All Good Things Come to an End

All in all my first camp was a bit of a nightmare. I had a class containing a child who spent the majority of his time on the desk and not sitting quietly on his chair; my final show was based on a highly complex story my kids had told about the Loch Ness Monster - to this day I'm not entirely sure where they got it from; things had got a little strained between Wickham and Lydia and the rest of us; and I still had very little idea what I was doing.

I knew that I probably wouldn't choose to do the programme again - just because it was highly stressful and only made palatable by my amazing family. I didn't want to risk having a bad camp and an equally bad family. So with this in mind, I made my peace with teaching and I taught my last class, resigned to the fact that it would be just that - my last class.

(For those that enjoy irony, you might want to read about what happens one year on...)

Therefore, with the Loch Ness Monster play still ringing in my ears, I left the school and went home with my family. Some of the other tutors were moving onto new camps the following morning, Kitty, Lydia and myself were finished (in more ways than one). We'd only signed up to a 2-week teaching contract after orientation, but we could stay in a little village (part-owned by the man who pulled the strings at the company) for another week if we wanted a little holiday.

Kitty and Lydia decided that this is where they were headed. As the fortnight had gone on, I actually got really close to Kitty, even though my first impression was that we weren't really that compatible. I too wanted to go with them, but I also wanted to spend some more time with my amazing family.

In the interests of killing two birds with one stone - watch out for the birds in the next post - I thought that if I ask for another weekend with my family, I can train over to Sanremo on the Monday and then meet up with Kitty and head on up to this mythical mountain-top village with her. That way I didn't need to lug my stuff over with everyone else and I could say a proper goodbye to my fam.

I put it to them. They were thrilled that I wanted to stay a bit longer. I, as you may remember, am more than happy to just relax. My family operated using a different philosophy and so decided that my last weekend with them should be special. (I wanted to stress to them that it had all been special - the Garda road trip, the out-of-body experience of watching X:Men Origins: Wolverine at the castle in Brescia, embarrassing myself on two wheels in front of a bella vista...) Anyway they wanted to make my last weekend extra special.

We were going into the mountains...

Out of Body Experiences

Instead of progressing chronologically, I'm going to maintain the theme of family outings. So a couple of nights in, my family, still keen to show me as much of the region as possible, took me over to Brescia to have a nosey at the castle.

It was a beautiful castle - high up on a hill looking over the city, and there was a beautiful sunset to match. My family were eager to please, as always, and wanted to get a closer look. I agreed, stressing it wouldn't be any trouble to just look round outside. It transpired that the castle was shut. At that point I'd have gone home - not that I wasn't grateful, but I was tired after camp and I really didn't want to put my family out at all.

That is not how Italian hospitality works.

On closer inspection the castle was open, but only if you were going to watch a film at the open-air cinema. So after taking a butchers round the castle grounds, taking some pictures of the sunset, I found myself sitting on a Brescian hilltop, overlooking the city, mountains in the background, watching X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

It was a true out-of-body experience. Never in my life had I ever expected to be doing that - with a family I barely knew, though they had welcomed me with very open arms into their home.

This is why I love Italy.