Peter and The Wolf

Today, my whole school went to Florence to see Peter and The Wolf By Prokofiev or Pierino e Il Lupo. At first, there was man who talked about the story and then he had each person play the part of their character. Each character in the story has an insrument and song that goes with them. The Bird is a flute, Peter is violin's, The Wolf is french horn's and so on. After that, the man told us the story, but I didn't understand it because he told it in Italian. During the story, when, for example Peter was in the story the violinists would play. I did really like the music! But I didn't know the story.

Carnivale

CARNIVALE is part of the church calender that ends at Lent. That is forty days before Easter. People make a personal sacrifice in honor of Easter because the Bible says that Jesus made the biggest sacrifice for mankind. In Piazza del Campo the Sienese kids dress up in costumes, spray foam, and throw confetti celebrating Carnivale. Yesterday, was the last day of Carnivale because of this last night there were people on stilts, two bands, and dancers on a stage in the Campo. Soon I will add pictures of Carnivale!

The Opera, Pagliacci

Yesterday, I went to see the opera called Pagliacci in Florence. Pagliacci means clowns. Pagliacci is by R. Leoncavallo. Paggliacci is about an acting troop of clowns. There is a husband and wife, who's name's are Canio and Nedda. Nedda and Canio are both in the acting troop. There are two other men named Tonio and Silvio. They both are in the acting troop too and both love Nedda. Nedda loves Silvio and hates Tonio. This is really about a story about Canio and his wife Nedda, Tonio who loves Nedda and she hates him, Silvio whom she loves and who loves her. Canio finds out that Nedda loves somebody. In the end he finds out that she loves Silvio and he kills them both. Although, this is a sad opera I really liked it! It is a very famous opera!

Siena Pictures of The Palio horse race, The Duomo, and the Piazza del Campo

The Dolomites

The Dolomites are a part of the Alps. When we got to the Dolomites, the next day I went to go skiing. In Italian ski is sci pronounced "shee." There was a lot of snow. Skiing was very fun! I also went bob sledding, which is different than what we call bob sledding. Bob sledding in Italy is more like our sledding. It is not like the bob sledding that is in the Olympics. We stayed at the Hotel San Giacomo which was pretty nice.  It had a pool and a spa. The food was good too. I just learned today that snowboard is exactly the same word in Italian. My first time in the Alps was a good one!

Verona

On Monday I went on a bus to go to the Dolomites and on the way we stopped in Verona. Verona is where Romeo and Juliet lived in the play. In Verona there is Juliet's  house. I saw the porch were supposedly Juliet talked to Romeo, the famous words "Romeo o' Romeo where art' thou' Romeo." There even was a statue of Juliet and for good luck you were supposed to rub  her breast. I did not. Verona was pretty and bigger than Siena.  It was also a different atmosphere because it did not have a wall surrounding it like Siena. 

A New School, Scuola media San Bernardino

Today was my second day of school. The first day I was very nervous. The school in Siena is different because they call the teachers professore or prefessoressa. There is a textbook for everything and they have a Religion class, which I think is different. They also have Gym only once a week and I am so glad that we have Gym every day. They also give more homework and you stay in one classroom for almost the whole day. The teachers come to the classroom. Soon, I will post a picture of San Bernardino.

First dinner in Italy

When I first got to Italy. My mom, dad, and I went to a restaurant called El Capitan and I noticed that when they gave us bread for an appitizer that they did not put olive oil out. At first I always thought that in Italy they would have olive oil with their bread, but they don't. Although, all of the Italian restaurant's in Portland have olive oil with bread. But, my mom said that Italians do have olive oil with their bread, but not very often.