Day 10: Friday, May 16: This is the start of the first 3-day weekend for students. They all have decided to hang around Macerata. I think this was the plan before they left the US, partly as a way to save money and partly to see the nearby sights. When I taught twice before in the semester-long program, one of the destinations has always been the mall. Funny as that may sound, it's a practical thing for the students. It's a small mall but the anchor store is a Wal-Mart/Meier type store where they can buy anything they want at a reasonable price. It's about 6 miles away and requires a bus transfer, which none of them have had to do so far. Kim and I volunteered to take whoever wanted to go. At the bus stop by their hotel, we had 10 students at 10 a.m., which exceeded my prediction by two.

Italy has most definitely changed. When I taught my first class here in 2002 there were things that it was hard to find, but not anymore. Breakfast cereal was unheard of before (Italians generally have coffee and a roll) but there are plenty of choices today. I was astonished at the selection of chips. Italy has always had them, but never barbecue, or sour cream or...

We didn't stay too long. All of us wanted to get back to the city center to see the 1000 Miglia, a race of classic cars from Brescia to Rome and back. It's pretty exciting to have been on the route. First a bunch of modern Ferraris and other cars came through town starting about 2 p.m.

A couple of hours later, the classic cars that were part of the race started to arrive. There were about 450 cars, representing about 50 different countries. The news media touted the fact that Jeremy Irons and Jay Leno were racing. Kim and I didn't see either, as we had to leave before half the cars came through. 

Kim needed to pick up a rental car. She got a great deal online, but it required her to pick up the car back out of town. We had to hop a bus not really knowing where the place was, but we knew what area and the address, so we were hopeful. The bus driver didn't know the place or the address, so we got off where we thought it should be. I called the place and it seems we were about a mile away. The guy told us to wait where we were and he came and picked us up. 

The rental did not go smoothly. After several calls it seems the network was down. He ended up finally copying Kim's license, passport and credit card and printing out a rental agreement by hand. All in all we were there probably an hour, but the guy was extremely nice. After getting the car, we ran back to the mall grocery. Now that we had a car, it was a lot easier to stock up on heavier items rather than trying to negotiate two busses and a walk. The final hurdle was parking. The area around our apartment is all permit parking. The students' hotel is just a few blocks away. We went there and asked whether we could park for the night and the desk clerk was very kind. Problem solved - at least for one day.