Well, it has definitely been an interesting first week so far. Monday I met the boys' teacher (so that they know who I am when I go to pick up the children from school), got into a fight with a bread machine pan (I am in the process of writing the encounter out as a short story. I may post it on my blog, or I may try to send it in. It's rather entertaining...) and had my first impromptu charades match with one set of the childrens' grandparents. Tuesday I went for a short stroll around Rivalta (I can't stay out too long, because the grandparents' tend to bring the three year old boy home from school around 1), was given a cell phone to use that I proceeded to call someone I met in the train station--he witnessed the alleged culprits near me, then saw them throw something away that turned out to be my glasses case--and talked to him for a couple minutes. Apparently he is in Turin now and wants to see me before he leaves. Wednesday I went for another short walk and finished up the majority of my online homework. Thursday I had quite a surprise. I had decided to go look in two of the stores to see if I could find any benzoyl peroxide, since I'm pretty sure the tube I packed was in my ziplock bag of "liquids" that I accidentally dumped into my bathroom supplies and stored. Neither the supermercado (supermarket) or farmacia (pharmacy) had any that was obvious, and I still can't explain my needs in basic Italian, so I left both. Between the the supermercado and the farmacia I came across the family's cleaning lady. She had pulled off the road and was trying to pull something off of what I realized was a hedgehog (tangent: are hedgehogs native to Italy?). Between the two of us, we managed to get the piece of plastic that had gotten wrapped around the poor animal's body off, even though neither of us could really speak to each other. It just goes to show that teamwork does not always need a common language.
On the way to the farmacia, I had found an ATM that I would pass by on my way back. So, on my return trip I stopped and put my card in; going through the motions to get out money. I got all the way to inputting the amount I wanted when the machine said "transaction annulla" and went back to the main screen... Without returning my debit card. After Gare de Lyons, I was not about to let some foreign machine eat my debit card for lunch, I don't care how little of the language I speak. So when pressing the cancel and stop buttons did nothing, I called the number listed. Once I reached a person I asked if they spoke English, and I was given an unhelpful prerecorded message. So I went inside the bank. Luckily there was someone there who I could explain my situation to, and they pulled my card out of the machine from inside the bank once I proffered my ID and proved that the name on my driver's license was identical to the one on the card. While this was happening, another teller was on the phone asking the ATM company why it had done that. According to the ATM, I had input my pin incorrectly. So the teller I was speaking to took me back outside and told me to run through it again. The same thing happened, so we went back inside and he once again retrieved my card. He told me to call Visa and see what the problem was, and I explained that right now I didn't care, I just wanted my card back so I could go home. He said that he didn't usually give back cards that had been confiscated by the machine, but because it was mine he would. So I took my card and went home. This whole situation struck me as weird, because I told the Credit Union that I was going to be in Italy, so having my card locked/not work is not good... Though it does make me have to stay with my decision to only use cash while I'm here...
Have you ever had to deal with a child throwing a temper tantrum? I have only found two foolproof methods to dealing with a tantrum. At best you can distract them with something else 'til they forget what they were crying about in the first place, and at worst you let them wear themselves out 'til they forget why they were crying. But dealing with tantrums with two boys (5 and 3) who don't speak English? That's an entirely new ball game... Even trying to explain in basic Italian where their mother is/why we're leaving the park/why they shouldn't kick their siblings does nothing to alleviate the situation, and bribery is right out of the question. Oh well. If I had gone into this expecting to become one of the childrens' friends I would be more put out than I am. I am here to teach the children, and I can't always be nice.
I will be starting Italian classes in October, hopefully. I had met another au pair while picking up two of the children from school who had told me of an Italian class starting next week, but the email she gave me did not work, and I managed to have the flier she had written her info down on disappear within the span of two hours. I'm just lucky that way.
So far I have not seen anything about ballroom dance or WCS. I did see that there is a studio giving Argentine Tango lessons. I *really* want to check those out. I'm going to see if I can convince the mother to help me find out when those classes are, because taking a tango class would help with the dance fix...
Anyway, time for lunch. Hope you enjoyed reading. Leave me comments if you can so I can answer questions. ^^
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