This will be my final entry until I return in September as I will not be abroad for July and August.  Today is my birthday.  It's hard to believe I'm 39!  How did that happen?  Anywho...  My friends here gave me a little surprise party after school.  It was very well planned out and really very sweet.  One gal asked me to drive her daughter home for her, (as I have often done before), and when I arrived, there they were with cake and wine for a lovely party.  It makes coming back much easier knowing that we have people to come back to.  But right now all I can think about is getting home to my family and friends, my house and town.  Tomorrow Grace "graduates" and there is a ceremony and concert at the school.  Then we are off to lunch with her friends and their parents.  Tomorrow night we'll finish packing, I'll give my garden a last weeding and watering and hope it survives the summer, (GP is a negligent gardener), and say farewell to Italy for a while.  xxoo me

After a mild winter and a month of rain, the heat is on.  There are blue-grey skies and the air has consistency.  The school has just figured out the problem it was having with the air conditioning, so after a week of torrid heat in the library (top floor, all windows), today I could breath.  I'm not even tan because it's too hot to sit out and there's no actual sun to be seen.  It's hidden behind a wall of haze.  I've been doing tons of laundry because all of our clothes are drenched and vile smelling by 4pm.  Charming.    I am watering my mini garden (or the sprinkler is I should say) and just getting up to move it makes me break out in a sweat.  I need to do some things to get ready to leave on Saturday but....too.....hot.....to.....move.............. xxoo me

I am now ready to tell the tale of the degradation that was my driving exam.  First an aside.  Italy is still a sexist country.  Women are very much considered inferior and are treated as such by most men over 50.  Italian women have learned to us their "feminine wiles" to get what they want.  When dealing with bureaucrats or men in higher places sometimes it's the only way to go if you are not up for a battle.  It took me 6 lessons with my driving instructor to figure this out.  The only way I was going to get him on my side was by stoking his huge and undeserved ego.  We had been butting heads for the past 2 months.  I don't like being treated like an idiot child by a chain-smoking, uneducated bore, and he liked to use his "power" over his students to make him feel like a big man.  Well it probably works just fine with teenagers just learning to drive by it didn't work too well with me.  I argued with him about everything and he'd yell at me and tell me I'd never pass the test because I didn't know how to follow the rules.  GP dared to say that I am not easy to teach!  Can you imagine!!  At our last lesson I decided I didn't need to win, I just needed to get my stupid license, so I did everything he said without making 1 snarky comment!  I got him talking about himself and his vast knowledge of autos, young people today and evidently life in the US where he's never actually been.  I smiled, I nodded, I laughed (at appropriate times).  If I were any younger I would have outright flirted.  So when we parted he was in high spirits, told me I'd do fine on the test (as long as I remembered all he'd taught me), and wished me a good day.  Up till this day we'd stomp off in opposite directions after the lesson.  The day of the exam, the owner(middle aged guy) and examiner(another middle aged guy) were waiting for me in the office.  They were having some little private discussion over a cup of coffee that concerned me because they laughed and nodded towards me and the owner said, "Ah, yes, our American lady!".  So all three of us got into the car and they immediately started teasing me in a belittling way about women's driving skills, (especially American women), and how driving for 35 years has made me impossible to train, (wink, laugh, laugh).  It was all I could do to keep my mouth shut but I just smiled and made comments like "well what do you expect?"  Obviously they had already agreed on a plan because instead of driving the typical route with parking exercises and hand brake practice, they had me drive them to the DMV to drop the instructor off at his car.  They quizzed me on safety distances and speed limits the whole way there, thought it was very funny to make me drive 10 mph over speed bumps, roaring with laughter as the instructor kept braking from his side of the car.  By the time we got there I was jumping out of my skin with ire, but I said nothing!  When we arrived at the DMV, the examiner got out of the car and handed me my license that they had already prepared.  Then the school owner told me to get into the passenger seat and he sped back to the office in half the time it took me to get there, breaking every rule of the road on the way.  Asshole.   xxoo me

This is the list of stuff we're going to buy as soon as we get home:

Peanut Butter (natural)
English Muffins
Tortilla Chips
Sam Adams
Cheerios
T-bone Steak

Not to be eaten together nor in that order, but all things we are craving and can't find a good replacement for.

We are watching a FIFA game, Italy against Mexico.  It's hot tonight so all the windows and doors are open but there isn't a voice to be heard because everyone is watching the game.  Soccer here is practically a religion.  GP and I took a walk after dinner and as we were heading home there wasn't a car on the street and all the windows reflected light from the occupant's TVs.  GP has never been a sports fan but returning here he's been caught up in Grace's enthusiasm for the game and the fact that we have so many player's kids in the school.  One of Grace's must -dos while in Italy is to go to a Juventus home game.  Unfortunately tickets are hard to come by.  Typically Italian, you have to "know someone" or know someone who knows someone.  That's how everything from event tickets to getting a job to getting in quickly for an appointment with a professional works.  It's all who you know.  Alas we may know someone who can get us into some great wine cellars, but not tickets to a soccer game.  xxoo me

My day of reckoning has come and gone and I am the proud possessor of  an Italian License!  I am so glad that's over.  Took me a year but I did it.

 It has gotten really really hot now.  It's in the 90's and humid.  Torino, being in a bowl surrounded by hills and mountains, gets no air.  When it's like this you can't breath.  This afternoon we are going to a pool in a town a few miles from here to simply lie in the water.  Then in 7 days we'll be heading home!  Yeah!!  Too hot to write more.   xxoo me

Today was my last shopping day with my market friend from Canada.  She and her family were only here for 1 year and are heading back at the end of June.  That is one of the problems with the International School.  So many people are in Italy temporarily so friends come and go.  Time is flying by now.  My last lesson is tomorrow and my driving test is on Friday.  There are only 6 days of school left.  We got out our suitcases yesterday and have started packing.  We'll have our last lunch with the grandparents Sunday to celebrate Grace's and my birthdays, Father's Day (American) and GP's saint's day (more important than birthdays hereabout).  As GP says, we've already signed out and are only thinking of the summer.  xxoo me

My two greatest nemesis of the year are back to haunt me.  My driving license and IKEA!

 I had what I thought was my last driving lesson yesterday in preparation for my exam on Friday.  The driving instructor who is a "little" man with a little power over people snarled at me for an hour. " Turn your head when you pull out!"  "Shift gears!"  "Break sooner!  Can't you see that truck!"  He is odious and we have VERY BAD RAPPORT.  We do not like each other at all and this dislike is as thick in the air of that car as the noxious fumes coming from his 3 pack a day breath.  So after the lesson with my stomach all in knots from not saying what I'd really like to, he tells me I need another hour (another $50.00) because I'm not learning the rules of the road.  What the H#@*!!!!!  So Thursday morning another hour with this A*#@ yelling at me, the test on Friday afternoon.  If I don't pass I'm going to go all postal on that driving school.  Somebody find out who got Amanda Knox out of prison and put him on notice.

Then IKEA.  On Saturday Grace had her sleepover and for only the 3rd time this year we opened her fold-out couch for the girls.  Off snapped a bolt that holds the folding bars to the frame.  It didn't fall off.  It broke in the hole.  A 2 inch bolt broke!  This furniture is such crap!  Thank God she'll only need to use it for 3 more years.  GP is scrambling to find the right size bolt to replace it because obviously it isn't standard and we are not, I repeat ARE NOT, going back to that store.  Argh.

The good news is that summer has finally come.  It is a glorious day and I don't have to work.  My classes at school are finished so I only need to go in for my contracted 16 hours a week and can choose when to do so.  Today and tomorrow off.  I'm planning on mowing my little patch of grass, doing some weeding, and starting to organize what needs to be packed!  11 days!  Right now I'm outside drinking my coffee and contemplating what else I can plant.  The magpies are out in force, fighting over territory.  They are the noisiest birds.  They have gotten so big and fat they waddle around looking like penguins.  xxoo me

Yesterday was "International Day" at the school.  What that entails is a group of folks from one nation setting up a table of yummy offerings, maybe crafts, info on their homeland.  The central courtyard of the school was lined with tables around the edges and filled with tents and seating in the middle.  I ate my way through Germany (sausage with curry ketchup, beer), Indian (rice and curries), Argentina (meat and spiced stuffed pockets and 3 leches cookies), France (quiche, nutbread), and GB (Tea, scone, cheesecake).  I skipped The US, Italy, Japan, Spain, Mexico, Scandinavia because I simply had no more room.  There were tons of people and kids running everywhere.  Fun was had by all.  GP and I came home and napped.  Then Grace's friend's arrived.  We sent them merrily off to have pizza at a nice little place walking distance from here and I made a chocolate-coconut cake.  GP and I skipped dinner but had to try the cake and ice-cream to make sure it was edible.  Grace's friends had prepared a birthday video that was fantastic with little clips from friends and family in The States and here.  Then they presented their gifts.  Knowing what a huge Ellen fan she is, they had ordered a few things from the Ellen Shop and had them delivered to an address in the US.  From there it traveled hand to hand through relatives, colleagues, friends, until arriving in Torino.  They also e-mailed and telephoned the agents and managers of dozens of celebrities that Grace admires until they got her some signed photographs!  Daniel Radcliff, Emma Watson and Chase Crawford have all said "Happy Birthday Grace" in writing and she couldn't be more thrilled.  The effort the girls put into these gifts is amazing.  She has been very lucky to have found them.  As Grace said, they may never replace her friends from home but they are certainly a wonderful addition to her "friends roster".  This morning it's pancakes for all so I have to get cooking.  xxoo me

There have been three hookers pulled out of the river since our first exciting experience back in September.  At this rate I'm thinking they must average about 5 a year.  Dangerous profession that.  We took one of our long walks along the Po today before dinner.  It has been very hot and it began to thunder and threaten as we were about half an hour into it.  Then it started to rain.  The park was wildly verdant, with the river a minty green color.  It was like walking in a tropical forest.  We had dragged Grace along to get her off the computer for few hours.  By the time we were in the home stretch, after about an hour and a half, she was lagging way behind, complaining of a cramp and glaring.  Any comment we made brought on a new wave of grumbles and evil eyes.  Of course that only egged us on.  GP and I thought it would be really funny to limp and slow motion jog when people walked by.  Grace didn't think so.  I tied the hood of my wind jacket closed around my face so only my nose showed.  She didn't like that either.  Trying to be nice, GP dared to offer to carry her rain jacket.  She snarled "Why?" as though it were some sort of a trick.  Ah, teen-aged girls.  Tomorrow night we'll have 5 of them in the apartment.  Grace is celebrating her birthday with pizza, cake and an overnight.  We are going to squeeze them into Grace's room and then hide out in ours.  Wish me luck.  xxoo me

I think I've mentioned before that I only kept in touch with a couple friends from all those years ago.  One gal is Irish and we taught at the same school in the 80's (argh). She married an Italian and has been here ever since. The other gal is half English, half Italian.  She and her family were our neighbors for the two years we lived in this apartment before returning to the states.  I introduced them way back when and they became and have remained fast friends.  I have gotten together with them a few times this year, and last night we three had dinner together before Grace and I leave for the summer.  It was a lovely evening, sitting out on K's terrace up in the hills looking out over the city below.  We compared sagging under upper-arms and never again flat stomachs; said "screw it" and each had another almond cookie and glass of wine.  I got home at 1!  That is so past my bedtime.

As many of you know, especially teachers, there are a lot negative things being said about American education.  We don't prepare our kids for a global world because we put no importance on foreign languages.  We don't measure up to other countries in Maths and Sciences.  Our education is too "American centric".  Possibly all of that is true in the nation as a whole but I have no complaints about the education Grace got in our little Boothbay schools.  Every year in October, the International Schools around the world give a general assessment in Maths, Reading and Writing.  The International Schools have a very good reputation, (though some much better than others), and are thought to provide a "superior" education to most other schools around the world.  They are highly sought after by expats,(of all nationalities), with families because the schools are all taught in English and have to meet certain standards established by the Council of International Schools.  Anywho, last October Grace took this assessment for the first time.  She was being compared to 9th grade students from something like 122 International Schools from 50 countries.  Most of these students have spent all of their school years in the IS system where as Grace had barely been here a month.  The tests are general knowledge, not IQ, so assess what the students have been taught, (and absorbed).  Grace did very well.  Higher than most in Math, well into the upper average in Reading and Writing.  This is not proof of her brilliancy but proof of the strong educational base she brought with her from our puny little underfunded public school.  I'm writing a letter today to BRES principle to tell him.  I'm proud to have been part of the school and I miss it terribly!  Yeah Boothbay!  xxoo me

I am a lousy Italian housewife.  Now that the weather is nice and we have windows and doors open, I can hear, even more clearly (oh joy), all that's happening in the apartments around us.  And what is happening is housework.  The sounds of vacuuming, water running, scrubbing are prominent.  The balconies above us are flying banners in the forms of rugs and curtains and duvets.  The smell of laundry detergent is in the air.  Not me baby.  I'm sitting out here in the sun drinking coffee and writing on my computer.  Mind you most of this cleaning is probably not actually being done by housewives.  The women that I know in these parts all work.  They all have house cleaners too.  I am a once a week sheet changer, vacuumer, half a** bathroom cleaner.  If nothing's growing, I'm happy.  Italian homes are generally spotless. You could eat off any surface in my mother-in-law's home and it would probably taste good too. They pay a lot less attention to the outside.  Gardens are overgrown, grass doesn't get cut.  My little garden is impeccable!  Can't say the same about the inside......ah well.  Whatever.  Nothing's growing.  xxoo me

The in-laws have just left for their annual pilgrimage to the Adriatic Sea with 50 or so other over 70's.  They'll stay in one a the many hotels lining the beach and spend their days swimming and playing cars and getting dark as nuts.  Evenings are more cards and gabbing till all hours over coffee.  They'll sneak a mass in daily as these trips are organized by the church and they are accompanied by a local priest.  They have three full meals a day included in the price, lounge chairs and umbrellas on the beach, and a TV in every room.  What more could you want?

Grace and I have 3 weeks till we head back to Maine for the summer and we are counting the days.  Things have already started to wind down here.  Grace has had her last tennis lesson of the year, (a bottle of wine for the instructor and a rose plant for the mom who has driven her all year for me).  Two more sessions of Zumba then probably out for a pizza with instructor.  My last week of library classes are this week then just organizing and doing reports.  As I mentioned Grace starts finals this week too.  Better her than me as I have no brain left.  We leave less than 24 hours after last period in school.

The only thing remaining is my #@* license.  Test date June 14th, Grace's birthday.  That must be a good sign right?  xxoo me

Well, since last time I wrote, (our bloody Tuesday), GP and I had a night out.  Thursday Grace had an overnight so we went to a wonderful restaurant in the center with some old friends.  It is one of the rare good fish places in the city and it is a nice change from pizza which is what we usually go out for.  Our friends recently lost their longtime dog and were very down.  In fact I think she may have been on some heavy medication as she kept falling asleep on her husband's shoulder when she wasn't telling us about how after weeks of watching her suffer he had agree to drive a couple hundred miles to see a dog, (they only have Scotties), that is for sale in Bresia.  Hope they get that dog....

Friday was a day at home as it was a teacher's workshop day and Grace had to study.  Finals are coming up next week and she is loaded down with work.  The weather is finally cooperating so after a month of rain I got out into our little garden to start my battle with ants and strange orange beetles.

Saturday, we three drove an hour plus north to Lago Maggiore, (literally translates as Lake Superior).  We headed for Stresa, an old summer haunt of the rich and famous from the 1800's.  It is gorgeous.  There are a few beautiful old "Grand Hotels" and lovely lakeside walks.  Parks are all along the water front.  We took a boat out to the two main islands, Isola Bella and Isola dei Pescatori.  Isola dei Pescatori is small and very touristic.  Pretty but packed with people and too many shops and restaurants covering every square inch of the island.  But Isola Bella is still mostly privately owned by the Borromeo family who have owned it since the 1600's.  The palace is a museum and private home with fabulous gardens where I could easily spend hours. Unfortunately my family has had enough of museums and gardens for the year so they waited for me outside while I toured the property.  It was sunny and warm so they settled down in the park at the end of the island while I went through the palace - incredible - and then wandered through tiered gardens with flowers, citrus, herbs and very loud obnoxious peacocks.   I definitely need to return.  xxoo

Isola Bella from boat

So much rain parts of island under water

View from our picnic bench

no cars on the islands

One of the palace rooms.  These folks knew how to live.

Some of the hundreds of puppets used for shows for guests back in the day.

Many white peacocks in the gardens.  They are extremely loud and vociferous!

The damned peacocks gave this guy a headache.

Temple in the gardens.

In Stresa over looking Lago Maggiore

View from the house I want.