The sun was out today! We took the students on another walk around Macerata, just for a couple of hours. Here are Ball State students Whitney and Bridget taking pictures - and goofing around. The second picture is program director Filiberto Bracalente leading us through the streets of town. You can see 3 Ball Staters in this picture: Jackie is the blond, Audrey is the red-head and Evan has the stocking cap. The large building in the background is a former church now used by the university.
We started out in the classroom. The students found out the schedule of excursions for the semester and the specific class schedule. My class wll meet Tuesdays and Thursdays 1-2:45. It may seem long, but remember our semester ends in early April. Filiberto had to play "bad cop" this morning as several students were 15 minutes late (unfortunately, the group included one BSU student). It was a source of great frustration last time whenever we had to wait for late arrivers. It stinks that 1 or 2 can hld up a couple of dozen people. Thought of another way, if one person is 5 minutes late, it wastes 2 hours of time (5 minutes times 24 people).

After traveling around a while, we "taught" the students the bus system, No one collects tickets or usually checks, but if they check and you lack a validated ticket it's a 50 Euro fine. We used going to the mal (about 6 miles away) as the excursion to learn the bus. It's also an opportunity for them to go to a mega-store with all the products they won'tfind in smal groceries, like corn chips, Chinese food, peanut butter, etc. Just to give you an idea, take a look at Kim in the wine aisle. It's all from Italy, and the other side of the aise is the same.

I rode the bus with Filiberto and the students, but Kim and Angelica met us there with her car. We all 4 rode back to town in their car. Good thing, too, as we had a few heavy sacks (including wine and grappa) to carry. It could be done, and we will in the future, but it's a little cumbersome on the bus.

Kim and I went out to stroll the streets - common in Italian towns from about 5-8 p.m. and referred to as "passegiata." We had to cut it short as it started to rain. Now I'm updating my blog listening to Ball State women's basketball on WCRD