One thing that Britt and I are very excited to do is take advantage of being so close to some many wonderful cities for two whole months. Our plan is to visit somewhere new every weekend, starting this weekend with Siena! It has taken us close to 10 hours in the last 4 days to plan it, book last minute hostels and figure out bus and train schedules. Our big limiting factor is that we live in a mountain town and it will take about an hour by bus to get to a larger city where we can then get on a train to an even larger city. A lot of logistics planning has to go on to our trips. The bus up to Gavinana doesn't run constantly, so we have to very carefully take note of our work hours, bus schedules, and train schedules. It is stressful and time consuming, but we figure the more we do it the better we will get. Interpreting the bus and train schedules is like learning a new language! Haha...
Tomorrow we head to Florence ("Firenze") to stay the night since we won't get out of work in time to make it all the way to Siena by Friday night. We'll get to Florence about 10pm and then take a bus to Siena Saturday morning. I will give more details of our trip as we go along.
Today at work, Britt and I were able to work with our own patients, by ourselves. So far, we had been working with one patient at a time together. (I realize my grammar is not very good, and it does not help being around Italians who know enough English to communicate with us, but they still do not understand correct word forms or proper sentence organization. Which I am finding very difficult as well!)
One interesting thing that has occurred is one therapist's interested in our political views. I told him I was a Republican (Repooblican is how he pronounces it) and he was just beside himself. He has never met a Republican before he says. So he laughs and asks how I feel about the war and Obama. Oh man, talk about deep stuff. So now he and one of his patients joke with me about Obama. And the therapist, Claudio, said that he himself is communist. Who knew we would be getting into all of this political talk in Italy! It is true what they say, other countries know more about our politics and economy than Americans as a whole do.
After work, Britt and I ran up to the main town square or piazza of Gavinana, straight uphill. We were sucking wind by the time we got to the top and felt like our lungs were going to collapse. But we bought our bus tickets for tomorrow (domani) at the Tobacci (where people can buy cigarettes) and then bought some things at the small local store. It was about as big as a living room, but they sold food and cleaning products and personal care products. Then we ran back down, which was much easier, just in time for supper (cena).
Tomorrow ends our first week here at Fondazione F. Turati! Cannot believe how fast time seems to be going by already.
Ciao!
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