The wet weekend...

It's Sunday night and I am sitting here in my classroom trying to get prepped for the week of school, while also waiting out the thunderstorm before walking home.  It has literally been raining with thunder and lightning for the last 4 days.  The rain comes in waves, but once it starts it rains harder than you can imagine.  The campus was crazy today filled with parents here with their children moving into the dorms.  The high school and middle school actually start school Wednesday, so today was the big move.  Luckily, the rain started later in the day.  Even though the Elementary School is part of TASIS, it is obvious that things are done very separately from the upper school.  As you can tell, we aren't even on the same academic schedule.  We decided not to venture out of the area this weekend, since none of us felt prepared for the week ahead.  However, we did manage to make it down to Lugano (the main city center), have lunch, and make a trip to the store.  I even bought some francobolli per stato uniti, or stamps to mail things to the states.  My other major accomplishment was laundry.  After spending 20 minutes getting the machine started, it only took about one hour to wash the clothes, and then 30 minutes to find places to hang all my wet clothes, since there is not a dryer in my building.  Next purchase at IKEA...a drying rack.  We do have laundry through the school, but that would require me to carry my laundry up the hill and rumor has it that things are lost often and come back more like child sizes usually.  For now I think I'll stick to clean, crispy clothes.  I have to say I do miss convenience here and I definitely miss the beach in Del Mar with all the wet weather we've had.  Everyone says it is unusual for this time of year, but I did hear last year it rain 20 days straight in May.  Can't wait for that!  I definitely won't be taking anything for granted when I am home at Christmas.  I'm looking forward to an adventure next weekend, when we head to the Valle d'Aosta to hike up to the Refugio.  Supposedly, we leave from a French town call L'Thuile.  The next weekend we're planning on staying local to do a 10k in Bellinzona, another town nearby.  After that I am heading to Firenze as quick as possible for good food and the more fast paced Italian life.  Don't worry, more pictures are coming soon!