I think my European experience may be complete, since I've now been to a brewery and a winery. On Tuesday, Raffaella, my director, took Sara and I to her friend Giovanni's winery in a nearby village. He is one of the most enthusiastic people I've ever met, and he eagerly showed us around. Both Sara and Raffaella translated for me, so now I have a general idea of how wine is produced, and I think I'm more prepared to visit Napa Valley, which I'll do in a few weeks.
After the tasting, Giovanni took us to his house down the road, where his wife had prepared aperitivi for us (an Italian pre-dinner mini-meal). The food was delicious, especially these sundried tomatoes on toast, which I ate almost all of, and we tasted a few more wines. My host family was not really into eating a lot of food or fresh food, which made this even better.
Giovanni took us back to the winery afterward so we could buy some of the wine. I bought my favorite (cost=4 euro), one of the ones I sampled at his house, and then he just threw in one of his 8 euro dessert wines as a gift. And a really handly bottle opener. It was amazing.
2) An Opera in the Verona Arena
The next night, I went with my host mother, her sister, and Sara to an opera. But it wasn't a normal opera. In Verona, their operahouse is an ancient Roman amphitheatre, built 2,000ish years ago. They start the operas after sundown, so it ran from about 9:30-12. And at the beginning, a lot of people lit up candles which is a tradition there, so that was pretty cool.
We saw Turandot, an opera about a Chinese princess... or something like that. I really had no idea what was going on, except that there were three ministers named Ping, Pang, and Pong (really?). But the set was huuuuuuge and at times there were over a hundred people on stage, so watching it was amazing. And 'Nessun Dorma' is in it, which I never knew by name but I definitely recognized it. It was incredibly beautiful and the conductor was the liveliest person in the arena. He was jumping and shouting at times, and everyone around me was cracking up.
Oh and one of the people sitting behind me was a really amusing old German woman. She heard Sara and I speaking English so she asked where we were from. It turns out that she is a tour guide at this famous church in Dresden I visited in February, and she actually gives tours in English. She kept talking to us, and eventually offered me some grappa (hard alcohol) that she snuck into the arena. I turned it down, but she gladly accepted some of the wine we brought (from the tasting the night before).
(I had to take this picture from a website because I still can't access the Internet from my laptop, but I'll post my own pictures when I get home)
3) Gardaland
On Thursday night, my host family took me to Gardaland (on Lago di Garda), which is pretty much Italy's Disneyland. We went with a couple other families, so it was a very 'kiddie' experience, and pretty fun. Although it would have been a bit less strange if my host family had ever introduced me to the other families, since we were with them for 4 hours... but whatever. I hadn't been to an amusement park in a really long time, so I had fun just walking around. We went on a few rides, but lines were the major problem. In July, it's open from 7-11pm for only 10 euros, so the average wait was about 40 minutes.
My favorite parts were this new 'ride' called Ramses and a gigantic roller coast we went on at the end. Ramses is this huge laser gun game. You go around on a track with a laser gun and shoot different colored targets. It's Egyptian themed so there were mummies and pyramids everywhere, and it reminded me of Laser Quest which made me happy. The gigantic roller coaster was definitely the biggest I've ever been on. I used to be afraid of them, especially the upside-down part, but I'm happy to say that fear has subsided, so I screamed my head off with Marina, my 8 year-old host sister.
4) Farewell Dinner
I haven't talked about it much, but this camp I just left was amazing. There were some trying times in the middle of this past week, because some of the kids who only came for the second week weren't really into the whole spirit of the camp (songs, games etc.). But the last couple days were great, and I'm really going to miss most of the kids who were there for both weeks. Because the group was so small, I got to know them very well.
Marco is a genius who I had for both weeks. He is only 10, but he was in my older group because... he is a genius. Anything I told him once, he remembered permanently. Thus, he memorized 'Take Me Out to the Ballgame' after only singing it a couple times looking at the words (part of California Time). I have this on video.
Veronica is a really fun girl who took a while to open up. She knows a lot more than she will admit. She laughs more than anyone else I know, and I think everyone at camp liked her. She complained everytime I told her to draw or color something. She would draw a stick figure, I would tell her it was ugly (jokingly), she would erase it, and then draw a really good picture of a person. I think that sums up who she is.
And then there's Alex. I'm pretty sure he was my favorite camper this summer, at least of those I had in my class. He is the ideal ACLE camper in that he is bored by normal school, so he understand everything but never does his homework (Rafaella is his English teacher), but he loved the songs and games and even the class part of camp because it's more fun than school. He was the one kid in my group who Rafaella warned me about beforehand in terms of behavioral issues, and yeah he was a loud at times, but never in a bad way. He also has a really funny, deep voice that I would make fun of him for, and I think he enjoyed that.
But back to the dinner. So on Friday night we had huge dinner at Alex and Veronica's grandparents' house (they're cousins). Alex's siblings (including his sister who was also in my class and his adorable 7 year-old brother, Nicho, who was in Sara's class) were all there, as well as Veronica, her sister, and her friend. And all of their parents, the helpers from camp, and Raffaella and her mother.
To start, Alex's stepdad made about 8 mushroom pizzas in the brick oven in the backyard (which also included a vinyeard, vegetable garden, and swings). Then, we all ate gnocchi made by Nicho, the 7 year-old. I'm guessing his grandma helped but I'll give him the credit. Some of the gnocchi was with cinammon, sugar, and cheese, which apparently is traditional in the Veneto region, and it was really good. After that, we had chicken and I tasted rabbit, which almost everyone else ate. Afterward Nicho came up to me and said 'Bugs Bunny.' I was like, 'Bugs Bunny...?' So he crossed his throat with his finger and made a dying noise. I ate Bugs Bunny.
After dinner I could hardly move. But the kids wanted to do one last warm-up circle so we sang songs and played games for probably about 45 minutes. Usually, the last thing I want to do on Friday after a show is play games and sing songs, but with this group it was just so fun. We finally said goodbye close to 1 am.
But that wasn't the final goodbye. My host family was late in getting me to the train station on Saturday afternoon, but when we arrived, almost everyone that had been at the dinner was there to say goodbye again. I was sad because I only really had time to wave and hug/kiss a couple of them goodbye. But they followed us onto the platform and waved goodbye as we departed. About half an hour later Alex texted me, first in Italian, and then in English. He said, 'For ever sara e daniel! grazie.'
I'm starting to cry so I'm gonna stop for now. But it was a really, really great group in Sarego. It's going to be hard to go to camp tomorrow and not have them there.
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