Have you heard about the Battle of Oranges?

Tomorrow, I will have been in Ivrea for a week. Almost everyone I have spoken to has asked me "Have you heard about the Battle of Oranges?" Why yes I have you Ivrean person you. When you Google Ivrea and look at the pictures, almost all of the pictures of these battles that apparently shut the city down for a week. My understanding is that, there are 8 different teams that you can join starting at any age you want to start paying. Two teams are at one Piazza, 2 at another and 4 at the large piazza. It is a time honored tradition during Carnivale. Apparently it lasts about 3 to 4 days during Carnivale with a princess and other days of celebrations for the week. Then my kids in class asked me if we had any thing for Carnivale and I said "nope, it's pretty much an international holiday and my fellow tutor said came up with the reason because we don't have a lot of Catholics in the United States since we have the right to all kinds of religion. And too bad that February and March are hard to take time off of work because I would love to experience any sort of Carnivale celebration. Us Americans are missing out apparently.

Also the castle here has 3 towers which I thought was kind of cool. Apparently the fourth tower fell during World War II due to ammunition inside the tower exploding. But this castle is the biggest one I've seen so far. They said because Ivrea is close to the mountains, if people on their horses were going north and weren't going to make it before the winter came, they would stay in the castle until they could pass. How nice!

So it was Friday once again. And we had our final show. Only this week because I had the cool kids who did not want to act. So we made a video based on some Italian parody of Lord of the Rings. And when I say the parody is long, it is about the same length of the original Lord of the Ring movies because it is dubbed over the actual film. My kids found the clips they wanted, transcribed them, translated them and then with giant white pieces of paper, plastic bags and nature, a film was born. I have it on Youtube and can show it to you when I get back or email you the link if you can't wait. But I filmed it and edited it all on my iPad. Thank you Apple. So during the show, when the younger kids were doing their show of Grease, and the kids were singing, my class gets my attention and tells me that our video is better than the Grease show. And I said, I know, I'm good huh? And they were like yeah, you are good. I gave them my email and said if they wanted the link to email me so I could email them the link of the film since its on private now. And you know what? I had 4 add me on Facebook. Cute huh?

I also forgot to mention updates on my Chris Pine twin. He was very sweet. When I asked him to find the parody so I could see what they meant, he found it, stopped it for a second to tell me there were "bad words and sometimes we use bad words to be funny" and I laughed. Being from the US has desensitized me enough I think where I was ok. But then I thought about it and on tv here, there are very scantily clad women, I don't think language is a big issue and I look around at the ads and commercials and I don't think there children are overly sexualities like in the US. For example, at the pools here the little girls don't wear tops. And to be fair they don't need to because other than a couple of things little girls and boys look the same. However, being from the US, this culturally bothers me. However, no one around thinks anything about it. And you don't get the feeling of perverts lurking in every corner. It is just a little vibe of looking out for each other and enjoying the outing without worrying about anything.

I hope a couple at least email me to practice their English and I can practice my Italian! I may create a blog sheet of all the Italian words and phrases I have learned so I can practice. We'll see.

The elusive blackbook

Let me give you some background. So the program I work for divides the students English levels based on their year in school and proficiency (but mostly their year in school) and divides the classes by color. So the last 2 camps, I had the blue book which were the 10, 11 and 12 year olds. We have manuals that include notes and ideas for all of the books except for one: the black book. The black book is not included because they are high schoolers and during orientation they told us that very few people would work with that age group. It would be based on if you were a returner and your age, and since I am older than the average person, I had a shot.

Well, it turns out they remembered me and I am working with high schoolers. The problem is that, I was never trained and have no manual to fall back on. My fellow tutor this week is this 21 year old from Georgia named Edward. I was hoping he was a returner but he was not. So yesterday, (Sunday) we met and decided that we both would just wing it and try our best and forget the fact that we were nervous. Walking into that school today, was nerve racking. High schoolers, in school during the summer when they don't need to be there...are you joking? Despite my worry, my winning personality won them over.

I gave Edward the chance to pick if he wanted the 13, 14 and 15 year olds or the 16, 17 and 18 year olds. He chose the younger group so I got 3 girls and 9 boys to work with. At first, some only knew a few and so on. My materials for my planned icebreaker had not arrived so I just went in with the introducing myself. I also asked them some questions to get to know them. What is your favorite food, music, movie? What do you do for fun, where do you go with your friends etc? I then asked them, what do you want to be? What do you want to do when you grow up? And after the 4th, I don't know, I started to get frustrated. And then I remembered where I was. I asked them, "does no one ask you these questions?" And one of them told me "no, we don't have a lot of options, so no one asks." And I got so sad. I started to tell them about the " American Dream" and how in the United States, you can be anything you want to be. And the reason that the Italian education system is pushing the youth to speak English is to make them more viable, more apt to getting a job outside of Italy. And I said "maybe because I'm American, I think this way, but if you want to do something bad enough, you'll make it happen." And I think that was the turning point that connected us. They started asking me more questions, and I think let their guard down.

After the break, we decided to start talking about our final show. We are going to do a parody of Lord of the Rings. Apparently there is an Italian version and we are going to translate it and I am going to work on trying to film it because they are all apprehensive on acting in front of their parents. We also played charades this week with the group "Pizza Mafia Mandolino" winning today. We also kind of made a schedule for the week and decided that we will translate English songs to Italian and then interpret them so they all know what they are singing. I have a list of 16 songs so we are going to do 4 a day in groups. Tomorrow's songs will be Payphone, Party Rock Anthem, Yellow and Sweet Home Alabama. They chose the songs, all I am is the teacher. But to prep for tomorrow, I went ahead and looked at them and did some research. Payphone and Party Rock Anthem are pretty self-explanatory. But Sweet Home Alabama is good for some American history which I am excited about and Yellow by Coldplay is just depressing based on all the interpretations of it: scared to share his feelings, being devoted to them not necessarily romantically, suicide, the death of someone you love, or anorexia. Can we say depressing?

The day ended with us doing Olympics where the groups have to come up with a name, a chant and then create a flag. It took a while for them to get into it, but by the end of the day they all left with a smile and the guys that look to be "too cool for school" were the ones that were the most engaged which left me feeling good. OH and let me mention that one of them looks like Chris Pine from Star Trek the movie. He looks so much like Chris Pine, I found pictures online and showed the class, they ALL agreed and said they could be twins. The guy was like, yeah, we for sure look alike. I just want to stare at him and pretend he is Chris Pine but an Italian version. Even better maybe?

Anyway, tomorrow is my birthday. I can't believe I'll be spending it in Italy. I look forward to tomorrow. Peace and love.

What the whaaaat?

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.

Fuck Austerity

I went to Bologna yesterday and saw several graffiti saying "Fuck Austerity", however they were mostly around the university. For those off you that don't know, the University of Bologna is the oldest university in the world. For that reason, I thought that it would be small thinking that much of the community grew around it making it difficult to grow as one identity. Oh no, it was bigger than I thought and parts of it reminded me as if walking through Brooklyn. I think it was the random trees in a sea of buildings and the graffitti everywhere.

So when you look up Bologna, or talk to others about it who have been there, one of the things it is known for is their food. Don't worry, we were on it. I went with Rachel and Marlena and we were happy to lounge around for the food. First, on the train to Bologna, we ran into one of our camp directors at the first camp. Random, I probably only know a handful of Italians in Italy and we ran into one leaving town. When we arrived, she happily pointed us in the right direction as we headed south from the train station. In July, almost all the stores in the country have a sale ranging from 30-50% off. On Saturdays too, Bologna has a street market as well so we were able to mill around and shop for things as we made our way to the piazza. We arrived at the piazza to find the Neptune fountain and took our customary pictures. I didn't notice it at the time, but all the women on the fountain are fondling themselves which makes it a little uncomfortable to see.

During July, Bologna has movies in the piazza which if I was staying longer I think it would have been fun to check out. From the center, we picked random paths and started walking down one. It was our food path. We walked down a street market of vegetables, fruits, desserts and delis. Lots of pictures were taken my friends. Also, we each bought a little thing of food to eat while walking. I got a big thing of roma tomatoes. Oh, eat your heart out they were so good. We then walked into a bascillca which as you can imagine was quite beautiful. No pictures could be taken inside. But I found out why....they didn't want us to know but one of the apostles is holding a light saber. Not a joke! It is bright blue and blends in with his garments but it is a light saber. I asked several people. And there are no post cards of that particular stain glass, but there were of the others. It is a conspiracy I tell you.

We then were on a mission to find food. Bologna is known for their tortellini and bolegnse (Bologna meat) sauce. After searching for what seemed to be forever, we found a decent little place and sat down. Our waiter was happy to have tourists and I think very happy to have a Canadian. We ordered a cheese platter (yum) with a local wine and snacked on that and relaxed. We then ordered meat tortellini with a potatoe and rosemary sauce and a pasta which was very thick, in a red sauce and shrimp and split it amongst the three of us. Delicious.

After our long 2 hour lunch, we walked by the university and happily headed back to our host families after our nice relaxing day. Although Bologna is small, smaller than I expected, totally worth checking out.

"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.

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.

I'm getting married in a year!

Just getting your attention. But apparently the superstition goes that if you get hit by a champagne cork, you will be married in a year. Yes, I got it on my knee with a champagne cork (damn fine champagne too). This was of course after I got a tomato squirted out at me. Let me explain further.

Last Thursday we had a end of the camp dinner with all the tutors, the directors, the helpers and the host families. It was quite the shindig. We had the party at one of the houses of one of the host family's. There was a pool where the kids of the host families and the tutors all jumped in and splashed around although some people splashed and got splashed more than others. The food was amazing. One of the host mom's was a baker so she made like 6 different kinds of pizza, different kinds of bread, and desserts, another made a watermelon fruit mixture that was delish, another brought wine and beer, and another brought some pasta. I could not eat enough, yet ate way too much. I finally had my cantelope (which they call melon here because when I said cantelope they looked at me like I was crazy, and after using Google Translate came up with cantelope again decided to use Google images and found out its just melon) with prosciutto. Mmm mmm good. And then when it was over, towards the end of dinner but before dessert, they brought out the must beautiful bowl of tomatoes I have ever seen. I probably had 3/4s of them. They were so juicy that when you bit into it, it apparently went everywhere and luckily the first and last person to get hit was me. The end of the evening was toasted away (after of course I got hit with the champagne cork) as Italy beat Germany in the semi-finals and we were wished a good night.

Looking back, those two weeks were a great learning experience. I am thankful to the directors, my host family and most of all my fellow tutors for their humor and understanding!