Wow…this one could get long☺
First: Halloween.
This is kind of a new holiday for the Italians and I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that that is the reason they don’t go all-out for it…yet. They are slowly but surely discovering the joy of searching for that perfect and completely unique costume, consuming copious amounts of “dolci,” and hanging up scary decorations. The weekend started out kind of slow, we weren’t sure how to go about celebrating over here, it was impossible to celebrate “Madison-style” (we described how big of a festival it is in Madison and the Italians were astonished at the number of people involved), so we ended up checking out the Halloween party thrown for foreign students. I don’t know what we were thinking because everyone had costumes but us so; we jumped back on a bus, went to the nearest person’s house (Luke) and dug through all the closets for costumes. Luckily Luke’s a big soccer fan so I stole his soccer stuff and went as “Francesco Totti”…big name over here I found out. All night people were yelling “Forza Roma!” and “Tooootttttttttiii!”…or the contrary☺
The next day we bought our pumpkins (because what is Halloween without carving faces?!?!) but we didn’t even get them as far as our door! The Sicilians were pretty fascinated by the fact that we were going to carve these pumpkins so we decided to do the honors at their apartment. We made our designs and started carving…it was SO much fun!! Definitely a nice tradition from home that we could do over here! The whole time the Sicilians walked around us, watching, sometimes teasing. We asked them if they wanted to try carving but none of them wanted to. However, when we were done and when the pumpkins were all lit up, the Sicilians loved them! They were asking us to take their pictures with them, it was pretty cute☺
Second: Classes.
I didn’t have as many actual lectures this week because there were these huge demonstrations on campus (new reforms taking place that the students are happy with) and students were occupying the buildings so that classes couldn’t be held. They were crazy! They made Madison protests look pretty mild…you literally couldn’t go to class, banners were hung up everywhere (inside and outside), and they’d graffitied everything-inside and outside! Nothing violent though…just pretty interesting. I also still don’t understand half of what my prof. says…still working on that☺
Third: this last weekend.
I met up with Joe in Florence and, after going on a wild goose chase to find this church that I had to take pics of for class, we jumped on train going to the Dolomite Mountains. 4hrs by train and 45min by bus later we arrived in a semi-secluded town of Merano. Wow. I guess I keep saying that the place I’ve seen most currently is the most beautiful but, in the case of Merano, it’s true. It’s a pretty amazing city. Granted the weekend we chose was like the low point of the season (being in between the summer hiking and winter skiing) so there weren’t a lot of people there and not all the stores were open, but at the same time we got to experience the city more like locals so it was cool. I think it’s the only place so far where I could see myself living in Italy…no worries, I am coming home, the city is just THAT beautiful☺ We got up early sat. morning, set out hiking and found ourselves on like a 2mile hike to see all the castles in the area. The only problem we had with that was that the map we had wasn’t exactly to scale so we had no idea where we were most of the time. So we hiked and hiked and hiked…”borrowed” some fresh apples we found along the way (we needed the nourishment and they were SO good!)…hiked some more and finally made it to the top, to the castle. You all have to step in my shoes for a minute: my ego’s huge for having found this castle, I’m tired and hot, we turn the last corner, walk to the entrance (I can see the towers!), and read “chiuso fino ad aprile”…closed until april. ☹ dang. And then a big dog came out and barked at me (if you don’t know yet, I don’t have a huge liking for dogs) so I jumped and turned and pretty much ran back down the mountain☺ I wasn’t very brave☺ The hike was still worth it though for the fresh apples and the cute German restaurant we found on the way back down. This area is almost more German than Italian…we were greeted with “guten morgen (sp?) and buon giorno”…I almost had Joe convinced that I spoke German as well…all part of the heritage right!?!? So we got to break away from the Italian food for a bit (I can’t believe I almost complained about too much Italian food!) and try some good ol’ meat and potatoes☺ Overall the trip was great!
Fourth: language update.
I’m sure I’ll say all year that it’s coming slowly because that’s the way it always feels. Understanding gets easier a lot faster than speaking. And I still make stupid mistakes…the other day in the market I wanted and pointed to a banana and I asked for a pineapple instead…the guy just looked at me like I was a little bit crazy. And I had huge problem saying the word “aereo” for the Sicilians the other day…we chuckle at their english, I guess it's only fair that they laugh at my italian:-)
Lastly….nope that’s it for now and that’s more than enough, right?!?! Miss you all☺!
wait! all the picture links are posted on the left under links now! THAT'S ALL!