We started with a new group this week. It is a baseball camp that is an English camp in the morning. That is where I come in. It is all boys in my group and they are really great. I have the younger group again but these guys are a little older then any of my other groups so far. I also spend time with the older boys, 14-16. They get a kick out of me cause I play sports with them and we spend just about all our free time playing foosball. They have a table at the camp and I can't play with or against them fast enough. They are good spirited but competitive games. They love it when the think they can take down "Jeff". It just kills them when I score a goal from my goalie position. After we do a few hours of English we all sit down and have lunch together at the camp. Still two plates of food everyday and it is also pretty good. On Monday I saw the biggest pot for anything, filled with pasta, that I have ever seen. I will see if I can grab a picture of it before camp is over. I am trying to teach them American football and they enjoy playing and learning but admit it seems very complicated and that there are a lot of things to knowing how to play. I tell them they are right and this is the simple version and I am leaving out a lot things. This usually makes their eyes turn in their heads like a slot machine.
One of my made connections has been with the family that owns the restaurant we ate at for the first three weeks. I was taken off guard and a little disappointed to find out we would not be having lunch there everyday. I have made my way over a few times for dinner, AMAZING pizza, and I usually end up being there until well after they close. We have beer or wine and lots of food that is often followed by a desert also made by Louie, the chef. They refuse to let me pay. Everything is really good and they have insisted for me to come to dinner on Friday night so they can send me off with a proper meal. I usually leave there very full, a little tipsy and extremely happy. Good thing I live close. We are having fish on Friday and I am sure to be pleased. I may go get a pizza "to go" tomorrow for just one more time before I go. He, Louie, even shared the recipe for his dough with me and I hope to try it out when I get home. I shared my pancake recipe with him. There were several hurdles in these two exchanges, language, metric to english measurements, ingredients not readily available here like there are at home or vice versa. Somehow we figured it all out and always have a good laugh together.
Tomorrow my class has two birthdays in it and we are going to have a scavenger hunt. So I am off to bed soon but enjoy the new crop of photos and I will probably talk to you again soon, maybe from Croatia.
Ciao
Finally the Irish bar up the street opened up after a long vacation. Tall, dark, glass of bliss right there.
One of many amazing pizzas I have had in the last couple of weeks. Prosciutto and mushrooms.
Standard margarita. Simple but still a big WOW!
The "dolce" or desert after dinner last night. Chocolate cupcakes with coffee and cream cheese frosting.
Some of the guys from my group playing a favorite game of theirs'.
Being a bunch of baseball players they are really competitive.
Every once in a while we can still stump them with a word, but they knew a good level of English before we got there and get better everyday.
Just a great picture of the Adriatic Sea I took on the way to Fermo, a small town about 30 minutes away on bike. Great beaches.
This was just across from the beach we went to in Fermo. I thought Oregon had the only Aplenrose, but I guess not.
yeah, I'm going to need that recipe please!
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