Only In Italy

There has been tons of exciting things that has happened in the past almost month! First of all, I got to wake up to a surprise of a beautiful snow storm that lasted all day and night! When you live in a city that basically never snows, these types of things are actually quite fascinating. It was absolutely beautiful, especially when all you see is for miles and miles is white all around you. It's like a simple magical touch! Of course there has to be some downfalls of the snow, I have learned. For one, running to catch buses is bad enough, but when you add snow to the problem, it becomes a whole winter wonderland slipping and sliding every which way! Number two, still related to buses of course, they splash you- with nice slush! Luckily, I was paying attention while waiting for it to pull up, so I jumped out of the way just in time!! This picture on the left is in front of my school, and the one on the right is where I live!

The Beauties of Snowfall... 

Buon Carnevale!

Well, last week was a big holiday for the Italians, which they call 'Carnevale'. It's a huge winter festival celebrated with parades, costumes, music, masquerade balls, and TONS of confetti. Many many years ago, the Catholics started this tradition to hold costume festivals the day before lent. Carnevale comes from the Italian word "carne", which means meat, since during lent, Catholics do not eat meat. This holiday is equivalent to the holiday in New Orleans- "Mardi Gras". 

This photo is of Giulia (Giorgia's cousin), me, and Giorgia before going out to watch the parades here in Orbassano! The three little mice! ;) 

Here is the center piazza here in Orbassano where all the excitement happened!

Carnevale D'Ivrea

On Tuesday (actual day of Carnevale), our advisors from school put a nice field trip together for us students to see for ourselves and experience how Ivrea (a town about and hour away from Torino) really celebrates their Carnevale. Well, little did any of us know, it gets messy! This tradition has been going on for many years and it's something that all the people from this little town look forward to ythe most!! I was just amazed by it all! This was definitely something you would NEVER see in the United States for sure! The best part was watching all the Italians getting so into it! The Italians truly cherish their history and background, so the amount of passion put into all of it was amazing! Truly a cultural experience. Unfortunately, I didn't know just dow dirty I would really get during this experience, otherwise I would have dressed accordingly! The photo below says "Historical Carnival of Ivrea, 1947 and the history continues..." They surely take pride in this cultural event!

If you can't tell by this photo, our hair was absolutely COVERED with orange juice! Maybe you can tell by the orange juice stains on the jacket?

This is what the teams are pulled on by the horses, while launching oranges down to the people wearing specific jerseys! Absolute craziness!!! 

And the Aftermath... oh how I just LOVE being covered by the fresh sent and juice of oranges!

See for yourselves just how crazy it gets! You can even hear me at the end almost getting slammed in the face by a pelting orange! Even though this was totally messy and even quite frightening at many moments, this was something we were able to look back on and laugh about. We couldn't believe what was happening during the the moments of the battles, hugging tightly along pillars, just to avoid getting knocked in the face by a flying orange! Who would have thought something like this actually exists!