Dear All —
Last day, or so we thought.
I’d planned to send the pictures attached this morning, once the students had all left the villa. They are (photo 1) of our meeting with the city administrator, Ms. Battistina Vargiu, and the city architect, Roberto Santarelli, in the august offices of the city of Spoleto; photo 2 is of the students with said administrators, all smiles as they represent the two sister cities. Photo 3 is of a few students eating last night’s last dinner: pizza from a terrific place in town that does pizza “a porta via,” or take away. A lovely sunset on our last day.
But then.
Then the shuttle transport called at 6:57 this morning to say they wouldn’t be picking us up for our 7:00 ride to Rome. I had called Monday to reconfirm the pickup, and received a slight reprimand from the company for trying to reconfirm what had been confirmed already. But now here we were with no ride for the two hour + trip to the airport, the flight scheduled for 11:05. We scrambled to get another way to the city, came up with a couple of taxis but not enough for us all; the shuttle company, meanwhile, said we should take a bus or train, but there is no bus to Rome, and the train would arrive too late once we all walked to the train station. All of this was played out over an hour, until the executive decision—what power!—was made to scuttle the whole thing and rebook for the next day. Which we have. So now everyone is getting an extra day in Spoleto—a day that has turned out to be the most glorious thus far.
Tonight we’re barbecuing hot dogs and hamburgers outside. Trying to get that taste of home we would have had otherwise.
Wish us luck tomorrow.
Ciao —
Bret