Sun, sea and suncream

This weekend has been fabulous. Friday was a great day if not very long and tiring. After originally organising drinks in the piazza with the other tutors, we all crashed out with our host families and I was glad of it. Although 1 hour difference isn't too prominent, it makes a real difference when it's 12 or 1 in the morning. So despite being up late on FaceTime, I woke up early to go to the beach with the family. I had just rolled out of bed as I was asked to put my shoes on. We walked over the courtyard outside to a little bar, where we had coffee and pastries - I felt very Italian. We piled into the car with bags of towels, balls of various sizes, spades, buckets, sun cream, changes of clothes, water and anything else we could pack into the back of the car and we headed off. I'm convoy with the aunt and uncle in one car, we had a few drag races down the motorway and ground to a halt. The motorway was completely stationary for miles (12km, as written on the board). After a bit of fannying about and calling the other car we headed off on a detour. 3 hours later we arrived at the beautiful sands of Massa Carrara. A place that I remember for a previous host mum driving into a mini on the side of mountain. Here we laid in the sun, played a very serious game of volley-ball, swam and launched the children from our shoulders in the sea. Although it was slightly cloudy at first the sun came out and the sea was beautifully warm. We had an amazing sea food lunch under a canopy on the beach with the sound the sea in the background. Numerous tan lines and albums listened to later, at about 7pm, we packed up and clambered back into the car. With the sun still hot on my skin, I laid back in the seat and woke up in the darkness as we were pulling into the drive way. I haven't slept in a car since I was at nursary, I am very comfortable with this family (and was bloody tired). We all sat in a lump on the sofa, had cereals and took turns to shower. I dried and plaited Sofia's hair and fell asleep, phone in head and headphones still in. A truly beautiful family day.

Sunday's been a lovely relax too. I planned lessons sitting in the sun in the garden, just to add to my slowly growing tan and helped prepare lunch. While the parents had a post-lunch sleep I got to watch the F1 (thanks to my boyfriend) and have a chill with the kids. We had another mad bike ride, all in tow, down to the river and the fair. We went on the bumper cars, which was actually just like the Italian's driving in general, and watched the children go green on a kangaroo ride. It's an unbelieve feeling to be accepted so lovingly into a family and feel like you're part of the team. It's indescribable to be welcomed by open arms, to be the one holding the bags, the one riding behind the children making sure everyone is fine, to be brought the nocciola gelato without a second thought. I can't say how much I appreciate the love I've been given by this family. However, I'm still paining from the mixture of cobbled streets and an hour bike ride! We got back home, went on the trampoline, played ping pong and I got an early night ready for the week ahead. 

because singing about purple stew and making children do stupid things is TEFL

Currently sitting, finally, surrounded by lesson plans, endlessly playing children accompanied by the murmur of Italian TV. I left Milan Saturday afternoon after one last wander around the beautiful city centre. Struggling through the mass of people in Milan Centrale station I saw a group of 4, standing round a mound of cases and backpacks, all looking completely jiggered and far too hot. Definitely ACLE tutors. I had forgotten how daunting it was coming straight from an intense week of training with people from all over the world, to being put on a train that will take you somewhere in Italy where you will meet and subsequently live with a random family whilst attempting to teach English as a foreign language and juggle meeting and bonding with another group of random people. It's as exhausting as a long sentence without full stops. We arrived at the school and had our first meeting and met our eagerly awaiting families. The moment when you see the group of wide eyed children and awkwardly smiling parents is heart warming. The children are always so excited and hide behind their parents legs, whilst they themselves sigh at the relief that I can speak Italian. It is a blessing for me to always be matched with the non-English speaking family.
This family is especially wonderful. The house is beautiful, I have been spoilt with my room, own bathroom and kindness of this family. They are so incredibly welcoming and have already treated me as their own. After unpacking and being given my own trolley at the supermarket (something I had no idea how to cope with!), we went to the cinema. This was a bit different. The film itself was great, hard work to keep up, but great. The continuous talking and mid-way interval were, however, comical. The audience continued with conversations as if they were in their own home. About an hour in, the screen went blank and the lights came on and every got up and bought popcorn and discussed the first half...in a cinema. The applause at the end topped off the evening for me.
Oh Italy.
Sunday is a family day. After a lazy morning and late lunch, we walked to the cathedral and violin museum (Google: Cremona for further details). As lame as this appears, it was actually a wonderful afternoon, followed by a family bike ride. A group of 6, weaving between cars and through red lights. And a ping pong tournament, were I was thrashed by a 70 and 7 year old!
Camp itself is also fabulous. In a job that is constantly in limbo and changing you have to be immensely flexible, which is difficult if you're thrown into a situation that you're uncertain of or you're bloody tired. However stressed something makes you or however much you don't agree with something it's always best to sit back and let it happen. Better to be the person to clear up the mess than to make it. Despite saying this, the children have been Angels and in fact, the tutors work well as a group, even if there are certain loose parts. Day 1: I tripped in the morning circle, picked a stone that was embedded into a child's knee and was reminded of the amazing skill of switching between tutor and normal mode. By day 4 you'll be using hand expressions and talking at a slow pace even with the English tutors! I do adore working with children. Being brought flowers after lunch and have them cling to your leg as you leave the lunch room to go and collapse in a heap for 5 minutes before having to haul yourself up again to prepare the afternoon games, is marvellous. But it's immensely tiring. Thinking constantly about which child has sneaked out the room, where the pot of pens have gone and what that suspicious lump is under that child's t-shirt while worrying, at the same time, how long this worksheet will take and if you should just play hangman and screw the lesson plan.
After a week of untangling name tags, loosing my voice singing about llamas with emotional problems and post-camp Prosesco, tomorrow is Friday and "Friday is a funky day".

The world's city of fashion and selfie sticks

Yesterday already seems a life time away.
Milan was incredible. Such a beautiful city to just get lost in. I left my hotel early and decided to walk in the direction that the majority of people were going. Although this initially seemed like a good plan by the evening I had walked about 20k. I had also nearly got run down more than I care to mention. The skill with crossing roads in Italy is not to wait for the green man, because in fact the green man just means that the cars on that road are stopped, not the ones turning into that road. So the best thing to do is just walk, don't run - you won't fit in, but walk with ownership of the road. It's very likely you'll get beeped at or skimmed by a moped at some point. This is normal. Especially if the cars have been waiting at a green light, then they'll go through the red light to make up time - now doesn't that just make sense!
Two things that really took my breath away in Milan was the intricate and utterly amazing architecture and gorgeous fashion. Every building had elaborate detail along the windows and around the roof. Places were people don't necessary look were an explosion of patterns and complex design. The effort and artistic attention given to the simplest of buildings was just extraordinary. I don't know why people took the time to make these places look so beautiful but it's fascinating that they did. And that's without mentioning the Duomo (cathedral) and the shopping mall. Although you wouldn't expect these two to be associated they were both of different, but equally outstanding, beauty. This is something you have to see for yourself. A £40 flight and £60 hotel is really worth it.
The second thing I noticed was the beautiful fashion that the Italians had. In general the Italian dress sense is to die for, along with their figures, but there was something different with those in Milan. I assume this is due to the renowned status of the fashion city of the world but the simplicity and modesty of these outfits were what every woman dreams of. Again, something that is worth a £100 weekend away.
For lunch I stopped for a sit down on the steps up to the cathedral. I sat and watched the masses of people walk by. The old women teetering along in high heels behind striding tourist guides with their flags stuck into their bagpack. Bikes and cars weaving between people in the pedestrian only zones and endless vendors of selfie sticks, books and any other crap they could carry around! While sitting on these steps one of the vendors came up to me and hassled me with a selfie stick. I repeated said no but he was being very persistent, until a guy next to me said, in Italian, "she doesn't need that, she's got me to take pictures for her". It was smooth. I thanked him and he asked where I was from (apparently my Italian accent is obviously not Italian!), we then spoke for a while and he asked what I'd seen in Milan. We got a coffee and had a walk round some of the tourist sights, the castle and churches. It was lovely, so friendly and very Italian. When travelling alone it's a very good idea to lie sometimes. It will get you out of situations and give you a bit of security. With this in mind I told him I was meeting a friend at the train station soon and should probably go! I was appreciative of his tour but am not so reckless to give the wrong impression. I wandered back up to my hotel.
I had planned to meet some new tutors in the middle of Milan so had a quick nap and headed back into the centre (30 minutes late, adopting the Italian way of life!) So after a blind date type meeting in the busiest squares in Milan I was reminded once again of the frustrating, Italian ritual of walking and standing and walking and standing and walking and standing for hours before finding somewhere to eat which is actually exactly the same as the 1,000 pizzerias you walked past. Oh Italy.
After one too many cocktail I decided to tackle the Milanese public transport system, which in fact wasn't as bad as I expected. Crawled into bed, FaceTimed my wonderful boyfriend, deciding that FaceTime is the best invention ever, and crashed out.

A Pinot Grigio and a tomato salad in Milan

As I sat on the bus from the airport to Milano Centrale I had a reflection on my previous summer here and I panicked. I was ill for a week, which was hellish. I nearly got arrested, twice. Both occasions were not my fault, I was just the translator! And I had spent a weekend on my own and got very emotional with my own thoughts. But then, I heard the Italian radio. The endless Italian rambling by the familiar voice and awful, dated English music deterred any negative thoughts. Suddenly I was back. I reasoned with myself, I know that last summer was incredible but you have those moments that you ponder on the bad experiences (or should I say the experiences that one should learn from). I remembered the times of the disco-tech, awful dancing and terrifying moped rides. Large family meals and the endless fannying about. Picking muscles fresh from rocks and sitting outside till 1 or 2 in the morning without a jacket, because you can. Getting off the bus I was confronted by an Italian man, asking for directions. Being mistaken for Italian is a wonderful feeling in itself but for it to be followed by walking through one of the most beautiful, thriving cities in the world, it's as if it's your own movie.
I got to my hotel and it was beautiful. A large, air conditioned double bed and the most wonderful view over the shopping street below. Seeing this, and feeling on top of the world, I showered (always recommended after any travelling), changed and headed out for an evening in Milan. A restaurant was suggested by the hotel desk but thought I'd have a wander. The smell of the heat in Italy is indescribable, it's just something you have to experience yourself. You can taste the country and feel it on your skin as if it was an actual perfume. It's not the smell of freshly made dough, or strong Italian coffee, it's the air itself. Enchanted with this overwhelming sense, I walked around a small park, tackalling the unpredictable roads with traffic coming from every direction and turning in every direction. It was coming up to 8.30 and after a day of travelling I was feeling pretty done. I sat at a table outside a quaint restaurant in the Milanese evening heat. Not only was I amazed, once again, by the stunning wine and food that Italy holds, but I was captivated by the language and happenings around me. The men to the left discussing how little they ate after destroying 3 courses. The couple opposite drinking 3 beers each, finishing with a shot of Limoncello and then receiving their moped helmets from the waiter. There is something about Italian life that just encaptures me.
The tomato salad and small bottle of Pinot Grigio, along with everything else, reminded me why I adore this country, so much.

The wonders of airport queuing

The anticipation of leaving for any sort of travelling is always overwhelming. You're so excited that you don't know what to do with yourself but parallel to that you're tense and nervous, can't relax. You're on an absolute high with the fact that within the day you will have started your journey and be taking in all the new sights and be buzzing from the culture however, first, you're going to have to say goodbye. That horrid word that can mean anything from "see you tomorrow" to "fuck, I'm not going to be able to look into your eyes for another 2 months." But some people are definitely worth fighting through the time away for.
So the waiting game begins. The waiting for the check-in gate to open (which is now all electronic and I'm hoping I haven't sent my hold luggage to Morocco instead of Milan). Waiting for the queue of people fannying about with those little plastic bags for your under 100ml toiletries. Waiting awkwardly for the man to nod at you after walking through the security gate and it feeling like a whole hour as you pray "please don't go off, please don't go off." Waiting for your gate number to come up while struggling through the hoards of people trying to pick up all the duty-free deals, who still have luggage, which has to be over the hand luggage size. Waiting at the gate, when the queue for gate 26, 27 and 28 is somewhat unclear and you have to peer over people's shoulders to see if their ticket matches yours because do you really want to be the one who pushes in and pretends not to realise. Waiting while the token crazy man sits in everyone else's seat and complains about it. Only after this can you actually sit back, touching thighs and arms with the people next to you, wishing you'd got that bottle of water out the overhead locker before you wedged yourself in ready to zone out and pretend to try and sleep for 2 hours. 

Despite this, you can observe, dream and imagine about the lives of all the people encountered in an airport. The family with two double buggies full of children and the dishevelled mother who really needed a quiet weekend at home - what were they thinking. The lads holiday, all with inside joke nicknames on the back of their t-shirts, and you can usually work out which one is going to get drawn on, tattooed or so drunk they'll sleep in the hotel lobby. 

But everyone knows this. Travelling is not about repeating the airport games done by so many before. This time alone is not to be wished away. To sit and ponder dreams and unimaginable situations that you couldn't ever comprehend while sitting at your desk at work is invaluable. Imagine what you would do if you could. Like living two lives, for me, one would be in Italy. The slow but passionate life style, with the heat and the cheese. The other would be the busy life of London, trying to fit everything into the hours of the day. 

Take this time to think about the important things that you know you think about but that deserve more thought. To escape and watch the world go by before you step off the plane and feel the wall of heat and the sun on your face and know that you've got your head clear, you know what you'll miss, what you want to do and the endlessly wonderful things you have to look forward to. 

An adventure is only as good as you make it, so make every detail something to talk about. 

Mastering the skill of filling a small tube of tooth paste.

Despite spending innumerable summers in Italy and this being my second summer teaching with ACLE, it is always a new adventure. The interminable task of packing feels like a journey in itself. Laying in bed a week and a bit before your flight, 3am, trying to make a list on the ceiling of what you’ll need is just the start of the trauma you will go through. Partly because your mind ends up wandering and fantasising about the numerous, exhilarating and terrifying experiences you will encounter. No matter whether you’re an experienced traveller, who can stuff the necessary items into a 30l backpack or a hoarder that brings an extra ‘just-in-case’ of everything in their 80l snail house, you will always experience the hellish stages of packing. 

Last summer I was the definition of ‘over-packer’, taking 14 pairs of pants and 7 bras, along with enough medicines and toiletries to accommodate half of Europe. As I was walking up the Avenue Jean Médecin in Nice, on my first night abroad, the pain in my shoulders and calves was screaming that perhaps 80l was a tad excessive, even for 3 months. In fact, after the presents from the first few host families, that included books, t-shirts and a miniature glass elephant, (among other things) I resulted in sending a parcel home with just some of the many t-shirts, jeans, cardigans and dresses. Even then I had far too much stuff. 

This time I feel I’ve been a little more restrained with ‘stuff’. It feels good when you can say “I won’t really need that, will I.” Let’s hope I don’t regret that statement. To start; it’s all about mix and matching. A phrase often found in Woolworths sweet aisle but something that comes in extremely handy during packing. Don’t pack specific outfits. (That’s a mistake I have previously learnt from!) Decide how many outfits you’ll need and then find some bottoms and tops that will all work together and subsequently accumulate the right number of outfits. For teaching we are provided with some beautifully vibrant red t-shirts and it’s wise to wear shorts, racing round with children in the Italian heat. In this case it’s useful, and spacial aware, to pack tops that will match your work shorts! Then you can chuck in (when I say ‘chuck in’ I mean heavily contemplate for days) a few nice dresses or skirts that will suit any occasion. Don’t panic about wearing the same thing again and again. This is one of the perks of living from a bag.

Now is not the time to celebrate. You’ve packed your clothes - great. And you think, “Wow, in fact, I’ve been great. I’ve got LOADS of room.” Sorry, but now you can start to assemble the other crap which will take up any free space you thought you had - even that useless pocket on the side of your bag. You would never think that chargers, hair brushes, and other miscellaneous junk would really take up that much room, and create that much weight! And unfortunately this is the stuff you can’t really go without; unless of course you go really hippy and become ‘at one’ with nature resulting in no connections with soap, mum or that tiger selfie post while you’re away. However you can restrain this junk! The art of filling smaller tubes of toothpaste, or shampoo, is a real skill of a weathered traveller. You need to make sure the air is out so as to create room for the new paste and then gently squeeze the tube to refill it. Along with this handy hint, you probably don’t need that hefty lucky charm that your auntie gave you for ‘safe travels’ or that pack of rock for host families (it’s a very strange English sweet anyway!) Don’t take things that you don’t normally use, because, and this is genius, you won’t use them. 

Remember. At this point, the excitement of packing has got too much and you can’t stop thinking about it, anywhere you go and whatever you do: “oh, yes, I'll need that” - adds to the endless list. You need to prioritise the important things like your passport, travel tickets and cash, before it all gets too much and you’re ringing your mother at Gatwick South Terminal with 40 minutes to spare.

I hate to speak so soon, but I think I’m sorted. Two smaller bags, still with space and all important documents printed and packed. So I’m ready for a summer living off espresso and sunshine, teaching English and perfecting my Italian. My British summer in Italy.