A Birthday In Italy

Thursday marked the day of my nineteenth birthday, but my first ever birthday in Italy. I feared that the day would leave me missing home and wishing I was with my family, but it left me feeling love from everyone I live with here in the palazzo. My morning began with the usual routine of getting up and brushing my teeth, then opening my wardrobe to change. This particular morning balloons began to fly out of my wardrobe. The girls had stuffed 20 balloons in there, nineteen for my nineteen years of living and an extra for good luck. Since my birthday has not yet become a national holiday here yet, it was off to class. Who knew this would continue to bring gifts. The Bankers gave me a lovely gift of lavender, which sent continues to fill my room long after the birthday celebrations. I also got a card from Vivian our alumni guest, and cookies from Sara our Italy Today teacher. Lunch, as usual was a feast but on my birthday we had lasagna with meat sauce AND with pesto. As if the first dish wasn’t divine enough there were still two courses remaining. The last was my amazing birthday tart topped with letter candles to spell auguri which the Italians say to mean best wishes on ones birthday. Everyone’s head was adorned with a festive birthday hat, and I got my own “princess” birthday hat. We decided to spend lunch speaking only improper grammar, to in turn annoy John Rose. Little did we know he would only join in on the idea, and this made the rest of lunch hilarious. I got a gift from everyone, which was a tray that had a scene of Venice on it and after lunch, Nicole and I convinced Amanda to run with us. This is one of the 19 things that were included on a list of 19 things I had to complete for my birthday by Sunday. More stories will come about this as you read on. The remainder of the day and night was mellow, as we all enjoyed a nice dinner at the Fiorentina restaurant near the palazzo. The girls refused to let me pay for my meal and when we returned back to the palazzo, a few of them had made me a cheesecake adorned with brightly colored strawberries. I somehow managed to miss the girls working on any of these things for my birthday, but loved being so surprised. When a cake was brought to my at the restaurant, there was a sparkler on top of it. I thought the girls had planned some sort of sick joke on me, because as they all know I am terrified of sparklers. They promised it wasn’t there because of anything they had said, but purely by coincidence. They DID however, buy me a package of these terrifying sparklers for my birthday and gave them to me with my cheesecake. We decided it was best to rest Thursday, as Friday and Saturday were promised to last much longer into the night.



Friday I had to get up early and go to my school for Service Learning. I was placed in a private elementary school within walking distance of our palazzo, called the Maestre Pie. Here I helped three different classes learn English. The first class I had was the Level V class and this class has studied clothes and body parts. We played bingo using different kinds of clothes, and I explained you wear your shoes on your feet and your ring on your finger, etc. This class was smaller and the kids weren’t too bad. The next class was the Level I students who all averaged about six years. When I say all, I mean the 25 loud children that filled the room. In my time at the school I probably spoke more Italian than they spoke English, but this was because they were young and have not developed on a high level of comprehension yet. I am impressed that the Italian school system puts language in its curriculum so early on. Each student in class one came up to be individually and was asked how old they were in English. They each, in their own way and in their own time, told me how old they were. We didn’t get too much farther except for a song of “hellos and his.” The last group I had for two hours, and this was the Level III class. They were learning vocabulary for family and numbers up to fifty. This meant that I could introduce the members of my family using a picture and also tell them how old my sister and I were. Because they haven’t gone past fifty in numbers, and I wasn’t feeling daring Friday I couldn’t tell them my parent’s age. Maybe this is an idea for the next class. All in all, the experience in the school was fun, but I think that when I go back this week I will prepare a better plan for the students so that way they can learn more English in a more structured way. Because my morning wore me out I rested after lunch and began to prepare for an evening at K Café with some of the girls. This night I had to begin completing some of the 19 things that were on my list. While I would love to share the list, some of the tasks will be left unknown. Friday at K Café I did manage to take a picture with a young random Italian man, get someone to get me a drink, met and took a picture with a girl whose birthday was in October, and get the phone number of one of the bartenders. This night we began to get close with all the people that work at K Café, and I enjoyed this because we go there so often but don’t always talk to the bartenders very much. We returned back to the palazzo before the sun rose so we could rest up for our Saturday adventures.



Saturday we were to arrive on the bus at ten o’clock sharp in order to ride to La Verna. La Verna is a beautiful city, known for its beautiful church, which was a favorite retreat for the famous Saint Francis. He was one of the many Saints who I have learned about in my Art History class, and now on this trip. St. Francis had good reason to love La Verna and on our trip there I feel in love also. The city is surrounded by mountains, and is also higher in elevation itself. We even saw a few flakes of snow while in La Verna. This made me thankful of my hat and glove purchase the day before. I chose to venture of a little on my own while the Swabs talked to their students and discovered beautiful crosses made, and also ones etched into the rocks on caves. These were not literally caves, but large rock formations which I find fascinating and also relaxing. This city is also famous for being a spiritual retreat for Catholics. Once we had seen the city, and even watched the processional of a beautiful bride in her wedding, we loaded the bus and headed to Caprese Michelangelo. Here, the annual chestnut festival was being held. We got to see a man literally roasting chestnuts over an open fire. Because of this, I had the Christmas song of “Chestnuts Roasting on An Open Fire” in my head for the rest of the day. This small town is famous for being the birthplace of Michelangelo, the famous artist. He was born and baptized here. For this reason you can tour his house and visit a museum in honor of his amazing sculpture work. Saturday was a productive day, and upon returning to Sansepolcro we changed and headed out for the last night of birthday celebration. Things started at K Café, where we enjoyed the company of one another and a drink and talked with our friends. The music began and got us all in the mood to go dancing, which led us to our next stop at Sansepolcro’s disco techa Le Scorpione. I was intimidated by the number of well dressed guards they had working, and even more worried when we entered and the dance floor was empty. The dance club finally became lively around 1:30am, which is near closing time for American dance clubs. By 3 in the morning it was time for me to find my bed, but before leaving I got a few more things checked off my list of 19. I danced with a random person, and as I always do I danced my heart out on the dance floor. It was interesting to me that so many men were well dressed and instead of attempting to “grind” or dirty dance with a girl would enjoy dancing by themselves or with their friends. Funny thing was that me being the American woman that I am, decided that they all had to be gay because they weren’t being completely perverted or attempting to force me to dance with them. I should have found their fun and non perverted nature at the discotecha normal, but thanks to my experience in the states I was in shock. I slept longer than usually into the next morning and Sunday can be referred to as a “lazy Sunday afternoon.” I stayed in my warm bathrobe after a walk and coffee with Nicole, and proceeded to watch two chick flicks in a row curled up in a wool blanket with a cup of hot chocolate. For now, I’ll go find that same couch and wool blanket and cuddle up with my Levi books for Dr. Webb’s class. This won’t be as cheerful an experience, as the books for her class can only be described as depressing. One must do ones work however, and the reality is these things all really did happen in history. CIAO!