In America

And so, the journey has ended.

The dream has been realized.

I had thought, upon re-entry into the USA, I'd be feeling some culture shock having been away from everything American for the past three months, but that really hasn't happened. I've been back for over a month now and I'm okay. Maybe it's because I've been working and have been surrounded by Christmas that I haven't had a chance to reflect on everything that's happened over the past three months.

I've woken up a few days in the morning with Ascoli on my mind. One day I woke up with a vision of me walking through Piazza del Popolo. Weird, huh?

It's been only a month, but it seems like a lot longer since I've been in Italy. I guess that's part of the re-entry process. My adopted home for three months is calling back to me in a way.

Italy: I'll be back, someday. Studying abroad has given me a great energy and thirst for knowledge, life and traveling. It's given me my dreams. It was everything I wanted it to be.

I'd love to write some sweeping expression of my time in Italy. I wish I could do that, capture my whole experiance in a grand paragraph of inspiration describing Italian excellence, but it wouldn't be accurate. No matter what I write about Italy my words wouldn't be true.

The country is so filled with expression and vibrancy that no words can capture it. Not even a writer far more experienced than I could do justice.

And, although I cannot wrap this blog up in such a way, I can provide some advice for my readers. It's short, but it's the one thing that I've learned over and over again during my time in Italy: Travel.

Yeah, I know travel is expensive and the economy isn't doing great right now. But, it will look up and there will be an oppurtunity. And when it comes take it! You'll be so glad you did. I sure am.

Ciao,

Alex


PS. Thanks to my teachers Dana and Susi who wrote reccomendation letters for me, Joanne Conrad in the guidance department at UNH Manchester for helping me with the application process, to Silvia, Cristian, Diana, Jessica, Adam and Christina for making the UNH-in-Italy classes so enjoyable. Thanks to the kids at San Agostino's who made my Monday and Tuesday mornings loud, but so much fun. Thank you to my family, especially to my mom and dad.

Thank you to everyone at my work and thanks to my boss who gave me my job back when I returned!

Lastly, thanks to the people and the city of Ascoli Piceno. I love them so much and cannot wait until we meet again.

The Last Full Week: Review, Thanksgiving, Offida and Grottammare

A View of the Historical Center of Grottammare

For Thanksgiving, most of us students went over the girls’ apartment. Erica, Darin, and Samantha made turkey, green beans, potatoes, salad, bruschetta and antipasto. I made sauce and brought it over for the second course.

We made the best out of what we could find in Italy. The turkey was turkey breast, not a whole bird. In Italy, they don’t sell whole birds in the marketplace. You have to special order turkeys from the meat.

However, they do regularly sell turkey breasts prepackaged in the meat case. Darin told me he basted the turkey with chicken broth. It was really moist and served as a pretty good substitute for a real bird.

For dessert, the girls bought panatone. Panatone is an Italian. It resembles the same consistency of fruitcake. Panatone is not my favorite. I brought a large Toblerone bar to share.

Of course, I wish I could have spent Thanksgiving with my family. It was great to talk to my aunts, my grandmas, my mom and dad, my brother and sister and my cousin Marissa. I really miss them, and on Thanksgiving it was a little bit hard for all of us to be away from our families. We will all be home for Christmas, though, and that’ll be great!

On Friday, Ben, Samantha and I went to Offida for the day. It was a 45 minute bus ride from the Giogli Hotel near one of the movie theatres in Ascoli. It was cold out and it poured for most of the day.



Upon getting to Offida and entering the historical center through a portal in the medieval wall, we found that Offida didn’t have much to offer. We got there around 1:00, and in Italy that means everything is closed. Everything.

There were several bars that were open, though. During our time in Offida, with nothing else to do, we visited three of them. In the first one, Sam and I got coffee and Ben got a sandwich. The second and third one, we all got glasses of wine.



To be honest with you, this was a really fun experience. The last bar we went to was decorated for Christmas and it was a very nice Italian café in Offida. I bought funghetti, which are little anise cookies that are shaped like mushrooms. They taste identical to the cookies my grandmother makes, except hers are dipped in confectioners sugar and have jimmies on them.

Even if we had come in the morning or stayed until the late afternoon, we probably wouldn’t have missed much. Offida is very small and when we were walking around we didn’t even see a lot of shops.

And visiting cafes isn’t so bad. And the views of Offida were beautiful. So, I am glad that I went.

When I walked back home from the bus stop I went through Piazza Arringo. There was a big wooden layout on the piazza. There were wood beams and people working on making what looks like a stage. I found out later that they are building an ice-skating rink for Christmas. That must be the wildest thing to have an ice-skating rink right in the piazza. Unfortunately, I’ll probably miss the finished product, but it did seem really cool.

Saturday, Samantha and I went to Grottammare, the seacoast town next to San Benedetto del Tronto. It was about a 45 minute train ride from Ascoli to Grottammare and we had to change trains in SBT.

We walked around the town for a bit and then walked to the historical center on top of a hill. The historical center was a small maze of streets with old brick houses running slanted on steep hills. It was beautiful.



Grottammare is very much an extension of San Benedetto. The two cities are a three minute train ride away from each other and they look identical.

Unfortunately, in winter, a lot of the shops are closed as both Grottammare and San Benedetto are summer resort towns. Still, we found some stuff to see and do. We had piazza bianca at a pizzeria in the center of town. The pizza is a piece of bread lightly brushed with garlic and olive oil and topped with some rosemary. It was very good.

Sunday, I packed some of my luggage, studied and cleaned the apartment. Tonight, more studying for Silvia's Italian test tomorrow and then more packing.

Today, I had my final for Christina's art class and the speaking portion of my Italian test. I think they went well.

In between Italian and Art, I had my last lesson with the 5th grade students at St. Agostino's. Over the past few weeks, I've been dictating sentences for them to write. After, we go over it together and fix any mistakes. Along the way, I taught them some grammar and colloquialisms that are used in the Northeast. I'm really going to miss those kids. The experience hasn't changed my career aspects to that of a elementary school teacher, but now I know that if that's where I end up, it wouldn't be so bad. Tomorrow will be my last day with the 3rd graders.

Then, I'll be leaving on the 2:30 bus to Rome. I'm going to stay about two miles away from the airport at a hotel and will fly out Wednesday morning at 10:00. I have a 2 hour stopover in Amsterdam, and will get into Boston around 5. Including the stopover, my total travel time clocks in at around 13 hours!

My time here is almost done. Reflections of my time will come in a little while, once I've gotten back and have settled back into home. After that I'll be blogging from a different website: www.writingcontemporary.blogspot.com Stay tuned!

Alex

The Premiere of Ascoli Ottobre

I finally did it! Here's the video I made for my Italian cinema class earlier this semester. I hope you enjoy it!

The Beach in San Benedetto and the Heights of San Marino

My classes are slowing down and we’re preparing for our final exams next week. I’ve started sorting through things I won’t be bringing home with me and I’ve been very surprised to learn that I have accumulated many things over the past three months. School papers and train and museum tickets make up a small pile in one of my drawers. I have to sort through all this stuff and decide what to bring home and what to leave here in Ascoli. That, along with studying, will fill up most of my last weekend in Italy.


Friday, Phil and I walked about an hour from our house to Oasi, the mall in Ascoli Piceno. We’d both never been there and it was something different to do for the day. The mall was very modern inside and I felt as if I walked through a door to an American mall. Going to the mall was an escape from Italy. It really felt that way, like suddenly I was in the Mall of New Hampshire walking around. This mall, however, has a huge grocery store in it that sells food, clothes, home goods and other things; the Italian Super Walmart, I guess.

On Friday, I had actually planned to visit San Marino for the day, but woke up too late to be able to make an early train. I was also tired and didn’t feel like traveling for the day. So, I postponed my trip to San Marino until Saturday.

Friday night, six of us took an afternoon train from Ascoli Piceno to San Benedetto. San Benedetto is a resort town along the eastern coast of Italy that the Italians frequent during the summer months. It’s about a forty-five minute train ride and a fifteen minute walk from the train station to the center of town.

We planned to walk around the town and sit on the beach for a while. We went to EuroSpin, a grocery store near the train station, and bought a couple bottles of wine, cookies and chips.

When we got there, we walked about fifteen minutes to the beach. We sat for a couple hours listening to music, drinking wine and eating. We went in the water up to our ankles. It was very cold, but certainly not as cold as if I had gone in the water in Hampton Beach in November. It was a very relaxing night. Sam brought a blanket from her apartment and we all talked for a while. We reminisced about our time here and we all couldn’t believe how fast the time has gone by and that our time in Ascoli is nearly over.

After the beach, we walked around the shops of SBT, and made our way back to the train station, the ankles our jeans wet from the water.

When we got back to Ascoli, we went for Chinese food at the restaurant near our school. Surprisingly, I was not disappointed. On that particular night, they were having a buffet, and although it was small spread, it consisted of descent food. Still not as good as the American version, but an effort was made.

Saturday, I had planned to get on the 6:08 am train to San Marino, but I woke up around 9. I had set my phone to wake me up at 5, but when it rang, I was too tired to get up and went back to sleep.

When I got up, I decided that I had to go somewhere on Saturday. The Eurail pass I had bought before I came here had one day of travel left on it and it was going to expire on the 24th of November, during the school week. So, I got dressed, flipped through a few Italian travel books and headed towards the train station.

I got on a train that was going to Turin and would pass Fano and Rimini. In one of the travel books I read before heading out, I read that Fano has a nice historical center and from Rimini I could take the bus to San Marino if I still wanted to go there. I would decide on my way there.

I found the train, hopped on, put on my Ipod and tried to make up my mind about Fano or San Marino.

When we got to Fano, I had decided to go to San Marino. I had been planning on it, and it wasn’t too much further on the train. About 45 minutes later, I arrived in Rimini, found where the bus station was, asked a guy where I could buy the ticket for the Rimini to San Marino bus and when the next one would come. He told me the bus would leave at 2:30, and that I could buy a ticket on the bus.


Since I got to Rimini at about 1:20 and the next bus to San Marino would leave at 2:30, I had an hour to walk around the town. Of what I saw of Rimini, I wasn’t too impressed. It was an average town, but they did have Christmas decorations hanging from the buildings, so it looked really nice. All the stores where closed for midday break though, so I just walked around, drank an espresso at a café and headed back to the bus stop.

I bought a ticket to San Marino from a woman who arrived at the bus station and was selling them from her pocketbook. I had to ask myself if it was legit for a minute, but everyone else was buying their tickets from her, so I did too.

The bus took about 20 minutes to get to the Republic of San Marino and then another 25 minutes to wind up a mountain to the capital of the small country, San Marino. I got to the city around 3:20.

Once I got off, I checked the sign at the bus stop to find out when I could get on the bus back to Rimini: either at 5 or at 7. I planned to take the five o’clock; it would give me an hour and a half to explore. As it turns out, that was the perfect amount of time to go for as there wasn’t too much to see.


Most of San Marino is covered with little shops and cafes. To get to them, I had to walk up steep hills and side streets. I just kept going up, far up the mountain to other little shops and cafes and to the views of the castles in the distance.
Remember when I told you about my fear of heights when I climbed the tower in Bologna? Well, that same fear came rushing back to me when I was in San Marino.

The capital is on a very big mountain that overlooks many other big mountains. Those other mountains in the distance serve to remind a person how far up they are. Also, it was windy and cold.


At many points during my trip I thought I would fall off one of the ledges. In general though, I try my hardest not to go near ledges whenever they are present. Most of the pictures I took of the surrounding mountains were taken from about five to ten feet away from any ledges.

This doesn’t apply, however, to the castle I went in while in San Marino. It wasn’t so much a castle as it was a watchtower that you could walk around. The watchtower was situated on the highest point of the mountain. It wasn’t a good idea for me. My body was shaking the whole time I was there, and I had to hold the bridge of my glasses to my face or I would have lost them due to the cold wind blowing in my face.


Anyone who is afraid of heights shouldn’t go to San Marino. I shouldn’t have gone to San Marino. The more times that I face my fear of heights really only makes me more afraid of them. I thought it would do the opposite and the fear would dwindle. I was wrong.


Still, San Marino was beautiful. It was a nice daytrip and it’s good to get away from Ascoli for a day. Ascoli is beautiful, but to appreciate the quaintness of it, it’s necessary to leave for a little while.

I got on the bus back to Rimini at five. I went to the train station and had to wait 45 minutes for a train to bring me back to SBT. I took that train, listened to some music and fell asleep. I arrived in SBT about three hours later and a bus to Ascoli was waiting right outside the station and would leave in ten minutes. I ran to the automated machine, put in the 2.50 euro for a ticket, and headed back to Ascoli Piceno.

Today, with nothing to do on Sunday, I walked back to the mall with Sam. Everything is closed on Sundays except for the mall. I just found out the other day that the mall is opened on Sundays and also doesn’t close for midday break. Oh, well, better late than never.

Sam and I walked the 45 minutes there in the cold, walked around the mall, stopped at a couple places for coffee and pizza and then headed back. I think I’m done with my Ascoli mall experiences. It was good to escape the “Italianess” that I’ve been surrounded by for three months and have a taste of America.

The cold has settled over Ascoli these past few days and just when I thought the hat and gloves I brought with me from home would go unused during my stay in Italy. Certainly, the weather is not as cold as it must be back in New Hampshire, but it’s cold enough to be wearing hats, gloves and heavy coats. It’s a good warm up for me to get used to the cold back home.

Alex

A Skeletal Update

The bodies that I mentioned in a previous post are the bodies of monks.

They found five different skeletons: four men and one woman. They think the woman's body was buried before the monks. In the middle ages, people liked to be buried near the grounds of monasteries and piazza that the site is near was part of a former monastery.

The Classrooms of UNH-in-Italy

The UNH-in-Italy telecom button.

So I’ve been here nearly three months and have yet to showcase the UNH-in-Italy classrooms. There’s not much to see, but it’s been my workplace in Italy for the past couple of months, so it is worth noting and documenting this part of my experience.

This is the door outside of where UNH-in-Italy is located. To the left is Bistro, a café that is frequented often by us UNH-in-Italy students.

This is the courtyard of the building the school is in.

This is the door of the UNH-in-Italy program. Behind this door are the classrooms. The stairs on the left of the door is where we students sit and get internet access when the school is closed.

I spend every weekday from 8-8:30 sitting on these steps getting internet from the wireless network before the school opens.

This is an entrance room where Diana, the assistant to Christian, the director, has her desk. The entrance room leads to the other classrooms.

This is the computer room located off to the right of the entrance, where we students spend most of our time. Christian and Julia, the resident director, both have their offices in the rooms behind the doors in the computer room.


From the computer room, you can head through a door on the right that leads to the copy and supply room and the faculty bathroom. Going through the portal door on the right, you can take a left to get to the bathroom, or a right to get to the two classrooms. The first classroom has an oval table where I have my art class with Christina on Mondays from 12-4 with an hour lunch break from 2:30-4:30.

If you head straight down the hallway, you get to the larger of the two classrooms where I have language class from Monday to Thursday 9-11 with Silvia and, when Adam and Jessica were here, I had cinema class on Wednesdays and Thursdays from 11-2.

And so, the grand tour is over.

Skeletons, Urbino, Rain and Dinner

First things first: There are skeletons in Ascoli.

The locals have been doing construction on the streets ever since we arrived in Ascoli and last week, on the street next to the Piazza where the fruit and vegetable market is held, they happened to stumble across the bones of three skeletons of who I assume were previous Ascoli residents.

I have no idea who the people were; all I know is that the Ascolians have been walking on their remains for hundreds of years.

I went to take a few pictures of the archeologists digging up the bones, making graphs of the area and taking pictures. Just another day in Ascoli.

Once again, classes rolled steadily by. Nothing new about my classes to report except that they’re almost done, which provides equal measure of happiness and sadness.

On Wednesday Manlio, a guy that lives in Ascoli and works at a travel agency near the school, came in the UNH office and spoke with Diana, the program assistant. He had heard that there were American students studying in the building and was looking for someone to speak English with as he plans to go to Australia in a few months.

Ben, Phil and I were in the computer room when he came in. Manlio asked if any of us were busy the next day around lunchtime to go and have lunch and talk in Italian and English. Phil did most of the talking and told Manlio that he and Ben were busy with classes during lunchtime the next day, but that I would be free. I agreed and we made plans to meet at Bistro, a café on the first floor of our school, for lunch.

Thursday at 1, after Italian class, Manlio and I met and had sandwiches at the café and talked for a couple hours in English and Italian (Okay mostly in English and about 15 minutes in Italian) about politics, American school systems, Italian school systems, girls, our jobs, the world financial crisis, Obama and McCain, Berlusconi, our families, and what countries we’ve been to and want to go to, and also what we want to do in the future.

It was great to talk to an Italian about his life in Ascoli. Once again I must say that Italians are not much different from us. They have the same worries, fears, successes and failures; it’s just in a different language!

At the end of our lunch, Manlio invited me and my friends to his friend’s house for dinner on Saturday night. I agreed, and started rallying the troops.

Although everybody initially said they would come, 7 of us total minus Ben who was in Finland for the weekend, only 3 of us went. The other four were sketched out by Manlio’s invitation. They didn’t understand why he was inviting us all over for dinner. I did my best to explain that Italians were very hospitable and generous, that this offering was a cultural extension that they would otherwise never experience; they wouldn’t budge. Their loss.

Point of interest: When given these unique cultural opportunities, take them!

So, on Saturday night Phil, Cameron and I went to Manlio’s friend’s house and had a meal of pasta, sausages and pork roasted on an open fire, wine and roasted chestnuts for dessert. All the food was great, except the chestnuts weren’t nearly as good as they looked. They lacked flavor and consistency. Now I can say I tried them though! At dinner were a bunch of Manlio’s friends, and we talked, half in English, half in Italian about a bunch of stuff.

It was a really great night. I’m happy that Manlio came to the office because I wouldn’t have been given this great experience otherwise.

Friday, I went to Urbino for the day with Chelsea and Samantha, two other students from the program. Urbino is a small town three hours north of Ascoli. We took the 6:08am train from Ascoli Piceno to San Benedetto, and then took a second train from SBT to Pesaro. As there is no direct line to Urbino, we had to take a bus from Pesaro to get to our final destination.

When I got off the bus from Pesaro around 10, it was pouring. The girls had umbrellas; I forgot to bring mine and had to use a five euro newspaper I bought in San Benedetto to keep me dry for 15 minutes before I found a store and bought one for 2.50 euro.

It rained all day, and the mountains that surround the town and are supposed to highlight its beauty were not visible because of the massive blanket of fog that was set over the city. Still, it was a great day.

We walked around, and went to Palazzo Ducale, once the massive home of the Duke of Urbino, and now a Renaissance art museum. We went for lunch at an osteria and I had pasta with wild boar meat for my primo piatto and lamb stew Urbino style for my secondo. We shared a bottle of wine and a plate of olives, also done in the Urbino style as they were marinated in wild fennel and garlic.

Unfortunately, after lunch we found that most of the stores and sites were closed for midday break, so we walked around and did what we could do. It was a nice daytrip to another area of the Marche region. On the way home, we bought a bottle of wine and some cookies to ease the long ride home. I suggest doing this for long train rides.

Saturday and Sunday and today, Monday, it rained. All day. Nonstop. The antique market was in town, but there weren’t nearly as many stalls on account of the rain. Hopefully it’ll clear up soon. I’d really enjoy some sun before heading back to the New Hampshire.

And, I’ll be heading back soon. This past week I changed my flight to come home December 8th to December 3rd. Don’t ask my why. The agent on the phone said the fare was the same and I’d just have to pay a penalty from the airlines. She said she had my credit card number on file and asked if I wanted to switch it right then, without hesitation I said yes. Since then, I’ve thought about a million and a half reasons why I should have stuck it out until the 8th, but one big reason it’s good that I’m coming home on the third is that I really miss my family. It’s going to be great to see them.

Alex

PS: Thursday night at Laliva, Marinella taught us how to make meatballs. Grandma Rose: you might have some competition when I get back in town!