Happy New Year!

In The New Year

Well, time has gone by pretty fast, it feels like the kids started their Christmas vacations a couple of days ago, and now we are already almost through half of January 2011!!  I had promised in my previous post to put up Isabella's Christmas play, but it snowed in Florence like it hadn't snowed in 50 years!  So school was closed and when it re opened not all the kids showed up, since the snow was still on the hills and some areas were not drive able.

The kids had a blast playing with the snow!

The Duomo Santa Maria del Fiore the day after the snow storm.

School starts tomorrow, after school activities start tomorrow, so back the the normal routine. 

Christmas @ Sacro Cuore

It's Christmas time and here in Florence the ground is covered with snow, the Christmas trees decorate homes and the Piazzas and the celebration has begun. It's also time for me to get back to my blog, I have left it abandoned too long. It will be part of my New Year's resolution. Next Tuesday is Isabella's Christmas play so look for an update! Isaiah's poem was a lot longer, but I decided to edit it down for all of you! Enjoy.

Mercato Centrale

The Mercato Centrale is a MUST in Florence!  It is in the Borgo San Lorenzo area and has been around since the 1800's.  You can buy anything from fruits, nuts, pasta, salami, fish, cheese, olive oil.... you name it.  There are also several restaurants inside.  Erica and I almost ate there once but it really smelled like a butcher shop, so we passed and went to a restaurant right outside which was great and very budget friendly, unlike most of the restaurants in Florence!

I try to go every several weeks, more than anything for the experience and getting very fresh vegetables and fruits.

I took these pictures a couple of weeks ago and have been meaning to post them for awhile...

One great thing about this market is that no one is haggling you or trying to get your attention, you sometimes have to actually say excuse me several times before they stop doing what ever it is they were doing and pay attention, once they do though, they are very nice and helpful!

Singing Class

So a little bit of history before I do some esplainin about the title line... The first Opera ever written is said to be called "Dafne".  It was written in the Palazzo Tornabuoni by Jacopo Peri in the 1500's.  It was also performed for the first time in the Palazzo in what is called the "Opera Suite".  Ok, so enough history.... The Palazzo is hosting Amanda McBroom, http://www.amcbroom.com/ see here for more info... anyway, she is a great singer, song writer and teacher.  The Palazzo asked her to give signing lessons to the Members and well, while I am NOT a member!  I happen to be the wife of the Dir. of Marketing, and there was barely an open spot where they squeezed me in!  It was probably the most embarrassing moment in my life, I can truly say I was brought COMPLETELY OUT of my comfort zone!  I sang with her and Mary, both are so talented it is unreal!  We sang Amazing Grace and then The Rose, the song she wrote and that Bette Midler made famous.  I was nervous through out the whole time and still probably 15 minutes later!!!  While it was wonderful,  it was also very hard for this shy girl to put it out there!  I wasn't too bad, I actually got some praises.  Oh, so the room we where in, it has amazing acoustics, which is why the classes took place inside that particular suite and probably why "Dafne" was performed there as well.

FESTA Theater - Florence Song

This is one of the songs the sang and the basis of the course.

FESTA Theater - Florence

Isaiah participated in a Theater class that was based on an idea from Paul from the music group Peter, Paul & Mary.  The group shows kids to stand up to bullying and to basically not judge a book by its cover.  This is a skit they put together. 

Italian Class

So I went for two weeks to an advanced Italian class.  The classes where 4 hours a day from 9 to 1.  The first two hours were grammar and the following two were conversation.  I learned a lot, lots of phrases and words that were very new to me, and mostly I learned what my weakness are and what I need to continue to improve on.  We were a really small group, sometimes 5 sometimes just 3.  So it was very personalized and we got to talk and make all sorts of mistakes to later on be corrected on.  The two students I mostly spent all my time with were a Professor at a school in Princeton, highly educated in literature, German and history in general.  The other student was a 21 year old from Oxford, studying French and Italian and wanting to do PhD studies in Medieval Literature... Both played various (more than 3) musical instruments.... I felt a little small!!!

Grammar time was probably the hardest for me, since I don't know any rules or tenses in any language, not Spanish, not English and least of all Italian....  but I worked my way through it.  Conversation was very entertaining, we spoke about many things, we read and we had a final project which was to choose one topic related to Italy and speak for 15 min. or more.  The professor chose "I Promessi Sposi" by Manzoni, English title is "The Betrothed", so I was able to learn a lot from it, without even reading it.  It is a book that is read by all Italians in school and is considered to be one of the most important.  The Oxford student spoke of the Palio in Sienna, or the Horse race they have in the Piazza at Siena and I spoke about the huge flood they had in Florence the 4th of Nov, 1966.  If you have been in Florence you may have noticed some plaques on the walls, the plaques say that the water reached this point, some points being more than 5 mt. from the floor, for those of you that have not been in Florence yet, when you come..... keep your eyes open!

Anyway, here are two pictures, the one in the top is the one of the classroom and the one on the bottom is from the view of the window.

Walk to the supermarket

When we returned form our Easter break there was pretty much just pasta and some pomodori pelati in the kitchen, so I took a walk to the supermarket and remembered that I had just purchased a new camera!  So I thought I would share with you what my walk looked like.  The walk is about 10 minutes, or maybe a bit more, not sure, but its a beautiful walk. 

First thing I see is the Chiesa di San Frediano in Cestello.  Another beautiful church in Florence and about a 2 minute walk from my house.  Inside its very light, not dark and not that I know a lot about architecture, but the sign before entering tells you that is a Baroque structure and the facade is unfinished.  Inside you see a lot of decoration on the columns and altars, so while I may not know a lot about it, you can definitely see what they mean once you are inside.

This is the oltr'arno view of La Chiesa di Ognissanti (or the Church of all Saints).  It's actually across from the River, but on my walk I get a gorgeous view of the Church and the Piazza.  The Church is supposed to be gorgeous, I have not yet been, its on my to do list!   Inside the Church is a fresco by Ghirlandaio called Last Super, which Leonardo da Vinci was very familiar with before he made his own. 

These are the walls that contain the historic center of Florence. We live inside the walls, but the supermarket is outside.  Isaiah loves the fact that we live inside the "historical center" as he always calls it.

So I had to show this, because we love it!  Its a motorino with its own hood!  Love it!

 

This is a monument to those who died in a war, not sure which one, guessing World war II.  I liked the sculpture, a headless angel, basically it could be any angel!  My uneducated interpretation of art!

A beautiful facade.  

Clothes hanging out dry!  I had mine hanging out to dry at the same time!  

Arrived!  The supermarket is called Esselunga, that's why it has a LONG s.  Cause thats what Esse lunga means. 

Well, that was it!, I thought of taking pictures inside, but even though it was a Wednesday morning it was PACKED with people! Maybe next time! 

Hope you enjoyed the walk with me!

Love, Natsha

Not so good at this blog thing

Ok, so I am not so good at this blog thing!  I would love to have the, whats the word I am looking for here.... dedication...devotion....commitment...  I guess they all fit...I got it!  Insistence! *Note:  I was wrong, not insistence, Persistence (Guy helped me out on this one)  I guess I should work on it....

Lot's of things have happened of course, it's been a little more than a month since I last wrote and lot's of things are yet to happen as well...

Camera died
My camera seems to have some unknown issues.  Tis the reason I have not posted or sent pictures in awhile.  Very sad, miss it a lot, many kodak moments have been lost.

Settimana Bianca
Settimana Bianca is the term used here in Italy for a week dedicated to skiing.  Isaiah's school offered an organized trip, which I agreed to go to with Isaiah and Isabella, Guy stayed home, he needed to work so that he could go on another trip we have planned.  So off we went to Pila, which is located in Valle D'Aosta, the smallest and least populated region in Italy, bordered by France, Switzerland and Piemonte (Region where Turin is in).  Pila is gorgeous, the resort was a ski in/out and had amazing views.  Completely covered in white.  From Pila you can see some of the highest peaks in the Alpine mountains, The Cervino (or Matterhorn), Monte Rosa, Monte Bianco and the Valley of San Bernardo, which was the way Napoleon used to invade Italy.  All this info was given to me by my ski instructor!  So basically all you do this week is SKI, Isaiah went to a Kids club 9-5, were they group the kids by skiing ability and went out to ski in the morning, back for lunch, then in the afternoon and back for snack and later at 5, I would pick him up.  Isabella went to what they call a "Garderie",daycare.  I would drop her off at 9:15 and then pick her up at 4:45.  I was also grouped with the other 11 people in the resort which had no idea what to do with skiis and poles!  We, like Isaiah, had morning and afternoon classes.  Isaiah and I found our calling!  Skiing!  We LOVED IT!    Isaiah loved it so much, he even asked his instructor if there were houses for sale in Pila, so that when he had the conversation with me, he could later tell me, that he wanted us to move to Pila, and that I couldn't tell him no, since he had already found out there were houses for sale!  It was a wonderful experience which we are both looking forward to doing again, hopefully next time we can all go together.

Judo
Isaiah's Judo gym is full of great people.  For Carnevale they gave the kids "Cenci" or "Chiacchiere" (sweet treat eaten during this time of year), which for us Dominicans is like a yaniqueque with sugar and for those of you non Dominicans they are kind of like a flat version of a funnel cake (kind of).  For the International Woman's Day they gave all the Moms and the girls, a Mimosa, which is tradition here in Italy. And then lastly since we are approaching Easter and in Lent, they had the Priest of the Santa Maria Novella church go to practice and at the end he blessed us all with holy water.  Really a wonderful place to be a part of.

 Florence just gets better every day, its even started to warm up and the flowers have started to bloom!

Happy Easter to all.

Love,

Natsha

Back

Hello!  Sorry we have been absent for awhile! A lot has happened in the almost two months???  That I have posted anything.  First of all, we moved from the Palazzo Tornabuoni to a wonderful place in the "Oltr'arno" neighborhood.  For those of you not familiar to Florence, in the middle of the city is a River called the Arno, the historic center is divided by this river.  The river starts in the hills of Florence and continues all the way through Tuscany to Pisa and out the Tyrrehnian Sea.  The Oltearno neighborhood is on the less touristy side, since the major attractions are where the Duomo, David, etc.  So to those of you more familiar to Florence we are two bridges down from the Ponte Vecchio at the Ponte alla Carraia right on top of one of Florence's most famous gelaterias.. "Gelateria La Carraia".  Our apartment is on what Italians call the 3rd floor and what we on the other side of the Atlantic call the fourth floor.  It has stunning views of the River, the dome of the Cathedral Santa Maria del Fiore, the Bell tower of the Palazzo Vecchio and from some windows the Ponte Vecchio.  It is a typical italian home with the exception of the size.  Its pretty roomy, which is not the norm, specially here in Florence.  Most of you will find this amusing and those of you who know me very well, will probably burst out laughing, but while we do have a dishwasher and a laundry machine!!  THANK the Lord!  We DO NOT have a dryer.   So the clothes are dried the old fashion way, the mother hangs them out to dry and then the mother must iron them!!!  I have to admit and say its not as annoying as I thought it would be, you actually get into a routine and if you stick to it, it all works out fine, and I even find myself enjoying it!.. not the ironing of course, I haven't gone THAT mad!

Soooo with the moving came the absence of the conveniences of being in the Palazzo, like having free WIFI and Cable TV.  When I went to request the Internet, I was told that after the request is made they have 10 days to call you, since we were leaving somewhat unexpectedly to the USA for Christmas, I decided to wait until we got back.  When we got back I made the order request and a little more than two weeks later I still hadnt heard from anybody.  So after a visit to the office and then a call I was finally able to set up an appointment for 2 weeks later.  So we finally have internet!  It was installed last week!  As for the cable, the story is long and similar, but we have that too finally... and just in time for the Olympics AND my birthday!!

The kids are doing great.  Isaiah has been to a few playdates and the Mothers tell me he is speaking italian wonderfully.  We received his report cards this week and the Teacher also gave him good praises.  His grades are great and the only thing he needs improvement in is in.... Italian!  As for little Isabella, she started ballet a couple of weeks ago and she is CRAZY about it.  Loves her classes and loves to put on her little tights, shoes and her skirt.  She now loves going to school, runs through the door after a quick kiss to mommy.  She is speaking a mix of Englitanish which is pretty funny!

Hope you are all MAGNIFICENT in what ever corner of the world you are and whoever you may be.

Love,
Natsha

@ Milano & Cernusco Lombardone

Palazzo Pitti

This weekend we wanted to go to the Boboli Gardens with the kids, but when we got there they were closing in an hour, so we decided to go to the Palazzo Pitti instead. The Palazzo Pitti is where Royalty, the Medici (the most important family in Florence) and even Napoleon used to live. We set off the security alarms a couple of times but all in all the kids behaved pretty well.  The first part was an exhibition on stolen artifacts that have been recovered by the Carabinieri (one of the police groups in Italy).  Then we moved on to the Pallatine Gallery, which was probably the most difficult for the kids, then the Royal apartments, which were a little better, and then the Modern Art Gallery, and then once we were out the kids started running around outside like crazy!!!  I took this picture of Florence from one of the windows.

These are pictures of once we got out of the Palazzo!

Here are some other pics of the weekend.  Isaiah saw on the menu of the restaurant below Hamburger, so he gets all excited and tells me to order one for him, with cheese.  I tell him I am not sure it comes with a bun, he looks at me kind of weird and asks me what do you mean?  Well, things here are not the same.  Hamburger might just mean the meat and not the whole thing.  I ask the waiter and unfortunately I was correct.  No bun, just the meat.  So in Sunday, we had lunch with Dimitri and he recommended a place called the American Diner.  Isaiah had his Bacon Cheeseburger at last.

This is the Ponte Vecchio at night and the other Ponte beside it!  I need to try to get a better pic.

One more picture! Christmas decoration in Florence!

Hair

Isabella has beautiful corn silk hair.  I have been drying her hair with a blow dryer after her baths so she doesn't go to bed with wet hair.  She was hesitant at first and while she still complains she LOVES the end result!  She has the kind of hair I have always wanted.  I barely have to use the brush to dry her hair, her hair is a LOT finer than mine so it dries pretty quickly.  So after we are done, she shows everyone around her hair.   After I dressed her up for Thanksgiving dinner with her dress, tight, shoes etc..  We went down stairs to meet everyone, the first person she started showing off for was for Dimitri, she was twirling her dress around, batting her eyelashes, etc...  So I HAD to take a pic of the two of them!!!

Continuing on with the hair issues.  As some of you may know one of the first things I do when I move anywhere is try to look for a Dominican hair dresser.  Anguilla, I found one.  Greenville, there was a Dominican girl, but she learned in the States so I ended up going to a Colombian, though I have been told by Alex that there is a REAL Dominican hair salon.  Dallas I found one, and now in Italy I tried looking.  I walked into hair salons and ask them if they had a Dominican hair dresser, their answer NO, but anyone can do it.  Yeah, but no thanks.  So after realizing we were going to have dinner at the Four Seasons and knowing my hair was not in a Four Seasons condition, I decided to call a hair salon, make an appointment and see what would happen.  I walk in and I am received by the person that is going to take care of me, she looks African to me, ears pierced like 6 times, two piercings on the lips, even one the back of her neck ( I had to ask her if that one hurt, it looked painful, she said yes by the way and still hurts after 3 weeks. Note for anyone who wants to try that one!).  And her hair is short and afro like. While she is washing my hair she asks me if she is washing to hard, I'm like no, no worries, in my country the scrub a lot harder than this.  So where are you from? she asks.  Dominican Republic. Where? Dominican Republic.  I'm from the Dominican Republic she says.  NO WAY!  And off in Spanish I went! hahaha!  I got what I was looking for without even looking for it.  It's the little things in life that make me happy!!!

One more hair story.  Isaiah. He decided yesterday he wanted me to cut his hair, but not too short.  So I plugged in the razor with the adapter and started.  Thank goodness I started in the back side, because 2 minutes later a popping sound and the razor shuts off, smoke comes out of the razor!  I guess I should have connected a converter to the plug not only an adapter. So I think we will be trying out the local barber shops soon!  Very soon!

Thanksgiving

These are the kiddos ready to go to our Thanksgiving dinner.

Very cute picture of Isabella and Guy.

This is the entrance to the Palazzo, we are waiting for the shuttle to take us to the Four Seasons.  Isaiah is not in a good mood, he decided to wear his cowboy boots, even though I told him the would be tight, well they were tight.  He forgot all about it though once we got to the hotel and Freddy, James and him went crazy playing out in the yard.

Isaiah and Isabella with Domenico, one of the doormen of the Palazzo.

The kids table.

The adults table.  To my right Dimitri, Peter, Beth, Dave, Guy and me.

Week Report

So I haven't been really good at keeping this up to date lately.  But believe it or not, I haven't had a lot of time.  Some of you may be thinking.... but you are not working?  Yes, that is correct but nonetheless I have not had time.  Or, let me put it this way, instead of spending time on the computer, I have used my time else where!  So let's get to the update, last week was an interesting week.  Isabella and I both went to school from 8:15 to 12:00.  She would not let me leave and would cry none stop.  The teachers asked me to help and stay in school until she felt more comfortable.  The first day I was inside the classroom all day and had to follow the class around, anywhere they went, I had to go.  The next day was similar, except there were two hours where I wasn't actually inside the classroom..  and so on and so on, so that by last Friday she was pretty much on her own, even though I was still right outside her door.

Last week we found a Judo class for Isaiah!  I have been getting familiar with the bus routes, so I decided that instead of taking a taxi the first time and feeling comfortable with how to get there, we (Isaiah, Isabella and myself) could do it by taking the bus the first time.  So we get on the bus.  Not many seats on this bus so we are all standing, even Isabella.  To all you Dominicans, if you think the OMSA drivers or Carro Publico drivers are bad drivers, you aint seen nothing yet.  I mean there is a big difference, Italian bus drivers stay in their lanes and follow certain order, but when they mean stop, they mean STOP.  No warning, no deceleration, just a full on STOP.  So to Isaiah, Isabella and myself which happen to be standing, not a pleasant experience.  Well, to continue on with my story, people get on, people get off, I still cant see our stop until 1/2 hour later, I finally see it.  But see, we were finally seated! And being seated helps me recuperate from my motion sickness.  We arrive at our stop, doors open,  Isaiah, Isabella and me hustle up, gather up all our junk and try to get off the bus.  Didn't make it.  No waiting, even if you have two kids, a folded up stroller and two backpacks.  They don't care.  You didn't make it in time, he had the door open, you didn't go through it.  Not the drivers fault.  So I have Isaiah go up and quickly tell him to stop, I really wanted to yell at him, but thought it might be RUDE!  The driver tells Isaiah that he will be coming around back again!  Needless, to say I didn't not go around and do it again, we went home, bought Spizzico pizza on the way home and decided to try it the next day!  We made it fine the next day.  While Isaiah observed the Judo lessons, Isabella was closely looking at a small group of little girls 4 to 5 years old that were on their way to a dance class. She asked to go in and see and Isaiah went with her.  She came out and looked at me, I asked her if she wanted to dance, she said yes.  So I told her to go ahead and go in.  She went in all by herself took off her shoes and started dancing!  She followed everything the teacher said and had a blast!  If only school were that easy! Isaiah had his first Judo lesson yesterday, he loved it.  At one point he was put up against a boy that the teacher was testing for an orange belt (one belt higher than Isaiah) and Isaiah beat him.  He said it was really easy.  He was very proud of himself.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving.  Of course not a celebrated holiday in Italy, but we are going to have dinner with Dave (Director of Sales) and his family, Dimitri (Sales Executive) and Peter (Consultant) at the Four Seasons.  We are all looking forward to it.  The kids specially.

Weekend

 We went to the Plaza Santa Maria Novella.  The church in the back is well.... Santa Maria Novella!  It has beautiful frescoes inside and the outside is amazing as well.

 We came here because Isabella and Isaiah love

chasing pigeons.   You can see it in these pictures though, but they spent pretty much all of one hour chasing after pigeons.  Or as Guy calls them rats that fly.  There was also a group of middle easterners playing soccer and let Isaiah kick the ball a couple of times.  Very nice dudes.

The rest of the time, they spent it playing around with their Dad. It was a gray day, but not too cold.  So Isaiah ended up one sweaty monkey!

Here is Isabellie posing.  

 My picture with them didnt come out as cute.

If you look closely at his head you will see he has a slight Mohawk, it's his new thing, every morning after he takes a shower he spikes his hair up with his hands, no gel, so by the end of the day you can barely see it.  Today he told me he is only going to do it on the Friday and the weekends, I think the nuns might have told him something!

Isaiah took this picture.

So obviously Isabella had to take a picture.  As you can see by Isaiah almost sleeping, it took awhile and two bad shots, but she finally made it!

Isabellie in uniform

Today was Isabella's second day at school.  She started on Monday, but unfortunately Isaiah and I got a cold, not a good one.  So lets go back to Monday.  When we got to the school, we dropped off Isaiah and then went to Isabella's side, I walked her in to her room and she was actually very excited, she immediately sat down and began to draw on a piece of paper.  I spent some time talking with her teacher, getting to know each other and in the meanwhile checking in on Isabella.  At one point she was talking the ear off of one of the little boys, but he obviously had no clue as to what she was saying, in fact I'm guessing it wasn't too coherent anyway!  After a little while I went to say goodbye to her, told her I was going to go for a walk and then I would pick her up.  She said goodbye, gave me a kiss and waved me goodbye.  I couldn't believe it!  I thought she was going to be a lot more difficult.  Since her precious Pachy (teacher in Cap Cana) wasn't going to be there I was sure she was not going to want anything to do with it. So I made a couple of errands and two hours later went to pick her up.  She was talkative, saying she had a good time, she drew, she talked but she didnt get to read!  I promised her that she would get to read the next day.  Little did I know!  So to continue the story, I had heard that "This is it", the Michael Jackson movie of the last footage of his rehearsals was playing IN ENGLISH at a movie theater close to the Palazzo.  We all went, us, the Purpora's and Dimitri.  It would have been an amazing tour and while it was great to watch and revisit his songs it was also very sad to know that all the hard work we were watching were not shared with the millions of people that it was meant to be shared with and also of course that the talented, music and dance genius we were watching was no more.  In Isaiah's words:  "To bad I didn't get to meet him before he died."  Well when we got home, both Isaiah and I had fevers.  That night things worsened for both of us, while our fevers disappeared our coughs and general yucky feeling worsened.  That morning the kids did not go to school, in fact they were pretty much left to do what they wanted, cause I was in bed feeling awful.  At one point the joined me until Guy came home for lunch, only to find as all in bed with two sick people, so he left to get the sick people some soup!  The next day wednesday, while Isaiah was doing a lot better, I still wasn't so they didn't go to school again.  Today was another day, I woke up feeling great (well, sleepy, but that isn't unusual) and both kids were off to school.  Since Isabella had had such a wonderful day on Monday, one of her teachers and I decided that I was going to leave her until noon.  When I went to pick her up, she jumped for joy and was crying of the excitement to see me.  The teacher says she didn't have a good day, she kept expecting me to show up and was very clingy and crying a lot.  So tomorrow, we are back to square one.

I did get my cell phone today! So for anyone who would like to call me someday the number is 011393346863890.

So that is the story of our last couple of days.  Below is a picture of Isabellie in her uniform.

Ponte Vecchio in the early morning

The Ponte Vecchio is always a charming and beautiful place.  My favorite moment of the bridge is undoubtedly in the morning before the stores have opened. It has a magical feel to it. And oh yeah, its not full of people so you can actually walk through and not have to say excuse me 10 times!!!  If you look close at the pictures above in the background you can see de Duomo or better yet, Brunelleschi cupola.