Sesto Fiorentino - Week 2

I moved in with a family that lived in a home that was connected directly to a church, and only a 10-minute walk from the school. The father was Marco and he spoke great English, mother Paola, son Michele (12 yrs), and daughter Claudia (6yrs). Both children were going to City Camp this upcoming week. Since I did not have to change cities, only families, I had time to do some sightseeing.

Paola and Claudia took me to 2 of the old gardens that were once owned by the Medici family. We got a tour of one of their castles, and naturally it was very beautiful. There were many rooms, but they were all fairly small. If I lived in a castle, with an allotted amount of square footage, I would push for less rooms with more space. It would make the environment more visually appealing. Medicis, next tims you decide to build a castle, please take my advice.

Overlooking the garden in front of the castle

Waiting to go on the tour

Claudia playing in the Italian gardens - this reminds me of Pan's Labyrinth

The Secret Garden

View of the entire garden

Claudia took this photo - I thought it was blogworthy

On Sunday, the family took me to Pisa. The area was a lot smaller than I imagined it would be. Plus you had to pay for everything, but my family took care of that. They must have spent so much money on me that day because it cost 15 euro just to go to the top of the tower! And we even went n the Church, the Baptismal Chapel, and the graveyard.

Cheezy Pisa Picture

The Cerruccis

View of the Church from the top of the Baptismal Chapel

On top of the tower

Chillaxing in front of Pisa

This week I worked with the orange-red group 9-10 yr olds). Our end-of-the-week show was Alice in Wonderland. I was a little disappointed by this at first because it wasn't quite as original as my previous shows, but then one of the tutors, Taylor, gave me his script from a different camp. Made my job soooo much easier.

Alice in Wonderland

This week seemed to fly by. We were sent one extra tutor, Stephanie, since we had more kids the 2nd week. But on Monday, Natalie called out sick, so again, we were 1 tutor short. ACLE send us Ashley the next day to take over Natalie's class, but Natalie ended up coming back the same day, so we had tutors out the wahzoo.

The directors took us out to dinner again in Firenze (pasta, chicken, and fried potatoes), and then for gelato afterwards. No VIP concert this time. :)

Everyday after camp, I would go home and play with Claudia. Sometimes we would play Scooby Doo on Playstation, do puzzles, watch Italian cartoons, dance or play cavallo (horse). Guess who was the horse?

Claudia was fascinated with my camera, especially when I showed her the video feature. Here are a few of the videos we composed:

Music Time

Dance Off

Singing to Claudia

Switiching families again next week because the Cerrutis are going to the seaside.