extra in the ordinary

this post is dedicated to all the normal things i do during my times here that i still find exciting.

vanna and i every so often take the dogs, and sometimes even the cat!, on walks around the forest nearby. vanna gives walking tours to tourists sometimes so it's nice getting a personal tour on a frequent basis. she shows me all types of beautiful wild flowers and spices (pictured above). during the winter she picks the wild mushrooms to cook with! i also love the wild orchids here that i know my mom would really love as well. i also like having alone time with vanna to talk about all sorts of things like her sons, her life, her thoughts, etc.

we go to the grocery store like 3 times a week to stock up on food for us, the guests, and parties. i have yet to get sick of grocery shopping, surprisingly. this is a picture of the cool carts they have here where you have to insert a coin in order to use and put the cart back to get your money back. i also appreciate how most people bring their own bags to sack their groceries!

our neighbor just had a baby. like i mentioned before, we get at least 1 neighbor visitor per day. fun :).

we went to the vet to take care of johnny's poor eye. i saw the most beautiful dog with the longest hair there!

this is the wine cellar or cantina where you refill wine in large quantities. there's a cool machine to wash your jug before they put new wine inside. the wine uses the same type of pump found at gasoline stations. weird.

whenever we go to florence, we always stop by the fruit and vegetable market. they have really good things for a good price. i enjoy the colorfulness of all the fruits and vegetables.

during my free time i get to READ. during school it's hard for me to find time for reading so being able to read until my heart is happy and content is soooo nice for me. i recently finished real sex (good book!) and now i'm reading harry potter 6 and a book about poverty/slum life for STIM. like the bookmark ;)

i got to pop the peas out of the pod for eating purposes. it sounds simple and dumb, BUT I HAD SO MUCH FUN DOING THIS that i even took a picture!

MOLLY HAD PUPPIES TODAY! (day 15)

Enough said. in other news…

One reason I love my summer job is that I get to meet all kinds of people from all different types of places and walks of life. today we had 2 sets of families come stay at the b&b.

The first family is from Germany and a family of 5. The three kids (2 guys and 1 girl) look around my age but, as always, the parents talk to me more than the children do. This past Friday was a german holiday where everyone gets off work and stores close so that’s why they took a weekend trip to Florence. The father of the family told me the name of the holiday but I don’t remember it. I THINK the holiday has something to do with German’s patron, not sure. The holiday also doubles as Father’s day! I learned that mother’s day is on the same date internationally but Father’s day is different according to region. Interesting, no? I also served them breakfast this morning and learned how to make foam for cappuccino! Fun!

The second family I havent really been able to talk to yet because they arrived late tonight. they all speak English though (and I think French)! They seem to be friends with the Cheli family and have four children. The youngest two are twins, one boy and one girl named Meko and Meka (Get it? masculine and feminine endings :p)

Day 5 in Florence (the city)

I took a bus (this is a picture I took at the bus stop) to Florence today which is about a 1 hour trip from the B&B. I was pretty freaked by the idea of going to the city all by myself but my family was very reassuring and Massimo kept saying, “trouble, call me.” I prayed a lot on my way to the city because I seriously had no idea how I was going to find my way around or run my errands (buy SIM card for cell phone, buy adapter for laptop, and maybe buy a jacket because I was freezing the first 2 days which I didn’t end up getting)!

Once i safely got to florence, I pretty much followed whatever way all the people were going. Haha. I had a map but I couldnt find any street signs (I later learned where italy cleverly places their street signs) so I walked confidently and with my chin-up, pretending like I knew where I was going to not attract any “dangerous strangers.” After a while, I got pretty tired and felt pretty lost so I stopped for gelato at this welcoming store with a good flow of customers.

That’s where I met anna (woman on the right), my new friend, hero, and angel all in one :). She’s ½ Italian and ½ British (so she speaks both Italian and English) and is from Rome but came to Florence to visit her sister (who is a tour guide for the Florence area). Anna is the sweetest lady who was so good to me. She told me that this gelato store was the best in Florence and she introduced me to their famous chocolates and we shared a cup or their famous gelato flavor together :p. After getting the 411 from each other, she offered to help me with my errands!

This is her with the nice electrician (writing about her STILL makes me smile). I was planning on dropping 60 euro for an adapter but it was only 6 euros! The electrician, Johnny, was extremely nice and helpful and we became instant friends. I like to imagine all my ee friends as “Johnny”s now :p. He explained to me how the adapter works with all these technical electrical terms in Italian and I nodded as if I understood. Even if he explained in English, I still probably wouldn’t have been able to understand what he was talking about. Haha.

Anna then took me to the cell phone store. I am so thankful that she was able to take me because I would have never been able to find (or ask) where the cell phone or electrical store are! Anna was a HUGE help in translating the confusing cell phone plan.

I also went with anna to the market and helped carry her bags home for her (she has really bad knees). We had juice together at her place which is right across the street from the Duomo (really busy location in Florence which is pictured above)! We also exchanged numbers and kissed goodbye. hopefully I’ll be able to see her before I leave.

I am thankful for anna not only because she helped me at a time when I really needed it, but also for her openness to help someone else and love them. She was so open to having a relationship with me while I was pretty hesitant about trusting anyone. I’ve noticed how distrustful Americans can be and stand by the rule that you must “earn your trust from me” while not all Italians are like this. Anna and I also had good conversations about sisters, friends, love, children, history, Florence, and just plain life.

I hope to be an Anna to someone someday.

First communion (day 4 and day 11 in italy)

We’ve had 2 first communion celebrations since my arrival here (today and the past Sunday). Supposedly the month of may is a common time for first communions. From what I remember from Christine lam and STIM, Catholics celebrate first communion after infant baptism when they’re around 8 years old and is a milestone for the catholic faith. I think at least. Since I’m pretty behind on posting, I decided to efficiently combine these 2 posts/days into one.

Both times we had around 30 people come for lunch (or should I say feast). The lunch (and typical Italian meal) includes wine, mineral water, olives, bread, appetizers (pate & bruchetta), ragu pasta, gorgonzola and zucchini pasta, meat dish, dessert with champagne, and café – all eaten in that order. Italians sure know how to feast and take around 4 hours to finish!

there’s a lot of prep work that goes into feeding 30 people! my favorite thing to do beforehand is arranging the flowers :). I think I found a new hobby. I’ve always associated flower arranging with church moms who take a flower arrangement class after church but mom’s are smart! The hobby is relaxing, fun, and you get to take home something beautiful that you were a part of :). what’s also cool is that all these flowers are either wild or grown on the cheli property! I felt like I was in a movie when I went around picking and cutting flowers in my bare feet for the flower arrangement. Other prep work includes: setting the table, wiping wine glasses, cooking mass quantities of food, cracking walnuts and cutting bread (penne) until you get blisters, etc.

This is the serving team (L to R: vanna, maya, Orlando, me). I learned that waitressing is tougher than it looks! Esp when you don’t understand the language :x. here’s a few phrases that I found helpful though: bon appetito! (eat up, enjoy your food!), al fato? (done?), gratzieh (thank you), prego (you’re welcome), and no parlo italiano (I don’t speak Italian).

This is a picture of the first family we catered to. it reminded me of big fat greek wedding with loud talking, hairy men who were very open about showing their chests, large families, everyone smoking (including the grandmas), and my favorite observation was that you couldn’t tell whose kids were whose. The entire time I was tryin to guess but in the end I was completely wrong (I found out during picture time). O yeah, the cake you see is DELICIOUS. It’s called millie follie (similar to napoleons) and I ate 3 slices each time which made my tummy feel kinda funny afterwards :\ but I don’t regret eating it, I don’t think I do at least.

Featuring…the pets of Casa Cheli

All my life I always wanted a dog but due to certain parental constraints, inability to commit, and lack of responsibility, my lifelong dream of having a pet never happened. But, God has graciously “made up” for that period of my life by providing me currently with a surplus of animals for me to play with, love, and name (I like naming things). So the following posts features the beloved animals of casa cheli.

This is molly and I fell in love with her this past winter break during our previous visit. The first time I met her she was the sweetest and friendliest dog and resembled her owner, vanna :p. I wish I could explain how big of a bundle of joy she actually is. Anyways, now she’s more on the chill side because she’s pregnant! I don’t know if you can see the bulge in her tummy or not. It’s really cute because she’s not used to her enlarged-self so she’ll frequently knock over chairs and get stuck through the doorway. Haha, really cute.

This is matilla who is the most beautiful and friendly cat I have ever come in contact with. She jumps in my lap to get petted and would be my “animal of choice” if I were to steal one of the cheli’s animals! This is her with her kitten. The kitten I named Tame because she was a freaking wild cat and needed to be tamed. She would not let anything or anyone touch her and she never walked but instead pounced around. Michele later on gave it to his girlfriend as a gift. Lots of luck to her.

These are the bunnies!!! The mama rabbit had NINE bunnies recently! Soooo cute! I named the bunnies: grumpy, happy, sneezy, doc, ___, weird, and snotty. I wish I could get a picture of the mama rabbit because she is HUGE, especially in comparison to her children. I named the mama rabbit, bicchierri or cup in Italian because the cheli’s are teaching me Italian and I always get stumped on this word! I’m hoping naming the rabbit this will help me remember :).

This is Johnny who the guests often call “the thing.” Poor Johnny. You cant really tell but his eye was scratched by something and it got infected really bad so his eye is growing this blue THING on it :\. This is a good picture of him because it shows how he usually is. He likes to sit/stay/sleep in chairs where people recently sat in so if you ever get up from your chair, don’t be surprised to find Johnny in it a second later. warning: it can get pretty annoying, especially when you intend to sit back down in your chair. vanna often tries to teach him but if I could rename him, I would name him “impossible.”

You cant really see, but this is where we keep the turtles and yellow little birds. There are four turtles so I named them Leonardo, michaelangelo, ___, and ___. Don’t ask me which is which because I wouldn’t know. The cheli family feeds them the leftover salad material. And for the birds, vanna says they’re there to always give us a personal concert everyday :). I have yet to name the birds.

This is the rooster and his wife. He has many wives, actually. The rooster I named Danger because it’s literally dangerous. He bit a little girl who was here for a party! I’m also very scared of him and I always carry a stick whenever I know I have to be around him.

This is zucherro (sugar in Italian) who is the “mascot” and mini-pony of the cheli family. Not much to stay about him except that I like this picture of him and tiffany when we visited. O yeah, he used to be in the circus before he came here! I guess that’s pretty interesting and vanna says he’s “talented.” I, personally, havent seen him do much except stand and eat grass.

Not pictured: gwendalina the geese and the frogs who live in the bbq pit. Massimo always tries to get me to kiss the frogs because he wants me to have a prince.

so you had a bad day

Haha, after reading simeon’s graduation survey post (it totally cracked me up. Is it good or bad that mean things make me laugh now?), I am inspired to update my blog. I’ve kinda given up on updating about italy because I’m pretty behind, but here goes…

The weather in italy was cold, rainy, dreary, and slow the first 2 days I was in italy. The weather interestingly reflected how I was feeling. I really missed home then and anything that reminded me of home would make me tear up. My family and friends were really great by still being able to care for me even when I was so far away (thank you guys!). Writing about how I was feeling then is weird because now I understand that I just needed to give myself some necessary time to adjust to my new environment and time difference.

Random things I did the first 2 days:

-12 Canadians are staying at the B&B for 12 days so I helped clean and prepare the rooms for them before they came. I ironed sheets until I got a blister!

- Orlando is almost failing school right now :\ so I helped him with math homework. I was really surprised by all the calculus I remembered! Or I hope I remembered… :x

- listened to lots of music! I’m not sure why but I think it was because it was something familiar and I could actually understand it. now, I don’t listen to music at all due to my dying mp3 player.

- had my first Italian-style breakfast that I would later become my routine. I love breakfast here. I have coffee every morning with cookies or cake. Yum. AND, im mastering the art of making the perfect cup of coffee. Ask me and I’ll make a cup for you when I return :p.

- speaking of routines, some have already developed. Massimo always eats an apple (or mela) everyday after lunch and dinner. We watch the news during lunch and watch an Italian soap opera during dinner. Routines can be comforting at times, no?

- learned the lyrics of missy elliot’s “I’m really hot” song and taught Orlando what the song really meant. Shout out to simeon for teaching me bad things which helped me understand the lyrics.

- had DELICIOUS food. I love Italian food. every meal is so simple yet delicious. I hope I can make some of it next year but the ingredients in America cant compare :(. For the food fans, I’ll try to post what I’ve been eating everyday. Good food so far: homemade French fries (the potatoes here are soft when they’re raw!), rice topped with olive oil and parmesan cheese, fried chicken, cucumbers soaked in olive oil and salt/pepper, onion + panna pasta, and strawberries with homemade yogurt (vanna has a special machine for this!).

- met michele’s girlfriend (she had lunch with us on saturday). It seems like a lot of the Italian girls are tough-looking and even so, I really liked his gf :).

ciao from italy!

It took me a total of 20 hours to finally arrive to italy! Whew, glad I got here okay and in somewhat one piece. I had 2 stops, one in NYC and another in Milan. The picture is of the beautiful sunrise I got to see from my airplane seat. Thankfully, I was able to get window seats more or less in the front of the plane J. On the flight I ate, watched fun with dick and jane (jim carrey movie), read Rick Steve’s book about Florence & Tuscany, practiced Italian, and slept. I was inspired by tiff and brought my own pillow – what a huge difference it made! On the way from NYC to Milan, I sat next to this nice Italian grandma who kept talking to me in Italian. i’m not really sure what she said but in my mind we had deep conversations about her family, Milan, and food. She taught me how to say beef and fish in Italian.

Once I got to Florence, I waited with hope (and some worry :p) for Michele to pick me up. O yeah, this would be a good time for some background information. I am in the Tuscana area of Italy in a small city called Pontassive interning at a Bed & Breakfast owned by the Cheli family. Check it out at www.casacheli.com. Massimo and Vanna are the parents of Michele (23 years old) and Orlando (19 years old). My aunt is good friends with Vanna after studying abroad and living at the Cheli’s apartment in Florence that they rent out to international students so that’s how I heard about the job. Anyways, michele finally picked me up after 2 hours of waiting! Thank God J.

The B&B is in the countryside of Florence (the city) so it took us 1 hour’s drive to get home. Once there, we had tortellini for lunch. I was super tired from traveling and jet lag so I took a nap and unpacked. I should take a picture of my room... anyways, I woke up for dinner (soup). Every meal here is freaking delicious. Hopefully I can make stuff for ya’ll when I come back but I’m pretty sure the ingredients in America cannot even begin to compare :\. After dinner, Orlando and I went to visit their neighbors and borrowed batman begins. A really cool thing about this place is that we see all the neighbors almost everyday. They randomly stop by to say hello and chat J. We watched batman begins and I definitely liked it more the second time around because I actually understood what was going on :p. this sums up my first day in italy that I’m writing 6 days later :p. o well, at least I’m updating!

white & orange

junior farewell summary

1. rain

2. bird poo

3. people i will miss :\

STIM for lyfe

bee gear

the love for packages

crazy group projects!

real men do crafts.

transitions

this past sunday we had the traditional old core team + new core team lunch. the food, as always, was delicious and fara made the best tres leches cake i have ever had in my entire life. better than churrascos! i think i'm becoming like my mom because i always talk about the food for every event that i go to :x

the lunch was pretty good. i hope the new team felt encouraged. the old core team was supposed to write "words of wisdom" for the next team but i didnt do it. i really didnt know what to write and felt like i probably couldnt really help (?). iono, i think every team will have its own unique experiences and struggles. i am really excited for them, though! i think God will really use them and i'm curious to see how God will be working through them next year :)

at the end of the lunch, it finally hit me that this year on core is over and i started crying! im really going to miss my team. that's seriously the main thing i will be taking away. our team was a source of constant support and community. i always knew they would be praying for me, would help out with aacm whenever and however, related and understood everything going on in my head about serving aacm, encouraging, and most importantly, showed me grace and love. i also feel like we finally got "good" at this vision team thing and the year's over already! kinda frustrating but funny at the same time. yeah, i cant imagine life without them next year...

how do you like to study?

jen's concert

as an attempt to be a good sister, i went to jen's last concert of her college career. sad. i cant really tell if concerts go well but im sure they did a great job :). i also know that matt did a great job when his pages went crashing to the floor when he, himself, turned the pages due to his no-need-for-a-page-turner attitude. haha. they also had DELICIOUS creme puffs at the reception!

better homes

nails

i just finished cutting my nails. dont you love it when you cut your nails at the perfect length and you dont have to type with flat fingers anymore? dont you hate it when you cut it too short and it's sore the next day? for the most part, i like cutting my nails. it's a good (tangible) reminder that i'm growing in some aspect.

pandawgs IM bball team!

i had a pretty exciting IM bball season this year! this was my official last year for IM bball and i had no idea! if i knew, i think i would have at least went to ONE of the practices :x. hahaha, im a terrible team player. please, no need to lecture. hmm, thinking back we had 1 game where we were down by 1 and won at the buzzer and another game where there was a mean/fierce/hardcore player on the other team that liked to push and touch the defending girl. i wish i could have participated more with my team but it's ok, i still had fun :).

wink at me