Streetsoccer – SKILLS THAT TRAVEL WELL – Bruno, who began playing organized soccer in Miami at age 5, stops the ball to consider his next move during a pick-up game in the only street of Poggio alla Lastra, an Apennine village in the Casentinese Forest.  Sports – principally il calcio – served the Mine boys well in the process of integrating into Italian life and culture.

Carnevale – NEW HOLIDAYS ARE FUN – Toby (second from left) and his classmates at the Enrico Mattei Elementary School in Acqualagna dressed up as autumnal trees for the school’s Carnevale parade during the Mine-Spendolini family’s first winter in Italy after leaving Miami. The boys, who lamented the absence of the Thanksgiving break and MLK day, eventually realized that the Italian school-year calendar compensates class-weary kids with days off unheard-of in the States.

Boys – LACING UP – Tobias, Joe and Bruno (l to r) put on their skates on the steps of the family’s Coral Gables, Florida home a few months before the big move to Europe. Though they were happy and well-adjusted American kids in Miami, the idea of such a sea-change never intimidated them, what with having learned Italian from Mom and having enjoyed summers in Acqualagna and Fano with La Nonna Elvira, gli zii and their cousins Veronica and Elisa.