So guess who was in the local Italian newspaper? Oh the answer isn't you. Yes, me Rachel, Marlena and Jaryd this giant of a man from South Africa were in the local paper with the kids. I had a photocopy and then my host mom gave me a real copy for my birthday along with a little book/beach bag. It's adorable.
I'm currently sitting on some stairs int piazza waiting for my fellow tutors relaxing and updating you. This week has been great. For the kids that stayed two weeks, I think they have gotten a lot out of it. They have totally opened up more and just trying do much harder. With the kids, as with most people it's hard for me to get to know them, so the extra week gives me that. I know I'm not the most fun, or silly but I think my strength is being the most supportive and after the first week, I think they see it and try harder. I have also learned that if they see me trying in Italian, they try harder in English and respond in English. I have a kid that has a headful of hair like a lion so I call him my lion. If I was a 10 year old girl I'd have the biggest crush on him. He is adorable. Then I have twins that look NOTHING alike. When I told the high school helpers they couldn't believe it. Different color eyes, facial features, height, everything. One reminds me of Scooter from the Muppets the other of nothing. But the first week I couldn't get a word out of them. Now they try so hard I want to hug them to death. So speaking of high school helpers, we have a bunch of high school kids that help with translating and bitch work when necessary. They are to practice their English. Most of the time they nod when we ask them to do something when they don't understand. Sometimes I want to yell at them it's ok to ask questions. Anyway, there is this 10 year old girl in my class who speaks amazing English. Better than the helpers. Her father is Engish and mother Italian. I like having her cause thn she can explain everything even to the helpers but the problem is because she knows everything she doesn't give the kids time to think. Double edged sword. So as everyone knows I like to nickname people. At camp we have this kid we call Rogue because he has a blonde patch of hair growing out of his head.
In our final show this week, we did Zombies vs. Assassins with a Sherlock Holmes wrap up. My show even got a few laughs and they even got the twist ending! It was so good, one of my better ones. I felt like a rock star after the show. All the parents wanted to come up to me and talk to me and thank me and if I was coming back I had 2 parents offer to take me in. Even the twins mom! That would be super fun I think. The more I think about it, the more I think its a good idea just to plan to come back.
My next camp is in Ivrea with high schoolers. I am a little nervous but an excited for the students to understand what I am saying most of the time. But with each city I have been in, there has been one over arching theme. Italians are super accomodating. Here are some examples. When I was in San Remo, a friend of our trainer opened his bar up as after hours as a favor and despite our directors saying 10 more minutes for 3 hours, the guy kept the bar open as long as we were having a good time. Another example is that I asked one of my host mom's where I could get a black leather jacket. She took me to a department store. And as many of my readers are suffering from the summer, Italians are too and so their leather items are not out on the shelves. But this guy took me upstairs to their stockroom and had me try on a bunch of jackets but unfortunately the one I loved and could afford was not in my size. Maybe fortunately because they are pricey. So pricey it might be worth it for me just to buy it in the states and focus on other leather goods. A third example is that another host mom bought a backpack for me after I told her that my camp bag was falling apart. Another, I used this awesome bug repellent. We think it is citronella in an oil form. It calmed my itching and no more bugs. I went to the lady who let me use it to get the name of it and she just gave me the bottle. The only problem is that I found out about this oil AFTER being eaten alive by I don't know what. In my professional housing opinion I would guess fleas because I even checked for bedbugs. Thank you Kimo! I am not as bad as I was in Ecuador but I could give my old self some bug biting competition. But I have come to the conclusion that Italians are very accomodating.
Yesterday I went to the mall. They had a Sephora. It was so random. But they also had a store that was more like a K-mart but I didn't go in but I really wanted too. I did a present for my favorite sister that was perfect (you are welcome). We had our final show as previously mentioned and then had dinner. I had carbonera which is a pasta dish, but with a rawish egg and bacon sauce. Rachel, two nights before had that and got sick, and Marlena the night before that had raw items and was also sick so I was a little weary when it was told that I would be trying it. But my host mom did cook it a little bit so it was safe to eat. The taste isn't that different but the sauce is more silky than anything I've had. It was interesting and of course good. Actually, although the food this week was simple and a lot of vegetables it was delicious as has been much of the food in Italy. After dinner, the tutors and assistants went out to get drinks as a final day of camp/my birthday celebration. I asked the assistants if they could see someone and just know they weren't Italian. Michele, the guy assistant said yes, for sure. So after our waiter left he said "he is not Italian, maybe Yugoslovian or Albanian." I looked at him and laughed and laughed thinking about Kiah calling Matt Albania. Our waiter looked completely like a Russian spy with really intense chiselled cheek bones and demeanor but we never asked to confirm. But I thought it was hilarious, so Kiah, not all Albanians look alike or look like Matt apparently.
Ok and so it is getting to the point that the pressure is on to get a phone but I don't want one. So I tried just getting an application to text internationally. Curse the whole world who makes apps. Do you know how hard that is? I can text from here to the US no problem but I can't text from Italy to another Italian number or anywhere else internationally because the world is difficult. I think I found one finally, but I am waiting for my international people to respond to see if it will work. If anyone knows anything please let me know! I need help.
6 more weeks. Gotta make the most of it.
Showing posts with label Monselice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Monselice. Show all posts
Saturday, July 14, 2012
Sunday, July 8, 2012
"Between two worlds life hovers like a star, twixt night and morn, upon the horizon's verge" ~ Lord Byron
I selected a Lord Byron quote for this blog post because I just came from walking by his house and the area that he used to live.
For more Lod Byron quotes, please look here. http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/l/lord_byron.html
I am currenly in the country. More in the country than before. As I write this, I am sitting outside as my host dad waters their gardens. I swear the flies here are ruthless and bite. Or if they don't, they leave mark on your skin letting you know they have landed there. I do not like these flies.
Yesterday I switched families but am still at the same school in Monselice. However, I am currently living in a house that isn't really in a city but is between two cities: Arqua Petrarca and Este where Lord Byron lived. My family now is a traditional husband and wife and 2.5 kids (the .5 is their dog). They are all very friendly and together we work hard to form coherent sentences so I understand what they are trying to say to me and they get what they are trying to say to me.
On my way over to my new host family, my old host family was having me listen to some music on the car ride. The music is cultural of the south and based on tradition and legend. So back in the day when the women worked in the fields, there would be huge spiders that would bite them. Because they didn't have medicine as an anecdote, they would have to dance to fast paced music to sweat the venom out. They have music that is specific to this. I forget what it is called, but will update when I have the information. Which is a solid week later. It is called Tarantella music. There are festivals dedicated to this legend.
The last week was rather successful. My kids were great and well-behaved and after Wednesday we fell into a natrual groove that as long as they tried to speak English, I would sit beside them for 20 minutes until they got it. On Friday we had our final show with my class doing Star Wars. One of my Princess Leia's couldn't make it so we had to have a last minute rewrite with me whispering the words to our stand-in but all in all a success, especially when my Darth Vadar unleashed his evil laugh that I had been working on all week with him that that was a mix between a good hearted chuckle and Santa. It was adorable. We also ended the week with a gift and each of us received little leather bracelets with a silver charm, (for lack of a better word) that is engraved with each of our names. We were very surprised to have received such a gift, especially when our work here is only half done.
I celebrated my Fourth of July in Arqua Petrarca which is a small village with less than 2,000 people residing inside. The town is named after a poet named Francesco Petrarca lived the final 4 years of his life. His tomb is in the village center. When you hear the word village and an image pops into your head of what a "village" looks like, that is what this town looked like. They told me that there had been some movies filmed there and I totally believe it. The streets are narrow and cobblestoned. The walls of the buildings are high with slight curves not built for cars. Unless you live there, cars are banned on holidays and Sundays through the area. It is like walking into the past circa the 1300s. It is quite beautiful. For the 4th, we had pizza (sorry ladies, no photos) and I had a tomato, ham and mushroom pizza. Totally hit the spot.
Then we had drinks and I ordered a strawberry flavored vodka and lemonade so I basically had a fancy strawberry lemonade. But you know what the best part of the drink was? The ice. I have never missed ice so much in my life. My mom asked me what I missed most and I had originally answered Mexican food. (Kiah and whoever else wants to come, we have a date to get some Mexican food.) But when I finished my drink and started chomping down on some ice, that was it. I missed ice. And for those of you that know my habits, you know that I don't get a lot of my drinks with ice. However, in this hot, blazing, humid country, I miss ice. I miss it keeping my drinks a little colder for longer periods of time. I miss the option of saying "no ice." I never knew I loved it until I didn't have the option for it. Abscence really does make the heart grow fonder.
On Wednesday and today, I went to Este which is a city East of Monselice. This is where Lord Byron's house was. It was a walled city much like much of this area. There is a castle at the top with a great view. The town is small and quaint but not as adorable as other towns I have visited recently. However, the museum was super cool. My host mom works at the museum so I got a personal tour. Much of the artifacts in the museum were found in the area. Some of them are 6 to 5 BC old. Many of the items there were death ceremonial items. There were tombs of all different sizes but the tombs had urns of ashes and around the ashes were the ornaments (jewelry, money, knives, etc) of the deceased that denoted how rich or not rich they were. Some of the carvings were pretty intricate. The museum had skeletons of people still in the floor as an example of excavation finds. However, because everyone else was in urns, they believe that these skeletons were murdered and their bodies dumped somewhere else. After the urns, you got into more Roman pieces. My host mom said something along the lines that all the sculptures and things that are Roman, you'll see them all over Italy so we won't waste time with them. It's kind of true. However, what we did see was that there were writings that were found and an alphabet that deciphered all of it with the writing tools. That was kind of cool, you know to see the start of a civilization, the start of the modern world right in front of you. We also got to see a Roman coin that was gold and in very good condition. Apparently there are only three of those in the world. One in Este, one in Spain and one in Naples. There was also a room of items that were found while they were excavating a church. They were like miniatures of the people that went to go worship so by looking at the little statues, you could see how rich or poor the people were. I was surprised by how many of those miniatures that they found. I didn't expect to like the museum as much as I did. I highly recommend it.
Thanks for reading! Stay tuned.
For more Lod Byron quotes, please look here. http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/l/lord_byron.html
I am currenly in the country. More in the country than before. As I write this, I am sitting outside as my host dad waters their gardens. I swear the flies here are ruthless and bite. Or if they don't, they leave mark on your skin letting you know they have landed there. I do not like these flies.
Yesterday I switched families but am still at the same school in Monselice. However, I am currently living in a house that isn't really in a city but is between two cities: Arqua Petrarca and Este where Lord Byron lived. My family now is a traditional husband and wife and 2.5 kids (the .5 is their dog). They are all very friendly and together we work hard to form coherent sentences so I understand what they are trying to say to me and they get what they are trying to say to me.
On my way over to my new host family, my old host family was having me listen to some music on the car ride. The music is cultural of the south and based on tradition and legend. So back in the day when the women worked in the fields, there would be huge spiders that would bite them. Because they didn't have medicine as an anecdote, they would have to dance to fast paced music to sweat the venom out. They have music that is specific to this. I forget what it is called, but will update when I have the information. Which is a solid week later. It is called Tarantella music. There are festivals dedicated to this legend.
The last week was rather successful. My kids were great and well-behaved and after Wednesday we fell into a natrual groove that as long as they tried to speak English, I would sit beside them for 20 minutes until they got it. On Friday we had our final show with my class doing Star Wars. One of my Princess Leia's couldn't make it so we had to have a last minute rewrite with me whispering the words to our stand-in but all in all a success, especially when my Darth Vadar unleashed his evil laugh that I had been working on all week with him that that was a mix between a good hearted chuckle and Santa. It was adorable. We also ended the week with a gift and each of us received little leather bracelets with a silver charm, (for lack of a better word) that is engraved with each of our names. We were very surprised to have received such a gift, especially when our work here is only half done.
I celebrated my Fourth of July in Arqua Petrarca which is a small village with less than 2,000 people residing inside. The town is named after a poet named Francesco Petrarca lived the final 4 years of his life. His tomb is in the village center. When you hear the word village and an image pops into your head of what a "village" looks like, that is what this town looked like. They told me that there had been some movies filmed there and I totally believe it. The streets are narrow and cobblestoned. The walls of the buildings are high with slight curves not built for cars. Unless you live there, cars are banned on holidays and Sundays through the area. It is like walking into the past circa the 1300s. It is quite beautiful. For the 4th, we had pizza (sorry ladies, no photos) and I had a tomato, ham and mushroom pizza. Totally hit the spot.
Then we had drinks and I ordered a strawberry flavored vodka and lemonade so I basically had a fancy strawberry lemonade. But you know what the best part of the drink was? The ice. I have never missed ice so much in my life. My mom asked me what I missed most and I had originally answered Mexican food. (Kiah and whoever else wants to come, we have a date to get some Mexican food.) But when I finished my drink and started chomping down on some ice, that was it. I missed ice. And for those of you that know my habits, you know that I don't get a lot of my drinks with ice. However, in this hot, blazing, humid country, I miss ice. I miss it keeping my drinks a little colder for longer periods of time. I miss the option of saying "no ice." I never knew I loved it until I didn't have the option for it. Abscence really does make the heart grow fonder.
On Wednesday and today, I went to Este which is a city East of Monselice. This is where Lord Byron's house was. It was a walled city much like much of this area. There is a castle at the top with a great view. The town is small and quaint but not as adorable as other towns I have visited recently. However, the museum was super cool. My host mom works at the museum so I got a personal tour. Much of the artifacts in the museum were found in the area. Some of them are 6 to 5 BC old. Many of the items there were death ceremonial items. There were tombs of all different sizes but the tombs had urns of ashes and around the ashes were the ornaments (jewelry, money, knives, etc) of the deceased that denoted how rich or not rich they were. Some of the carvings were pretty intricate. The museum had skeletons of people still in the floor as an example of excavation finds. However, because everyone else was in urns, they believe that these skeletons were murdered and their bodies dumped somewhere else. After the urns, you got into more Roman pieces. My host mom said something along the lines that all the sculptures and things that are Roman, you'll see them all over Italy so we won't waste time with them. It's kind of true. However, what we did see was that there were writings that were found and an alphabet that deciphered all of it with the writing tools. That was kind of cool, you know to see the start of a civilization, the start of the modern world right in front of you. We also got to see a Roman coin that was gold and in very good condition. Apparently there are only three of those in the world. One in Este, one in Spain and one in Naples. There was also a room of items that were found while they were excavating a church. They were like miniatures of the people that went to go worship so by looking at the little statues, you could see how rich or poor the people were. I was surprised by how many of those miniatures that they found. I didn't expect to like the museum as much as I did. I highly recommend it.
Thanks for reading! Stay tuned.
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
Monselice
Saturday I arrived in Monselice which is about 20 minutes South from Limena in the Padua providence and the region of Veneto where Venice is. We were greeted warmly as we always are but the directors had us choose our host families which was a bit awkward. I picked the woman with the fashion sense I most related to. We have now come to find me living with Cristina, her husband Sabrino and their daughter Maddelena who is 13.
On Saturday we walked around the town of Monselice for a little bit. It is a Medieval town like many of the towns in this area are. It has a castle and a moat surrounding the town. That night luckily was Notte Bianco which means that the stores are closed during the day because it is so hot, and open at night for people to shop and just go to town. Because everything was closed, we went back later that night. When we returned there was music about every other block and we stumbled on a Michael Jackson Italian tribute of dancing and jams. It was pretty fun. We also walked by this church that was being excavated. Apparently, many of the old churches are built on the remains of two other churches: one that was built before Christ, another built after Christ and then one built during the Middle Ages. Because of money, many of these churches aren't important enough to excavate. However, in Monselice, they found something important enough to bring excavaters around. Inside you got to see the different layers of the church throughout the time and how they were excavating it. Kind of cool. Also, inside the church, there was a random phonograph museum of recording equipment on how records were made to phonographs that still worked and playing.
After that, I went to the castle. It was kind of cool, however only few things were the originals. A family bought the property and furnished it with items from all over Europe for the time period so you got a feel of what it was like, but nothing was really Italian in the castle. But they had a lot of armored suits and weaponery which was cool and unique. The fireplaces of the rooms though were my favorite part. They reached from the floor to the ceilings which were about 20 feet high and had the most fun designs and detail I have ever seen. Weird that fireplaces would be my favorite part? I agree.
I forgot to mention that between my trips into town, I was hanging out at the house and Cristina was showing me their land. She showed me her olive trees, her fig trees, tomato vines, and cherry trees. Oh and backstory, I was complaining that I don't like cherries because I'm lazy and I hate the seeds. However, straight from a tree and in nature, totally a different taste and energy about the cherries. I also ate figs straight off a tree, and never had figs before (because they looked weird) but these were really good. I think they look different from the figs in the US too.
Also, apparently having a mom from Ecuador is cool. Once I tell people that, they always want to know more and think it is so cool. Being from the US, and knowing first, second and third generations of people, I guess I take it for granted that having mixed blood is a cool thing. Sabrino, Cristina's husband, traveled to South America about 25 years ago and one of his stops was Quito, Ecuador and we bonded over that.
My kids this week are so quiet and tame compared to my kids from last week. I have 11, 11 year olds. They are warming up which is good. The turning point was when we decided to do Star Wars for our final show (completely their idea which I supported 100%!) Because we have 2 Princess Leia's one is asleep and the other is in a dream where Darth kidnaps Princess Leia and puts Lando under a spell and Luke and Lando fight and then Darth Vader fights Han Solo and Yoda. Uh....George Lucas, I have my screenplay if you want to see it.
The only thing I don't like about this camp is that there are so many adrogyneous kids that I have made a fool of myself more times than I would like to admit calling hims hers and hers hims. I'm happy that they don't have such strict gender roles here, but it threw me off! Oh tricky, tricky gender roles.
On Saturday we walked around the town of Monselice for a little bit. It is a Medieval town like many of the towns in this area are. It has a castle and a moat surrounding the town. That night luckily was Notte Bianco which means that the stores are closed during the day because it is so hot, and open at night for people to shop and just go to town. Because everything was closed, we went back later that night. When we returned there was music about every other block and we stumbled on a Michael Jackson Italian tribute of dancing and jams. It was pretty fun. We also walked by this church that was being excavated. Apparently, many of the old churches are built on the remains of two other churches: one that was built before Christ, another built after Christ and then one built during the Middle Ages. Because of money, many of these churches aren't important enough to excavate. However, in Monselice, they found something important enough to bring excavaters around. Inside you got to see the different layers of the church throughout the time and how they were excavating it. Kind of cool. Also, inside the church, there was a random phonograph museum of recording equipment on how records were made to phonographs that still worked and playing.
After that, I went to the castle. It was kind of cool, however only few things were the originals. A family bought the property and furnished it with items from all over Europe for the time period so you got a feel of what it was like, but nothing was really Italian in the castle. But they had a lot of armored suits and weaponery which was cool and unique. The fireplaces of the rooms though were my favorite part. They reached from the floor to the ceilings which were about 20 feet high and had the most fun designs and detail I have ever seen. Weird that fireplaces would be my favorite part? I agree.
I forgot to mention that between my trips into town, I was hanging out at the house and Cristina was showing me their land. She showed me her olive trees, her fig trees, tomato vines, and cherry trees. Oh and backstory, I was complaining that I don't like cherries because I'm lazy and I hate the seeds. However, straight from a tree and in nature, totally a different taste and energy about the cherries. I also ate figs straight off a tree, and never had figs before (because they looked weird) but these were really good. I think they look different from the figs in the US too.
Also, apparently having a mom from Ecuador is cool. Once I tell people that, they always want to know more and think it is so cool. Being from the US, and knowing first, second and third generations of people, I guess I take it for granted that having mixed blood is a cool thing. Sabrino, Cristina's husband, traveled to South America about 25 years ago and one of his stops was Quito, Ecuador and we bonded over that.
My kids this week are so quiet and tame compared to my kids from last week. I have 11, 11 year olds. They are warming up which is good. The turning point was when we decided to do Star Wars for our final show (completely their idea which I supported 100%!) Because we have 2 Princess Leia's one is asleep and the other is in a dream where Darth kidnaps Princess Leia and puts Lando under a spell and Luke and Lando fight and then Darth Vader fights Han Solo and Yoda. Uh....George Lucas, I have my screenplay if you want to see it.
The only thing I don't like about this camp is that there are so many adrogyneous kids that I have made a fool of myself more times than I would like to admit calling hims hers and hers hims. I'm happy that they don't have such strict gender roles here, but it threw me off! Oh tricky, tricky gender roles.
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