Friday night we all met Australian friends at a place called "The Winchester".  It's a tiny pub located in an ancient little brick building in a teeny residential square.  Our friends live just across the road.  The owner is a rotund, tattooed guy with a goatee who wears sunglasses at all hours.  The decor of the pub is American Western.  Most nights he serves decent burgers and very good local beer.  He and his wife run the place and live upstairs with two kids who wander in and out.  But come good weather, they put out tables all over the little terrace in front, get out the grill and make ribs.  On these nights, the place becomes a hangout for would-be American rockers.  He and a couple of his 40 something friends have a band and they play 70's and 80's hard rock.  And they play music.  Very loudly.  We made the mistake of sitting inside to listen and two days later my ears are still ringing.  Though not my kind of music, they are actually pretty good.  Their lead singer is a gal in skin-tight black leather with a voice like Janice Joplin.  Unlike American rockers with their bottles of vodka tucked in a pocket, these guys took breaks for a shot of espresso.  And unlike American Rockers, when their buddies came in, they gave them the double cheek kiss right on their very well sculpted beards and mustaches, because though rockers, they are Italians first. 

This past week the school hosted the annual AMIS festival.  (Association of Music in International Schools)  There were kids representing 16 International schools from around the globe, and God knows how many nationalities.  They came with teachers and chaperones, and for a few days the school was a crowded musical mess.  They had a concert last night which we couldn't go to but we did get a sneak peek on Friday when they had dress rehearsal.  It is amazing what these teachers put together.  The kids are all part of school choruses and they had been practicing for this week for months, but this is the first time that all of the kids had sung together or even met!  They were fantastic.  I had goosebumps.  Families from the school community hosted the kids.  Our German buddies had two boys from Ethiopia with them.  The boys were gorgeous and polite and so American, after years in International schools, it was disconcerting.  Unfortunately they also came with a stomach flu.  Poor B spent 2 days cleaning bathrooms and running them back and forth to the doctor.  No good deed goes unpunished.

xxoo me