Today I returned to Cividale del Friuli, a gorgeous little Lombard town about 19km from Udine. It was actually the first place I visited from Udine, back on October 3rd. That time I was taken by my new Italian friends, and we had a lovely walk around but didn't visit anything inside. This time I wanted to spend some more time doing the sights and museums, and again took advantage of the splendid sunny day (last time it was a bit dull)

This is the Natisone river. Breathtakingly picturesque. You stand on the so called Devil's Bridge and look across at this... it's incredibly beautiful.  Just look at that sky! Have I ever mentioned that I love blue sky?! hehe. 

Had a lovely time wandering through the little old streets. Of course it reminded me a lot of the first trip there, which was less than 3 weeks after I first arrived in Friuli. It's amazing to think how much time has passed and how much better I know those friends (at the time I barely knew them at all really!). 

Apart from wandering and enjoying the weather, I also got a combined ticket to the Archaelogical Museum, the Cathedral Museum and the Lombard Temple/Monastery complex. The former two both had things of interest, but the Lombard temple was the most interesting.  
I also went down in some odd Celtic cave thing. You had to ask for the key from the bar next door, and let yourself in and go exploring. I couldn't get the light to work so I had to get the guy to come and help me! Good fun though... little bit spooky down there. There was this bit of rock which really looked like a scary face - not sure whether it actually IS a scary face or not, but I didn't spend long down there on my own I can tell you!! 

The Lombard Temple - Il tempietto longobardo

l'Ipogeo Celtico - scary face/rock formation on wall! 

ETA: Just re-reading my Rough Guide to Italy, I found this said about the above faces - so it wasn't just me who was unsettled!! "The hypogeum was probably used as a tomb for Celtic leaders between the fifth and second centuries BC, but there is still some dispute as to whether it's artificial or was merely adapted by its users. Either way, the spectral faces carved on the walls make it a most unsettling place."

Anyway, two trips in the space of 4 days! Now the weather's looking up, it just makes me want to go to as many places as possible! 
Cividale is very much Friulan - here's the extend of my Friulano for you! It's the Friuliano word for 'ciao'. Though spelt with an 'a', it sounds to my ear like the first part of Monday!  

Since I have neglected to update this since February 6th, I'd better update with the news re the summer - all sorts of things have happened since I last wrote! (Two blogs in one day - aren't you lucky!)

In the end, I applied to three different summer schools. All with some family ties/interest... one based near Somerset, one based in Horsham and one based in Dulwich. Somerset/London were about equal in my mind in terms of the deal (responsibilities, hours, pay, dates, length etc). But, Dulwich just tipped it because of the location - being close to Alex and Caroline (if they are around!) and the new niece/nephew (I'm going with nephew , but we'll see!). The Horsham one was less favourable in terms of pay, and much more difficult in terms of date as it had an earlier start date. But as a back up, it was worth applying. So, once the applications were all sent out, I waited. 

So, first I heard from the school who run the Dulwich one, asking me for a phone interview, which we arranged for last Tuesday evening (9pm).  I had the interview, and was offered the job on the spot (informally - needed to await formal paperwork). 
The following day I heard from the Horsham school, asking me for a phone interview. Not having heard from the Somerset one, I initially decided to go ahead with this one, in case it all fell through with the other one... but then realised the dates would no longer work (as in the meantime I had booked my flight home - yay!) and so cancelled it.  
On Friday, I had an email from the Somerset school, informing me that they had been expecting to do a phone interview with me that day, and had rung while I was teaching, but upon checking their sent items had realised the email had never got to me to confirm this interview!  I re-arranged it for today (Weds) while still awaiting the paperwork for Dulwich. 

Finally, I received all the paperwork from the London school yesterday and have signed my provisional contract (got to get a CRB check etc etc). Woohoo!

So, my summer now looks like this:
End June - finish this academic year
July 4th - fly to Bristol
July 9th? - move to London (residential boarding school accommodation)
July 10th - Induction. Work for 6 weeks until August 22nd.
August 22nd - back to Taunton.
End August/beginning Sept - hopefully to Taizé for a couple of weeks before returning to Italy for the new academic year around mid-Sept 

Yay! That means almost all the decision are made... just the big one of where to live now! I've been weighing up pros and cons, and there are many many pros for staying here, but the cons are still swaying me towards moving IF I can find somewhere affordable to move to!

Oh, and I'm not quite sure why I'm so excited about having signed my summer away. It's going to be a ridiculously busy and exhausting 6 weeks. Four 90 minute lessons a day Mon-Fri (which doesn't leave much time for planning: basically it's a 9-5.30 day but will undoubtedly end up being longer. With TEENAGERS (12-17 year olds). Gosh, at the moment having teenagers for 1.5 hours three times a week is bad enough - times that by four and then by five.... EEK. 
Plus, on 3 days a week we have to wake the kids up from 7-8am. SEVEN AM. Plus if we are housed off site, that means walking and being at the boarding houses for SEVEN AM. That means being up and ready at like 6.30am. My body clock will not like this! It's not set to that kind of time!! Anyway, then there is also optional attendance at the evening events from 7.30-9.30pm, and compulsory excursion accompanying on one of the weekend days. 
So, it's going to be a 6 day full on week... I will be dead by the end and will certainly need 2 weeks in Taizé to recover!! 
But, with all those challenges, I'm excited about it... it'll be a good experience, and I think I will probably enjoy it overall. At the end of the day, I need to work, I need to get more experience in that area, I need some UK based experience, and whether I end up loving or hating it, I will get through it!! I do love a challenge

The good thing is, if I totally hate this school this year, next year I can apply to one of the others! Both of them replied to the emails that I sent to cancel the interviews by saying that they'd be pleased to hear from me next year...

Oh and... I had a lovely birthday the day after I last wrote. I have to say, I've never felt so lucky on my birthday. I have fantastic friends, a fabulous family and amazing colleagues who all helped to make it a wonderful day. Plus, the cakes I had made didn't turn out quite so bad in the end... or at least everyone was very polite about them!!  

I have also done my first workshop at work. These are extra, fun lessons that take place on Saturday mornings  - open to all of our registered students. I had decided to do a Valentine's theme, and went for a mix of traditional (a Shakespeare sonnet) and modern (Speed Dating). I spent far too long preparing it (read: worrying about it), but it was worth it as it was a success and the students all seemed happy at the end. The best bit was getting direct feedback from some lovely ladies who came back to congratulate me and to chat...you don't often get nice feedback in person from students (or I don't anyway!) so it was really nice to hear how enthusiastic they were about the whole thing!!  My next one isn't until the end of April... better start thinking about it now then 

 BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS

Non-fiction: Gino D'Acampo's "Gino's Pasta". I got this for my birthday from a friend. I've only cooked one recipe from it so far, but it was SO incredibly delicious (and simple too) that I can't wait to work my way through the rest of the recipes, and want to share them with everyone!! Seriously, I have never been so excited about pasta before!

Fiction: One Day by David Nicholls. Another birthday present - a fantastic novel which I finished on the coach today. Well worth a read...

Fiction/Non-fiction: The Castle in the Pyrenees by Jostein Gaarder. One of my favourite authors. I've just finished reading this in Italian (I've read all the others in English, but since they're all translated from Norwegian it doesn't make a huge difference). Brilliant book. It is a novel, but the themes are Gaarder's usual: philosophy, science, religion. Really interesting and intense, but ultimately very moving and enjoyable. 

Next up: Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer. I read Extremely loud and incredibly close or whatever it was called, and absolutely loved it. I've heard mixed things about this one though, so I'm looking forward to seeing what it's like. 

Aquileia (in Friuli-Venezia Giulia), one of the largest and wealthiest cities of the Early Roman Empire (180/181 BC), was destroyed by Attila in the mid-5th century. Most of it still lies unexcavated beneath the fields, and as such it constitutes the greatest archaeological reserve of its kind. The patriarchal basilica, an outstanding building with an exceptional mosaic pavement, played a key role in the evangelization of a large region of central Europe.

Romulus and Remus statue under the bell tower

I've had the past two Wednesdays completely free, since both group courses I previously had that day have now finished, and new ones have not yet begun... bliss!
Last week the weather was fairly miserable, so I had a lovely relaxing day at home. Today the forecast was for sun sun sun, so I decided to go somewhere! Top destination on my list was the city described above - Aquileia. I particularly wanted to see the mosaics in the main Basilica. According to my rough guide, this mosaic carpet is the earliest surviving remnant of any Christian building, and it was definitely worth the visit. So nice to finally be able to go somewhere! 

Aquileia is approximately 45km from Udine, and 10km from the sea at Grado (where I went during the afternoon). So, at 9am I caught the bus, having had a lovely breakfast in my new-favourite cafe which is near the bus station. An hour later, I was within sight of the Basilica. The town itself is tiny, so everything is an easy walk, and easy to find because it's all right by the main road! 

First stop: the Basilica. The mosaics depict various episodes inspired by biblical stories, e.g. Jonah and the Whale, as well as Roman imagery. You can pick up a leaflet which guides you along the platform, pointing out the most interesting things. Below you can see some of the fishing scenes, and a fight between a tortoise and a cock. 

Anyway, Grado is lovely because it also has a beautiful little historic centre. It's made up of little alleys and squares just like Venice and I enjoyed visiting the main sites there too.

  

All in all, a lovely day out! Back to work tomorrow..! No Wednesday off next week unfortunately, although I'm not starting until 6pm on Monday! New student on Tuesday though... it's all change! Lots of one-to-one students have finished recently, as well as all the groups. Only got 5 groups at the moment (3 of which are teens...).

Apparently February arrived while I wasn't looking? Gosh, today's the 6th (just - it's 1am - what am I doing up?), which means tomorrow is the 7th, and we all know what that means 

The answer to the "what am I doing up?" question is that this week I have been doing most of my work at this time of night. I think perhaps a slack period in my timetable (compared to some of the reallllllly busy periods we've had, this week has been quite quiet for me with lots of students and groups having just finished) has meant I'm not really tired enough in the evening, so instead of sleeping I've been getting things done. It's report writing week for the teens which I have been slightly obsessing over. Thankfully they are finished now and I can get on with middle-of-the-night grammar sessions instead. That's both "Grammar for ELT teachers" and "Grammatica avanzata della lingua italiana". Oh I DO lead an exciting life don't I! Sad. 

Anyway, the order of tonight isn't grammar but applications. Yes, since my last post, I have made some of those decisions I was talking about. 

1. I think my first choice will be to return to the UK this summer. It'll be really good to get some experience working with multilingual groups, and more experience of teaching teenagers in a different setting. I'm already excited about the prospect and really hope I get one of these jobs! I've only applied for two so far but I have suddenly found several that I'm really keen on so I'm churning out applications. Tailoring them all to the specific requirements is so time consuming!
They're all in different locations (some near home/family, some totally random). Any of them will be good. Some of them have the problem of starting very early in July. My contract here goes until the end of June and I don't particularly want to rush immediately into the next job. Might have to though...
I am quite disappointed that most of them will prevent me from going to Taizé around the time I wanted to (first week of August), but I expect I'll be able to go the first week of September instead. Might not get to use my brand new Christmas/birthday present tent though!

2.Very excitingly, I have had my mind put to rest about next year. As I said last time, I wasn't expecting to know about this for ages, but when I was checking with my boss that he was happy to give me a reference for these summer jobs, he also said (without me asking, obviously) that there would "definitely be a place" for me there next year if I wanted to come back. YAY! I was literally jumping up and down when I got that email! So so happy - I'm over the moon to know I can stay here, it's really put my mind at rest. I've been saying for ages that I just wanted to spend at least 2 consecutive years in the same place, and I'm really glad that I will now be able to do so! Just the big decision of where to live/whether to bring my car or get a car (which are slightly tied together as if I want somewhere to park, I'd have to move to somewhere which has parking space available as the school car is in the school flat's garage!).  Anyway, plenty of time to worry about that later...

I should probably go to sleep now. Last night I was out playing darts until quite late! Yup... darts. It was BRILLIANT fun! We had choir rehearsal and then afterwards I went with Francesco, Roberto and Daniela to this bar outside of Udine where they have loads of pub games. Beer + darts - brilliant! So glad I'm getting to spend more time doing social things with those guys these days.  (see, it's not ALL about grammar  )

Oh and this afternoon was spent failing to make a cake. I'm quite exhausted after all my failed culinary efforts. Don't ask for details because I don't want to talk about it!!! 
Buona notte!