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!