School? Not really...

Hi all!

Okay so I didn't go anywhere this weekend because my parents came to visit me and we hung around Verona, but there will be more on that later. I just wanted to give you a quick update on what I'm learning in school :)

This is a video from the cooking class I am taking, yes it is in this woman's house, and yes, she is speaking Italian, and yes she is cleaning a fresh squid! The part where everyone gasps and then starts laughing is when she explains how you pop the eyeballs out!

After we all got a chance to clean our own squid, we made calamari! yumm! We also made fresh "Vongolo" which in Italian means mussels. These mussels were so fresh that I was standing next to the bowl of ones we hadn't cooked yet, and they popped out of their shell!

I hope you enjoy the movie! I'm also taking a wine tasting class and tomorrow we are going to a vineyard to pick grapes and learn about the process of wine making! Yay!

Miss you!

Prost!

This weekend was Oktoberfest! whoo! Me and five other people took the train to Munich (or as they say in Italy: Monoco) for the weekend.

We stayed in Augsberg which is about a 30 minute train ride away from Munich. On Saturday morning we got to Munich very early, and headed to the Oktoberfest. The tents open at 9:00, and usually start serving beer at 10:00am, but Saturday was the first day so we had to wait for "all the beer" to be brought in floats and the mayor to tap the keg.

This is what the inside of a tent looks like! They look like real buildings, yet they tear them down every year and rebuild them. The rest of year the spot where Oktoberfest is, is a floral market.

So after we got there super early we fought our way to a table and stayed there the rest of the day. The beers were a litre large and totally worth it!

Here are the four of us drinking our huge beers! We braided our hair so we looked more German and people would let us sit with them. Just a warning to anyone planning on ever attending Oktoberfest, some breweries brew a special Oktoberfest beer with a higher alcohol content. The girl next to us drank one beer and passed out on the table for the rest of the day.

On Sunday morning we headed back into Munich from Augsberg, and then to Dachau concentration camp which is located in a suburban area just outside of Munich. Dachau was the first concentration camp and was used mostly for priests. On the site now there stands numerous religious memorials in addition too some original buildings. It was very surreal. Especially when you look at all the beautiful houses in the town, and then in their backyards was something so horrible. I didn't take any pictures but if you want to learn more about Dachau here is the link to it's wikipedia page: Dachau Concentration Camp.

Sorry to end on such a downer note... we have our first exam this week in Italian so I am studying to figure out how to speak it. Mom and Dad come this weekend so I'm very excited!

Hope all is well!

love

Lake Garda and Castles!

Hey All!

I know it's been awhile but we didn't really have a lot of adventures during the week, just some classes. Photography, Painting... you know really tough stuff! This weekend we went to Lake Garda and Castello di Bevilacqua!

Lake Garda was amazing!!! Soooo beautiful! I couldn't get over it! When we first got there, we took a 360° revolving cable car up a mountain.

This picture has been taken half way up the mountain already! You can see the other cable car! Very fun! It was amazing! There were cows everywhere! We hiked around the mountain and watched people parasail off of it! After the mountain we went to the town and looked around! They have amazing jewelry everywhere! And for once it was affordable! Afterwards we went out to eat and had an 11 course fish dinner! AHHHHH!!!!!

YUMM my dinner! Saying "Please don't eat me." I did anyway!

We also got the chance to swim in Lake Garda. If you ever get the change to swim at the base of the Alps! Take it :)

On Sunday we went to Castello Di Bevilacqua. It is a castle outside of Verona that has a very good history! The castle was built about 600 years ago and served as the military fort for the Venician Army. After fighting had settled down a little it became a family home of the Bevilacqua's. They lived there until 1899, when things became dramatic. They left the castle to the town on the understanding that it would become a hospital for the elderly. It took the town 32 years to fix the castle to meet standards. It only was a hospital for a few years until the Nazi's took over. They stayed there until the end of the war. After the war was over the city needed money and sold it to priests to become a school. It was a school for a little under a decade until there was an explosion from a gas leak that took out the entire second floor. The castle cost too much to fix up. So they sold it to a local vineyard owner who only used the basement as a cellar. The poor man though was a gambler and lost the castle to a man in a crazy game of poker. That man gave the castle to his daughter, who is the current owner. The owner and her husband spent 9 years rebuilding the castle. Now it is one of the most popular places to get married. They had 5 weddings there the day we were there.

This is one of the rooms in the castle, that they have as a reception hall. This is actually the room that Claudio and Rita had their reception in! Adorable!

So that was my weekend! Class this week! Whoo! I start wine classes tomorrow! Yay!

Have a good week!

Love!

The Adventure Continues... with Crafts!

Ciao!

Hope everyone had a good weekend! And Labor day! Whoo! We didn't have labor day off, and you might feel bad for us, but

you shouldn't because instead we went to Venice and Soave this weekend! Very exciting stuff!

Venice was BEAUTIFUL!!! As soon as I saw it I fell in love! And it's only about a 1.5/2 hr train ride away!

We spend the morning going to Morano which is where they make the glass! We went to a glass studio and saw them blow glass and make a vase and a horse sculpture! After that we went to the main part of Venice and went to the only lace school in Italy where we watched them hand make lace. People are so talented in Italy! Then they gave us all free lace circles. We walked around St. Marks Basilica! BEAUTIFUL! We thought about getting a ride on a gondola and then realized we were all too cheap. After that we ate at a little classic Italian restaurant with the checked table clothes. We got squid spaghetti! Yumm!

That man holding the squid spaghetti? That's Claudio our group leader!

On Sunday morning a group of us went to church at San Zeno. St. Zeno is the patron saint of Verona (as well as fishermen, and new born babies). Here lies some interesting facts: He was cremated and buried under the alter of the church, BUT to honor his body they made a marble replica of his body and put it in a class coffin that now makes up the alter. So it's Alter, then marble replica, then ashes. ALSO, the San Zeno church is where Romeo and Juliet would have gotten married and died if the story was real, which it is, so that's where that happened. :)

After church we went to Soave for the day! Which if you drink wine, and you probably do, the majority of white Italian wine comes from.

Above is a picture of the entire town of Soave. All the green you see? That's grapes! Yumm! After walking around the Soave castle for a little while, we went to a pottery making place and watched local artists make pottery. Very exciting. We also got to paint our own pottery! That night we got to go to a special event! Usually reserved for companies, we got to go to a wine festival where Soave vineyards present their wine to distributors, restaurants, and critics. Yeah, we're pretty high up there!

The picture above is my friend Peggy and I drinking wine and eating "cavallo" It was good, and yes I know what cavallo is, do you? If you don't look it up :)

Alls well that ends well and we returned to Verona that night and went to school Monday! Let you know about more adventures later!

Miss you!

love!

Hello all!

I have a little free time this afternoon so I put my pictures thus far on my computer! Here are some to check out!

To the left is my living room! We live in a very interesting apartment building! It is very antiqu-y (word?). A recent adventure in our apartment was that my roommate me woke me up around 1:45 am one morning because there were two bats flying around our room. We didn't know what to do so we of course woke up our other two roommates, who laughed and explained to us that they had had bats in their room the night

before. I don't know why they thought that was funny, maybe its a European thing. So they finally flew out the window and my roommate convinced me I had rabies for a good 24 hours. Sweet.

These are delicious mascarpone mice. Aren't they adorable? Yet too cute and too expensive to eat. :)

The next picture is a group of us at the top of the bell tower in town. Check out the view! Also notice the super stylish eight year old. That's Claudio's son, Petro, the child prodigy.

This is were I live... just kidding, my street is currently under construction, so we'll just pretend I live here :)

Hope everyone is doing well! We're going to Venice this weekend! Then on to Marano, and Soave! Yay!

Shout out to my Sig Kap ladies! Good luck with recruitment this weekend!

love