Ole, Ole Ole Ole! Chievo, Chievo!

Hello all!

Well, the last few days have been super busy! On Friday, we walked all over town on an historic tour. Our progam coordinator lives in Verona, and his son walked us all around the old part of town and told us all about the history of the city. It was really interesting to learn about all the different stages of Verona's history! Some structures, like the arena, have been standing since the Roman days (before 100 AD), and others were built as recently as the 1400s (which is considered modern to the Veronese). We got to see all kinds of sights, like "Juliet's balcony" and a square dedicated to the poet Dante. It was absolutely amazing.

Yesterday a huge group of us got up early to catch an 8:30 train to Venice. When we walked out of the train station, we literally walked right up to the edge of the Grand Canal. I had always heard that Venice was smelly, dirty, and overrated. Well my friends, none of those things are true. Venice was absolutely BEAUTIFUL. Epcot actually did a pretty good job of replicating it, but it doesn't even come close to portraying how beautiful it is. We didn't get to go on a gondola because they were pretty expensive, but we did take a water bus down the canal and got to see the old basilica and the Guggenheim museum there. Most of the day we just walked the streets, since it is very hard to get around in Venice. Most of the side streets dead end at the water or at a "water alley," so it's easy to get lost. But it was more fun that way! We decided we wanted to eat somewhere close to the water, so we found a really cool restaurant that was right on the Grand Canal. We got there before the crowds, so all 11 of us got to sit together right on the water! It was absolutely beautiful. On our way home, we got on a train that we thought went straight to Verona. Little did we know that the end of the line was Vicenza, which is a 25 minute ride from Verona...

By this point it was about 11:00, and we were told that no more trains were going to Verona that night. After some mild panicking, we found a sleeper train that was coming by on its way to Munich that stopped in Verona. However, we had to stand in the tiny corridor of the sleeper train for the entire 25 minute ride back. It was a tad uncomfortable, but it makes for a great story!

Today we actually got to sleep in for once, and we decided to go to a football game that our program coordinator told us about. It was a playoff game between the team from Bologna and a neighborhood team from Verona called Chievo Verona. Apparently they were a team from a small neighborhood that wasn't expected to even get to the playoffs, and they've been slowly advancing in the playoffs in the last few weeks. We stood in line for tickets (in the 90 degree weather), some people bought jerseys, and bought hamburgers outside the stadium. This whole time, I've been thinking that one thing America has over Italy (Chinese food, ice, and free refills) was that we make amazing hamburgers. Well, I was wrong - this was probably one of the best hamburgers I have ever had! We actually had pretty decent seats in the stadium, and we cheered along with the rest of the Italians, even though we had no idea what they were saying. Chievo Verona ended up tying with the other team, so they got to advance to the next stage! It was so fun, and such a great experience!

Well, tomorrow we start classes...at 8 am. That's going to be rough, but I guess that's what we're here for...it is called STUDY abroad after all...

CIAO!