Sorry for all the neglect, but I've been super busy lately!
(A little disclaimer, I just got acrylic nails and typing is super difficult on a phone)
At this point I am almost two months into the exchange and I have done and seen so much already! One of the main reasons why I haven't been blogging much is because I have been trying to keep this blog happy and I don't want to ruin it with my negative thoughts. Moving on, I will however talk about my amazing experience at Carnevale!!! I'm not exactly sure what the purpose of the festival was, but I'm still so happy I got to experience it!
So for this carnival, it was in a town called Ivrea which is about an hour outside of Turin. My chapter (Genoa) and the kids in Verona got lucky and were able to go and Stay in Ivrea for about 5 days.
Day one, we (Caroline, Roberto, Camilla, and I) caught a train at about 1 o'clock from Genova Bringole to Torino. The train ride was about two hours, but I honestly didn't mind because the scenery was beyond amazing. Once we got to Torino we had to wait about an hour for our train to Ivrea, when we finally got to Ivrea we met the families that would be hosting us while we were in Ivrea. That night we got to stay in and just get to know our host families. My family consisted of Lina, Enrico, and their 3 cats. That night we went to a pizzeria and I got to meet Enrico's dad.
Four cheese pizza from heaven.
Day two (Saturday): we had the full day with our host families, Lina took me and two of her friend on a walk around Torino because we had nothing else to do.
I absolutely love Torino!Anyways, that day at about 5, I met at the center with a few other people and we decided to go on a little walk around the city before the parade started. I met another American who is from the far upstate New York, and this guy from Germany.
At about 7 ish, we went back to the center to regroup and to do some last minute preparations for the parade. We were a part of Giallo e Blu (yellow and blue) in that time I finally was reunited with Jessica, who I haven't seen in a full month, and I met people who I had only really heard stories about.
And we were off! We walked for almost 5 hours, we witnessed a lot of drunk people, and we "yolo'd" in one way or another. At about midnight, we finally reached out 'headquarter' and we waited for our families to come and get us.
Day three, the first day of the battles! The Battle of the Oranges was fun, but also extremely painful. There was no way you could not avoid getting covered in Oranges. I managed to some how get pegged in the head twice, multiple times in leg, once in the stomach, and once in the boob. People on my team got super into the who ordeal and started throwing people into the gigantic pit of orange mush.
After that mess, me Jess and Caroline left early because we were covered from head to toe in orange. So we made the 10 ish minute walk back to my temp host family's house and tried to figure out the smartest way to leave the smallest mess. (Not very successful). That night, we planned to go to a Discoteca with the other exchange students, but it never ended up happening.
Day four. Mother Nature was not on our side that day, it was at least 10°F colder than the day before, and it was also raining. It was just miserable on my part. The second I couldn't feel my toes or fingers was when I truley got into the event. That day I didn't go home covered in oranges like I had the day before. Since it was all the Genoa and Verona exchange students last night in Ivrea, we planned to go out to a bar that night all together (a bar here is like a caffe). Last minute plans led us to a Discoteca... Basically we walked for like twenty minutes in the rain to a Disco that was full of older people (people in their thirties and such). I didn't mind so much because I had my favorite Drake quoting New Zealander Dali with me. We spent the walk singing Beyoncé and Odd Future songs obnoxiously loud.
The final day. I didn't think that leaving Ivrea would be so hard. At about 7:50 ish, my host mom in Ivrea, Lina, came into my room to say goodbye since she had to leave for work. I spent the rest of the morning packing up my duffle bag. Had breakfast with the host dad, and made my way to the station. Said bye to the rest of the families and were on our way back to Genova. I'm not going to lie, I majorly contemplated not getting on the train. But I had to.
I want to say thank you to AFS and Lina and Enrico for letting me have to best four days of my life!
Peace, love, and bruises from oranges,
Shushu ;)
