beainitaly

[beainitaly]

Napoli and Goodbye

Well, here we are! It is my last day here in Cosenza, and the goal has been reached, this is the final post and the blog will be up to date. At the beginning of last week I was lucky enough to go visit the city of Naples, called Napoli in Italian. I travelled there by train on Monday morning, and met a good friend at the train station. She is also an Intercultura student, originally from Romania, and has been living in a neighborhood of Napoli this year. This is the view from next to her apartment building! 

We did the exchange week in Veneto together and hung out at both of the Castellamare camps, so we knew each other pretty well. She was super welcoming and invited me to come stay at her house for a few days, offering to show me around the city! Napoli is rich in history, good food, and beautiful architecture.

I arrived in the early afternoon on Monday, and we decided to take the subway to get to her neighborhood to drop of my bag and eat some lunch. That subway car was PACKED though. Like almost unbearably. And the heat. I can’t even explain how hot it was all three days— everyone was sweat soaked, even with a breeze nothing cooled down. It was a humid heat as well, muggy and thick. Sleeping at night was nigh impossible! Anyways back to the real story here- it wasn’t the heat or the fullness of the subway that made it hard. They contributed, but the real kicker was old italian ladies. Yep. I swear, no matter where you stand or try to get out the way, an old lady is going to shove her way through you complaining “Devo Usciiiiiiireeeeee” with the strength of a small cow. I think I got a few bruises!

Anyhow, Monday afternoon we took a bus into the city. We got off at Piazza Dante (shown below) where there is a doorway to the historic part of the city in a section of the old walls. 

We did a small tour of some churches in the historic center, first visiting the Basilica di Santa Chiara, which had these breathtaking super-tall stained glass windows. 

Then we went on to Gesù Nuovo, which doesn’t even look like a church on the outside but is ridiculously, beautifully, and elaborately decorated on the inside. I loved the detail of the marble, covering every surface.

Last, we went to San Domenico Maggiore, which looks like fortress from the outside. Inside the ceiling is fantastic, and the stained glass windows caught the light in the perfect way to create colored patterns all over the inside of the church. I think we got lucky with timing in terms of the light, but it was magnificent.

From there we walked down to the waterfront, pausing in the Piazza del Plebiscito (the city’s main square) to see the replica of the pantheon San Francesco da Paola, built in the neoclassical style drawing pretty obviously from the Pantheon in Rome. 

Here is the view from the waterfront, seen as we walked the Lungomare. That mountain is vesuvius and the city beside it is Pompeii. 

Continuing along the lungomare, we went to the Castel dell’Ovo. This is the oldest fortification in Napoli, being built during the 12th century by Normans, and later used as a prison. We went inside and I got these cool views:

After seeing the castle, we returned to the city center and got the honest-to-god best gelato I’ve ever eaten. I’m so serious right now, if you go to Napoli and don’t eat this gelato it should be a crime. The place is called Il Gelato Menella, and they make their own cones on site and the gelato is at the perfect temperature (kinda drippy) and for an extra 50 euro cents you can get a great big dollop of whipped cream on top. The taste was decadent, I wanted to eat every single flavor there. Just wow. A+++

That night we returned back to my friend’s apartment for dinner and sleep, and seeing as it was truly to hot to sleep and I was at the time reading Harry Potter #3 in italian, I stayed up most of the night to finish the book (first and only book I’ve read front to back in italian!). Also as anyone who’s ready HP3 knows, once you get to the part where the golden trio visit Hagrid’s hut before the execution it’s literally inconceivable to put it down until you reach the end.

On Tuesday morning we went over to the Capodimonte palace (top of the hill), which is also known as the Bourbon Palace. Started in 1738 by Charles the II, King of the Two Sicilies, it was completed by his grandson Ferdinand II in 1840. It was the summer residence and home of the family’s art collection, in fact part of the palace was specifically constructed to house their works. It passed to the House of Savoy with the Italian unification, and later to the Dukes of Aosta. Each group that owned the building added to the collection and the complex history of the space. Today it is free for all people under 18 to visit, which was perfect because we were trying to do the budget tour of Napoli. They had some original Michelangelo drawings, Titians, Bruegels, lots of Flemish works, and many local Neapolitan painters. It was a joy to visit! 

Outside there is a large public park filled with paths good for running, biking, walking, or even horseback riding I think. From there we got this lovely view down to Napoli Centrale with the sea and just the faintest outline of Capri on the horizon!

In the afternoon we went back to the city center to see the Royal Palace (Palazzo Reale di Napoli), which was another residence of the Bourbon kings of the Two Sicilies and later occupied by Murat. It was worked on pretty much sporadically throughout its whole history, starting at its construction during the 17th century. 

They had a suite of rooms still decorated in the original style open to visit (again free for minors!!!) which was awesome. Everything was opulent, even the materials used were gorgeous, and every room had a custom wallpaper. 

One room had this cool contraption, apparently contracted as a pre-web browser system of tabs. You could put a different book on every shelf, and leave them open to a particular spot, just spinning the wheel for fast referencing.

Once we left the palace we stopped at the Galleria Umberto I (kind like a mall but super beautiful with this glass ceiling) where we went to La Sfogliatella Mary. This bakery, which is more like a hole in the wall, is a very traditional place to get the typical Napoli sweet. 

This is my sfogialtella, partially eaten, so good. 

After that we went to Il Duomo di Napoli, which is quite impressive from the outside and painted extensively within. 

Finally, we went to San Lorenzo Maggiore with these lovely windows in the back.

Back here in Cosenza, I’ve passed a busy week. It seems like every day I have planned a visit to say goodbye to a different friend! I also baked some ultimate browned butter chocolate chip cookies, using up some of the stranger ingredients I had brought to my host family’s house. 

On Wednesday I FINALLY went to see the Cosenza castle, Castello Svevo-Normano. I went with my Intercultura friend from Paraguay, and we actually ended up walking all the way there which was quite an accomplishment because it is on the top of the biggest hill that Cosenza vecchia is built upon, creating a 40 minute uphill/stairs walk. 

The castle was pretty cool, but perhaps even more delightful was the view from up there. You could see all of Cosenza, in a way I never had before. A fitting way to “salutare” the city.

Today I’ve been doing a lot of packing, getting preemptively sad about leaving Italy, and dreading the next two days of exhausting travel. However, I am super excited to see you all in the states again! It’s a strange mix of feelings, but I’m sure they will all work themselves out. It has been a lovely year, and I would like to thank all of you for reading this blog. I hope you’ve enjoyed at least some of it!

Love from Italy, Ci vediamo subito! -Bea

P.S. I’m just going to note here that, alas, despite my promise in the first post, I did not get better at limiting comma usage. :)

[beainitaly]

Campo and Summer Vacation

Hello again!

The end of my year is creeping up on me very very fast (more like sprinting at me tbh) and this blog is still not up to date! We have reached mid June, when I went to the Intercultura Campo per Partenza, basically the Leaving Camp. All of the students from Calabria and Catania gathered in Castellamare again at the same hotel, having passed about 6 months since we had last seen each other at the October Orientation Camp. It felt weird but was also useful, I think.

You could see how much everyone had changed. Not just visibly- a new haircut, growing taller, speaking Italian- but also emotionally. People seemed more responsible, more open, more involved, and more confidant than they had before. And this got me (along with all the activities provided by our lovely volunteers) thinking about how I had changed. It’s hard to notice yourself growing while it’s happening.

For me this realization that I had changed was at once interesting, empowering, and also terrifying. I had to confront the fact that when I go home in a few days, I will be a different person than the girl who left in September. Not a completely different person, but there is a substantial difference. At the camp we talked about relationships- the ones we had made here in Italy and the ones we had left behind in our countries of origin. Nobody stays the same over the course of 10 months, be it at home or overseas, but it can be hard to pick up a relationship after being apart where the people have changed in different ways.

I personally feel like over the course of this year I have become more independent and I have gotten to know myself (my thoughts, feelings, my identity) better. Intercultura tells us that returning home can sometimes be almost as hard as arriving at the beginning in a new country. I hope it won’t be, but I expect it may.

Apart from being a big introspective ball of feels, the camp was loads of fun! Everyone was excited and a little reckless in the way that a mix of sadness, nostalgia, and fear can do to people. We knew that we probably wouldn’t see each other or spend much time together again. We also each shared this kind of special bond- I could safely say that while we hadn’t lived the exact same things, if I started talking about any frustrating or beautiful thing that had happened to me, they could truly relate. This made talking very easy, and joking hilarious. It was kind of like a four day long catharsis. On the second night we had a talent show which was one of the funniest things I’ve witnessed (I played someone else’s ukulele which was made for lefties, so I played it upside-down) and it was a glorious.

When I got back from the camp, I had summer vacation. It has been pretty busy! I went to a dinner with all my classmates to say goodbye, cooked a lot of yummy desserts,

 went out and got smoothies, 

(and coffee of course) and chatted with all my friends, taking walks all over the city. We generally enjoyed not being weighed down by the threat of coming tests or homework.

One day a group of Intercultura girls who have been living in Lamezia this year came to Cosenza, bringing along a mother and a friend who were visiting from Hungary. Our crew took them for a tour of the city: down Corso Mazzini, across the river, and up into Cosenza Vecchia. 

We saw the sights in the old city (the Duomo, the Park, fountains, the Teatro) and had lunch. It was a beautiful day and a lot of fun!

I went up above the city to Rende for dinner with my parents one night- the picture is kinda crappy but Cosenza is beautiful at night with the mountains and villages behind it.

Me and my host mom

Just this past Sunday for our final Sunday outing my whole family went into Sila (the mountains) and had a delicious and huge lunch at the restaurant we went to for my first Sunday here. Afterwords we went for a walk and my brothers and I played some ping pong.

All together it has been a really nice summer so far. I put things in this post (ex. Sunday lunch) that happened this week, skipping over a trip I did during the last week of June, which shall be the next and final post! I thought they fit better here anyways.

Love and hugs <3

[beainitaly]

Roma

Hello All! Less than a week left now before I return to the states…. it seems unreal! Seeing as we have just begun July, I think it is the perfect time to talk about the trip I took at the beginning of June :)

As a quick aside- also at the beginning of June I visited the lovely seaside town of Diamante with my host family.

The big trip here was going to Rome!!!! In fact, Mom was even able to come over through lucky opportunities, and we spent four lovely days together in Italy’s capitol. I arrived on Thursday afternoon, which was actually during an italian “Ponte” which means bridge, basically when they have a day of vacation on Thursday or Friday and then they give you school off on Saturday as well. This was just a coincidence planning wise, but it meant that I didn’t actually miss much school, for which I was grateful. It’s a bit of a long journey from Cosenza: 6 to 7 hours depending on how you do it, but I relaxed and listened to some good music on the train. I met Mom at the hotel, and soon thereafter we went for a kind of walking tour with several stops (this is edited, we did too much to include it all!).

First we saw Trajan’s Column, which is next to the Altar della Patria (aka Monument Nazionale a Vittorio Emanuel II, you can see it in the background). 

From there we continued on to the Basilica Santa Maria Maggiore, the largest church dedicated to Mary in Rome. They had this awesome floor design.

Everything on the walls was gold and white and decorated, and the lighting was gorgeous. 

After that we went to the Imperial Forum, also known as Trajan’s Market, which was really interesting. I guess the best way to describe it is like a mall for ancient romans. It had three levels, and on each there was a long hallway with tons of little rooms branching off. In each one there would be a different trader or little shop set up when it was in use.

We were planning on returning near the hotel for dinner, but were so hungry that we stopped part-way there at Piazza Santa Ignazio for pizza. At the end of the night, we went to the square in front of the Pantheon and had some delicious gelato while taking in the view.

The next morning, after a wonderful breakfast at the hotel (I’m a sucker for buffets), we visited the Doria Pamphilij, a museum that houses the collection of an old roman family who still run the property today. The house was originally owned by Camilo Pamphilij, nephew of Pope Innocent X. As an aside, this nephew was given a cardinalship by the pope his uncle, which is believed to be the origin of the word nepotism. They had a lovely collection, 10/10 would recommend.

In the afternoon we went to the Galleria Borghese, located at the Villa Borghese above the center of the city. Seeing as we had already purchased timed tickets in advance for 5pm, and then at 4:30 realized that it was going to take 50 minutes to walk there, we did the classic Bianco sprint to reach our destination (we made it). This was my absolute favorite painting I saw there:

Portrait of Lady with a Unicorn by Raphael!!

They also had an astonishing number of Caravaggios and Berninis, which I had learned about in my history of art class this year, so it was a treat to see the real objects! 

After exiting the museum, we took a walk through the gardens. On a whim we saw people driving around those bike cars, and remembering certain incidents with those in our past, namely getting stuck on a highway roundabout, we decided to rent one. The bike rental guy asked me if I could drive when he was setting the bike up, and assuming that he just needed to explain the controls and that then I would hand it over to Mom, I said yes (I can, in theory, but don’t have much practice or a license). He proceeded to place me in the drivers seat and then watch after us as we left, which was a bit hilarious because it turns out the thing had a motor and whenever I started to peddle it revved up and we started going veeeery fast. It was a bit of an adventure (read: possibly life threatening and hilarious).

Walking back to the hotel we stopped at the Trevi fountain. The setting sun made everything look beautiful.

Bright and early on the third day we took a cab a ways outside the city to visit the church of San Paulo Fuori le Mora (outside the walls). It was absolutely enormous, and had mosaic portraits of every pope ever lining the upper edge of the walls. From there we walked to the Centrale Montemartini museum which was super cool. It was originally a thermoelectric  plant, producing electricity from 1913-1963, but was converted into a holding space for many archeological finds from the Capitoline Museum undergoing renovations in 1995. After the completion of the renovations in 2005, they decided to keep many of the pieces there. I loved the mix of old and new, the idea of Rome changing over time, and some of the pieces in the museum were fascinating.

After lunch we went to an exhibit called “One Day I Broke a Mirror” of Yoko Ono and Claire Tabouret at the French Academy in Villa Medici. The work was very interesting, and engaging, raising questions about different opportunities in life particularly for women. In Ono’s fluxus style, the work requires your participation to be complete. Here is Mom doing “Yes!” and me doing “Wish Tree”.

On our last day, we went to the Capitoline Museum. It is often considered the oldest museum, ever, home to countless ancient roman, medieval, and renaissance works. The nature of the museum was sprawling, with a confusing (or possibly nonexistent) path through it. While purchasing tickets at the front desk, we randomly decided to rent an iPad guide just for the fun of it, and let me tell you that it was maybe the best decision I’ve ever made. The guide had important works numbered in the order you were supposed to see them, with a little audio clip explaining some history of each one. Because it was nigh impossible to tell which way you were meant to go, we resorted to looking at the thumbnail for the next piece on the tour and then looking for it as a sort of hide and seek, warmer or colder way of finding the recommended path, which in my opinion just added to the fun. This is the classic sculpture of la lupa (mother wolf) with twins romulus and remus, who led to the founding of Rome according to legend.

This was a statue of Athena, 4th-5th century BCE, which I quite liked- can you believe how that fabric is carved!!!

At one point you got to this overlook where you could see all of the Ancient Roman ruins of the Forum

For a change of pace we ate tacos for lunch, the first time since arriving in Italy that I’ve eaten anything not Italian food or sushi. I definitely went overboard on the guac but it was soooooo good!

Because this lunch was so filling, we decided to have gelato from Giolitti for dinner instead of a proper meal. Mine was this fabulous creation with hazelnut, chocolate, and nougat flavored gelato inside with a whipped cream and chopped nut coating.

The next morning I took the train back to Cosenza, and that was also the last week of school. The time flew by! I couldn’t really believe school was over, seeing as it had been a constant here in my life in Italy. On the last day of school we had our earthquake drill (we have to do one each year, and I guess they kept putting it off) which meant all the kids had to go stand outside for like 20 minutes. In this short time period, the whole school descended into chaos. Kids were pulling water balloons and water guns out of their backpacks, others had purchased a six pack of water bottles and just started flinging them at people. There were no teams, no mercy. By the time that 20 minutes were up, everyone was bolting towards the school screaming, soaking wet. As we tried to get in the building, kids leaned out the windows from the upper floors and pelted the others with water balloons or just dumped entire buckets down. Once in the classroom again, visitors kept arriving for the rest of the day to spontaneously throw water at everyone, my class brought in some cake and cracked a bottle of spumante, and then we all went home. That afternoon with my friends they asked me if I had gone to school. I said, “yes, of course, did you?” they replied that no, they hadn’t, because they wanted to avoid the water. This tells me that the water war is a traditional and terrifying last day of school activity that nobody thought to prepare me for :D

That afternoon I went to my friend’s house for lunch. She lives in a village 10 minutes away from the city, but with a lovely view looking down towards the center.

 We baked a chocolate and nutella cake, and everything was good :)

Enjoy the beginning of July! It’s hot as hell here in Cosenza, reaching 103 a few days ago…. hopefully the next post is coming soon!

[beainitaly]

Cisternino

Hello everyone! Still on the mission of getting the blog updated fully….. we’ll see! So, we have arrived in early May. May was a strange month, at least for me. There was a LOT of school work as prep began for the final exams (the last two weeks of May and the first week of June). I did some baking projects with were pretty fun and delicious (chocolate crinkle cookies, scones)

 and I worked on trying to grow a tiny little plant starter that I had purchased in Firenze on the school trip. It went very well! Unfortunately while I was away during my next trip, to Cisternino in Puglia, it pretty much died.

The first of May here in Italy is a holiday, like Labor day, but it’s just called Primo Maggio (like we say the Fourth of July). This meant we had no school! YAY! There was a little music festival happening in a park in Rende, so I went with my Intercultura friend. The day was beautiful, even if the music was a bit uninspiring. We sat in the shade and enjoyed the breeze and the trees with popsicles and hamburgers. In the afternoon, we walked over to the mall which is also in Rende and had some fun window shopping and making fun of ridiculous shoes that we saw (have you seen the kind that are covered in those sequins that you can flip up and down??). Also, we stopped at the McDonalds in the mall and I was shocked to see that they had an espresso bar with little tiramisu and different mini desserts you could buy? It was super fancy with like real ceramic espresso cups, and sooooo not what I was used to seeing at a McDonalds.

Anyways, just a week later was actually my friend’s birthday! We had an afternoon lunch party/barbecue with this adorable cake.

Finally on the 18th of May, I departed for Cisternino! This was a trip that I organized myself to go visit Ursula, a friend of my first cousin twice-removed (I think that’s the right name!) who we found through her amazing networking skills. Ursula partially owns a Trullo (a type of traditional Puglian house) in Cisternino, Puglia, and she vacations there every year. She was kind enough to host me there for four days and show me around the nearby sights and cities! The trip was absolutely fabulous and I can’t thank her enough.

Ursula and me!

To arrive, I took a bus from Cosenza at the insane time of 4:55 AM…. let’s just say I tried to sleep on the bus but was unsuccessful….. so when I arrived in Taranto, Puglia at 8:15 I was a bit tired. I met Ursi there, and we had a quick breakfast and went straight to the Archeological Museum of Taranto. It was fascinating, combining historical information about the change in population, culture, and ruling groups in the area with an astounding number of artifacts, organized and shelved very professionally. This was actually one of my favorite things that I saw there! Here following are a few of my favorite objects from the museum.

Below: a cool mosaic design that looks like it could be modern, actually from ancient roman period of occupation

The gold work was amazing. There were a lot of these in all different designs, stunning

Little birb in mosaic

I would wear these

An owl statue

Afterwords we went on a walk through the historical center of Taranto, which is on the water as it was historical a very important port. 

We stopped at the Cathedral of Saint Cataldo with this cool (byzantine?) mosaic of a camel on the floor and some beautiful inlaid marble work in one chapel. 

From there we drove an hour to Cisternino where the trullo is. A trullo is “traditional Apulian dry stone hut with a conical roof. Trulli generally were constructed as temporary field shelters and storehouses or, as permanent dwellings by small proprietors or agricultural labourers. The golden age of trulli was the nineteenth century” according to Wikipedia. Our trull was made up of 6 or 7 conical “rooms” connected by low doorways. They also had a lovely garden, outdoor seating area, and some farming of fruit and olive trees in the field.

Above: the trullo, Below: the valley of Cisternino

That afternoon we went into the town proper of Cisternino, where the architecture looks very haphazard due to a kind of “add on” history. When a family decided they needed another room, they just built one, even if it didn’t quite fit, or it was on the second floor and jutted over. And everything is painted white. It was very quaint and pretty!

The next day we took a guided tour with a group of (I’m gonna be honest here) elderly people. It went and visited little churches carved out of the sides of valleys around the ninth century, which were a way for the order who built the church to hide and escape persecution. They were also popular sites for pilgrimages. This is the Church of Saint Nicholas in Mottola.

Details of paintings from medieval times preserved in the church:

Ceiling carved to look like wooden beams:

The mini valley (more like a ravine, it gets deeper the further in you go) in which the church was carved

We got lunch at a nearby town, and then began our drive to see the Grotti (caves). However on the way the biggest thunderstorm I have ever not been inside a building for came down. The rain was falling so fast that the water was at least 3 inches high on the streets, and over half a foot in the gutters. Cars were sliding, and then the lightning started. Then the hail came. We pulled over on a bit of a hill, trying to escape the water, but I was a bit scared tbh. Luckily it let up in about 10 minutes, and then there was a rainbow!

The Grotti are a system of caves with spectacular stalactites and stalagmites, some of them given a brilliant white color by the types of minerals in the water. Photography was forbidden, but I did get this one picture of the original, biggest cave that shows the hole that leads to the surface level. It’s hard to describe the scale, but I think it was a couple hundred feet tall at least.

On the last day, we visited the town of Alberobello in the morning. This town is a UNESCO world heritage site because it is the only town in the world made up of trulli. Trulli are normally scattered throughout farmland, but in this case they are all lined up in little streets and it’s amazing! The town is mostly a tourist trap now, but interesting none the less.

In the afternoon we took a quick stop by the beach, where the wind was insane and the windsurfers even insaner (I saw one guy jump over 30 feet in the air and do a double backflip!!) before continuing on to visit the town of Ostuni. 

Below: Ostuni. Very picturesque, and I bought a tiny little owl statue there (I saw and heard many owls during nights at the Trullo, so it felt appropriate)

The next morning, I returned home to Cosenza again by bus but at a more reasonable time!! The trip overall was fantastic, but I came home to a pile of work to do to prepare for exam season….

Above: new olive tree on piazza Bilotti in Cosenza

I had exams in every material, kind of like the ones in January but more. Physics, Math, Latin, Science, Italian, and Art History. In one of my proudest achievements to date, I took a 10 on the Art exam. Also for my science final exam, I made a presentation about the circulatory system in two hours the night before, but let’s focus on the art exam, yeah?

Best Wishes. -Bea

P.S. don’t worry my science teacher likes me and I took a 8.5 on that presentation :)

[beainitaly]

Class Trip to Firenze

Hello Again!

We’re still in backload mode today! My dream is to get everything up before I return to the USA, but we will see how it goes :) April was packed full for me, so to round out the month here’s stories and pictures from easter break, which happened when I returned from my exchange week, and then my class trip to Florence or as the Italians say, Firenze, which happened directly after that during the last week of April! It was kind of a hectic trip because we were traveling with 300 kids, the entire (participating) group of fourth year students.

But, before we get to that there were a few important things that happened between the Intercultura trip and my class trip: Easter, and the beginning of Alternanza Scuola Lavoro.

Being the home of the pope and a catholic country, and seeing as I live in the more religious region of the country, Easter was a Big Deal. For easter lunch, my mom and I handmade pasta which we formed into tortellini filled with a (also homemade) mortadella filling. 

These were then cooked in a homemade meat broth into probably one of the best soups that I have ever eaten! We also had roasted lamb, the traditional easter food here. The whole family that lives in Cosenza came over to enjoy the lunch. After lunch, we broke open and ate large chocolate eggs filled with more chocolates! My mom gifted me this blue one as an easter present :)

The days after easter (we had a whole week off from school) are called Pasquetta (Easter is Pasqua). During Pasquetta, my family went up into the countryside to a huge gathering of their friends where there was a lunch and basically hang out session for 50 people that lasted from 12pm to 6pm. There were like 6 courses, 20 bottles of spumante, and so much meat you could feed an army. This is a picture of ONE of the appetizer plates. The weather was also BEAUTIFUL.

After school started again, in the few days before my class left for the trip, I also had to start Alternanza Scuola Lavoro. What is that?, you ask. Well. Let me tell you. Alternanza, how it is known to high school kids here, is a new program initiated last year where every high school student has to do a certain amount of “internship” during their time in high school at various different places. I’ve heard of kids at the hospital, a local office building, the courthouse, the library, the museum, buuuuuuut I got assigned to the Cosenza University. Instead of doing work internship (which btw all my other friends have basically said they don’t do much at alternanza at all), we basically took a physics class, complete with writing assignments, presentations, tests etc. Which was pretty cool, but a lot of work and I had to miss a whole day of school every Thursday, throwing me behind in all my normal classes with this new extra homework to do. I ended up accruing over 50 hours…. For me the most valuable part was really finding some new friends who are super cool! I also got to see the Cosenza University which is in a beautiful location, and do some interesting experiments.

University buildings in the early morning

View from the university (above) My failed experiment (below)

Now, onto the main part of this post, the school trip! We left Cosenza in three giant buses at the lovely time of 6am, traveling with only a 1/2 hour stop for lunch until we reached Arezzo at 3pm. So. 8.5 hours on a bus. JOY. But Arezzo is super cute! We saw the market in the main square, where we got some gelato, and then went to a park for a rest. 

We also visited the main church, castle thing, and the historical house of Petrarch (bust shown below). After that we got back in the buses and continued on to our hotel, about 45 minutes outside of Firenze.

Let me just tell you that the hotel was mad. I mean, 300 kids running loose in a hotel, just imagine it. The teachers basically gave up on supervision and said as the only rule “don’t leave”. I was lucky enough to get placed in a room with two very good friends who were actually more interested in partying in the other people’s rooms all night, which meant that I basically had the room to myself as a safe haven from the chaos. Also, lets be honest, the food was a bit lacking in quality (I think the school was trying to save as much money as possible with hotel choice). No pictures because it really isn’t worth it.

The next morning, though, we got to Firenze! I don’t think I will ever get over how beautiful it is. First we visited the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella.

Then we did a kind of walking tour around, ending up at Santa Croce. In the afternoon we did some shopping! I got a cool purple notebook <3

DANTE (where my name comes from)  ;-)

Below is inside Santa Croce (outside is pictured above):

The second day we visited the Duomo (the big famous one) and had another brief walking tour of the city. After lunch we were supposed to go to the Uffizzi, but our trip hadn’t actually got tickets in advance so we spent a half hour waiting outside before our teachers just gave up and released us to wander for a while. There was a talking statue standing out front that remarked that we were the worst organized school group he had ever seen, which got a lot of our kids to start cheering “Lupi, lupin, lupi” which means wolves, which is the symbol of cosenza/ our soccer team. Y’know, pride in being disorganized. In the afternoon my friends wanted to go see a exhibition about a famous italian journalist, but it ended up being closed. This meant that in practice we just took a nice walk around a part of florence we hadn’t seen yet. 

Me and a friend at the Duomo

Details of facade

Our meet up point was going to be Rialto Bridge, but one we got there it started raining se everyone just started running to where the buses were supposed to be. Except when we got there and the buses weren’t there. No matter, 20 minutes later after everyone was good and soaked, the buses showed up and took us home.

(I got this quick snap of my favorite church in florence, San Miniato, from afar up on the hilltop through the rain as we were running to the buses)

On the long drive back we stopped at an outdoor outlet mall, which was nice but a bit rainy. I ate this lovely cupcake, made even better by the fact that it was the first (and only) cupcake I’ve had here in Italy!

Also: just to be clear, I basically didn’t got to school in April. Between the Settimana di Scambia, Easter Vacation, and this School Trip, I think I had a grand total of 3 days of school during the whole month. I had a great time, but I was pretty exhausted by the end! Hopefully next post is coming soon.

Love from Italy!

[beainitaly]

Exchange Week Pt2

Continuing from Part 1:

The next day we saw Venice!! We met bright and early in Montebelluno and took a train straight into the city. The day was magical, even though I had already visited Venice before with my family. The sight of the houses seeming to hover above the water never gets old, and neither does the rich history and gorgeous architecture! We began by visiting some churches, and then we walked into the old jewish ghetto. This is the place where jewish people lived, and still live, which has a long and important history. From here we were lucky enough to take a short gondola ride (they gave us an enormous discount because we had 15 people in total).

While walking towards San Marco for lunch, we also ran into another group of Intercultura exchange week students! They were based out of Padova, but visiting Venice on the same day as us. I even saw one girl from the USA who I hadn’t seen in months! Once arrived at Piazza San Marco we went inside the famous church, which was honestly so breathtaking I forgot to take any pictures. Its just covered floor to ceiling in mosaics, and a lot of it is real gold. I particularly liked the intricate geometric patterns of marble on the floor. We ate lunch outside, unfortunately with a little bit of rain. That didn’t stop a bit of pigeon feeding, though!

The sun came out after lunch for the perfect photo-op!

After lunch we took a long walk back to the train station, stopping for a gelato and enjoying the feeling of the city on stilts. And of course taking a selfie :)

After all these tiring days, we finally got a little bit of relaxation. In the morning we went to a local high school where we worked with classes on projects about cultural stereotypes. Afterwords, we took a nice walk through the hills where they grow grapes for Prosecco wine. We ended up at the Osteria Senza Ospite: which basically means its a lunch restuarant/place to rest that doesn’t have anyone running it or charging money. There’s some food and drinks in refrigerators and baskets in a small house, and a bunch of tables and chairs and tables outside so you can have a sort of picnic. My host family bought me a can of pringles (their idea of American picnic food) to share with the group at lunch!

When we had finished lunch we got back in the cars, of we had two, meaning it was a pretty tight fit. For pretty much the whole trip, as soon as we got in the cars all of the kids fell asleep. I guess we were tiring ourselves out doing all this amazing stuff, and our bodies just decided that during the hour long car breaks it was time for an immediate snooze. That day, we were driving out to Treviso. I loved Treviso’s kind of venetian ambiance with the canals and houses on water, but it has more of a northern feel, at least to me, and the streets are all very adorable!

I also got a gelato :) shhhhhh....

The next day we visited Padova! The coolest thing I saw there had to be the Basilica of Saint Anthony, which was covered in murals/frescos inside. There were geometric designs, patterns, depictions of people and scenes from the bible, rich colors, stained glass, and gold covering everything. It was breath taking for me- I didn’t get that many pictures but this one of the ceiling might help you to get a good idea. 

This picture is in the courtyard with a few of our group. What struck me about it was that none of us were actually Christian (We are Buddhist, two types of Muslim, and Non-religious), but we were all standing together in that beautiful church and chatting about the different traditions around religion! That is one of the great gifts of Intercultura, in my opinion. You get to meet people with all different backgrounds, and have real experiences with different cultures, values, and ideas.

You can also see in Treviso that different ideas had come through with trade, as in this large building that has some islamic style (and venetian) architecture.

 After we had lunch, we had some time free. I went off with another girl from the group to do some shopping, and we promptly forgot our path! We didn’t worry about it too much, though, until it was time for the train to leave and we had no idea how to get there! We had to run to the station, and ended up going about a half mile in the wrong direction first, making for about a mile of intermittent sprinting and fast walking to get to the platform. Luckily we did not miss the train and everything worked out for the best (I got a cool a denim jacket).

That night my host parents took me to a gelato restaurant, and I got this decadent creation, made up of chocolate, hazelnut, and coffee ice-cream with whipped cream, chocolate sauce, chopped nuts and whole hazelnuts on top! It was a dream come true (even if I had to enlist some help to finish it!).

On our final morning as a group, we went to the Montebelluna town hall and had a meeting with mayor- our picture with him made the newspaper! (And yes, one kid is holding up a soccer uniform instead of a flag) He told us a little bit about Intercultura’s history with the town and how important he thinks cultural exchange programs are, but it was mostly a sort of advertising opportunity for the chapter, I think. 

Afterwords our group of kids split off in a mad dash (we only had 1 hour) to get gifts for our group leaders. We decided we wanted to make framed photos of the whole group with little cards attached, but the place that printed photos couldn’t sell us frames, and the frame store didn’t sell little cards, so it was a bit of an adventure. 

We met back up with our group leaders to go to lunch up the side of the mountain at a nearby farm. The family who owns the farm’s son did Intercultura in the USA about 5 years ago, so they gave us a lovely free lunch and let us walk around their property. The flowers and trees were stunning in the early spring.

When I got back to my host family’s house, I started helping my mom prepare for the Intercultura party that evening. Part of the party was a potluck dinner, so we made little pigs in a blanket, a focaccia with baked tomato slices on top, and two huge apple strudels. At the party, every student had to present something from their home culture (they did not warn us about this beforehand). I kind of panicked, but in the end I decided to call the easiest contra dance for four people that I could remember: Haste to the Wedding. It was a little insane with people who really had no idea what they were doing, but it was very funny. I have a picture here of all of us and one of our group leaders after that fiasco :)

There was also a raffle going on? It was a bit of a strange party. Anyways one of the students won The Gigantic Chocolate Egg. It was bigger than a pumpkin. I’m not even joking. This was good luck, though, because after that party us kids threw another party which consisted of dancing, foosball, pingpong, and eating The Gigantic Chocolate Egg, that went all night.

My last day was really just the morning, which I spent with my host family. My mother heard that I had been studying Canova in art class, and mentioned that there was a museum down the road with many of his original clay sculptures that he would do before the marble ones. We went together with a special tour guide (my mom’s friend works there), which was a lot of fun! We stopped afterwords for these yummy meringue sandwiches which I suppose are typical of the area? Not really sure about that.

I got one good picture with my host mom and dad outside of the Canova monument/church right before we drove to the airport for me to fly home. What a trip!

Love you all, take care and eat something delicious!

[beainitaly]

Exchange Week!

I know, FINALLY! I’m going to get right into this, because it’s kinda long! This is part one of (I don't really know for sure yet).

To start off, I travelled by car from Cosenza to Lamezia airport (south) and took a plane from there to Treviso airport (north east, nearish to Venice). There I met my amazing host family, and we drove about an hour to reach their home in the small town of Cornuda. They have a daughter my age, but she is actually in California with AFS this year! We skyped with her to say hi, which was really sweet. We also took a quick detour to the top of the small mountain in the town, on top of which there is a little church. Here you can see the view from the top of the hill, including Cornuda, the regional chapter Montebelluna, and maybe if you strain your eyes the beginning of Venice! My family also informed me that I now have a southern Italian accent, which is considered a bit rough/uncultured in the north, but obviously the other southern Italians were very proud!

That weekend I got to spend hanging out with and getting to know them. We decided to go up into the dolomites for our day trip, and we stopped at Cortina, had lunch at a nearby refuggio (a mountain hut for hikers or daytrippers to sleep and eat at), walked around lake Misurina (where the summer house of the Pope used to be) and finally visited the beautiful medieval town of Belluno.

In Belluno the museum had a traveling Titian from the Hermitage, which I was thrilled to get to see! They also had a festival going on in the big main square with all kinds of local produce and crafts. Also here I saw a big map of the whole entire area, which I have labelled with the places we visited if you want to have a little visual guide.

The next day I met with the rest of the exchange week Intercultura students. We were a group of eight, plus two students who are living in Montebelluna for the whole year. We were from countries all around the globe: Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Romania, Turkey, Finland, Thailand, Malaysia, and obviously the USA. Together we hiked up a smallish local mountain called Montegrappa that had a small refuggio on top where we ate lunch. We also had a guide during the ascent who explained to us the reconstructed WW2 trenches and bunkers that the local historical society have been working on. This line of mountains was an important strategical front against Austria during that period. The history was very interesting, and the views were gorgeous.

Unfortunately, I am at this point a bit out of shape, which made the whole hiking a mountain thing pretty tiring. Also this mountain was full of lies because when we got to the place that looked like the top in the picture above you could see that it was actually a double peak, and the place that had the lunch foods (sweet sweet pasta for my legs of pain) was on the other peak. It was a lot of fun, though! Afterwords we stopped in the small town of Asolo for a gelato.

The next day our group went to Verona! I absolutely LOVED this city. We did a little tourist’s tour in the morning, visiting the Roman Arena, the balcony where Romeo and Juliet supposedly happened, and we climbed up a big bell tower to get a view out across the city. 

I do have to tell you, though, that there was an elevator in this bell tower that only held eight people. So, despite my aching legs from the day before, I tried to be a good team member and I took the stairs up. NEVER AGAIN.

Not only was it absolutely terrible to climb like 50 floors, but afterwords the place we were planning to have lunch was across the river and up on a sort of raised platform- I think it was originally a hill that has at this point been completely covered in buildings, roads, and sidewalks. It was gorgeous with a small garden around it and a nice overlook, but the STAIRS. Anyways, we also stopped by the castle post-lunch on our way out, which was super cool.

This is the core crew sitting on the castle bridge!

YAY end of part one! See you all soon :)

[beainitaly]

Pre Exchange Week

Hello All! I just got back from my exchange week in northern Italy! I had a really great time, and all of our days were packed full of activities! I figured that I should make a post of things that happened before the trip first though, just so that things don't get out of order. The two weeks before the trip were pretty packed as well, with two eighteenth birthday parties, La Fiera, and an Intercultura trip to the seaside city of Crotone.

As an aside: weather update. It’s getting hot here in Cosenza. Every day the highs can hit the mid seventies, staying mostly in the 60s in the morning and evening. For me, this means that it is sunscreen weather again. JOY! On the plus side, the city is covered in flowers, budding trees, and you don’t have to wear a coat (or at least I don’t, my classmates are still wearing puffy winter coats to walk to school because they insist its still windy and chilly).

So. La Fiera di San Giuseppe happened here in Cosenza, which is one of the biggest events of the year for our city. It lasted four days, during which the city was completely shut down thanks to the fact that the fair is set up to run more than 10 km down the main road. The city is flooded with vendors from many different countries. A lot of people come from northern African countries, crossing the Mediterranean. They all set up their stalls and tables along the road which reaches almost to Rende, the next town over. At one end, there are more the types of things that us Americans think of for fairs: rides, games, and food. The long part of the walk is mostly stuff: clothes, accessories, kitchen gadgets, furniture, you name it. 

There are even some people who sell pets, which is apparently mildly illegal. I went to walk around for a few hours with my friends one day, and had a lot of fun. It also meant we got those four days off of school, which is always a bonus.

I also got to miss school for the Intercultura trip to Crotone, which was a blast! We left on a Tuesday afternoon (after some confusion about our bus tickets with the driver, ending with him telling me that I couldn’t pay the 8 euros with a 20 because he was not a bank and me responding by paying completely in change), arriving in time to see the sun set over the port.

We got to meet up with all the other Intercultura students from Calabria, and had dinner before splitting off to separate host houses for the night.

I stayed with the president of the Crotone Intercultura chapter, a really nice elderly lady who had a huge house where literally all of the walls were covered in maps. All of them. This was in my guest room:

The next morning we all met up at a bar (Italian bar-coffee and baked goods) for breakfast, where I tried the traditional baked good from Crotone, the crane (an austrian name?) which they also call bombolini (the italicized version). They were VERY good.

Speaking of this mixing of culture, Crotone is very well situated as a port city between Sicily and Taranto, and so historically was important. It was a critical ancient Greek city as well, an much much later controlled by the Spanish. It was the Spanish who built the castle overlooking the water, which our group visited after breakfast.

Then we went for a walk around the historic center, going through the witches road

We also took a detour down to the waterfront, and got a picture of all of us in our Intercultura T-shirts.

When it reached 11AM, the sun was already roasting us to the point of being unbearable. We took refuge in a little bar for a snack and some water, and then hurried over to the commune, the main government building, where a ceremony was being held to celebrate 15 years of Intercultura working with the two big schools in Crotone (this was the reason we were there). We all had to talk in Italian about the importance of Intercultura to us while a bunch of high schoolers filmed us and took notes as a part of their mandated volunteer project. Afterwords, we got on the bus and headed home.

That next day, I attended an 18th birthday party, which was one of the craziest things I’ve seen. 18th birthdays are a really big deal in Italy, but this party went above and beyond in a way that was certainly a lot of fun. It was held at a private event space with a garden, large dining area, and dance floor. There was a DJ/host all night long, fireworks, a huge cake, a four course meal, and these terrifying pyrotechnics which made the entrance of the birthday girl very dramatic. 

I had a really lovely time, but since they held it, according to custom, on the actual day of the birthday (Thursday) and we didn’t even finish eating dinner before 11PM (and then there was the dancing and dessert) I had a rough day at school the next morning, needless to say.

The weekend before leaving I had a really nice time hanging out with my other exchange student friends, making brownies and watching Star Wars. We also went for a walk up the closest hill to get a pretty view of Cosenza, just at sunset when all the clouds were turning pink! There are so many flowers here, it is truly spring.

Hope everyone is doing well! Hugs :)

-Bea

P.S. I saw this absolutely ginormous chocolate egg in the supermarket--Its as big as me!

[beainitaly]

Hello Again!

Hi everyone! I know it’s been an exceedingly long time since I last updated this blog— I’ve been pretty busy here and expect to continue to be similarly occupied in the coming weeks. I thought I would share some pictures and a few stories from this past month or so, just to let you know what’s been going on with me.

A few Sundays ago, there was a big lunch for all the Intercultura students in our chapter and their host brothers and sisters. It was a nice chance to get to know the families of the other students, because when we go out together it is just the exchangers. For dessert our chapter organizer made this cool cross between a cheese cake and a jello, with Intercultura written across the top in strawberries!

On the topic of the other Intercultura students, we have been having a very enjoyable time together, getting dinner or lunch, taking long walks around the city, talking about our experiences, and of course drinking espressos (or cappuccinos and macchiatos if you’re a wuss like me)!

 In particular I have gotten to know the newest addition to our chapter, the other girl from Paraguay, a lot better! She showed me how to make a traditional Paraguayan tart (but with strawberry jam, because the typical jam from Paraguay uses a fruit I had never heard of before and did not exist in my local supermarket), which we did on the kitchen table of my house (no bowls), and our general ineptitude with measuring ingredients insured that laughter ensued.

I’ve also been to three birthday parties over these last few weeks! It seems like everyone is born in March here, but I’m not complaining. They are always a fun time, and an excuse to eat a lot of cake and pizza :) There was even the birthday of my Italian and Latin teacher (not included in the 3), for which my class threw a party during school with lots of food and this adorable cake.

In terms of weather, spring is truly here in my opinion. The cherry trees have blossomed, and there are little sprouts and shoots on all of the plants around town. The temperature is mild, with an often strong wind.

On March 8th, women’s day, I saw the news of the protests in the USA. Props to anyone who was able to participate, or support those who did! Here in Italy there is a tradition for men to give women mimosa flowers on this day. I was pleasantly surprised by the thoughtfulness of the boys from my Italian class who gave a bunch to me, along with the rest of the girls in the class!

A recent adventure that was truly exciting was last Sunday, when my mom took me with her to the beautiful historic theater in Cosenza Vecchia, where the opera La Cerentola was being preformed. This is basically a rendition on the Cinderella story, written by the composer of The Barber of Seville. It was three hours long, but I was thrilled to discover that when I followed along with the Italian subtitles on the screen above the stage, I understood what was going on at all times, even if I didn’t know every single word. This was a big deal for me, because I have watched operas before and spent the whole time interpreting the story from english subtitles or just from acting and gesture.

I have also continued to bake, with some successes and some failures (not pictured: burnt muffins, but don’t worry, I ate them anyways!). The prettiest has to be the pear and almond tart, but I would give the yumminess award to these little cinnamon swirl cookies!

Take care, 

All the best from Cosenza <3

[beainitaly]

A Time of Tests

Hello All! Sorry it’s been so long since I made a post- we just finished our half way point for the year and have started a new quadrimester here in Italy. That means that report cards are going out this week! 

On my walk to school

The last two weeks were filled with an exam for every class. These were written exams, some of the only ones given all year. Normally, teachers have oral tests were you stand up alone and get quizzed. These happen often, and Italian students are really good at fast talking to get all the details in! Because of this, many of my classmates like to study the material by reviewing aloud in pairs. One tries to repeat aloud all the information from memory as fast as possible while the other holds the notes and checks to make sure nothing was missed. I have only done a few oral tests, and the teachers tell me the subject before instead of it being a surprise which helps. I did take all the written exams as a normal student here would. For every core class that I participate in: Physics, Mathematics, Art, English, Latin History and Science, there was a 1-3 page test. After all the studying required for this, I was pretty tuckered out. On Sunday, I made pancakes which were the perfect inner-energy restoring food for me! I miss you, pancake griddle!

The Italian grading system is different from the american one, running from 1-10. However, this doesn’t correspond to % grading out of 100 at all. As my Italian friend described it: “6 means you’re passing the class, maybe you asked the teacher to raise your grade a bit so you wouldn’t fail. 7 means that you are doing the work, doing about enough at an acceptable level of ability. 8 is someone who is doing a great job! 9 signifies incredible luck, an insane amount of work, or you’re just a genius. 10 is god level.” I personally have never seen anyone take a 10, and the teachers have you read your grade aloud to the class after every test, so I would know. 9’s are really rare as well. As far as I can tell (I haven’t seen any rubrics), the grading is mostly up to the teacher’s discretion except for in math.

Cheating is also a serious part of exams here. Some people cheat on tests in the USA, but I would characterize that as rare, convoluted, and generally looked down upon. Here, it is a given. People lean across the isles during a test period and read each other their multiple choice sets. They take pictures of completed problems and send them to each other, and they talk pretty loudly about test answers as soon as the teacher leaves the room. The funniest one to me is the cheating on oral exams, where some kids sit in the first row and hold up sheets of paper with the main points of the argument written in large letters so the kid standing at the front getting interrogated on that information can read it.

There’s a big culture around this cheating, spreading even between different classes of kids with the same teachers. It makes me slightly uncomfortable, to be honest, but as with many of the strange (to my eye) parts of the Italian school system, the teachers seem aware of what’s going on and not very worried about it. My policy generally has been to just observe, laugh, and go about my business.

In this period of time, it has also gotten to be much nicer outside! The temperature, which the Cosenzans still call winter, ranges from about 40 to 60 degrees, and feels like spring to me! 

It rains pretty often, but there are also bright sunny days. I would say it is akin to April in New Hampshire. My friends and I, due to this nice weather, have been hanging out outside more often at night. 

This weekend we got some sushi and went to see a movie as well! I asked one of my friends if it felt like spring to him, and he replied that spring wouldn’t happen until the first week of April. Curious, I asked what spring felt like here. He said it was when you could wear a T shirt all day and not get cold!

Because we have reached the halfway point in the year (also the half way point of my Italy adventure!), the half-year Intercultura exchange students arrived in Cosenza. A week ago, two students joined our Cosenza chapter from Paraguay and Argentina. One’s host family lives about 45 minutes away, so she won’t join our weekly activities. The other lives in (the equivalent of) a suburb of Cosenza and she is going to my school! The other Cosenza kids and I took her out to the main street downtown for coffee and a snack in the afternoon to get to know each other. I got a macchiato and this type of cornetto with nutella in it :)

After we got our snack we walked up to Cosenza vecchia to show her some of the famous old buildings and see the city from the top of the hill. 

The light was really beautiful! I am very glad there is finally another girl joining our group of exchange students.

In a final note- I went to visit my dad’s cousin for an afternoon coffee (or tea if you’re me) and she had an adorable tiny puppy! It was soooo cute and literally like a stuffed animal had become alive!

With love from Italy, -Bea

[beainitaly]

Snow in Cosenza

Hello everyone!

I would like to start here by saying a huge thank you to everyone who went to march, protest, or supported in another form over the last few days- I am so proud of all of you, and I hope you know I am there in mind and spirit! It’s strange to hear news about the states over the TV in Italian here, but I can assure you it made the news all day.

Pretty short update today! Here in Cosenza stuff has been pretty quiet, but school has ramped up. We are nearing the end of the semester, meaning that there are tests in every single class about everything we have done so far this year. It has been a lot of studying! My extra Italian language lessons have also started up again, but the location has changed. Before the break we met at an office/apartment downtown, but the person who owned the space moved. Now, we meet in the afternoons at the bar next to my school :) 

It’s actually pretty convenient because the lessons are about 3 hours long weekly and at the bar we can buy snacks, tea, and coffee to keep us going.

We also finally have had snow here! It was very amusing for me, because it totaled up to maaaaybe 3 inches, but the city was shut down for almost 2 days. Cars were sliding around, abandoned in the middle of the streets. My mom didn’t want to leave the house to go to work due to the perilous sidewalk conditions.

Nothing was cleared off the roads or sidewalks, quickly forming some ice. The day before the snowfall, everyone saw it was coming on the weather report. All of the kids in my school and other schools in the city somehow got ahold of the mayor’s contact information and started sending him messages, begging for a snow day. Apparently the Mayor’s office knew that the snow would shut down the city, because they called the snow day at around 4pm. The mayor’s office posted an official declaration that the schools would be closed the next day which included a note at the end in which he begged people to stop sending him messages. Apparently there were quite a few dedicated advocates for our day off :) 

Luckily for the city, all the snow and ice was melted within three days and it’s just raining all the time now.

The rain does give a nice aesthetic, however. And it makes the sunny days stand out! A few days ago it was very nice out, and I got to go on a special trip to a nearby middle school to talk to 7th grade equivalent students about coming to our high school (which starts in 8th grade). This was pretty fun for me! Afterwords the other high school student volunteers and I went to a cafe on the big new square and bought coffees and really really yummy chocolate filled cornetti (an Italian breakfasty pastry).

I got a nice picture of the cool way the square bends up on the side, too

I also noticed that they already put up “at work barriers” again around a section of the square that they just opened. It seemed a little strange so I went to check it out:

Whaaaaat? Its even more sunken in in other places, and it gets worse every day. Now I’m afraid to walk on all the grates that surround the square. Okay. 

Anyways, hope you’re all doing well and keeping spirits up into the cold part of winter. Love from Italy!

[beainitaly]

It’s a New Year!

Happy 2017! I hope you all had lovely holiday celebrations. I missed you all back in the States! I’m still on vacation here, but not for much longer. Theres only a few days until school starts again, so I figured posting now before it gets busy would be wise. 

My holidays have been full of fun and time with friends and (host) family. Christmas was a pretty quiet two days for me. The day before Christmas Eve I made Sacher Torte cookies like I do every year at home, and they were a big hit in my family (especially with my mom!). 

On Christmas Eve we had all the relatives over to our house for dinner and ate many many different kinds of fish, as is the custom here. We had mussels, clams, shrimp, sardines, bacala, squid, and octopus. Here in Cosenza there is a special tradition to celebrate Christmas Eve at 9pm instead of 12, and everyone all over the city set off fireworks. We had a few fireworks at my house as well that we sent off the balcony which was a good time :) After that we all exchanged gifts- my family was super thoughtful for me! On Christmas day proper we had a big lunch with a roast leg of lamb. That night we went to a Christmas party at the house of my parents’ friends who had a karaoke system set up, and one kid had an accordion on which he played Christmas sing-along songs. I didn’t get really any pictures of Christmas, but it was very nice!

The next day one of my friends invited me to go on a walking tour of Cosenza’s best nativities. Due to our proximity to Naples, the home of the preseppe (nativity scene), they are a big deal here. We visited several churches in the historic part of town, each one with their own extensive nativity:

This one below slowly switched from day to night with the different lighting, and included a running water stream!

I also grabbed some pictures of the fronts of churches and a look at the city during the walk, because they were beautiful

BTW it was freezing the entire time. After that we went to a gallery that showcased preseppi that had been sent in from all the surrounding villages by local artisans. There was even one made of dry pasta! 

We also went to Cosenza’s live nativity scene, which was a new experience for me. They had it set up in the center of the historic city, and you had to walk along a winding path with a bunch of little houses set up that gave you different traditional foods and had people in costume doing crafts before you got to the manger at the end. 

For New Years I went to the nearby mountain town of Sila (Camigliatello Silano) with a group of 15 friends for three days (30th-1st). We rented an apartment and brought a lot of food, and it was a blast. Since Sila is up higher in attitude, they actually had snow. We had snowball fights, went for walks, and built fires in the fireplace. I have a few pictures from that:

This is the inside of our apartment, which never really got warm because the insulation was crap, people kept opening the windows to smoke out of, and nobody remembered to close the front door (see exhibit: this picture above). When we arrived the water also wasn’t flowing because the pipes were frozen, but we fixed that with a saw and some boiling snow :)

That’s me in the red scarf!!

This was a little walk some of us took on New Years Eve

We stopped downtown to pick up some more food- this store had crazy amounts of dried meat products and cheeses hanging from the walls and stacked in enormous piles everywhere!

This was a 5 pound panettone (Italian holiday cake with dried fruit) that we demolished.

On the 3rd, my mom hosted a holiday party here at our house for a bunch of her and my dad’s friends. They all played Tombola, and I joined in for a round as well. 

My mom and I made cuddruriedri again, the typical Cosentine salty doughnuts two ways (one kind plain in a ring and one with sardines in the center). 

Later on in the night my parents brought out two huge desserts they purchased at the local bakery- one plate full of cream filled profiteroles covered in dark chocolate sauce, and one huge baba. 

A baba is a Napolitan dessert: basically a sponge cake shaped like a mushroom on its side soaked in some kind of rum flavored syrup with a cheesy cream (think the filling of canolli) and sliced fruit on top. You can normally buy personal, baseball sized ones, but this one was enormous, made to serve a whole party. It was really good. 

Good luck to all at the beginning of this new year! Love and warm wishes from Italy <3

[beainitaly]

Salerno Lights and the Beginning of Holiday Vacation

Hello all!

Sorry this post is a bit late- but it is here before Christmas! Today was the last day of school before the vacation, so I am currently ON VACATION. For 17 days. Yep, Italians don’t return to school until the 9th of January, waiting until after the Epiphany. 

The whole holiday vacation is very, very Christian and Catholic here, unlike the more secular holiday season I am used to, even in school. We have a Christmas tree in our main hallway at school with a small nativity scene (motorized so the baby Jesus’s cradle rocks) on a table next to it.

 Today, about 2/3 of the student body went to a special Catholic church service held at 10:30 for us. I went as well, mostly because the rest of my class was, but also because I was fascinated by the mixing of school and church. Our principal gave a small speech/reading during the service, as did many prominent students. Overall, it was difficult for me to understand because most of the Italian was very formal and old (Bible), but I did enjoy it.

Before the service we all had to attend two classes in the morning, so I stupidly brought my books and pencils etc. However, as I probably should have guessed, my classmates had no intention of doing any learning today. They brought a pandoro and a panettone (two types of Italian Christmas cake), as well as two bottles of sparking wine (spumante), and proceeded to throw a party in our classroom. 

Our first block teacher didn’t seem to really care, but our second block teacher told us when she walked in that she didn’t want to see any alcohol. She did participate in a round of Tombola, though. Tombola is a traditional Italian holiday game, kind of like Bingo where one person calls out numbers you try (its all luck) to get numbers next to each other. We also danced and played ninja. 

In other Holiday related news, my Intercultura chapter went on a trip to the city of Salerno to see the city’s famous Christmas lights. My mom and dad came as well. Salerno is a beautiful town on the seaside, traditionally a very important trade port, near Naples (Napoli). It’s installation of Christmas lights is incredibly famous, and people travel from all over Italy to see them each year. The town was packed when we got there, and even more crowded when we left! This did not diminish my enjoyment, however, as the lights were truly the most creative and dazzling ones I’ve seen. 

We arrived in the afternoon and saw the city a bit before it got dark

These are all of the people who went on the trip

Right as the sun was setting we visited the big church in Salerno. Here are some photos on the way in and inside:

And this is what it looked like when I came out, after dark:

Yes, there were slowly shifting rainbow lights on the church. It was amazing. 

Next we walked through the downtown of Salerno, admiring the street lights:

Then we went to the “Garden of Magic” (Giardino Incantato) where they had really big light structures made to be things from fairytales and children’s books.

These were from Peter Pan-- I couldn’t get close enough to many of them to get good pictures.

This one is from the classic southern Italian character Pulcinella from puppet theater plays, who originated from the Naples region.

Then we returned to the center of town where this massive tree was, and we met up with another Intercultura student who is living in Salerno this year who we knew from the orientation camp back in October.

This is the four Intercultura students: Us three from Cosenza and our friend from Salerno

I had looked up the driving time from Cosenza to Salerno ahead of time to try to guess when we would get home (it was Sunday and I had some homework to do) and google maps said about 2.5 hours. Little did I know we were all riding the worlds’ slowest bus. Four hours later, we arrived in Salerno and I knew that homework probably wasn’t going to get done :) We left Salerno around 9PM, getting home at 1AM, making for an interesting Monday at school!

This week in Cosenza they finally finished work on the big square, piazza Bilotti at the top of Corso Mazzini. They also hung these strange hot air balloon lights above it, and put some festive dancing trees around. 

It was swamped with people excited to walk on the new stones and take pictures (its been under construction for about four years).

The architecture is actually really cool: underneath it is a parking garage, and at two of the corners the piazza elevates making a kind of diagonal funnel shape. 

Hope all is well! Sending best wishes for Christmas and New Years :)

[beainitaly]

Birthday+ Recent Events

Hi all!

How are you doing during this beginning of holiday season? Lights and decorations have started going up around Cosenza as well- We have our very own Christmas Market in one of the squares in the modern part of the city, which I plan on visiting sometime soon! On Corso Mazzini they put up an enormous tree.

At home my mom and I put up the decorations together, which was a lot of fun. I participated in the construction of the fake white tree, which was a new thing for me (we have natural trees at home).

Other than decorating the house, there have been many fun things going on here.

Three weekends ago was the 18th birthday of one of my friends, which is a really big deal here. His family rented out the whole basement area of a restaurant, which had a dance floor and tables for everyone to sit at, and a viewing area for picture montages of him growing up. There was a huge buffet and free drinks for everyone in attendance, as well as a cake :) and dancing after dinner. It was a lot of fun! Everyone got dressed up very elegantly, all black, for the event as it was so special. I had a black dress and tights, but realized that I did not have any fancy/nice shoes. I have my sneakers, some sandals, and my favorite heavy black booties (not the super stylish kind, the nice looking but very practical ones). Due to lack of planning ahead (I should have bought some shoes...) and some procrastination on my part, I went to the party in a dress and my black winter boots :)

Last week on Wednesday night was the birthday of one of my classmates, and we threw him a surprise birthday party! I was personally surprised that people were going to throw a party on Wednesday night, but we all had a really good time (a few kids skipped first and second block of school the next day)

Also last week I went for an extended walk/evening out with my friend from my easier Italian class (I think their grade is equivalent to 9th grade in the US?). She took me further downtown past the end of Corso Mazzini, so I finally understand how to walk from the new city to Cosenza Vecchia! It was kind of a rainy day, but very aesthetic.

I also went out with a bunch of friends one night to see the new Fantastic Beasts movie (in Italian and in 3D)! I loved it a lot, even if I missed most of the dialog that didn’t have physical actions or images associated with it. The niffler was adorable! Newt Samander was fabulous, in my opinion. I was so excited at the theater when I heard Hedwig’s theme (the classic Harry Potter music) playing I just jumped up and down in my seat!

Due to my birthday last week, I had some good celebration! There were actually two parties: one at school that my classmates organized, and a dinner for me and my friends that my mom and I organized. I had no idea that my classmates were planning a party, and it was super sweet of them! They all showed up with cakes, traditional Cosentine doughnuts called Cuddruriedri, drinks, and balloons. There was a phenomenal amount of food. They proceeded to tell our teachers during first and second blocks that we wouldn't be having class today because we were having a birthday party, which apparently the teachers were chill with.

Right before they lit up the candles on the “main cake”, including two terrifying sparkler things, two of my teachers for other classes and the president of the school showed up to congratulate me and take pictures. The principal (this is her first year at the school) asked me if she could use the pictures for promotional material, to which I said of course. I’m not sure exactly the message that would send with all the kids missing class to throw a party, but I was happy to oblige :)

During third block our professor absolutely refused to let the party continue, but that was okay seeing as it was our first lesson in the lab of the year! We made salt solutions of particular molarities. We didn’t do any lab safety before this lesson, which was a little concerning to me (Placement of glass beakers in perilous places!! Measuring liquids not from the bottom of the meniscus with the graduated cylinder held up in your hand!!!) but luckily we were only working with salt and water. It was a good time :)

At night, ten friends and I all met at a pizzeria to have dinner, which my mother very generously paid for! We also had a cake with chocolate frosting and filling, and my friends gave me some lovely presents.

This week, I baked some new scones with improved ingredients I found at the store, and blueberry jelly bits from King Arthur Flour (thanks mom and dad!). I might go so far as to say they were the yummiest things I have baked so far.

On the topic yumminess, however, I do need to mention that the Immacolata was this week on Thursday, meaning that we had no school, and also my mom made Cuddruriedri! It was a long process, starting pretty early in the morning to let the dough rise, but they tasted really good. They are basically salty doughnuts, and it is traditional here in Cosenza to make them on the Immacolata. I helped her out with the frying. We made two kinds: one kind plain in ring shapes, and one kind with sardines in the middle in stick shapes. They were really good!

I hope everyone has a good week! Fingers crossed for some real snow?

Love, Bea

PS. Two pictures from around Cosenza this week :)

[beainitaly]

Pictures from Sicily Pt 1

Hi guys!

I know! A post in (about) a week! Its a miracle! Okay but really. So- on to the big news- I’m seventeen now! I think its about time to invest in some retirement stocks.... ok, not really, but I do feel kind of old. I was just getting used to sixteen! My birthday here in Italy was a fantastic time, and I have lots of pictures and some stories that will be coming up next week!

So, as stated in the title, the main part of this post is about Sicily. About a month ago, my family visited Sicily for four days over the long weekend around Halloween (we got the long weekend for All Saints Day, not Halloween). My host mom’s family is from Sicily, which was our reason for going. It was a really amazing and fun experience, but the pictures really speak for themselves here. Captions are below pictures.

On the car ferry from Calabria to Sicily, which docked in Messina. You can see Calabria on the right here, and Sicily on the left. The ferry was about half an hour (with a snack bar on board!).

Our first stop: little town of Castelmola.

The view from the square of Castelmola. The town is basically on top of a mountain!

Me and my Italian mom-- it was pretty windy up there.

Bell tower of the church in the center of Castelmola

This was the secondary (or main) attraction of Castelmola, a bar/restaurant filled with penises. Like, statues or light fixtures or painting, even some of the glassware. My mom was dying of laughter the whole time we were in there :)

We then continued driving, going to the picturesque town of Taormina. They were having traditional local parades with live music as we walked through the streets.

Church in Taormina

Bigger church in Taormina, this one when you look up you can see the top of the mountain above it with 2+ crosses situated on peaks.

My brothers and I in the big square

The ocean with the setting sun of the first day of our trip

We stopped in a baker for some traditional Sicilian snacks- I had a yummy cake covered in green icing/fondant with candied fruit called Cassata

Detail of an old building in Taormina

See part two for the rest of the pictures! 

[beainitaly]

Pictures from Sicily Pt 2

This is Part two! Read part one first to have it make more sense, or just look at the pictures and enjoy ;)

Then we travelled to the town of Capo Mulini where our hotel was- it was right on the ocean front. This is the ocean in the morning of out second day.

A pretty kitty I found in Capo Mulini- on our second day we visited my mom’s family in Agira. We also went shopping at a big outdoor mall which was kinda cool- I bought some penguin pajamas.

At the mall we ran into my mom’s cousin and her family. They took me and Massimo out to Catania really really late at night which was fun! I was so tired I forgot to take pictures of the famous sights, but luckily I did remember to take a picture of this cat wall painting :)

This is the third day of our trip. We started off driving to Syracuse, where we saw the ancient Greek and Roman ruins. This is the greek theater.

This is the ear of Dionysius (Orecchio di Dionisio) which is literally just huge. It was dug originally as water storage for Syracuse during Greek/Roman times. According to legend, the ruler Dionysus of Syracuse used the cave as a prison and also had a secret spot where he could listen in on what the prisoners were saying so he could learn their secrets. To be honest, the acoustics of the place did make things pretty loud.

Next we moved into the old city part of Syracuse, where we saw a lot of historical structures. This is a detail from the Cathedral of Syracuse.

The front of the Cathedral of Syracuse

A random building on the street- but look at the stone carving holding up the balcony. I love the delicate work and the sense of time that the crumbling wall gives.

For example: this. Carved cloth motifs like these were everywhere in Syracuse. I’m not sure if that was a style from a particular period or something, but I liked it.

Also common: cacti. They're common here in Cosenza as well, but not to the degree that I saw them in Sicily.

This is the fountain of Arethusa in Syracuse- myth says that the nymph Arethusa fled from a river god who had fell in love with her. She was protected by the goddess Artemis, and transformed into a stream to get away. This spring is filled with ferns, papyrus, and swans.

The view of the ocean from Syracuse

The next day we returned home on the ferry- pictured above. It was a lovely trip!

Sorry that this post is quite picture heavy- I did try to cut it down. Look out for the post next week with birthday etc! Take care and enjoy the beginning of the holiday season (do you have your decorations up yet??? I’m psyched)

[beainitaly]

Feels Like Fall

Hi all! 

I hope you had a very very lovely thanksgiving filled with lots of food and time with family. I know I missed everyone, but at least it does finally feel like fall here! As New England slides into true winter, (I’ve seen some pictures with snow!!!) it is beginning to get down into the 40s at night in Cosenza. During the day, a light jacket is usually required, and a scarf feels nice sometimes. At night, a heavier jacket and sweater is a good plan.

(This was a particularly foggy walk to school). This is very comforting for me, while all my Italian friends are FREEZING. I am also particularly enjoying the rain here- which is often during the winter.

It is a very soothing sound, and makes the city look very beautiful to me (even if its a bit inconvenient).

School has been progressing as per usual- by which I mean in a completely chaotic and frustrating (for me) fashion. :) We have already had at least 3 student strikes for various reasons! This means that you arrive at school and all the kids are standing around outside the building, watching each other to see who will go in. Mostly people stay out and just walk a couple blocks to the big shopping street for the day, which is a good time. To try to prevent the (unofficial annual) full-on occupation of the school this year, the administration created a “free week” for students. We were supposed to sign up for different classes that were supposed to be fun, and sign in when we arrived so they could take attendance. This quickly deteriorated after the first few days. Students would show up at classes, sign in so they were recorded, and then leave. My entire class followed this policy as a group, and afterwords we just walked down the hallway opening doors until we found an empty classroom to go in.

People put on some music, bought some snacks from the bar, got out the Italian briscola cards (we play a game called scopa, which I was taught during free week), and shut the door to prevent anyone walking in and making us attend class. I was uncertain about this plan initially, but after looking around a bit I realized that over half the student body was doing this, and therefore the teachers had to know about it, and since they weren’t cracking down on us, it had to at least be acceptable :)

Other things that have been nice recently include a lovely trip up into the mountains to a town called Sela. The journey was a little terrifying (they have the highways on stilts over plummeting gaps and edges of the mountains), but the trip was ultimately worth it. We had lunch with the host family of another Intercultura student staying in Cosenza, and then we went for a (long) walk into the town which was hosting a local traditional/food fair in the streets.

I stopped in a Christmas shop as well, I saw that they had the same kind of christmas village as Nonno!

I’ve also been participating in a few other Intercultura events recently, including presentations about American politics for different classes in my school, introductions to how exchange programs work and what it is like, and just general meetings of my local chapter and lessons in the Italian language.

This (blurry) picture is my whole Intercultura chapter- including host siblings and Cosentine exchange kids from past years, volunteers, and this year’s exchange students

(Our audience a few weeks ago at an Intercultura school presentation) It is a lot of fun for me to talk to people about the USA here in Italy, mostly because they really have no grasp of how big it is. They always ask if I’ve been to Hollywood and are shocked when I show them a map of the US with a to-scale drawing of Italy on it. Talking about the USA post-election has been less fun, but let’s not dwell on that.

I have had some more baking successes as well! I found some critical ingredients that I’ve been missing (baking soda and cream of tartar instead of flavored leavening, chocolate chips) and really had a blast.

They don't really do chocolate chip cookies here, so of course I had to try. They came out a little bit spherically shaped, but they tasted really good!

The banana bread was also an accomplishment- I had to go out and purchase a loaf pan first!

The apple pie with walnuts, which became a galette, actually tasted pretty spot on, despite appearances (I know I know its gross looking).

Anyways, I have some other stuff and pictures to share, but this is getting kind of long. Everyone take care and enjoy the beginning of the holiday season!