Todi

As you can see from the photos, Nerina's country house in not too shabby. All we were missing was a pony. We were also missing a soccer ball, but Ginevra resolved that problem on day 2. Nerina has a little foosball table (a.k.a calcetto) and we got bored with that pretty quickly, so I asked Ginevra to pick us up a real ball: best idea ever. When Ginevra’s friend arrived with her three children we played soccer until the sun went down. Children are such cheatersr: using their hands, kicking it out of bounds and counting is as a goal, discounting my points if I kicked it too hard….I had so much fun. And I finally got to show off my coaching skills and polish up on that endorsement I had almost forgotten about. I still need to take 2 classes for that when I get back...
The county house is not actually in Todi. Todi is a 10 minute drive over the Umbrian hillside. You actually have to take an escalator to get into the town. We only spent an hour there. It was getting dark and the children’s sugar rush from the gelato was wearing off. It was a quaint little town though, with a nice view of the countryside; very Italian, as Ginevra described it.
The children were great. The three extras reminded me of my old family unit: me, C.J., and Morgan. They even looked like us, a little. The oldest is brown haired and big cheeked (I still am), the boy is thin with big grey eyes like C.J. (and a lisp that made him extra cute), and aide from her curls and pleasant nature, the blonde one was Morgan all over. : ) I didn’t watch Camilla (the blonde) much because she is very attached to her mother. I couldn’t understand her baby Italian anyway. Martina didn’t speak much, but we played together. Pietro and I hit it off though. Their father died a few years ago from an unexpected heart attack and I don’t think the boy gets to play sports very often. Anyway, he was the most enthusiastic. We babbled in Italian and kicked the ball back and forth while the girls played with their Barbies. I’m sorry, Nerina, but I can’t even pretend to enjoy playing with those mini mannequins.
I’m back in my apartment in Florence and it’s midterm week. I take my second test today and then I think I will wander over to the Odeon to watch another film at the Florence Korean Film Festival. My professoressa Simonetta invited me and Austin to one last night. It was pretty good, almost pornographic though, so it was not a little bit awkward with my professor on one side and my guy friend on the other….oh dio! I hope this next film won’t be so…free.