The program in Macerata offers students an option of participating in "Tandem" - an opportunity to be paired with an Italian student for conversation. Angelica coordinates the program. Kim told her that if there were any Italians who did not have a Tandem partner, Kim would be happy to participate. Angelica paired Kim with Umberto, a retired middle school geography teacher. They would meet 2.5 hours once or twice a week for conversation - part English, part Italian. By coincidence, I had met Umberto when we were here in 2002. One of my student groups produced a video for the local hiking club, in which he is very active.
Yesterday we were all invited to his mother's house for lunch. The top picture shows Umberto. In the second photo, the white-haired woman is Umberto's mother, and the woman standing behind her is Svitlana (Lucia in Italian), the Russian cook. The meal was quite elaborate: 5 different wines (I had only 3), a mixed appetizer plate, a local version of lasagna, chicken cacciatore, tiramisu and coffee. I asked Svitlana if there was much of a Russian community here in the Marche and she said there was.
The apartment was just 5 minutes away by car but it felt much more suburban - a lot of light in the apartment and a nice balcony.

Kim and I walked a little bit. She wanted to see the "old laundry" outside the walls. One hundred years ago, this is where people brought their clothes do do the wash. Kim works the camera as I provide the commentary.

Just a couple of more days in Macerata. Back in the States a week from today. There certainly isn't enough time to do all the things I'd like to do but we've done so much that I will not complain.

Megan's mother JoEllen visited Megan, Anthony and Luca and created an online photo gallery of pictures. For those of you who don't do Facebook, you can see her Kodak gallery here.

An addition to yesterday's blog - in talking with Filiberto, I found out the Macerata women's softball team we were watching yesterday has won the national championship about 5 times in the last decade, and the European title a couple of times.