Firenze

First sleepover weekend woo! We traveled to the lovely city of Florence after our final exam on Friday to celebrate! The exam went quite well and during the oral part of my exam, my professor told me that I had improved a lot during this month and that it was apparent that I studied a lot (I didn't tell her that I counted going to the karaoke bar with my Italian friends the night before as studying, but really, it is) and that made me so happy that my progress was so noticeable. Anyway back to Florence. Ten of us crashed in this hostel (first hostel experience) and all things considered, it was totally fine. Comfy beds, little chilly, noisy at night but whatever. Friday night consisted of dinner, joking around with the waiters because unlike lots of other people in Florence we actually speak Italian so you aren't gonna mess around with us, and hitting the bars and a dance club. After ample sleep time, we started our rainy Saturday in Florence because it just seems that whenever we go to an important city it has to rain. But that does not stop us. We climbed to the top of the Duomo (all 463 steps) for this excellent view of the city. We strolled through the pig market, which actually sells lots of leather, one of Florence's most famous industries. I love the smell of leather. We also hit up the David, which although I had already seen him when I went to Florence 7 years ago, was still an incredibly breathtaking sight. We then traveled to the Palazzo Vecchio, which I had never visited, which was the home (I think - I don't pay that much attention to historical things) of the Medici family which is the famous family of Florence. Afterwards we galavanted through some markets and streets and across the Ponte Vecchio (a bridge that was the only bridge to survive a bombing during some war, possibly a world one) to track down a restaurant for dinner. We decided to stay in and chill in the hostel for the evening due to the rainy dampness and exhaustion from the day. We got up at not the crack, but the entire ass, of dawn to head to the Uffizi which is the very famous art gallery. It was nice to visit again though it's definitely easier when you have a tour guide telling you all the important things because after a while the 235 baby Jesuses, 451 Mother Marys, and 627 crucified Jesuses, well they all look the same. Then the best part of the trip occurred. I went to the Boboli Gardens, to which I had never been. My friends didn't want to pay so I went by myself and it was a spectacular experience. 1. The gardens were absolutely gorgeous. 2. The gardens were so expansive that even though it was a tourist attraction there were multiple times when there no other people in sight among the lush green vegetation. 3. It was a mix of rain, clouds, and sun, but I definitely had that epic moment when I crested the top of the stairs of the highest point of the gardens and it stopped raining and the sun came out. After about an hour, I ran into my friends Nick and Marissa and we strolled together some more. It was then time to return to Padova. I had so much fun this weekend, but at the same time it made me appreciate Padova and my home stay so much. It's really annoying when you speak Italian to the business people and they automatically speak in English back to you. I'm proud of the progress that I've made with my Italian, and I know Padova was the right choice for me.

Graduation

Italy has these most awesome graduation ceremonies. When a person graduates, their friends make them these posters with a either a story or something on it about their life (we think). These posters are then hung up in the street and your family and friends gather round. Basically, your friends and family decide your fate. For example, today one of the girls was wearing metallic purple spandex and had a bottle of wine duct taped to her hand. As she read her poem off the poster, she had to drink every time she said a certain word and her friends were throwing eggs at her the whole time. And I mean there are like middle-aged people standing there laughing along with her college friends. There was thing other guy who had to run shirtless through a tunnel of his friends down the street as they slapped his back. At the end he completely took out the girl who was trying to take a picture of it and knocked her to the ground on the stone sidewalk. It was unreal. My friend told me her boyfriend had to stand naked in December by the river after his friends got him really drunk. So I think we have a new tradition to start in the U.S. Actually it's one of the most embarrassing things I have ever seen.

Ferrara

Beautiful Saturday to hit up Ferrara, a small city about an hour from Padova. We didn't really know what we were in for, but my friend Amanda's host dad has a store there and recommended a bunch of places to us. In the morning we explored the center of the city, which includes a castle with a moat and everything. We stopped by the book table and taking Kayt's advice I found this book called "Ecologia Speigata ai Ragazzi" (Ecology Explained to Kids) so I was like this is perfect, it's my reading level, I can learn ecology vocab. Then Amanda calls my name from across the table and says "Kate I have the perfect book for you!" And was it ever. So I carried my sparkly horse book around with me the rest of the day. But I am so excited to read these two books and expand my vocabulary. I met up with Kayt later in the night and she was very proud of me :) Since it was such a warm sunny day (probably a high of 50 degrees Fahrenheit) we went to these beautiful parks in the city, played on the playground, and took an absolutely gorgeous walk. The city is known for it walls. It has the longest intact wall surrounding the city in of Italy I think. There were also paths through gorgeous countryside within the walls. We all agreed it was nice to take a break from the bustle of all the cities and just spend some good old time in nature. For dinner we went to this restaurant to try this famous dish of Ferrara which is ravoli/tortellini like pasta filled with pumpkin. It was unreal. Unfortunately the portion size was really small, but it all worked out. Had a nice little adrenaline rush speed walking back to the station so we didn't miss our train. Once back in Padova we grabbed a drink and then I met up with Kayt after everyone else left and we frequented a few other bars before going to the discoteca with some guys we met. I was falling asleep by 11:00 without a doubt, so getting in at 3 am was definitely a struggle. It was great hanging out with Kayt because a. she speaks awesome Italian and can help me when I need it and b. she's already been through this so I was able to ask her lots of questions. It was very helpful and I look forward to hanging out again!

Fair Verona

We took a field trip to Verona with the whole program and our professors. I had been to Verona once before, and remembered loving it so I was quite excited to return again. After grabbing breakfast in a cafe, we went to two churches. Now you know me and religion. The churches were beautiful, but I have no idea what they were called and couldn't tell you anything else about them. We had free time for lunch and wandered around looking for cafes and went to the ruins of the Roman Theater. Afterwards, we went to Juliet's house (of Romeo and Juliet). It's good luck to touch her right boob, no idea why so that what everyone does. And they buy a lock and lock on the gate to signify their everlasting love. It was very cool to be in the city of Romeo and Juliet the day after Il Giorno di San Valentino because they were many celebrations and decorations all over the city. Next we went to the Roman Arena, which they still use in the summer for concerts. It's in beautiful condition. It was really funny because these two boys started drawing a heart in the dirt floor of the area that took up the entire floor and we were laughing to ourselves because we thought they were never going to get the two sides even....but then they didn't close the heart and we realized that they were NOT at all drawing a heart, but a lovely penis in the floor of the arena. But I tell this story because I think the most interesting part was we were sitting at the top of the arena with our professors and they were laughing along with us! And making jokes about it which was most humorous of all. So different from the U.S. On our way out we walked through a market and I bought amazing chocolety things: strawberries with hot chocolate dribbled over them, chocolates filled with pistachio cream (amazinggg) and hot chocolate with Bailey's! Delicious way to end the day.

Surprise

This morning I walked into the office for class and to my complete surprise I found one of my friends from Bucknell! I sat next to Kayt in my Italian conversation class last spring where I was completely lost most of the time because Kayt and a few others had already studied abroad in Padova and I only had two semesters under my belt, but they have always been my inspiration because they showed me what this program could do for my Italian. And now Kayt is back in Padova! After graduation, she returned and stayed with her family for 3 months, went back to the U.S. for 3 months for Visa reasons, and is now back here again for another 3 months to try to start her own business teaching English. And she actually only lives a 5 minute walk from my house! It's so exciting to have another friend here. And a great inspiration to she what she has done. She gave me some great advice today. She said I should go to the book store and just buy a book related to animals or biology and just start reading it to build vocab so I'm very excited to do that (though I'm having so much fun reading Harry Potter in Italian, it will be a tough decision for which book wins). Today was fairly warm in the afternoon so I went on a long run to explore a new river that my mom said lots of people run along. Turns out, it's a very wide dirt bike/walking path and there were so many people there today! Though I was definitely the ONLY person in shorts and a t-shirt, so I definitely drew some attention to myself, but hey, New Englander over here. We got a few inches of snow earlier in the week so it was all melting and I was so so happy to splash in the mud as I ran.

Language Barriers

I had the most interesting conversation with my host brother last night. We were watching the news when they started talking about France passing its equality laws, and most notably the right for gay couples to adopt. Tommaso didn't believe that they should be able to adopt because he believes that a child needs a mother and a father. At first I tried arguing that children that grow up in gay households wouldn't be more likely to be gay because gay children grow up all the time in heterosexual households. But he still wasn't convinced because he believed that a dad and a mom offered different things to a child. I was trying to construct my argument around gender roles, by arguing that if society didn't subscribe to strict gender roles, then two moms could provide all the traits and characteristics of a mom and a dad. However, I ran into one HUGE problem. There is no word for gender in the Italian language. It's the same word as sex. Male/masculine are the same as well as female/feminine. So how the heck was I supposed to talk about the difference between biological attributes and social constructions if there was no word to distinguish them!? In the end, I tried to explain that a women could have social attributes that men typically do and vice versa. Tommaso did tell me that I provided a convincing argument, but he would need more studies to show that children weren't affected in they grew up with homosexual parents. Interesting side note: when Italian women get married, it is the norm for them to not change their name. The kids take the husband's last name, but are able to change their name when they are 18 so that they carry both last names. Fascinating things.

Trieste

Today we traveled by train 3 hours to the beautiful seaside city of Trieste. It was a good choice. The architecture of the city was completely different from what I had seen thus far (you could definitely see Austrian and whatever other influences) and the seaside views were pristine. It was cold and overcast today, but no reason to stop us from traveling. The buildings were just beautiful. I don't know how to describe to the architecture other than really cool to look at. There were plenty of Carnevale festivities for the little kids around the city. And looking back, we did it all. From exploring the marinas to playing on playgrounds to venturing up to the highest points of the city to see ones of it castles to sipping a cappuccino in Caffe Tommasseo where James Joyce apparently spent a lot of time writing Ulyesses to indulging in some hot chocolate from a fancy chocolate store (by the way Italian hot chocolate is literally melted chocolate, none of that powdery nonsense). Other highlights included petting a horse when two horse drawn carriages randomly came to the piazza and jamming out to this band that was playing the Beatles (no one else was dancing but I think the band appreciated our enthusiasm). It was an incredibly long day with lots of walking. I figure this weekend we easily walked 20-30 miles. We shall see if I can get out of bed tomorrow.

One the train ride home, we met Martino, who started talking to us when he inquired where we were from. Possibly the cutest, sweetest ragazzo ever. He lives in Trieste but visits his family once a week, which is where he was currently headed. He asked us to speak in English so he could practice and he was asking us all sorts of questions. Then he was excited to show us this thing for his family so we got all excited and he pulled out and says "I don't know know how to describe it in English." Well, quite frankly neither do I. It was a wooden circle/cylinder with fish hooks and wine corks and some spaghetti like straw in the middle. But we all pretended it was the coolest thing we had ever seen and that his family would love it. He asked for our contacts so he could Facebook us and when he got of the train he waved to us through the window and blew us a kiss. Best thing ever. Martino will forever have a special place in our hearts.