Festa
Today in Italy it is La Festa della Donna, or
International Women's Day. In Italy, it is celebrated annually with sprigs of flowers from the mimosa tree given out to all women--by friends, family, even local stores, coffee bars, and restaurants--as a way of appreciating and celebrating the importance of women. Antonello participated by bringing me mimosa flowers and roses, and he bought some mimosa sprigs for my sister and law and our niece as well. Thank you, amore!
The
flower, with its little puffy balls of yellow bursting all about, is sunny and warm, and decorate mimosa trees dot people's gardens. The past fews days I keep walking by a fully bloomed mimosa tree on my way to work, and it's been a constant reminder of the presence of March, and of women's day.
To all women everywhere: happy women's day! I hope you celebrate well! To Corrie: I hope that your bridal shower was a great celebration of La Festa Della Donna!
-Jackie
Day is Done
Finally Friday. The intermediate course ended well--last lesson lunch together with the students and teachers (there were three of us teachers this time), and a movie to help us all get through the afternoon. As I walked home this evening, I got messages from my Saturday lessons--both lessons cancelled. That means no work tomorrow. Do you know how long I've been wanting a weekend?
Thank goodness it's Friday. Tomorrow, the weekend begins.
Enjoy your weekend, everyone! I'm hoping the rain clears up!
-Jackie
did I say spring?
With the weather, it seems miles away from
Sunday's beautiful spring day, but I realize that the rain is necessary. It's been paradise here for so long with sunny skies, so I shouldn't complain about a bit of stormy weather. Tonight, I'm skipping my usual Thursday night routine of
Speakeasy and opting for some rest. Tomorrow is finally Friday, and I'm so grateful. Doing two courses at the same time has taken its toll on me, and it's time for the weekend. Hopefully the sun will come out by then?
More soon...sorry that my posts are so boring! As you can see, my life has been work work work lately--I wish I had more to tell you! The good news is that I'm off to America in less than a week!
-Jackie
long hours
Today I worked a full eight hours at the intensive English course, and I'm exhausted. We started a whole new intensive English course today, but since the other one is still going on, we're doubling up. I did four hours with beginner English students, then four hours with advanced students. Did I mention I was tired?
While there's nothing new now on
the students' blog, I hope to make some progress on that. It hasn't been nearly as much fun as the blogs my students have done in the past, mainly because I'm doing more grammar than conversation this time, making actual work on the blog a bit harder to work into the schedule. I don't even know, at the moment, how I'm going to get to Friday, but I'm taking things one day at a time. The best part of the day was lunch with Antonello--we have been going to the Chinese restaurant near my work when I only have an hour for lunch, and we get a little bit of a break from our hectic days to sit and enjoy each other's company, with someone ELSE doing the cooking.
Have a relaxing evening. It's rainy and cold here, but I'm just happy to have a bit of a break before tomorrow comes--there's another very long day ahead of me.
-Jackie
Macerata Monday: Sunset over the Neighborhood
It's actually early morning when I write this, and I need to get ready for work, but I thought I'd post this shot that I took last night while I was getting some photos of
the pink sunset behind our house. I haven't really posted any views from our apartment before, but I liked the way the city was lit up last night, the cars driving up the hill to the center. We live down the hill from the medieval city, and it takes about 15 minutes walking to get into town. It's not always the ideal location since I work in town, but I've lived in the center before, and it's nice to be away, in a neighborhood without so much traffic and noise. Macerata is very condensed--it's a little bundle of a city, like a lot of Italian cities, but even more so considering it's location on the top of a hill--so the city centre and the area around it is almost built on top of itself, all scrambled together like it is.
For a city with 40,000 people, you wouldn't believe how much traffic there is.
Have a good Monday! This is gonna be another crazy week, but I'm trying to take it in stride.
-Jackie
Spring
Today was a beautiful day in the neighborhood, and Antonello and I put it to good use. Having one completely free day a week makes me a little anxious, but it's also a good excuse to use that day in the best way possible--doing everything on the list, including sleeping in. I FINALLY went running, and, while it was windy much of the run, there was also this sudden springtime rush of heat and sun. It's been particularly nice weather over the past couple of weeks, but all of the sudden today was like spring. It's weird how little preparation I felt for this sudden heat wave, given the fact that it's been verging on spring for quite some time, but I just didn't expect it to come so soon. March is definitely here, windy and sunny and warm all mixed together. Outside, I can hear the wind howling like mad.
Here's a view of the sun setting, which was quite beautiful today from our bedroom balcony.
Have a great week. Mine's going to be filled to the brim, but I've spent much of the day preparing.
-Jackie
