Buongiorno questo weekend

It has been a week since I updated and this week was long. Luckily Italian 1 is over, we took our test on Friday and I am excited to start our new classes. This weekend (yes Italians use the word weekend) was a lot of fun. Saturday the group helped out with UNICEF where we have been volunteering.
 

This weekend was a festival in Verona called "Tocati" in Veneto dialect it literally means "tag you're it." Tocati is a games festival. Games from northern italian history are showcased in booths and performances. Additionally, another country was invited and this year it was Switzerland. While volunteering with UNICEF our main job was to blow up balloons and hand them out to children. My favorite part of this was hearing parents saying "cosa dice" (what do you say) and the children going "grazie" so cute! Lunch was also very exciting. In the U.S. if you are working at some sort of festival etc. and receive a lunch voucher you assume you get a sandwich or burger chips and a pop, well that is not how they do it in Italy. We waited in line, but got an amazing hot meal on actual plates which included pasta with a choice of two types of sauces, veal, potatoes, other veggies, caprese salad, a choice of red or white wine and of course fizzy water (yay!). After volunteering we got to explore a bit. (see menu below) The festival was definitely geared toward children but it was cool to see.

After a relaxing night Karissa and I set out for Milan. The major goal was to find her a coat-fail, sad :(  ,but also to just see the city and get a general idea. Milan was very weird to me. It felt odd to see the Duomo (gorgeous, see picture below) but then a second later be riding the subway and feel like I was in a large city (which I was) There were a bunch of stages set up for fashion shows which was really cool. The shopping was also a lot of fun. We ended going to a lot stores that are in Verona, but they are much bigger in Milan. I ended up with a pair of jeans and a black high-waisted skirt, both practical but good items never the less. My new obsession as a result of this trip is the store "Mango" which is based out of Barcelona but apparently also has locations in the U.S.- need to find that soon.  We ended up leaving Milan earlier than expected just because we were exhausted but overall a great experience.

Today we start our normal course schedule (aka today only Italian conversation class from 4-6). I am excited to start photography and art history as well this week. Major goal of this week, not spend money, we'll see how that goes. In case you were wondering, the month of October is insane but amazing here is my schedule of weekend travels as of now:

Oct. 2 Venice with Claudio and the group
Oct. 3 Cologna and Motagna with Claudio and the Group

Oct. 8-11 Brussels to see my cousins

Oct.  15-17 Asiago (yes like the cheese) with Claudio and the Group

Oct.  21-24 Prague!

Oct. 29-Nov 2 Travel with Mom and Dad to Florence, Venice and then back here.

Can't wait!

Buongiorno Yom Kippur

just to get started, if you read my past post about me being scared by a statue/man on the main piazza, he was there again and I got a picture. Wouldn't you have been freaked out too? 

Hi!
(warning, beyond the picture above, most people will probably find this post really boring, but this is one of my dorky history/Jewish moments)

So this weekend was very interesting. The rest of the group left for gorgeous Lake Como and I remained in Verona (really not bad) Friday started Yom Kippur (Jewish Holiday) so I decided to stay and attend the synagogue here. I had a good experience on Rosh Hashanah, although difficult so I knew generally what to expect, but it was still hard both being away from home and not having any of the other girls here. It was nice though to be able to again return to something familiar, as the the prayers and tunes for the most part were exactly the same as at home. I saw some of the same people also that I had met on Rosh Hashanah and it was nice that they remembered me. The whole point of Yom Kippur is that you are supposed to remove yourself from your daily life and really reflect on things that you have done in the past year that you are not proud of and try to make amends as well as look into the future. I must admit that I had a lot of difficulty doing this ( for example last year computer science test, day after Yom Kippur couldn't think about anything else) Here was cool because I was actually very removed from all of the people and things that are "normal" to me, this really allowed me to have a good amount of reflection on my life and where I am headed and I was really happy about that.

 Overall, there were only two things that were different traditions here that I found really interesting. One is that multiple times throughout the services on Saturday, at the conclusion of different services, everyone got up and got in groups based on their families (we were sitting separate men and women) the father then took his Tallit (prayer shawl) and wrapped it around the entire family. The rabbi then said a prayer. A really nice man who I had been speaking to came over and put his Tallit over me, since his family wasn't there and he knew I was far away from home. He later invited me over for dinner and to babysit his four kids (even though I know zero Italian) .

The other interesting tradition I noticed was about the Torah, but first let me sidetrack. Often in services (from my perspective) there is supposed to be this build up before the ark (the cabinet which holds the Torah) is opened and then the Torah's are there and it should be almost glowing (I don't know where I got this idea from) anyways, at home when the ark opens its cool and all, and the decorations are nice, but I never had a "moment," here I had a moment. I had pondered how many Torahs were in this ark. It is a really small but old community (by the way Torahs are really expensive and there are a lot of rules about how a Torah must be written and conserved for it to remain Kosher) The ark opened and there were 6 Torahs in there! If that wasn't exciting enough (to me only probably) but the decorations on the Torahs were really old looking (I am guessing a couple hundred years) that is when it really hit me where I was and how cool this experience was to actually witness the survival of Judaism and tradition for hundreds of years. Okay I am probably getting sappy/ to excited about history for most people but moral of the story I really enjoyed it.  Okay, back to the other tradition, the Torah had the metal decorations as well as the typical cloth cover, but it was also bound together by a cloth almost like a scarf that was wrapped around it. After the Torah had been unwrapped a woman took the cloth that had wrapped the Torah. She began to roll it, and passed it around so all the women got a chance to help roll it up. I really liked this because although women are not allowed to read Torah or be up on the bimah here, they still got to be connected in a way to the Torah.

Anyways, because of the extremely extensive description of yesterday a quick  summary of today: lots of walking around, people watching, almost falling asleep from one glass of wine, reading and general relaxing. Oh and I totally broke the fast last night with nutella gelato, delicious but all I wanted was lox and bagels and my mom's kugel. To my dismay my italian roomate informed me that they do in fact make bagels here, and sell them in every grocery store, missed that.

Oh, and only one more week of Italian immersion...thank goodness

Ciao!

Buongiorno molto...

Okay, it has been a few days and a ton has happened. Saturday we went as a group to Lake Garda, one of the three main lakes in Northern Italy and one of the largest in Europe. We started the day on top of Monte Baldo, which is a mountain right off of the lake. The mountains are a part of the pre-alps, a mountain range older than the alps near the base of them. The view was gorgeous (unfortunately deleted all my pics that story to come later but I stole some from other people)

We were instructed to take the cable car down and then we could walk around the town. Unfortunately, only part of the group got the message that there were two cable cars, one that went a third of the way down, and another that went all the way. We took the one only a third of the way. Thinking we only had a short walk, we beginning walking down a path. After about an hour of walking at a very steep downhill, we reached a dead end and realized we were lost. Our director did not answer his phone so we had no idea what we had done. Eventually, we came across a hotel that gave us directions, we then walked for another hour or so until we finally reached the town. Along the way, we met a nice German couple who was also lost so we walked together. All in all, 3 hours of walking (worked off some gelato) and we got to sit by the lake for a total of 15 minutes. That night we did have a delicious dinner though we went to a restaurant that you pay 30 euro a person and get about 10 courses of fish/seafood. The things I did eat were delicious, but could not handle some of it.

  
The next day we went to Asolo and Bassano Asolo was a really cute city that is famous for its antique fair. I didn't buy anything, but had fun walking around. Bassano is actually called Bassano dal Grappa and they are famous for making grappa. Grappa is a type of brandy made from the leftovers from wine. We visited a factory and tried some (my throat burned for an hour afterwards) grappa is served in shot glasses but you are supposed to sip it... Bassano is also famous for its wooden bridge which was designed by Andrea Palladio, a famous architect from the 16th century.
   Finally, at night we went to Marostica, which is a small town in the mountains near Bassano. We went to Marostica to attend a live chess game, which is a tradition there and only happens one weekend every two years.  Marostica started when two guys wanted the lord's daughter and instead of dueling (to death) the lord said they needed to play a chess game. The production involved hundreds of people and part of the tradition was showcasing Marostica's goods, art etc. The highlight was watching the joker climb into the stands in front of a row of nuns and be really goofy. The worst part was when I attempted to change the settings on my camera and erased my entire memory card. Luckily I only lost pictures from that weekend but it was still a bummer.

After the long weekend it was back to Italian tutto al giorno (my grammar is probably not right) I am having the realization that I am not horrible at learning languages, probably because I am used to remembering a lot of details with history, although putting it all together and actually speaking to real Italians is another story. I can't say I'll be upset when our 4-6 hours of Italian a day immersion class will be over in a week and a half, although I really do like our teacher Giorgia, even though she scares me sometimes. (imagine tiny blond women, orange rimmed glasses, intimidating face...the worst when you speak Spanish) Today we started our painting class which was really exciting. We are learning to paint frescos which are paintings with a sort of plaster type mixture to create texture, originally used for things such as the Sistine Chapel. (ours are smaller) I know I will have to learn technique, but I am a little bummed that we are copying famous paintings and not creating our own, but hopefully later in the semester we will get a chance to do so.

I can't say I am looking forward to Yom Kippur this weekend, all the other girls are going to Lake Como and I'll be in Verona on my own, but I think it may be nice to get some time alone. Until more adventures happen,
Ciao!

Buongiorno wandering

Okay, I realize that I am updating for the third day in a row but I figure, while I am motivated whatever. Because I have "all this time to update" it may seem that I am doing nothing, but that is false. First of all, I realized that I left out a very important fashion tip in my last entry. It is important that if you can find a graphic tee with a large print of an American cartoon character or really corny slogan (aka what 12 year olds buy at Kohls) then you should bring it here, they charge 3 times the price and everyone from children (who should be wearing it) to moms wear them and they are "cool." 

Anyways today was probably my most successful wandering. in Verona to date. I started with looking for a paint store because I had to but brushes for my painting class (starts next week so excited!) I came across a small shop where a nice old man helped me, I have to say I much prefer this to Michaels it is so nice that everything is locally owned etc. I decided to try to walk a different path than normal. I came across a Church that I have walked past and decided to go in. I paid 4 euro and now I can go to 4 different churches which is a really good deal. The church was really cool, but kind of made me a little uncomfortable. I felt bad gawking at everything while people were lighting candles and praying. Despite this the church was really cool. Much of it has been restored, and every time they work on it, they peel back more and more layers of art that has been there. The church was built around the year 950 but there is art in there beginning then through the 1800s. It was cool seeing all of the different pieces side by side and all of the detail that went into each part of the church.  

  After taking the time to look at really old art literally 10 feet away from the church I came across a modern art gallery (I love all of the culture and art here!!!) It was really cool to see the stark differences between the art but I really loved the stuff I saw ( I got a free book yay!) After this I continued to wander around and finally came across a spot that I had heard was awesome (shout out to Marykate thanks for the advice!) I crossed the riverclimbed up about a hundred steps. To my right was the archeological museum so from where I was walking I could see Roman ruins. After going around many curves and up the stairs I reached a grassy area. From here you can see the entire city including the river and it was absolutely gorgeous. Here are two examples (above and below)

I cannot wait to go back there. As for tonight, there is a flags festival/competition  ( like in a marching band I think)  with teams from all over Italy so that should be cool and tomorrow we are going to Lake Gard, one of the three major lakes in Northern Italy and supposedly very beautiful. 

Ciao!

Leah

Buongiorno Questa Shanah (Hebitalian anyone?)

Okay, I do realize that I am writing another post  within an hour of the last one, but I am feeling especially motivated in the moment so I am going to take advantage of it. Today was a pretty typical day. Italian from 9:30-1. I made a delicious omelette for lunch (aged cheese is the key no spices were necessary!) then I "facho a passigieta" - okay I don’t know past tense but that means to go for a stroll, which is exactly what I did! I still cannot get enough of the beauty of this city just from walking around.  Then it was time for Rosh Hashanah. I was really nervous because I am far away from home and know no one in the Jewish community here. I have been in contact by email with one woman who invited me to services and two a Rosh Hashanah seder tonight. I went, the entire service I felt really awkward (and it wasn't just the super old weird wooden seats made for people with a half a tush, I guess that's Italia for you) I was sitting by myself and at the end of the service awkwardly standing while people were wishing each other a Shanah Tovah. I have to say it was nice to hear familiar words (aka Hebrew and not Italian) I liked that the cantor sang in the exact same tune that I hear at B'nai Tikvah and that I was able to follow along even though they ran out of Maksors.  Luckily after standing around awhile a nice man came up to me and asked if I was alone and introduced  himself. When I told him I was by myself he immediately called over two boys who ended being high school students. They were really nice, knew English and I sat with them at dinner. I have to say kids here seem a lot more mature, at least from this impression. We talked throughout the dinner which was exciting because I was able to really get a sense of the viewpoints of Italian teenagers and how they view the surroundings that I am currently in. I learned a lot about the education system as well as what people in Verona were like in comparison to other parts of Italy and Europe. I also talked to them about the Jewish community in Chicago as well as what high school is like back at home.  Overall, great experience, will be back there tomorrow for services.

On a completely separate note, I feel it my duty to share my observation on fashion trends /shopping in Verona/ Italy in general for everyone back at home

Rule #1 If your shoes are American, you are really cool

• Converse, Nike etc. are key

Rule #2 if you have skinny jeans, they might not be skinny enough…for the men

• Guys here wear tighter jeans than me!

Rule #3 you don't need to work out, if you're Italian you are just skinny

• The gym here are crap and people barely work out.. What?

Rule #4  It doesn't matter how crooked and cobblestoney the streets are you can still wear heels (yeah right for me)

Rule #5 never buy makeup here, a loreal lip gloss costs 15 euro ( almost $20!!)

Rule #6 I'll never look as cool and stylish as Italians, but they'll still talk to me in Italian so as not to offend me in the small chance that I am Italian

Rule #7 No Shopping trip is complete without gelato

Rule #8 It is totally legit for guys to have purses, in fact it's pretty much a necessity

More rules to come in the future

Ciao and Shana Tovah!

Buongiorno Soave

Monday was our first day trip, which was awesome. Despite everything being closed (Mondays in Italy) and a but if overcast skies, the trip was great. Soave is a small town just outside of Verona where Claudio our director teaches.  One thing about Claudio that you must know is that in addition to being sort of a goofy father to all of us he has BFFs everywhere. Literally everywhere we go he sees someone and then there's hugs and kisses etc. Anyways, Soave is most famous for it's white wine. The landscape is beautiful. It is very hilly and covered in wine vineyards. For example: ( just found out I can put photos on here yes!!!)

The first thing we did is stop at one of Claudio's bffs, this amazing ceramic artist. We literally walked into his studio which had gorgeous pieces.  The artist uses an Islamic technique that dates back centuries. He  cooks the pieces at least three times in the kiln and creates a chemical reaction (something with carbon) that creates a certain color then overlays it with copper or gold. He created a plate (painted) in front of us in literally 5 minutes with unbelievable detail. (by the way if you want to see this guy's art his name is Michelangelo Marchi) he sells his pieces for $500 to the thousands in galleries in New York. After watching him create a plate we got to paint on plates using squirt bottles. (really fun but we got the floor really dirty) He then sold us some of his pieces. I literally wanted to take the biggest thing I could find but practically that would not get home very easily but I chose a small bowl (he gave us a really good price) 

The next thing we did was visit the Soave castle. Although Soave is a small town there is a massive castle. We couldn't go inside because it was closed, but we walked on a path all around it. I saw my first pomegranate tree which was really exciting. The above picture is actually from the outside of the castle so we got a great view. 

After wondering around the small town a bit we met up with Claudio for "Soave Vs" all we knew about this was that it was supposed to be "good food and drinks" what we didn't realize was that it was a wine tasting/food sampling festival (yum!) We each got our own wine glass (i accidentally wrote whine first hey 203 :) ) and our own plate. We got a pamphlet with these little tabs that had different names on them. The names were for the different foods. We would give them the little paper and then get the food. Eliminating all of the ham/pork related things I still stuffed myself (it was all so good) probably my favorites were polenta with some sort of beef (almost like brisket on top), really yummy cheese and olive oil that was to die for.  There were also 40 different wine vendors, all from Soave so all white wine ( what I like) I tried only 4 because I was unbelievably full. The most ridiculous was the dessert wine. It is the most alcoholic and the sweetest, too sweet for me (weird I know) it was literally like a syrup so kind of gross. Probably the weirdest/funniest thing there was this little fountain that we thought was for decoration, until we saw people cleaning their glasses and drinking from it.  (see picture) After the long day we went home exhausted, but I can't wait for our trip with Claudio this weekend to Lake Garda! 

buongiorno ahh!

Okay I realized I left an important detail out of my last post, aka scariest moment in Verona so far. So I am walking on Via Mazzini (aka Michigan Ave of Verona) they have all these people in costumes and makeup to advertise for operas and plays but sometimes also art. I am walking past one of these, trying to figure out whether it was a person or a statue (face completely white looks ridiculous) he jumps out at me making kissing noises. I jump and scream. Everyone around starts laughing at me. I can't speak Italian so I can't explain myself and must keep walking. Moral of the story, if you think they are real, they probably are and they may try to kiss you.

update on Soave etc. coming soon!

Buongiorno bologna etc.

This Friday we took our first trip to Bologna. We had our tickets ahead of time, but the train station was still stressful because we could not figure out how to validate our tickets. The normal ticket machines weren't working but finally a woman came up to us and in english told us to go to these little yellow boxes, and now we know. Luckily we made it to the train and everything was fine. It was really cool being somewhere else for multiple reasons. 1. Bologna was a city and it was really cool to see ancient elements truly mixed with a city atmosphere. 2. there were tons of young people, Bologna has one of the oldest Universities in the world and the city definitely revolves around them 3. great shopping, a million 10 euro shoe stores, I got a really cute purse! 4. it made me really feel like Verona was my home and I was surprisingly really excited to go back and feel more relaxed. Friday night was a lot of fun. We went out to dinner and then to the street where all of the University students hang out. We met people from all over Italy and from other places in Europe. Some of the girls on the trip had a bit too much fun, and lets just say our trip ended with a vespa ride (kind of like a motorcycle) which was a lot of fun.
    The next morning, I woke up and me and another girl decided to go back early to Verona, we arrived at the train station with plenty of time, sat at the stop and the train never came. We then realized we were at the wrong stop so we had to wait another two hours. Luckily, we were pretty close to the shopping area so I got a really cute purse but it was still pretty annoying. When I got back I was able to rest, do some laundry eat and chill out which was really nice.

Today was also a long but good day. My alarm didn't go off so I woke up at 10:20 with somewhere to be at 10:30 ahh. I raced out of the apt. and arrived at 1045 which wasn't bad. Today was a Jewish arts and music festival which is really cool since the Jewish community here is really small. I went, but got kind of overwhelmed because everything was in Italian and I had no idea what was going on. I then went and found the woman I had been emailing with. She seemed a little stressed out but at least recognized who I was from the emails and confirmed that I'll be coming for Erev Rosh Hashanah this Wednesday night. I concluded that it was okay not to participate in the festival and I'll probably get most info from people who I meet at services and dinner, and hopefully someone around my age. Overall though the Synagogue was beautiful and really cool to be inside, it is definitely the oldest Synagogue I have ever been in. On the way down the stairs from the office I stopped by the room that had a bunch of cool artifacts in it. It had a megillah, so siddurim, pictures from bar mitzvahs, teffilin and other things. A man in there noticed that I was reading the Hebrew and asked me questions about all of the holidays. I am pretty sure he wasn't Jewish but he seemed very interested and said he was from the area. It was cool to be able to feel like I actually knew something since lately I have felt so clueless not knowing Italian.

The rest of the day I spent wandering but I finally went across the bridge of the river which was really cool. Across the bridge less people live and there is less business but a lot more ruins. There was a really cool looking archeological museum that I will definitely go back to when it is open. I was planning on meeting up with the other girls in my group for lunch but they wanted to go to mcdonalds so I decided to eat on my own. I sat outside on piazza bra and ordered Spaghetti con pomodoro e basilica (tomato and basil yumm!) it was good but it was huge! something I have learned about Italy is the restaurant is offended if you leave anything on the plate, all I can say is uugggh i was so full but it was really yummy! Overall today I found I made a lot of mistakes involving food/drinks:

1. I spilled my fruit cup (so yummy!) trying to take a picture of it
2. I paid for my cappuccino not at the counter but at the register
3. I didn't automatically sit down at a restaurant, I waited to be seated
4. I ate by mysellf and had to therefore finish a large plate of spaghetti on my own so I wouldn't seem rude
5. I improperly ordered my gelato and instead of a cone ended up with a coup with two spoons

that's it for now!

Buongiorno Italiano (oy veh)

Since I last updated we started class. Our first month of class is kind of like an Ulpan or an intensive language course. So far I have been doing okay. It is hard to sit through 4 hours of class straight with only a half hour break but everything is good. The biggest frustration would have to be that our teacher does not speak any english even though everyone in the class including the Swedish and Japanese students know English. Some girls on my program think that the teacher may be lying to make us speak more Italian but she has difficulty answering my questions about grammar. Usually my solution is to ask things in Spanish (it has come back to me a lot and seems so easy compared to Italian) which kind of works. Otherwise I think I am catching on pretty fast. Today we learned how to pronounce things so I feel a lot better about reading things, especially off of menus (though my family would not believe me) My favorite word so far that I have learned would have to be sandali which means sandals ( I have managed to use it multiple times)  just because it is the prime example how Italians make every word either romantic or in this case really cute.

In other good news people actually think I'm Italian when I'm on my own. It is very obvious that we are Americans with the group I am in (AKA diversity in skin and hair color) but I have the Italian look. This happened yesterday when I was shopping by myself and every store I walked into I heard a blurb of words and just gave a shrug, where they then figured out I was American, but eventually I can hopefully learn to respond a little better. What I love about the shopping here is that there is so much variety. At home you can go to Old Orchard or Woodfield etc. but they all have the same stores with slight variation. In a matter of miles there are endless stores all with different merchandise. My favorite store so far is this cute boutique on Via Roma (a major street) right off of Via Mazzini (the land of Prada, Gucci etc.) it was pretty reasonable and run by two cute Asian women who were trying to help me accessorize the dress I was trying on. It is hard not to get pulled into the ridiculous expensive stores (I now know the true meaning of clothes and purses as art) but I am using considerable restraint.

Today I am off to do some more wandering with two main goals 1) get tickets to the symphony here (apparently cheap) 2) figure out where the old Jewish Ghetto in Verona was and where the synagogue is. According to the book I was reading the ghetto is just off one of the main Piazzas, meaning I have probably passed by. I will be able to tell it's the ghetto because the buildings are much taller since so many people were crammed into such a small area.  Some other things I would like to do include finding a chocolatier that I discovered a couple nights ago while it was closed, but frankly I have no idea where I was. 

Until then Ciao! (I can say Ciao in my blog because I know you it's informal if you were wondering)

p.s. Anyone have comments? It could be about what I am doing or how I'm writing just so I know people are reading!