grown into such a handsome and tall young man. Giulia is a beautiful young woman in her third year of college. Riccardo and I went to Pisa on my first full day. We went inside the Dumo Church in Pisa and saw some beautiful sculptures.



We met Giulia for lunch and walked around in the rain. I loved seeing so many Christmas decorations. Though I am one of those people who doesn't believe in Christmas music or such before Thanksgiving, I was soaking up as much Christmas as I could since there is no Christmas here.

On the second day Giulia and I went to Florence. She had never seen David, and I wanted to see him again, so we went to the Academia. It rained all day in Florence as well, but we enjoyed walking around.







I made sure that I had plenty of gelato and got lots of great treats at the grocery store. It was a very relaxing trip. I had a wonderful time visiting with great friends.  


Here is the link to my pictures:  http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=309871&id=620259852&l=51d88ce6f3