Fish, Peaches, and an all-around Update

Sorry I have not written in so long, I just have been very busy this past week. Other than school, which is going very well, I have done a few nice things this past week. Yesterday we all went as a family to a nearby lake for a fairly short walk around it. While we were there we did come across an unexpected visitor, though. After than that Oscar and I went to the Rotary meeting. I am actually a bit confused about this restaurant, since last week every course included mushrooms, while this week we had none. I think every week they change their theme; this last week’s being seafood. We started off with a very good plate of penne pasta with shrimp and scallops, followed by a large chunk of fish, whose Italian name I could not translate. Even for dessert, which is very hard difficult to make out of fish, they came about as close as possible. The Italian word for fish, pesce, is very similar to the word for peach, pesca, which is what was served for dessert. I need to start drinking caffeine on Thursdays when I am going to Rotary meetings, as spending a whole day speaking Italian is very tiring, and towards the end of the meetings around 10:30, my eyelids start feeling like they are made out of lead.

An unexpected critter I would expect to find in a Louisiana bayou rather than in the Veneto region of Italy.

I was also quite busy writing an article for the Summit High School newspaper, Tiger Tracks. Once that goes into publication in Colorado, I will post it on here, as it would be wrong for me to publish it first. Also, I have walked around Vicenza a lot and I would be comfortable saying that I know my way around pretty well now. I have also decided that by the end of my stay, I would like to have visited every gelateria in Vicenza, judging both their stracciatella and fragola flavors (vanilla with chocolate, strawberry). Maybe once I am done, I could write a book about it.

As for school, it is going very well. I have really gotten to like history and philosophy, partly because it is the only class where the teacher writes everything she says on the chalkboard, making it easier to understand. Reading Italian is a little bit harder than I would have expected, as I cannot quite skim the book and get the meaning – I must make an active effort to comprehend everything. And it is also a little bit harder when we are reading Dante’s Purgatorio, which is hard for all of the Italians also. I really enjoy the fact that my school is situated a block away from Vicenza’s main avenue, and on one of the city’s main downtown plazas. Here is a picture of the Church of San Lorenzo as seen from the window of my classroom.

Chiesa San Lorenzo as seen from my classroom. 

Tonight, after soccer practice, we will all go to Vicenza for a concert that is a fundraiser for a project Cristina (my host mother) is helping with. I do not know the details, but I do know that she goes to Tibet often with some other doctors to offer medical assistance and that the fundraiser will benefit the reconstruction of an orphanage/school that was devastated by the recent earthquakes.

Also here are some miscellaneous pictures that I was not able to post last week. We got a high-speed Wi-Fi modem just yesterday, so it will be easier for me to post more pictures more often.

Some odd-looking veggies from last week's Festa di Zucca.

And some more normal, yet less colorful ones.

From left to right: Cristina, Maria, Oscar, me, Osvaldo, and Giuditta on my birthday, last Sunday.

A picture of my room, or at least half of it. On the other half I have a desk, a bookshelf, and a dresser. Despite the bunk beds on the right, I have this room to myself and I sleep in the bed on the left.