Say "Formaggio"!

Greetings, P2D2!

It is I, Lego Man!

Once again, Ginny and I have been vexed by our Internet connection. But we are thinking of you, and hope that you're having a great time. What are you guys working on this week? Have you been measuring anything in the classroom? Have any of you tried to measure yourselves again?

Today has been very busy; we have been in a big auditorium, looking at some beautiful drawings that Italian children did of monsters--and a gigantic machine they dreamed up that whirls people through a vortex that turns people into whatever they wish for most strongly, in their heart of hearts. (How nifty is that?) If you jumped into their imaginary machine, what are some things that you might become?

Yesterday, before we started looking at monster drawings, Ginny and I got to take a bus into the countryside to tour a cheese factory. In case you are wondering, which you probably aren't, an authentic cheese factory is nothing (repeat: nothing!) like a Chuck E. Cheese factory. It is very beautiful, but there is no ball pit.

We were in the region of Parma, which is where all very yummy (and authentic) Parmegian cheese comes from. We're going to post some of the photos so that you can see a few of the steps in the process--it takes 600 (yes, really!) litres of milk just to make one of the gigantic rounds of cheese that you'll see. There are also over 600 (the magic number) cheese factories in the Parma-Reggio region, as well as about 300 balsamic vinegar factories. Lego Man felt very small compared to the enormous stacks of cheese rounds, as you will see; can any of you guess how tall the cases that the cheese is kept upon might be? Can you guess how many unit cubes it might take to equal the height of the shelves? What about long blocks? How many P2 kids do you think it might take? Lego Man's tentative guess is "a lot".


Arrivederci for now! We miss you and hope you're having fun!

Love,

LEGO MAN (and Ginny)

ps: the last picture is of Lego Man meeting some stuffies and lovies from Scotland, who were also traveling with preschool teachers. They took photos of Lego Man, too, to show their students in Scotland.

pps: Ginny is asking me to tell you that she sat with some teachers from Turkey at dinner last night. One of you was asking about whether Italian soccer teams were doing better than Turkish teams or not; the teachers told Ginny that right now (this year) the Turkish teams are a little stronger.