no martini. no party

Spent the week with Toni and then got transferred to Muggio on Saturday. Met up with the other three tutors and two directors at the train station and then went to a park to eat and plan the week. We then got dropped off at our host families and I landed up staying at the director’s house. They have a 20yr old daughter who also speaks English quite well.

Sunday we tutors met up again for lunch and a further meeting of planning.The week went pretty quickly even though I thought I might die since I had a class of 17 6yr olds, but they were absolutely fine and quite intelligent for their age. The school is in walking distance of my house, so it's pretty easy to get around. The tutors hung out at a bar a couple times and bought some cheap boxed wine to drink at a park. I went out to Monza for gelato and a walk around the town with my host sister one night and have decided my favourite gelato flavour this year is yoghurt. My family also provides me with coke constantly so I am a happy camper most of the time. 

On Friday we all got dropped off at the metro and went to an outside bar area, near a sort of castle called "Colonne di San Lorenzo" and met up with Edoardo from my San Diego exchange. From there we got a lift to a club at about 1am, but we never got let in because we needed an "invitation." I cursed the bouncer in all sorts of English that he wouldn't understand because I was in dire need of a good dance! And then we started our 4hr journey home...walking, bussing, training...eventually got to bed at 10am.

Saturday was all sleeping and then a birthday party of a host sister, turning 25. Lots of food and drink, but an early night for us this time. Sunday we went to a market and then a public pool, where we had to wear ridiculous swim caps. I concluded the weekend with a pizza and am now into my second week with only 2 new kids in my class. I get transferred next week to a new camp and am sad to have our little tutor group broken up, but excited that I get a change of scenery and a different camp before I leave for Japan!

Maleo

This past week I had camp in a little town called Maleo, in the region Lombardia. 90kids with 9tutors in 5 classrooms, in a super old building with an epic garden - was a pretty awesome camp. Director and assistants spoke very good english and organised everything so well. I stayed with a host family around the corner from the school, so we cycled and walked most of the time. I had red book, which means I had a class of 11yr olds and we did a whole bunch of games to do with basics like introductions, opposites, body parts and likes. On the first day I lost my voice though, and took the rest of the week to recover. Our final show for the parents on Friday landed up being Scooby Doo since the kids watch the cartoon here on tv too and learnt the song pretty easily. Our lovely assistants made us a farewell and thank you video, which I've uploaded onto youtube and you can view it here if you like. It's just a 5min clip of some of the kids playing and activities we do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIJHGblLo9A&feature=youtu.be

We had a tutor dinner at this amazing restaurant with all the host families on Thursday and on Friday we celebrated a tutor's 21st at a funfair in Cremona and went out to a sort of club afterwards, with a lot of spanish dancing...haha. 

Saturday we had a tutor lunch at the directors house to say bye to everyone before we all separated and then my host family took me to Piacenza for a walk. We then went to a rock festival type thing and my family bought me a belly ring :) Sunday we had a baptism ceremony at the church and then lots of eating afterwards to celebrate. I then got on the train back to Treviglio to stay with Toni again. She started to au pair for another family, so I also met a whole new bunch of kids and folks. Since then I've been chilling and catching up with the rest of the world...skyping, photos, blogging.

My Maleo host family

I'm planning on joining a couple tutors in Florence to travel around there a bit till Saturday and then I'll be transferred to my next camp.