Is It Friday Yet?

Today was another typical day at school, we took class, taught lessons, and observed lessons. Nothing exciting to report. Yesterday we actually had our first interview at a local school called (ironically) Washington School. The interview went well, the coordinator is a crazy Brit with a great sense of humor. He told us all about the school and their upcoming contracts that he'll be needing teachers for. Unfortunatley he won't be making any decisions until he comes back from holiday in early September. Apparently that is the norm for Rome. Most schools don't begin hiring until late September or October because they wait until their students sign up for fall courses to decide how many teachers they will need. We've also heard that Rome will become essentially a ghost town for the last two weeks of August as everyone tries to escape the sweltering heat. Charles and I have decided to take advantage of this situation and plan a trip up north, in search of cooler weather and less-crowded cities. We are thinking of a short train tour up to Bologna, Modena, and Parma. Being the foodies that we are we hope to have some pasta alla Bolognese in Bologna, balsamic vinegar from Modena, and delicious parmesan cheese and proscuitto from Parma. Hopefully we can just have relaxing week visiting with locals and eating good food before we head back to the city to find a permanent apartment and begin dispersing resumes to the language schools in Rome. We have also decided that we will be taking Italian courses here at Interlingue (where we are doing our TEFL course) so we can hopefully do some communicating beyond pointing and broken Italian. So, it looks as though the plan is to stay in Rome and work here (since there seems to be a large number of schools needing teachers), so any of you who want to plan your trips make sure you research where you want to visit so you can tell us to wait for you before we go there ourselves. Also, living in Rome will allow us to be able to send our visitors out on day trips to see all there is to see while we are at work during the week, so it makes sense to stay here in the city. Besides, I'm starting to get used to the idea of a 20 minute bus ride with someone's armpit in my face.

Love,
Allie