La Questura and a family style dinner

Ciao,

So, I had my second week of my ICIP yesterday morning. I ended up taking the 5th grade English speakers into a smaller room and reading them "The Happy Prince." All of them liked the story, except for Oliver (the troubled kid), who was of course playing devil's advocate. But whatever. I'm not his teacher, so I challenged him a lot and definitely got him a little confused. Sometimes, kids like that need to hear the hard truth with a kind delivery. It makes them wake the heck up and listen. As for the 1st graders, I ended up staying in the classroom because they were out of control and Eleonora definitely needed help. I was pretty tired after that, but fairly happy about what we had done as a class.

After that, I headed straight to the Questura (immigration office) in hopes of getting my Permesso di Soggiorno (so that I don't get deported when they realize I'm not on vacation). All 8 of us went, got a number, and waited from 1:30 to 4:30 until our numbers were called. I got up to the window, gave them my passport and my appointment paper, and they told me that I was missing paperwork and couldn't have my Permesso. This happened to 5 out of the 8 of us and we were absolutely fuming. Kevin, Carla and Maggie Rossi happened to coincidentally have their extra papers with them. The rest of us had left them home in safekeeping. We were only told to bring our appointment papers. We weren't even told to bring our passports, but we had decided to just in case. We soon learned after waiting 3 hours that, yes indeed, we needed EVERYTHING. Fools. I must say that the Italian government and legal system is very poorly organized and an enormous pain in the neck. Was it too difficult to write on our appointment papers what we needed to bring?! Guess so.

Anyway, after that disaster, we hung around town until dinner. At 7:00, we met both of the Maggies' parents and the rest of our group of 8 in Piazza della Repubblica. Then, we walked to the restaurant where they had chosen to treat us to dinner. It was called "Il Latini," and when we arrived, there was already a big line outside. It was obviously very popular. Fortunately, we had a reservation for the 12 of us. The atmosphere was awesome and very family-style oriented. We had a nice table set for us in a little corner, with three 2 liter bottles of Chianti on it. Once we got settled in, the food appeared in masses. There was no menu to order from. Instead, the waiters just brought whatever was being made for the night.

First, let me point out that everything we ate was family style. The portions set on the table were enormous! We started with freshly sliced proscuitto, mozzarella balls, tomatoes, liver crostini (which was actually really good), buckwheat salad, stuffed peppers and bread. I think that was it for the first course. Regardless, everything was absolutely amazing. The first course included a soup with beans and barley, ravioli stuffed with ricotta and spinach in a red sauce, pasta with wild boar meat and red sauce, and ribollita (a typical Tuscan bread soup). Everything was incredible! The main course consisted of a huge plate of different meats (chicken, rabbit, steak, pork and lamb). I had the chicken and also tried the rabbit- which tasted just like chicken anyway. For the main course, there was also a plate of awesome beans, spinach, and rosemary potatoes. For dessert, our waiter brought out a plate of sweets including fruit tarts, panna cotta, caramel flan, profiteroles and some almond cake. With dessert, we had biscotti dipped in Vin Santo dessert wine, which is out of this world. They also brought us a dessert champagne that tasted soooo fresh and crisp- exactly like a perfect pear! Afterwards, the waiter decided that he liked us and brought us a bottle of limoncello (which the other tables didn't get).

At this point, we had been sitting, eating and talking for 3 hours, and were pretty full and drunk. We had such an amazing time getting to know the parents, and I think they were really happy with the solid group that we have here in Florence. Everyone is friends and takes good care of one another. We were all so grateful of the Rossi's and the Wright's for taking us out to such an amazing dinner. I'm sure it was incredibly expensive. I can't even imagine. Such wonderful parents. It was a little bit of a bummer for me though since my family is on the fence about visiting. It seems that this month has randomly become parents' month- all of the students' parents have come, and all at the same time!

Anyway, Andrea and I got home around 11 and just about went straight to bed. We were exhausted. Today, we re-visited the Questura to try again for our Permessos. We arrived earlier, got better numbers, and sat for about 2 hours. 20 numbers before ours, the power went out in the whole building. The computers stopped, and the numbers stopped moving. We couldn't believe that something so ridiculous was happening to us again. So, we sat in the dark for about 30 minutes, wondering what to do. Finally, one of the policemen made an announcement asking all those who had electronic work to go home because the computers weren't functioning. Thankfully, the permessos were not included in that large bunch. So, we waited another hour (in the dark) for our numbers to come up and FINALLY got our permessos after a completely wasted day. I am soooo glad that I will never have to go back to that stupid office. Italy really needs to get it's stuff together when it comes to legal business. Now, I have a ton of homework to do for Voldemort (Elisa) so that's all for now.

Ciao.