Five-Month Update

Yesterday marked my fifth month-iversary in Italy. It also marked the 59^th anniversary of the crowning of Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain, but I am not sure which is more important. Since my last blog post, things have changed drastically. For those of you who did not know already, I have recently changed host families, and absolutely love my new family! I have been very busy since my return from Naples with school, getting settled in at this new house, and dealing with Rotary and the travel agency in order to fix my return date in June (which has been successfully completed).

Apart from that, I have done other various things these past few weeks, including an afternoon trip to Verona (expect a post on this later this week), trying (and failing) to organize a trip to Ireland for St. Patrick’s Day, getting my report card, and skiing in the Dolomites.

In late January I skipped a day of school to go skiing at Folgaria, a small (by American standards) ski area nestled in the Dolomites of the Trentino-Alto-Adige region of Northern Italy. Officially, I went to take place in my school’s annual ski race, but really it was just an excuse to get at least one day in this season. Actually that is not entirely true. I thought that since I live in Colorado ski country, I would be able to out-ski most of the Italians. As it turns out, there was a good amount of skiers that actually trained for racing.

That leads me to believe that although Colorado ski resorts are in my opinion bigger and better, there is no doubting that our European buddies are equally skilled.

Here are some interesting things I learned about Italian ski areas:

•         All kids up to age 14 are required to wear helmets.
•          Instead of the American slope progression of green, blue, black, double black, etc., the Italian slopes have blue (beginner), red (intermediate), and black (expert).
•          The Italian word for ski pole is “racchetta”, literally “racket”.
•          There are neither mogul runs nor backcountry areas. All slopes are groomed, though some blacks can get a bit steep.
•          Unlike Colorado ski areas, which offer a plethora of options at the top of each lift, at Folgaria, the most I saw were three possible runs.
•          I was able to ski every lift on the mountain. And almost every run. In one day.
•          All lift queues are automated and do not require people to scan your lift ticket.
•          There were no lines whatsoever (but we did go on a Wednesday).

Folgaria, Italy

The Trentino Dolomites

A nice day in Vicenza's Giardini Salvi

Sunrise from my new house.

My new town of Arcugnano