A Day of Surprises!

We are still in the gorgeous mountain town outside Travisio and having a great time!!! We had a small change in the program today because Monica (from the GSE team from Italy and incoming Rotoract District Governor) was having a "Spring Party"...well they called it a BBQ, although it was not a BBQ that we would recognize at home! My team has decided that the Italians now believe the term BBQ means "American Party"! This spring party was back in the area of Venice (Mogliano Veneto) at an awesome antique villa named Villa Zoppolato.
Our first surprise of the day was when we found the road blocked by a bunch of people and my colleagues, the Caribinieri! As they often do in Italy, we all got out of the car and said "What's up?" Well....little did we know but our route took us into the middle of the Giro d' Italia (Tour de Italia) bicycle race! We waited a few minutes and here came the pack of bikes, screaming by!
(Lance Armstrong-eat your heart out!)





After about 20 minuted the road opened and we arrived at the Villa. The grounds were beautiful and the "padrone d' casa" was very excited to tell us all about the space which was built in the 10th century! We then met with Monica and several other Rotoractors. Our host "papa" Giulio was also with us, since he had to drive us all the way there! Diego (team leader of the Italian team) and Alesandro (District GSE Chair) were also there. We had a great lunch "al fresco" and that is when we got our second surprise...Monica asked one of the girls "So, do you want to try out your presentation on our computer?" WHAT? No one told me we were expected to do our full presentation for this event!? Well, luckily we had someone as smart as Christine as our D5150 District GSE Chair who told us "Always be prepared to do a presentation at the drop of a hat!" Jessica (bless her heart!) had the presentation on a memory stick in her purse and we decided to wing it!


Well my team did GREAT! I felt like a proud father as my team went up and from memory gave their presentations, even throwing in a few Italian phrases! I am very lucky I was given such a talented and intelligent team of young professionals! I warmed up the crowd by doing my part in Italian and they actually laughed at my jokes! (Well maybe they were just laughing at me!) I started with the one about the Italian farmer, the priest and the rabbi...Just Kidding! The crowd of 50 was very receptive to our presentations and many came up to us after and asked lots of questions and all said how well we did!

We left that meeting and arrived back home in time to change into our formal uniforms for our first "official" Rotary meeting at the Rotary Club of Tarevisio! Our host "papa" is the president of the club and he and I compared notes about our two clubs, since they are similar in size. (Nice to know that Rotarians are the same all over the world!) Here is a picture of us all decked out with our host family before the meeting!
The meeting was held in a mountain top Alpine hotel with about 20 members of the Club. The members greeted us warmly and we were seated at the head table with Presidente Giulio! When he rang the bell (yes they do that here too!) to start the meeting, he began to describe my team and how happy he was to host such wonderful people. His compliments were so effusive, that at one point I actually started to blush! I was so proud of the impression that my team had made on him!
Overall, another great day in Italy, District 2060!