The Fiat Cinquecento (500) was the Italian version of the people's car for a long time. Back in the 1970s my cousin had one and, believe it or not, we put 4 people in it. It had a vinyl roll-top for the front half of the hood making it semi-convertible. Fiat stopped making it for a while, then reintroduced a new version - still small by American standards, but nothing like the old one that you still see around on Italian streets. I would absolutely love to have one of the vintage models to drive around Muncie.
There have been a lot of tears shed around the streets of Macerata in the last couple of days.
Yesterday (Saturday) was the official end of the program. We concluded with a farewell dinner at my favorite mom-and-pop restaurant (multiple pictures on this blog earlier) and many students cried most of the time, especially as we presented gifts to the director, his wife and the program assistant. Most of the students chipped in.

Some of the students who weren't leaving right away asked Filiberto and me if we could join them for a beer. Surprisingly about half the students in the program were still around last night. More tears as that group broke up. This morning we met a couple of the Ball State students leaving today for coffee. Again, a little moisture.

A great thing about teaching overseas is seeing the students grow. When they arrived on Jan. 9 many were overwhelmed and a few cried because they were homesick. After three months here, they cry because they don't want to leave.

I also want to recount that the students told me they learned here, unlike some other study abroad programs. For the uninitiated, some programs have reputations as places where students go and get drunk for the entire semester. One of the students told me that her friend studying in another program (that will remain nameless) never had to study, do homework or even attend classes (attendance was never taken). There is a controversy in higher education right now about the quality of study abroad programs. Based on what I was told, I can understand why. While the Macerata program has very high academic standards, not all programs do.

Kim and I will be hanging around Macerata until Thursday. We were going to go to my uncle's condo in Cesenatico, but none of my relatives will be there (they all live in Bologna and go there just for summer/weekends). Filiberto would like us to hang around here so we can do a few things, some social but some work-related, including helping him learn to blog. So now the plan is to leave here Thursday morning to head north. A night in Venice, then off to Slovenia.

We happened on a surprise event today. As we walked around town we came across a women's softball game. I don't know why I would be surprised that the game was so similar to that in the US. Not just the rules of the game - I expected that - but the other stuff like the chatter by the players, the overweight men coaching and even the between-inning warm-up.