"Guests of the City Council......." Carrara by gordonilla

Once again, this was a stopping point on our grand Europen exchange tour organised by Kirkcaldy College of Technology. It was quite wonderful to be visiting an Italian city for more than a few hours. As guests of the City Council, we werec well looked after and I have the vague memory that a winde bottle was never emmpty when we ate or relaxed during the visit.

A visit to Carrara is incomplete without a visit to the marble quarries. Sadly, when we visited it was very wet - the 3 staff were very eagre to see the views - the 11 students stayed in the mini bus.

During a visit to the city hall, I have two amusing memories -

1. We took gifts for official hosts, being Scots we had a wide array of tartan items and whisky related products. During this visit there was a tartan tie left over and it was left on a table - 6 Italian officials eyed it up enviously each fondled it looked around and put it down....then one man we had not seen before walked up, picked up the tie and put it one...the others looked at him in amazement and he walked off!

2. The second memory from that visit was that during the official greeting reception; the senior lecturer got slightly carried away...and during a translated discussion with the Mayor, it some how came about he said that all 11 students had taken an Italian Class, and it was 1 hour each day! At this the Mayor became excited and very animated....I should say 1 student had attended one class on one evening prior to leaving Scotland. As the mayor became more interested in the groups linguistic skills, the rub finally came.......in broken English he asked......." giva me a one word...." one of our more drunken members very quickly chirped up with "piccolo bambino"...hooray another international success for Scottish Diplomacy.