Prima Vera. 150 anniversario Unità di Italia!

150

So two weeks ago, It was the 150th anniversary of Italy. UNITED Italy that is. (All the different parts were not together, the north used to be under austrian power, and the south under spanish) Italy is like one of the oldest countries ever, or the area, you could seriously find ruins if you dig a hole anywhere.(It's apparently difficult to build new stuff because if you dig and find something, which they almost always do, you have to stop, youre not allowed to destroy it and build any further) but Italy the country itself is actually really young, WE celebrated 150 years! so we didnt have school thursday, and for my school we didnt have it friday either because, my school doesnt have school saturday. Make sense. In my regione, the main city is Torino, which was the first capital of Italy. Soooo In Torino there was a BIG festa! fireworks and everything in the streets from like 10pm until 3 in the morning. But i couldnt go because it was a bit far, and it rained so.. since its a party in the streets.. idk. Just saying, think thats a bit interesting though, since its in my region. haha

Car made and desgined just for this occasion. saw in in a shoe store at mantova

Most of my schoolmates went to the disco since there wasnt any school. I instead went to a small concert, My friends host brother is in a band, and him and his friends are all music people. so we went to their small band concert thing. It was pretty chill

Anyways, point is, Italy is 150 years old now! And there are Italian flags everywhere! Now is the time where theres the most italian pride like ever everywhere. And now is also the time (for a number of people) to protest. my friend explained to me a group that dont want italy to be united, they go around and protest how different region should be apart, or how at least the south and north should be divided, as far as i understand. The south and north really dont like each other, its like a sort of competion i think. (The cultures and everything are SO different! I still wont get over how different my experience in sardegna was, for only one week there, verses my life here. ) But yeah they protest in this period on purpose, becuase they dont support it being united.

MANTOVA(march 17th-18th)

Thursday (since we didnt have school, haha! only awesome thing about my school!) my family and i(one of my sisters Ari, because the other had to stay in milan to study) left for mantova and sabbionetta. These two places near each other in lombardia, like 2 hours away from where I live. We went for a day in sabbionetta, and the evening and next day in mantova. Both are REALLY PRETTY! .(mantova, where romeo in romeo and juliet was banished.) we saw a castle and palaces, and there is this one room with the most beautiful painting ive ever seen! it was on the ceilling, with cupids and like the heavens(i think it was gods looking over, i dont remember)looking over. I wanted to take pictures but we had to turn everything off when we went in :(

This is a picture of the painting, but i had to get it off the internet lol

Center of Mantova

Typical cakes of Mantova

Went back home friday night, stopped in milan to get my other sister vale, and we ate dinner there, the BEST PIZZA IN THE WORLD, then returned home. On this trip i saw so many things that were history and beautiful. Trips like this really make me fall in love with italy so much more. every where you go, everything is old, and beautiful

VERONA ( march 19th-20th)

Following day, saturday i went to verona. I went to visit one of my friends who went to Seattle last year on exchange, she is an italian from verona. Anyways My host mommy took me to the station at novara(main city of local chapter) and then i took the train to verona. My friend was in school(yeah thats right, were in italy, saturday school. its funnn haha.. well i can only imagine cuz in this case, my school is awesome.) so her mom met me at the station and she drove me around. She showed me some of the city. Then we met my friend back at their house. Had a yummy lunch, and hit the town. My friend lives right in the center of Verona, so we walked around, they know i like archaeology, so they showed me the archaeology museum. actually theres a lot of ruins in verona. theres the Arena

There's stuff in the Arena because they were preparing for a concert

The ruins are seriously everywhere. Theres like random holes in the ground just so you can look down and see the ruins. It's actually really fascinating, to think about how old this place really is, and how you can just look down beneath you and see these ancient artifacts of the past. how often do you get a chance to just wander the streets and look down and see that?! Maybe its just abnormally interesting for me because i want to be an archaeologist xD Anyways. I actually went to see Juliets house, like in the movie Letters to Juliet, and took pictures of the famous statue and the love writing everywhere, I waited in line like all the other tourists and I TOUCHED JULIETS BOSOM! hahahhah. so yeah

Verona is sooo pretty! this was basically one of the best weekends ever! Cute trip with my family to mantova, and the next day went to visit one of my friends :) i got to see a lot of things and it was a beautiful weekend! the weather was absolutly perfect!

View from the top of a hill where there is an austrian castle. View of all of Verona :)

Ciaoo Rachael

A presto