Blogs from Rovigo, Veneto, Italy, Europe - page 3

Happy Festa Della Republica! Today is the 2nd of June, which in Italy, signifies the anniversary of the birth of the Republic in Italy. So, basically, today was the Italian 4th of July. Except there weren't any fireworks. Nor peach ice cream (if you catch my drift). Oh well, it's still pretty cool I was here for it. Apparantly, according to Wikipedia (which I read in Italian ) after WWII, on June 2nd and 3rd, 1946 the people of Italy took a vote whether to have a monarchy form of government or a republic. When the majority voted Republic, the Savoia family ahead of the monarchy that would have been were exiled, and WWII fascism was gone forever! Take that Mussolini. But anyways, wherever you look around you can see Red, Green and White flags hanging, ... read more

So once again, school. Today went a little differently however. I got to school and they actually had a lesson instead of just no teachers and oral testing. I'm not sure what the official name of the class was, but I thought it was interesting. You know the Divine Comedies by Dante Alighieri? Well, at their 5-year high school, they teach that trilogy as it's own class pretty much. The 3rd year they read "Inferno", 4th year "Purgatorio" and 5th year "Paradisio". Well, Paolo's class are 4th years, so we spent a whole hour reading, translating, explicating, examining, and doing backflips with the "Purgatorio" portion of the Divine Comedies. Ok, well, they were doing that. My main goal was to, instead of comprehending the book, to comprehend the teacher. In order to get what Dante was ... read more

Well when I posted my last blog entry is wasn't too late in the day--a lot had happened since then. First of all, Elena dropped Paolo and I off downtown somewhere, where we walked around for a while, him showing me the interesting buildings in town. The funny thing is, after only three or four buildings, he said that was all that was interesting. That is when I had to explain that everything here is interesting to me since it is all hundreds (even thousands) of years old, compared to home where the oldest thing in Eaton that is still standing is probably Eaton High School. (Post a comment if you think of something older in Eaton. I thought the old sugar factory too). We stopped by this old looking playground surrounded by a big brick ... read more

Saturday 13.2.2010 day 122 Rovigo We drove from our resort to Rovigo today. Rovigo is just outside of Venice. We are going to get the train to Venice tomorrow. ... read more