Verona and Turin

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The past few days have been a whirlwind! On Tuesday I went to Verona for the day, it was only about an hour and a half train ride from Venice. Verona is beautiful. From the train station it looks very run down, but the city center is a mix of the old and the new. There were many high end shops in the walkways and nice restaraunts with outdoor seating areas looking into a park that was in the center. There is an old arena, which is known as a mini colosseum.

We went to see the tomb of Juliet, there was just an empty stone coffin. There is a fresco museum in the same area, and all the frescos are very beautiful and were from the church that housed Juliet's tomb. Her house is in the city center, tucked in between shops and gelateria's. There were many tourists which took away from the experience for me. You can go up to her balcony and look down, and also rub the breast of her statue for good luck.

Of all the gelato I have had so far, my favorite has been from Verona. I had a chocolate orange flavor and it was amazing. I definitely want to go back to Verona. The last day I was in Venice, we overslept, so we didn't have much time to do much. It was sprinkling but we decided to head back to St. Mark's Square. There weren't as many people out in the square due to the weather, and it was very slick. We had some gelato and started to head back to our hotel and then got poured on. We were lucky we only had one crappy weather day.

On Thursday I headed to Torino from Venice by train. It was a long train ride, about four and a half hours. From the train station I though I would take a taxi, but I couldn't find one, so I took a bus. It was quite difficult trying to figure out the bus system, but I was able to make it to my hostel with the ever trusty google maps. Once everyone was settled in we went on a mini tour of the city.

We went to a nice shopping area that had a lot of high end shops. It seems that most major cities in Italy have them, which isn't too surprising. For dinner we had our first experience with apperitivo, which is like a buffet. It was very good. There are five other people who have been placed in Torino with me, so I'm excited to be able to meet up with them once we are all settled.

Today we took a tour of the city center. It houses the palazzo Madame, which was made for the Duke of Savoy's wife and is right across from the royal palace. We went into San Lorenzo and saw photographs of the Shroud of Turin and learned a little bit about that. We were also able to go down to the Rivre Po, which is the longest river in Italy.

After our tour we went to the WEP office, which is the organization that is working with us and the schools. We had an orientation on the Italian culture and then met with some teachers to get an idea of what will be expected of us while we are here. For dinner we went to a restaurant and had a bunch of yummy Italian appetizers, which included prosciutto, mortadella, fried bread, chicken wings, and then a fried mashed potato ball. Tomorrow we go with our host families and begin our teaching adventure!

Ciao for now!

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Comments

[Carlene]

Hi Becca love your. Blog am enjoying reading about your adventures.have fun ! Ciao!