Field Trips on Field Trips

Yesterday we took a program field to Parma. In the morning we toured the church and some other room (okay it was called Camera di San Paolo) but let’s be serious I’ve seen approximately 346 churches now, so let’s skip to the good part. For lunch we went to an Italian culinary school and had an absolutely amazing lunch that was prepared by the students. There was a TV that had a live feed to the kitchen so that you could see everything they were doing! And the food was oh so amazing. After we got a brief tour of the school and stopped in on some of the classes but we had to wear these awesome little white outfits so we didn’t contaminate anything. It was fantastic. In the afternoon we drove to this other little town and toured a castle that has the only optic room in all of Italy, which means that this little room uses prisms to spy on the outside streets! So cool. It was a long long bus ride home, but we decided to celebrate Italian life and have our first meal in the piazza at nighttime. The piazza is full of tables and Italians and it’s just amazing and so fun. So of course it rained in the middle of our dinner and we got moved under the sidewalk but it was all good. I went hope and sort of got to bed early except Tommaso was telling me all about this krazy teacher he has as I was laying under the covers ready to fall asleep. But I had to get up early this morning because I have a field trip to Ferrara with my Italian cinema class. We have been studying Michelangelo Antonioni and there was an exhibition about this life and works because he was born in Ferrara. It was honestly amazing. First of all, our professor Guilia is so sweet and kind and fun to be around so it was awesome to spend the day with her and she was a great tour guide. It will be difficult for you to appreciate this, but we talked about Antonioni’s movie “Blow Up” in class and watched the final scene. In order to understand the rest, you must now watch this video of the ending scene (but actually do it and make sure the volume is decently loud): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9o11LTgXPtM Basically, this ending asks the question what is reality and how do we really know. So we were walking through the exhibition la di dah and Guilia tells us that there is an installment outside. So we open the door and there’s just an empty tennis court with the sounds of a ball being hit back and forth. We went wild. It was so cool. So we pretended to play tennis and it was epically awesome. After lunch we got a tour of the castle (which is also featured in some of the films that we have studied) and it featured some pretty neat prisons. My friend Amanda and I then left because we were tired and had already been to Ferrara before while the others stayed. Once back in Padova we bought a ton of junk food and I stored my a new store in town that my friend Kayt’s house dad owns because it was the store’s inauguration so the dad’s band was playing and there were snacks and stuff which was great. Now I am sitting here on a Saturday night about to do so much work it is not even funny because I can’t keep up with everything in my life so I’m behind. Such a good little student as always (are you reading Mom and Dad, but especially Dad?).