Another Meet

Yesterday I had another meet. Much to all of the older teammates' dismay, we had to be there at 8:15; usually we have to be there around 3:00. So, in the early morning (7:00 on a Sunday morning, no less) I left to go to Pantalla, where I hitched a ride with Elena. We then drove to Foligno. The meet was the most poorly organised meet I've seen in a while.
The races themselves were fine (mostly). My races were 50m backstroke, 100m IM and the relay (freestyle). I did well on the backstroke, poorly on the IM (due to a sloppy turn that set me half a lap back), and well on the relay. In fact, better than well on the relay. It was the most incredible thing! I managed to get a full set of medals: third on the IM, second on the backstroke, and first on the relay.
Because of the way they had organised the meet, we had to wait for the little kids to finish their part of the meet before we got medals. Normally, it is done almost as if they were separate meets. We were standing around for three hours after we had done swimming!

this shows Alessandro Amaroso and Elena Calistroni, the first two swimmers- sorry the video is cut into pieces.

this shows me and Samuele Biscotti 

ciao,
Florence

Sewer Rats

There is an annual event in Italy where monuments or other cool things that are normally closed to the public are open for one weekend. And this is the weekend!

Here in Todi, we had three things open: the basement floors of Santa Maria in Camuccia (the cool, multi-level church that we've written about before), the monastery at the now-agricultural school's campus, and the 19th-century drains that were installed as a landslide prevention tactic. Obviously, drain crawling was a good idea, so Leonardo helped us by calling the coordinator to reserve our spots.

They weren't able to accommodate all of us, so the boys and I went for the earlier time slot. Michael will be going later with the girls and the French students (I don't think I've mentioned here that we have 3 boys from France for the week).

We got there (late, unfortunately...it's a good bit further down than I'd realized...so we missed the first part of the explanation). After having been given hardhats with caving lights, we descended about 3 meters by metal latter via a small concrete aperture in the ground.

We found ourselves in a low arched tunnel that had a small channel at waist height (in other locations, the channels were on either side of the walkway at foot level). While nearly the entire corridor was bricked up, the walls had periodic channels (weepholes) through them to allow the water to drain from the soil into the culvert. Since the water here is so hard, a number of them were glossy with calcareous deposits running down ... a type of stalactite formation, if you will. There were also bricks emerging from the wall surface. These were structures that were used to hold the wood forms during construction of the arched ceiling!

Some areas even had little stalactites coming through the arched roof. After 200 years, they are nearly 2 inches long and about a quarter of an inch in diameter.

Around corners, up steps, looking up through wells, ducking here and there...after an hour, we re-emerged into the sunlight feeling damp, dirty, and ready for gelato.

Love,

Alexandra

Let's talk finance

For those who aren't as familiar with exchange rates and what they mean, let me explain why we are seriously happy campers about the euro's recent headline-making decline.

Currencies (dollars, euros, yen, pounds sterling, etc.) are traded via bank and in exchanges and just like stocks, change value not just every day, but every minute. Unless you are traveling, the effect of the exchange rate on your life is not immediately obvious (although present). However, if you are in a situation like ours...where we earn in dollars and spend in euros...we are ALWAYS aware of the exchange rate because it directly affects our daily spending power.

Last summer, the euro was worth about $1.39...I think even $1.40 at certain points. That meant that an item that cost 10 euros translated into $14. Now? The same items that cost 10 euros now translate to $10.50: a savings of $3.50. HUGE impact on our lives, because we have an effective discount of 30% or more on every purchase.

The prediction is that the euro will hit parity this year, meaning 1 euro is the same as 1 dollar...also meaning that now is the perfect time to come visit us!

Meanwhile, I think I'll go out shopping!

Love,

Alexandra