Category Archives: travel

Hey guys, welcome back. New visitors, welcome.

I started my blog three months ago. I have had over 3.000 visitors, made a video, published an eBook and made some great new friends.

I can’t tell if I’m talking to my sister, to myself or to the world. I’ll use my friend’s wisdom to concentrate on speaking to a small group of people.

My blog stats tell me there are about 60 people a day clicking over here.

Good to see you.

I suppose I could raise the bar and pretend I’m speaking at a big arena in front of 1000s of visitors but my ego isn’t big enough.

Hey! Hi Cynthia, Lisa, Barbara and Michelle. Have you met Jeff, Chris and Dr. B.? There are also a couple of new kids here, one from Sweden, Annika, and another American in Italy, Rebecca.

True Story

Yesterday I had the honor of being asked to substitute teach a class of twelve year olds. If any of you recall, substitute teaching sucks can be entertaining. Usually, it’s pretty hard to keep the students contained and a lot of the times they like to take advantage of the situation.

Not with me. I’ve been teaching now for 15 years and I’ve learned some great ways of getting attention, holding it and mezmerizing my students into using their imaginations and smiles.

Here’s something that works:

Just sit there and don’t talk.

I can do this for about two minutes.

I decided yesterday with this new group to just have a talk about what it’s like to be an American living in Italy.

First period 8 a.m., sleepy and happy.

I walk into class of 19 completely new faces. I introduce myself and tell the class I am happily married, have two kids, come from a good family and write a blog. I talk about what I feel is most important these days: being a good person, helping other people and flossing.

You see guys, kids these days have an entire new set of self discovery tools. A lot of the times, they don’t know how to make friends. A lot of them are shy, a lot of them are hysterically funny.

When they asked if my kids were bilingual, which they are, I found out that this small group of 19 kids came from all over the world including France, Sweden, Africa, Germany, Portugal, Bulgaria and Spain. Who would have known? I mistakenly thought they were all Italians.

Welcome.

I asked them if they had any questions.

Prof. In America, how do people get around?
I told them it depends on if you live in a big city or in the country. I told them how in New York city people take taxis, walk, bike or take the metro.

I told them in Los Angeles most people use their cars. I told them about how vast Los Angeles is, sprawling. I told them it takes two hours at least to drive from one side to the other.

How about you? Where you live how do you get around? I use a car although a lot of people take the bus. My neighbors all get around with bikes, God bless them.

Any more questions?

Prof, what is your favorite food?
That is a question that makes me love teaching. You see, kids are so cute and sweet and sincere that to them any question is a good one. I told them if I were to find myself on a desert island without any food, the one thing I would wish for more than anything would be a nice pizza. They all smiled.

They asked me if in America people ate Italian food.

I told them that America is made up of people from all over the world. Thanks to these influences Americans are given fantastic choices of foods such as Chinese, Mexican, Japanese, or Indian to start.

We talked about sports and identifying with famous people. You see these kids are just out of their little kid bodies wearing big people bodies. They look grown but they are just kids. When they write me essays about what they think, you can read anything and everything under the sun.

The class told me how one kid spends at least eight hours a day playing video games. He was over weight and sort of shy. It worried me. I told him I hope he finds a better balance in his life that includes learning, sports and some social activities. I’m not one to dish out the advice. I KNOW NOTHING. I just listen.

I told the kind bright kids I’m more than happy to have a discussion just as long as it’s in an orderly manner. They seemed to like that.

When the bell rang, I was approached by at least six of the students who told be about their various projects, magic vegetables, friends visiting from abroad who didn’t speak the language. They were so cute, beautiful actually, fresh and smiling.

I left the class smiling thanking God for the new experiences He presents me.