Send the Kids Skiing!

There seems to be a stark contrast between parenting styles in Trieste.

On the one hand, there are the mothers who see themselves as combat soldiers in a constant struggle to defend their children against their tyrannical teachers who assign too much homework, and the schools that provide inadequately delicious food to fuel their children. They monitor their children's time, schedule them abundant play time so they can be children. They vow to never let their children ride the bus unaccompanied by an adult until at least 3rd year of Middle School and are the administrators of the parents' whatsapp group.

Then there's our group of parents from Little Sweety's first grade class. Case in point.

We get a little flyer one day about a ski class for the kids. Five saturdays from 6:30am to 6:30pm. Not much more info on the sheet than that, which is an invitation to call. So we did. And the information was the total price, and how to participate.

Simple:
1. Drop your kids off (with the skis they rent or buy ahead of time)  in a big parking lot at 6:30a.m.
2. Fetch them at the end of the day.
3. If you give them 6 euros they can eat lunch.
4. Bus costs 12 euros total for one day.

No info on what they are supposed to bring, or what to wear (I have skiied twice in my life. Not an expert).
No form to fill out (oh yeah, we'll do that next week), no emergency numbers for any Just in Case situations. No possibility to pay (hah?) before the kids go to their first lesson, our babies, without us for a whole day.

Saturday morning the kids, who are a little nervous, hop on a giant bus with Slovenian licence plates that is (hopefully) heading to a place in Italy where people ski two hours away.

And all of this seems, like, Fine, at the moment of drop off.

And, frankly, ALL DAY as I got more stuff done than I can remember in recent history on a Saturday. Time flies, in fact, and since 6-year-olds don't have phones, we don't really have any updates, so it goes even faster!

The lady on the phone said they would be back between 6:15 and 6:30p.m..

It is 6:15 on the dot and we are waiting with the other parents in the parking lot. We exchange comments like Is this normal? Who are these people again? Do we have a phone number for them? Do they have ours?

I start to wonder if the over-protective mom-squad was right. What if they don't come back. What have I done.

Then, at 6:29 the bus rolls in, the kids get off, they are happy and bursting with energy. They see a patch of ice and immediately go and try to make snow balls out of it (we live in Italy, remember) and throw them at each other. The chaperones are cool as cucumbers. They say the kids were good. They mostly listened, only a couple of them got lost, but then they found them, so, yeah, it was a good day.

But... can we pay?
Well, we are really tired now, how about next week?

Awesome. Can't wait for next Saturday!