Andiamo!

I'm here! Finally arrived in Italy one week ago. It's been a little crazy so far, but everything is working out amazingly. I'm in Torre Pellice, living with an amazing family. I felt like I belonged on the first day, and I think this is going to be a great year. I'm still getting basic things taken care of like a phone, bank account, and registering for various things, and I still have to work on my visa, but it's all going very smoothly so far.

So. A little introduction to my situation now: We live in a great villa on the hill at the end of town:

We are on the ground level and basement floors. Elena is the mother, and she's Supermom. This family is very well known in town, and she especially is friends with everyone and organizes a lot. Jean is the father, and is a doctor in Torre. He is very busy some days, and others he can be around a lot. He is also the doctor for the local hockey team, which is more important than life itself. This means we have season tickets, and we know all the players and their families. There are a good amount of Canadians and Americans. Right now a lot of the wives don't have much to do, so a few of us are going to take language classes together in a nearby town. I'm learning a lot of Italian already, although sometimes I get Spanish and Italian words confused. I think a class will help, and it will be great to know the hockey families better.

Elsa, a girl from Cameroon, also lives here and studies languages in Torino. We share a room and it's been great getting to know her and having someone who speaks Italian help me out with a lot of things. The kids are Rebecca, Zoe, and Jacopo.

They're a lot of fun, and a lot of chaos at times. So my days will consist of helping them before/after school, thinking up new ways to teach them English, and helping around the house. Different people are always over here, and every day is a bit different. Besides that I'm free to travel a bit and work out things with other children and teams in the valley. As soon as my shoulder is recuperated I really want to try to play again, and Jean knows an orthopedic doctor here who used to work for the Italian national soccer team, so I think I have a good shot at playing again! Right now I'm still just working on getting situated here and learning the language, but there's a lot that can happen in the future. So, to be continued..........