Renewed Resolve

Buongiorno!
Today marks a week since our departure from Kentucky. There have been many ups and downs in the span of a week. We've had our stress levels reach epic proportions, we've done some amazing sight seeing, we found an amazing church that will be our church home while in Torino, and we've met friends from the Cincy area.

GE sends many people to Torino to work for Avio Aero. Joe currently knows a few people from Cincinnati here. One such family attends the church we attended yesterday. We went to lunch with them and then back to their house to fellowship some more. It was a great time of sharing information, telling fun anecdotes, and just having someone to share experiences.

While visiting with our new friends, I felt a peace come over me about our homeschooling decision. The mom of the family expressed much concern over the issues with the American school in Torino. I will be praying about the situation for her, but I have become much more resolved to homeschool my own children based on this. There have been some definite stressors for us regarding homeschooling. It appears our relocation specialist, online homeschool parents and the local schools all have different opinions of what is required and not required. I'm believing that the online homeschool parents actually have a better idea of what is required since they have been there/done that and have the scars to show for it. I feel like I've gone back about 20 years as far as homeschool liberties go. Honestly, it has made me extremely grateful for the laws of Kentucky governing homeschooling and HSLDA, the law organization we belonged to that provides legal support for homeschoolers. It is amazing how grateful one becomes when faced with adversity in another location about the same subject.

Unfortunately, I do not have many pictures from our last few days here. KK was our photographer and we can't find the cord to upload her pictures! It has just been that sort of day. I will give you a brief synapsis of each day, just for kicks.

Friday, we ventured out for lunch, like always. This day led us to MuUrgheria, a burger joint. We had bacon cheeseburgers and fries. KK has some good pics of our lunch. If we ever find her cord, I will share them. We then visited a local market. Not an open air market, but a small grocery. All these new experiences are fun and educational for all of us. I am convinced my children will be able to visit Europe when they are older and fit in quite easily. We didn't realize we would find a market, so we didn't bring our bags. So, we had to pay 0,05EU for each bag. Lesson learned! Our next excursion to the market would be better. We then headed back to the suite to drop off groceries. After getting everything put away, we headed back to Parco Valentino. This is the park that has Valentino Castle and lots of dogs. We were determined to find the Medieval Village. Guess what?!?! It is almost directly behind our suite! Joe and I must have been extremely tired when we drove to the suite from Milan. We thought it was over 1km away. Anyway, we walked through the village, colored some coloring pages about Pinocchio and had a drink in the cafeteria. We have not gone through the castle at the Medieval Village yet. It is a pay tour, so we were waiting to see if Joe wanted to go along with us.

Saturday, we had Joe back and no plans. So we drove to Superga, the church overlooking all of Torino and the Alps. I do have a few pictures from Superga, but the day was hazy and they did not turn out great. Here they are, regardless.

Superga - isn't it lovely?

Front entry

Altar

Nativity scene in Superga

Extremely hazy pic of Torino - you can kind of make out the Fiume Po

Can you make out the Alps? We could see them better with the naked eye.

After Superga, we headed back to the suite and the adults fell asleep. Seriously, when am I ever going to recover from this jetlag? I think the stress, food, different bed, everything is making it extremely difficult to sleep. That evening, we headed to Porta Nuova on the subway, again. This is a major hub of activity, shopping and eating. We did a little shopping since everything is on sale in early January. I almost bought a camouflage winter coat. I worried it wouldn't keep me much warmer than my current coat/jacket. After our shopping excursion, we headed to a gluten free restaurant. Turns out, gluten free is very popular in Torino. The first available seating for 6 was after 10pm! So we walked to a restaurant Joe and I enjoyed when we did our housing trip. The kids loved it! Boo loved getting gluten free pasta, they even had gluten free breads and we all enjoyed dessert. Overall, a good substitute for the other restaurant. 

Sunday dawned and we knew we wanted to try out the International Church of Torino at our first opportunity. Everyone was so welcoming and made a true effort to ensure we were aware of everything happening. It was so nice. We have been in very large churches for so long, I sort of forgot what it felt like to attend a small, quaint church. I still miss GFC, but this will be a great alternative for us while in Italy. Bonus, most people that attend are from nations all over the world. We met people from Northern Ireland, Italy, Ghana, Asia, Great Britain, Cincinnati (our friends I mentioned earlier) and beyond. The kids even enoyed their Sunday School class, tho it was primarily in Italian. I think between church and the language classes we enroll them in, they will know more Italian than Joe and I ever will. I just have to ensure they keep with it until high school age. It would be great to get a high school credit by refreshing their Italian language skills! After church, our new friends showed us the playground at the park and invited us to join them for lunch. We willingly obliged! Afterward, they invited us to come back to their house and let the kids play. It was great for all of us! We loved chatting with the adults and commiserating about similar issues we're having, the kids loved having English speaking friends. I don't think our kids wanted to leave. I don't think their kids wanted us to leave. It was a great day, all around. We returned to the hotel to find the restaurant closed on Sundays. So we headed back to the pizzeria/ristorante we ate at the first day in Torino. Boo and I got some gluten free pizza. It was good. Not gluten-full pizza good, but neither of us can handle the gluten. Is it funny that one of my first phrases in Italian has been "senza glutine" meaning gluten-free? No, I didn't think so, either.

Have a great Monday! Since I know many of my readers are in the Tri-State area, enjoy your snow day!