Random Adventures

Buongiorno Tutti!

A couple weeks ago, a group of us went on a little field trip by private bus with our USAC advisors to a city just outside of Torino. We found ourselves in the country side of Alba to visit a castle, as well as stop by the famous Truffle fair that comes to the city every year. One of the things I truly love about this beautiful country is simply the scenery of it's country-side itself. You are constantly surrounded by green hills that go on for miles, and the addition of the historic architecture makes it seem as if it were just taken out of a movie.

A secret passageway in the Castle!

Here are the truffles! I am not sure if you are able to tell the prices on here, but they are pretty expensive. Part of the reason for this is because they are not easy to find. They grow deep in the ground and you need highly trained dogs or pigs to sniff them out. We got to sample some of it with bread dipped in truffle oil, which was very tasty. We were told this distinct taste is something that you either love or hate.

I am loving these fall leaves everywhere! This is basically our school campus, or the park just outside of it, so I get to walk by this everyday. I am always so tempted to make a huge pile and jump into them! I guess this is something I miss out on growing up in Arizona! ;) 

There are many, many pizzerias in Italy- just about one on every corner. I have been to plenty and have many favorites, but above all, I have to say that this one has topped them off. Not just for the reason of having wonderful pizzas, but the scenery all around is beautiful.Who wouldn't enjoy having a delicious meal sitting outside with a view like this??

We have a friend over here in Italy who's from Australia and one night she was over for dinner and insisted upon us all trying this interesting, very well known snack in her country... Vegemite! She found it quite humorous as we all prepared ourselves for this, not knowing at all what to except. I can't say that I actually enjoyed this, nor would I ever crave this distinct flavor. One of my roommates even actually spit hers out! It was a funny experience and now we can all say we've had Vegemite! 

Happy Thanksgiving! This was my second out of three Thanksgiving dinners I've had over here! The Sunday before Thanksgiving, my roommates and I cooked up a feast to enjoy together here at home, because they all wouldn't be in town on the actual day. This photo was from our USAC Thanksgiving dinner they put on for us on Wednesday at the school. My third one was celebrated with my Italian friends, because they are so interested in the American culture. I contributed to this with a homemade dish of stuffing, which they loved! First time making it and it turned out great! We finished the evening going around the table saying the things we are thankful for, and I was able to speak it all in Italian! :) The funny thing is not one of these three dinners were on the actual day of Thanksgiving. Instead, I got to Skype my family, that day while everyone was all together. I loved it because it was as if I was right there with them! 

It's beginning to look like Christmas...

These next two photos were taken in a tiny shop next to the famous 'Bicerin Cafè'. Torino is known for it's chocolate, so the shop was filled with many varieties! From the moment you walk into this place, you are able to smell each and every one of these delightful treats! 

Every year starting the beginning of November until second week of January, these lights go up all around some of the streets and Piazzas of Torino! This event is called "Luci d'Aritista", which means, Artist Lights! This first picture is along the street just near our apartment, Via Garibaldi. The next photo is a very cool one called "Planetario"! For someone who loves Christmas and lights, it's very exciting getting to walks through these streets looking up to see it all!  

Now, my roommate, Virginia and I get to look forward to seeing Paris, France this weekend! We leave in two days and have plans to visit the main highlights of this city along with the added necessity of Disneyland Paris! We are both pretty big Disney fans, so this is something we couldn't pass up! Well, I will make sure to come back with plenty of pictures to post! Ciao ciao! Or shall I say, "Au revoir!";)

Disappearance Requires a Quick Update

Wow! So I am either really terrible at this whole blogging thing, or I have just been so busy in these past few weeks that it's caused me to go a-wall (awol?) on here! I'll go with the latter. ;) I really have been so busy though. First of all, can you believe I have only 4 weeks left of this semester! Literally, 4 weeks from today I will be getting on a plane on my way home to spend Christmas with me family! I have so much to look forward to and I am very excited for it all!
Life over here in Italy has been pretty nice. School is going well, although Italian seems to be getting a little difficult at the moment. We are getting into serious, very particular rules, and at some points- it get's quite confusing and somewhat frustrating. I am not giving up though; this was one of my main reasons for coming to study in Italy! I continue to hang out with my Italian friends every week, and even though they speak very good English, we try to incorporate at least a little Italian into the conversations here and there. Of course I find my self responding with the simpler phrases, but at least I am understanding, right? That's one thing I am really noticing about myself right now. My understanding/listening abilities have gone way up, while my speaking hasn't been the greatest. I also seem to doubt myself a little more (when speaking), so that's also something that tends to hold me back. Speaking of the language and practice and such, aside from this, I had some more opportunities to work on my speaking abilities this week to be able to work around the whole language barrier issue. Well, recently I was faced with making a big decision regarding my housing situation for next semester. For those of you who know me pretty well, or even actually just know me at all, I like to be the "go with the flow", avoid making simple decisions type of person. I have definitely been getting a lot better at this and it's funny because one of my Italian friends even noticed it! Lucky for me, I now know a phrase to use in Italian for these usual occurrences for me. Remember this one, "Va bene comunque", which I would say translates, not literally, but basically to- 'I'm good with whatever'. I would say it's a nice, useful phrase to store into your memory. Anyways, wow that took me off onto a little tangent! So this decision- I am staying with an Italian family next semester! I am really excited about it and feel like it will be a great opportunity for me. Not only to help me with the language, but also to get a whole new experience for a new semester! The mom actually came to me wanting to know if I know of anyone that would be interested in staying with her and her family to help them learn English. Prior to this, I was completely set on living in this apartment once again for the following semester, but then this was brought up. Literally by the time I was getting the complete details about it, I had only two days to make my final decision. Here I am today, with the decision accomplished and Daniela, (the mom) is happy as ever. She is so sweet and they seem like such a loving family! I am really looking forward to this new experience. Don't worry, I will surely go into more detail about it later.
Aside from this, I have also been busy doing other exciting things. For one, I went ice skating! I wish I could say on a real pond, but it wasn't. Plus, it's not even close to being that cold for me to actually feel safe ice skating on an outside pond. One day, I will do this. So, this ice skating rink is like a huge Polar Ice and it is walking distance from our school! By huge I mean, it's like a stadium. Well, it basically is- the Disney on Ice show is put on at this very place! :)
Well, I have been getting completely sidetracked and it is now almost 12:30AM over here! Unfortunately, I have unfinished Italian homework and class at 9AM, so with that being said, I should really get going! On the plus side, it's a long weekend because of Thanksgiving, and tomorrow is the last day of classes this week! Well, I apologize for this post being pretty rushed and somewhat boring (no photos), but I'll come back once again very soon to upload documentations of my latest adventures! Because of my long disappearance, I had to leave you with at least a little something, right? ;) Ciao Ciao!

Happy Halloween and All Saints' Day!

Well, it was a holiday here in Italy yesterday, as well as today and we all know what that means! No classes and a nice long weekend until Monday.  The holiday is called "Ognissanti", which translates to all saint's. Here are a few pearls of wisdom for ya: This holiday is celebrated to remember the saints and martyrs who died for the church. Then, the following day, which is today, "Il Giorno dei Morti" (the day of the dead) is also celebrated, changing the focus to reflecting upon all other family members who have passed. We have noticed that almost all business were closed yesterday, even our convenient super market just across the street. Had we have thought about this before, we would have bought toilet paper.. uh oh! Thanks to our next door neighbor friends, we made it through the day. ;) Anyways, Halloween in Italy wasn't always celebrated. It has been becoming bigger over the past few years and it's definitely a lot less popular when I compare it to how it is back home. I still made it a necessity for me to participate in the fun festivities, like carving pumpkins and baking pumpkin seeds! It was a lot of fun and I was actually teaching my Italian friends step by step how to do it! They don't have the handy pumpkin carving kits here, so we were left to work with basic knives and free hand designs. They still turned out great, I think! They've also never heard of roasting pumpkin seeds, which was surprising! The difference in costumes over here, is the majority of people dress up as something scary- even the girls!

Here are a couple pictures from the carving pumpkins night! 

A couple of my roommates have discovered a little soup and salad restaurant pretty close to our apartment called Soup and Go, where they had pumpkin soup! I don't know about you guys, but I have never tried this before. We deciding to go there for dinner on Halloween and, 'tis the season, all got the pumpkin soup! It was interesting, but I liked it! Look how cute the bowls were in these jars! 

Later that evening, I went to a Halloween party that was put on by some of my Italian friends! There were yummy snacks, music, dancing, and games all night! I think it was about 2:30am by the time it was over and we started cleaning up! Something else I have noticed while being here is that the Italians are serious night owls! They stay up so late all the time, it's pretty funny. Oh! And something else my friend told me: we (Italians) don't think when we dance, we just go. I believe that, because they are seriously all over the place and so spastic, it's hilarious to watch! Here is a picture of part of the decorated room for the party before everyone got there and then a very short glimpse of one of my friends, Stefano dancing! Ha! 

Yesterday was a relaxing day at home with the roommates. It was really nice to have one of these days, plus, we couldn't really do anything else since a lot of the town was closed anyways. We hung out, made dinner, and then decided to push our beds together in our room to have a movie night! We don't have a TV, so we used one of our laptops and put it at the end of our beds on a little table. It worked out just fine and was definitely worth it! Movie nights are the best, and the only thing we were missing was a bowl of popcorn! ;)