DINNER WITH OUR EXERCISE CLASS

For the past several months Art and I have attended exercise classes twice a week at the school gym here in San Venanzo. My class began at 6:00 and was more of an aerobic class with only women. Art’s class, immediately following mine, was a gentler class designed for those with back problems.

Both classes were taught by Teresa, a young woman who’s originally from Poland, but who now lives here with her Italian husband. Not only did our classes start promptly, Teresa always made them a lot of fun, and loved to practice her English with me….except that most of the time she was too shy to speak more than a sentence or two.

At then end of classes in May, we all agreed to meet for dinner one night and to pay for Teresa’s dinner as a way of saying “thank you”. We decided to meet at Angelino and Peppa’s restaurant, one of our favorite in the area. Angelino and Peppa run a true mom and pop place, with help from their son and others from San Venanzo.

I shot two quick videos that night….the first is just a pan of the room, and you can see that the television was on to make sure no one missed the soccer match. We had over twenty people in our group, and although the service was somewhat erratic, a good time was had by all. The second video show Giulia, standing on a table outside, reading a short thank you speech she’d written to Teresa from all of us.

I should also mention that our group represented five different nationalities: Italian, Polish, English, American and Dutch. Even San Venanzo, a small farm town in the middle of Umbria has an international flair!