The last two weeks ... and a flood

I am really sorry I have not written in so long. I have been busy with school and other things and just haven't found the time to write in about two weeks.

So where do I start? Two Saturdays ago, instead of doing the usual outing with my friends from school., I took the bus to Bassano and spent the night at one of the other exchange student's house. The next day, we went together to the Rotary Youth Exchange orientation lunch at a "cantina" near Udine. I had always thought of a cantina as a Mexican restaurant-bar, but it is actually the Italian word for "basement" meaning that this place was a wine cellar. Upon arriving, we met all of the Rotarians in charge of the Youth Exchange program in Italy and once all of the other exchange students arrived, we sat down for business. The first half of this event was dedicated to the explanation of the rules and expectations Rotary had for us as exchange students, as well as the guidelines for our host clubs and families. After that we each stood up and introduced ourselves and said where we were from and where we were living. In turn, we each received a small gift. After that, we were given a tour of the establishment and shown how their wine was made. It was basically the same process that we used at home a month ago, but in much larger quantities. As we made our way back into the restaurant, one of the girls told me that the gift they had given us was a scarf. I was sure she was kidding because a few weeks earlier in Trieste, I had expressed my refusal to ever wear a scarf. Once we got inside and I opened the gift, I couldn't help but laugh at the blue fleece Rotary scarf that was in there.

My blue Rotary blazer with some of my newly acquired pins and the blue Rotary scarf. 

That night, I went back to Bassano and watched a Serie B basketball game. Here are some pictures of semi-pro basketball.

I thought they only waved flags in the crowd at soccer games.
The sign on the left reads, "You with the heart, we with the voice."

At school, we had our first periodic row shift, where every group of students moves back a row, relocating me from the comfortable back row to the very front seat.

Sometime last week - I don't remember exactly when - we started to see snow on top of the mountains.

You can see snow on the top of the Dolomites on clear days.

On Sunday, it was Osvaldo's (my host brother) birthday and we went out to eat to an agriturismo which is a restaurant located on a farm which makes all of its ingredients. The farm where we went grows lots of potatoes and is known for its gnocchi. We also had some game hunted on that property. The wine, of course, was also made there.
Yesterday was All Saint's Day, which meant we had the day off from school. We went to church and then made a trip to the house where my host dad grew up, near Treviso. Here we ate a large lunch at my host grandmother's house and then went to the town cemetery to pay our respects to my host dad's late father. At about that time, it started to rain pretty hard. We had to drive back to Verona to drop off Giuditta for her return flight to Madrid. She had come home for the long weekend, but had to go back to college. Unfortunately, when we arrived to Vicenza, the traffic on highway to Verona (where the airport is) was not moving. She would've missed her flight had we tried to drive there, so instead we left her at the train station, which ended up working out fine.
As we made our way back home, we started to see how bad the flooding was. The government officials directing traffic told us it was going to be near impossible to make it home, but that it was only going to get worse as the night went on. We went for it. As we were wading (can cars wade?) through the river-street we could see cars stuck beside us, but luckily we made it across safely. Once we got to the house, we realized how lucky we were to live on top of a hill, for the river that passes below looked like a large lake and the town had to be evacuated. Luckily it got better overnight, but school is still canceled for tomorrow as it was today. Here are some pictures.

"Boats beware, swimming deer can cross at any time."

I feel sorry for these, and tons of other people, whose basements and first floors are flooded. Also, this is a very cool Halloween-ish picture.

What used to be the Bacchiglione River is now Lake Bacchiglione.

Today's newpaper. Translation of the title: "A disaster: Vicenza and half the province under water."  They said that last night, over 3,000 people were displaced because of the flood and at least two have gone missing. 

Also, I forgot to mention that I was planning on going to Venice with some other exchange students and some friends from school, but that got canceled because it is probably not smart to go to a city that is usually flooded anyhow during a flood.