Una famiglia romana a Milano

Looking at the Matterhorn and the Swiss/French border from Champoluc

 I MADE IT! It was a long trip that I took a week ago from Minneapolis to New York to Roma to Milano, but I made it safe and sound.

My famiglia here in Milano consists of the mother and father, Giovanna and Livio, their eldest daughter, Ginevra aka Ginni, and their two twins, Gaia and Giulia plus the two adopted family members of their maid, Belli, and their tata, or nanny, Giosi. Yes, it was strange to me too that I came as a quasi Au Pair but they kept their nanny as well, but then I learned that she has been with the famiglia since their eldest, Ginni, was a year old and is now truly a part of their family.

Living room area

I'm going to language classes Monday-Friday until noon then have the afternoons to myself until I meet up with the girls when they finish school at 4pm. Usually I accompany Ginni to her activities which include dance class, swimming, and catechism in preparation for her Confirmation. Fortunately all her activities are very close by so I can actually get there and back without getting lost!

My room

One of the main reasons I am here is to help the girls, especially Ginni, in developing some English speaking skills. This has been a challenge for me because it makes it hard to get to know the girls and win their confidence when you can't really have a consistent conversation. There runs the risk of having them associate you with having to work hard, which is definitely not what I want. I just need to keep thinking and keep being creative with how I can make hanging out with me and speaking English fun!


My language classes thus far seem to be a good level of Italian for me. There's no really new grammar but rather refreshing what I've learned and going deeper into it. It's also been a really neat opportunity to meet people from all different countries while keeping our common language Italian so there's no danger of reverting back to English. The countries thus far represented in my class are the Philippines, Latvia, Ireland, Brazil, Mexico, and Turkey. Interesting enough they are all girls at this point too, most of which have Italian boyfriends/fiances/husbands.

My first weekend with the
family, I went with them to their condo in the mountains. It's located at Champoluc, a ski town in the Valle d'Aosta region of Italia on the Swiss/French/Italian border. The girls each had their own short lesson to go to for an hour or so, but all in all the skiing only lasted a couple of hours or so. Although I was a bit disappointed to only get a little ski time in, I was really just happy to have gotten to stay with them and see how skiing in Italia is different than what I'm used to. I'm excited to get more opportunities to go back as the season goes on!

Giulia

Gaia at the mountain house

Un week-end en France avec une amie

This past weekend marks my first international venture into the rest of Europe. I have a friend, Cecilia, who graduated with a major in French and spent a semester studying her junior year in the city of Rennes. This past October she returned to France, this time to a little city of 4,000 called Die at the foot of the Alps to teach English at a French school.
I decided this was a great opportunity to be introduced to French culture and to get to see what my friend is up to this year, so I headed out Thursday to begin my adventure with my transportation plan written clearly in my notebook:
1. Train Ferrara-->Venezia
2. Bus Venezia Station-->Marco Polo Airport
3. Plane Venezia-->Lyon
4. Train Lyon-->Valence
5. Bus Valence-->Die

Lyon Airport

I had read on the new online about the snow storms that closed down much of Western Europe including London and Paris, so I was prepared for delays. Thursday morning I caught the train to Venezia, then the bus. My flight to Lyon was delayed an hour, but the train ticket that I booked online gave me a four hour window, so I wasn't too worried about missing that. I got into Lyon just fine (although the amount of snow did not, in my opinion, warrant the amount of delays...) and waited for me train. I soon became worried, however, when I saw that my train out of Lyon was delayed because I only had 20 minutes in between the train and then the bus to Die. The train was an hour late, but I jumped on, got to Valence, and saw that I indeed missed the last bus into Die. I walked out into town and found a hotel, but had to pay 40euro for a dirty, smelly room. It did let me sleep however until I could catch the next bus at 8:30am Friday morning.
The 1 1/2 hour bus ride was a great way to be introduced to the Rhône-Alpes region of France, winding through the hills in the countryside and then squeezing through the tiny streets of a few towns on the way.

Made it to DIE!

Countryside on the bus-ride in

I got off at the stop Cecilia said would be near the school where she worked but I couldn't seem to find her. To be completely honest, I wasn't sure if this was the right place and my French skills have pretty much disappeared in the face of all my Italian studies, so I didn't really know how to ask anyone if I was in fact at the right school. A few teachers there did note my confused face and asked me, in French, if they could help. I eeked out a couple words that I think amounted to "I look for American professor," which they somehow understood and confirmed that this was in fact the right place. I rounded the corner of the courtyard and there she was before me--a vision to my travel-weary self! As she later told me, I too was a vision to her worried-about-her-friend-lost-in-France self, so we both yelled rather loudly and ran into a hug. Cecilia later told me that she thinks that the French teacher she was with was really taken aback, as hugging is a much more intimate act in many European countries, but it wasn't the time for formalities as I thanked God to have found my destination.
Ceci introduced me to a couple of the French women that she worked with and then to another assistant that does the same thing that she does, but is Italian and teaches Italian to the kids. We all had lunch together at, of all places, an Italian café, and it was a great game of translation the whole time with Alessio speaking Italian with a little English and French, Ceci speaking English and French, and then me speaking English and Italian. Alessio left to head back to Crest, the town where he and the other assistants live and Ceci took me on a little tour of her town.

Cecilia in snowy Die!

Die is famous for a particular type of sparkling wine, Clairette, that is usually a little citrus-y and sweet, so Ceci took me to Jaillance, a company that makes and sells Clairette for a tasting. The man there let us try almost six different types, from a dryer sparkling wine called Crémant to the sweeter Clairette including a couple organic versions. After the tasting we took a bus to Crest, the nearby town where the other assistants live, to meet and have dinner with them. Once there I got to meet a couple fo them including another American, a Colombian, and a Brit. After a glass of Clairette that Ceci had brought with us we headed out to a restaurant for a little wine and a little food. This restaurant, Le Charleston, offered an interesting section that was basically variations of hashbrowns. I ended up ordering one with smoked trout and a poached egg on top--who knew this was a French was to eat? After dinner we walked around the quiet town for a bit, all lit up with Christmas lights, before heading back and spending the rest of the night at their place since they had some extra beds. Alessio ended up being back at their shared house, so I got to practice my Italian some more and even talk some politics with my new found knowledge of Italian history and current events from my classes in Ferrara. It was really just a great experience to meet all these kids from all these different backgrounds and languages living together and becoming friends.

The next morning Ceci and I said goodbye and walked around Crest for a bit, just catching their Saturday food market with the streets lined with tables of vegetables, mussels and oysters, roasting chickens. It was another great opportunity to see the similarities and differences between French culture and Italian culture in this weekend market. We each bought lunch, a piece of quiche for me and a sandwich for Ceci, and headed back to Die. We had enough time for showers, a quick nap, and then some shopping around Die before I had to take the last bus back to Valence at 5:30pm.
Unfortunately I had to stay a second night at a hotel alone in Valence. I really didn't want to, but the only train I could take to the airport left Valence at 9am and the earliest bus out of Die didn't get into Valence until 9:20am, so it was my only option. The difficulty of getting there and back ended up being exhausting and expensive, and, to be completely honest, made me curse France a couple times. I am still glad I was able to go and visit Ceci and see a little of her life in France, but was very very glad when I finally got back to Italy :) I was greated by some wonderful Christmas lights in Ferrara, including the beautiful Christmas tree in the center of town! I just have two more final exams and some Christmas shopping to do before heading back to Colorado in one week!

Il Ringraziamento e il Natale

Holidays. I always love this time of the year, probably because my family has always made it so special, but here in Italia I have a new vigor for this season stronger than ever before. The feeling of the holiday season automatically makes me feel closer to home and to the ones I love and creates an automatic link with the people here in Ferrara.
We had a wonderfully unique Thanksgiving here in Ferrara. We still had to go to classes, unfortunately, but CIEE put together a dinner at one of the osterie in town to which we often go. Usually, CIEE staff cooks the whole dinner, trying to keep it as close to American tradition as they can, but I must admit I had some doubts about that. How much can I really trust a Thanksgiving dinner to two Italians and a Welshman? Apparently someone else thought the same thing and asked our Student Coordinator, Patti, if we could do it semi-potluck style, an idea to which Patti and the rest of the staff happily consented. I decided to make a salad (I am my mother's daughter after all) and some oven roasted green beans (and I am...well, me after all) for our potluck and brought them to the restaurant at about 8pm that night. We all sat down and were brought two, yes TWO courses by the restaurant of antipasti and pasta without seeing anything related to Thanksgiving. Apparently they decided all of the food that we brought was going to be combined into a gigantic third course, but of course a bunch of the kids were getting full before the turkey came out! The turkey, however, was well worth the wait. As we were all talking about our own Thanksgiving traditions, the lights in the osteria dimmed and out of the kitchen came a turkey glowing with sparklers. We all laughed and clapped, and to add to the quasi American tradition before us, one of the students started singing "happy Thanksgiving to us, happy Thanksgiving to us" and we all spontaneously joined in to the new words of the Birthday song, finishing with cheers and clapping, thus finishing the spread of Thanksgiving tradition misconceptions in Italia. Out came all the "real" Thanksgiving food we had all brought, complete with mashed potatoes, stuffing, turkey, and my green beans and salad. Looks like I may have to hope for some pie once I get home to Colorado, however, as we did end up with Italian, albeit delicious, desserts.

And so the next morning I was officially allowed to get excited about the Christmas season that had descended upon Ferrara! Here, as in many Italian cities, there is a "Christmas market" for the three weeks or so before Christmas in the center of town. I say "Christmas market" because only about thirty percent of the merchandise is specific to Christmas, but it's still fun to have a definite sign of the holiday season in the center of town.










Ferrara also shows it's Christmas spirit as nativities and ornaments show up in store windows and as icicle lights get strung around town. Until this past weekend, however, they weren't turned on at night, but in the last few days it has been magnificent to be out at night and to see the city lit up with these simple but elegant flickering lights. As I finished up class and headed home today, I biked into the centro and came upon the Cathedral. Right in front of it a giant Christmas tree was being decorated with the same lights as are dangling throughout the city. It really is an incredible thing to be able to stand in this ancient town square lit up in holiday spirit like that. Being able to see the town during this season is something I would have hated to miss out on if I had done the more popular spring semester abroad.

With only about a week left of classes, I am proud to say that I have finished my two long papers in Italian and now feel as if I can really enjoy my last week or so in Ferrara. I'm actually off to visit a friend from CU who is teaching at a French school in the little down of Die in southeastern France. After a train, a bus, a plane, a train, and another train, I should make it there by 9:30pm :) Once I get back, I have three more tests before the end of this semester here in Ferrara! I'm so excited to see all my family in less than two weeks and to tell everyone more about my experiences here.  Love to all and Merry Christmas Season :)

HIGH ALERT:
There is a critical shortage of mail from the Mills family in the CIEE Ferrara office.  All mail donations  can be sent to:

Abbie Mills
c/o  Richard Chapman
Via Aldighieri 10
44121 Ferrara Italy

A jog down south

A week ago today I was groggily stumbling through the day on about three hours of sleep after a long, weekend starting in Firenze on Friday then down south to the capital city of Sicilia. It was exhausting, but unforgettable being able to experience these two very distinct and diverse cities and two completely different sides of Italia.  
 On Friday I headed out to Firenze with my host mom, Cinzia, on the early train at 6:30am.  As most of the people reading this have had the distinct pleasure of trying to wake me up, it's well understood how much of a feat this was for me. We arrived at 9 in Firenze, grabbed an espresso and headed out to start our day with a visit to the Galleria degli Uffizi.  We walked around the Uffizi for about two and a half hours, trying to take in all the art that the Medici family left behind from the Rinascimento (Renaissance).

 

the view of the Arno from the window of the Uffizi

 From the Uffizi, we headed over to Ponte Vecchio, encountering throngs of tour groups, stopping long enough to take a couple pictures and look in the windows of a couple pricey jewelry shops.

After doing some more window shopping (including finding the Firenze Disney Store!) we found a great café with tasty sandwich options including one that tempted me with tartufo e pecorino stagionato (truffle and aged pecorino cheese).  I ended up trying one with pecorino e carciofini (artichoke hearts) and splitting a giant insalatone di pera, pecorino, e noci (salad with pear, pecorino, and walnuts).  PLUS the wonderful cafè was steps from the Duomo and only cost us 15euro with two sandwiches, a salad, and two 1.5L bottles of water. I was, and still am obviously, pretty proud of our culinary find.
Firenze has a huge amount of tourists and students from America, so I heard a lot of English around me, and it was obvious that the city caters to those English speakers which proved to be kind of a culture shock coming from Ferrara.  It was interested, however, in that being with Cinzia all day I got to speak more Italian there than I have anywhere else.

 We took the train back to Bologna, where her husband, Lorenzo, picked us up and took me to the Bologna airport so I could meet the other three students going to Palermo. The plane ride was quick and painless, and we arrived in Sicilia by 10pm.
It's important to know a bit of history about this city before trying to experience it, and I feel really lucky in that my classes have touched on Palermo multiple times really enhancing my experience. Because of it's location Palermo has been the stage for many important historical moments in the last two-hundred years:
--Italian Unification--when Garidaldi led his army of volunteers from Sicilia all the way to Roma
--WW II--when the Americans used Sicilia as a strategic it's point in the war against Fascist Italia and Nazi Germany
--Mafia Wars in the 1970's through the 1990's
--The current battle which seems to be illegal immigration. The island of Sicilia finds itself in prime location to receive people trying to leave Northern Africa.

We were immediately aware of the difference in culture, in fact before we even left the airport.  On of the students, Mario, was approached by a plain-clothes security official, who asked to see his passport, then led him into a questioning room. We found out afterward that this official suspected Mario of being involved somehow in a drug operation, although we still don't know why.  This first experience with the people of Palermo, however, proved to be a big misrepresentation of the people we would meet throughout the rest of the trip; we found so many people to be very openly friendly and hospitable. One woman, when I stopped in her store to ask directions for an internet spot, offered to let me use her own computer and talked with me for at least fifteen minutes, asking me about myself and my family.

We spent our Saturday footing it around the large majority of the city.  We visited the three main markets of Palermo: Mercato Vucciria, Mercato del Capo, and Mercato Ballarò in which I think the raw Sicilian spirit resides. The markets are largely fruit and vegetable stands, meat stands, and fish stands (in which the testimony of the freshness is the entire swordfish on the table from which each steak is cut).  The Mercato Vucciria used to be the main location of mafia activity in the 80's and 90's, but now is the most subdued of the three.

Another part of the city that really imprinted itself on me was the Alberghieri quarter, which took huge casualties during the bombings of World War II.  The whole city was largely destroyed, but it is in this quarter that you can still see the destruction, as few of the buildings have been rebuilt.  Being able to see this part of the city largely as it looked right after the war is something hard to forget.

Our second day we spent on the beach of Mondello, a short bus ride from Palermo.  We were all pretty tired from the day before and decided to use this time to relax and see another part of the island. We found some more street markets, largely selling scarves, jewelry, and touristy trinkets through which I always find it fun to meander. After watching the sun set over the Sicilian mountains, we caught a bus back to the city and started walking back to the train station to find our bus back to the airport.  On the way, we were caught in a true tropical rain, one in which your only warning is a single drop before the heavens open up a full-on deluge.
One thing that I have learned about most Italians is this: they don't like to be cold or wet.  If you get cold or wet you will get la febbre--the fever (what this is, we really haven't successfully found out.) In order to stave of la febbre, one must NEVER go outside with wet hair, walk around the house without at least one pair of socks, or leave the house after September without a scarf. Needless to say, one must never be caught in a rainstorm without an umbrella and this day was no exception. Once the rain started pouring the state of the streets could only be described as pure chaos--there was screaming as everyone started running in pure panic, in front of cars, bikes, buses, to get to some sort of overhang that would save them from getting wet. The other students and I almost forgot to find our own cover just because we were so shocked at scene unfolding in front of us.  The street vendors were no fools and quickly sold all of their umbrellas to all those cowering under the cover of the store awnings. 
Once the rain passed, we started our long travel back to Ferrara: Bus to the Palermo airport-->plane from Palermo to Bologna-->bus from airport to train station-->train from Bologna to Ferrara-->bike from train station home.  This long process got me back to my house in Ferrara at about 4:30am on Monday morning with a 9am class to get up for. I didn't quite make it to class on time but felt no regrets from they in which I spent my weekend in Italia. 

Una settimana a Ferrara

It's definitely autumn in Ferrara.  Fortunately, the winter's fog hasn't rolled in, but the mornings certainly have that fall bite to them. The leaves are falling with increasing frequency, which I LOVE.  Seeing the seasons change is truly a thing that you can only experience when you live somewhere.  It's atually homey to feel the days turn colder, just like I'm used to in Colorado.

 

the view from on top of the city wall right next to my casa

One thing that is new to me here is the little castagne (chestnuts!) stands that pop up in the evening all over town.  For 2euro you get a little bag of freshly roasted chestnuts--and yes, the first time I saw them, I did start to sing the Christmas Song in my head :) I still need to try them, and tonight may be the night!

 My host mother has been very interested in me cooking things from America.  So far, I prepared--or tried to prepare with Italian ingredients--fajitas and nachos with fresh salsa and guac.  The fajitas were interesting because I've never worked with dried whole peperoncini, so I underestimated the heat factory.  Cinzia doesn't like things piccante, but she got the true TexMex experience that night.  The first time I made guac I was shocked at how huge the avocados are here! We also forgot to buy chips, so that night guac was eaten, maybe for the first time in history, on toast.  The next week, however, I made some more for the nachos and we had the true experience with tortilla chips and salsa I made that day. 

 

 Cinzia with my nachos at our kitchen table

Last weekend, our group had a trip to the soccer game of the local team, SPAL!  One of our staff members was born in Ferrara and has an intense affinity for this team that overrides even that of Dan Mills for the buffaloes.  We had a great time sitting in the stands and cheering on the team that we now consider to be ours.  AND SPAL won, which we were convinced was caused by our presence.  

Kim, Me, and Jill at the SPAL game

School is still pretty tough, but I'm muscling my way through it.  I have a fun and busy weekend ahead of me with a day trip to Firenze tomorrow with Cinzia and weekend trip to Palermo, Sicilia with three other CIEE students. I'll make sure to take lots of pictures!

Cars and Canals

Two more cities have been added to my list of cities visited: Modena and Venezia. 
A small group of students and I visited Modena last weekend, which is also in the region of Emilia Romagna.  A couple people really wanted to visit the Ferrari museum right outside of town, so I was ready to tag along and then explore more of Modena and its balsamic vinegar tradition afterwards.  The Galleria Ferrari was highly overrated as you basically you pay eleven euro to take pictures of cars.  Not really being a car aficionado, I didn't really appreciate it fully. 

Ready to get going we stopped in a couple Ferrari apparel shops, looked at a couple 100euro t-shirts, and headed back to the bus stop.  Now, before coming I had looked up information in my guide book on the Galleria Ferrari, including which bus to take to get there.  The guide book had extremely oversimplified the process, leaving us very confused, but we still managed to get to the Galleria by asking various bus drivers.  However, getting back proved to be much more difficult.  For whatever reason, it turned out that the bus didn't stop at the same place to go BACK to Modena, which took us a good forty-five minutes to figure out.  We walked for a bit and found another stop to which, after another twenty minutes, a bus came.  Once we started getting on however, the bus driver told us that we couldn't buy bus tickets on the bus, although we had been previously told otherwise.  After some confused discussion, the driver decided it was less trouble for him to just let us on the bus without paying.  By the time we got back to Modena and got situated, it was about 4:00pm and raining pretty steadily.  We walked around for a bit, saw a cathedral as well as the Palazzo Ducale in centro, then headed back to the train station.  I didn't get do the balsamic experience, however Modena is an easy 6euro train ride away and I can always go back.

This past Saturday morning I decided to take the direct train one and a half hours from Ferrara to Venezia for a small day trip. I went armed with my camera, some money, and a Lonely Planet guidebook to help me around the city.  From the first steps out of the train station, I loved Venezia.  I had decided to follow a suggested walking route in the guidebook that takes you in a roundabout way to Piazza San Marco by winding through some smaller, less toured streets. 

Taking my time and stopping into whatever shops looked interesting, I made my way to my first stop, and perhaps my favorite: Campo di Ghetto Nuovo. 
This was the area to which the city's Jewish population was ordered to move in the early 1500s.  This small "island" was locked at night and the inhabitants were forced to follow strict laws limiting social and economic activity.  It wasn't until almost 1800 that the Jews were allowed to live outside of this area.  In this area now there are stores selling Jewish goods, monuments for the Jewish population sent from Venezia to concentration camps in WWII, a good amount of synagogues, and Kosher restaurants.  It was really incredible to see a piece of history still so much like it was hundreds of years ago. 

 



After the ghetto, I walked towards my next destinations, a couple cathedrals including the city's Jesuit cathedral, La Chiesa dei Geuati, then later the Chiesa dei SS Giovnni e Paolo, and the Chiesa di Santa Maria Formosa--none of which I went into since all had an admission fee, but all of which were extremely impressive to look at from outside.
I wandered around for a bit in the shops between the neighborhoods of the Castello and San Marco before finally making my way to the famed Piazza San Marco around sunset.  It was packed with people and, with the light falling, I decided to take the vaporetto (ferry) up the Grand Canal back to the ferrovia (train station)

Overall, one of my main impressions of Venezia is that it is quite well preserved and removed from urbanization.  I love that it is a city with obvious wear and age, but in a very calm, refined way.  I'm really happy that I went by the walking route that took me off-the-beaten-path and also that I went in October, well outside the tourist season.  I think I got a view of Venezia that not many visitors see and am hoping to return a couple more times before my stay is over!