Orientation Tour, Part 1: Verona

Just got back from the JFRC (John Felice Rome Center) orientation tour throughout the northern half of Italy including Verona, Siena, and Assisi. We stayed at three different hotels in four nights. It was an overwhelming, exhausting, and wonderful experience that definitely helped me see what I want my experience studying here to be like. So much happened and I felt like I was there a week, so I think I am going to divide this blog into three seperate ones.

Out JFRC class was the first class to do a massive tour of this nature in over six years, and I am pretty sure we may be the last in awhile. We left sunday morning at 6:30 am for Verona, which in in the Veneto region 8 hours by bus from Rome. The ride was incredible: first through Tuscan mountains and vineyard hills, then through the flat emilia-romagna plains. The gas stations in Italy are fascinating and SO different from the states. They sell everything--gourmet cheese, pasta, wine, books, CDs, toys, etc. And the food is delicious. Also, people take their time in them...it really is a Rest stop. Old men sip their caffes, families eat full course lunches complete with pelligrino and wine, etc.

Anyways, we arrived at the hotel "near Verona" around three. We literally got off the freeway and it was right there. So that was kinda a bummer. Luckily the hotel was very nice. We slept five boys to a room. Everyone got dressed up and ready to go in an hour or so for dinner in Verona and the closing night of Verona's world famous Opera Festival. Dinner was the first of many three+ course Italian meals complete with unlimited table wine. For a group of young, under 21 Americans first encountering Italy and their relationship with alcohol, there was bond to be some riffs. (I'll get to my conclusions on drinking culture in US and Italy later). Anyways, it was a wonderful dinner--the excitement of everyone to be making new friends and experiencing a new country was very palpable. Then in a slightly beyond tipsy state, everyone headed to the opera. You have to check this out to completely understand how incredible this was: http://www.arena.it/. The opera was Aida, a play a thought i would be familiar with. Little did I know it would be four hours and I wouldn't be able to follow a thing. I would say about 85%, including me, the dean of students and several other faculty, left well beyond the finale and hung out in the piazza. Still, I was awed and grateful for the experience.

Next day began with language/culture survival lessons at the hotel and organize by the JFRC staff. After that it was a three course lunch complete with pasta, mystery meat, dessert, and table wine. I could write a whole blog on these meals alone....ill just say they weren't quite as delicious as i expected of Italian food...but i guess you cant expect much when you are cooking for about 200 people at once.

The afternoon was spent in the small village of Sirimione on Lake Garda, the largest lake in Italy (i think) at the base of the alps. It was absolutely beautiful and great to finally have time to relax and do what I wanted. Me and my friends scott and mike walked to the tip of the town, which is a peninsula jutting into the lake and spent most of our time swimming.

Ill close this portion of my account of the tour with what was one of the most ridiculous yet shamefully fun nights of my life. We had dinner at the hotel that night, and since the hotel was about a 30 euro taxi ride from verona, almost everyone stayed at the hotel bar, which our dean of students, Todd, so lovingly asked the hotel to keep open until 1am for us. Dinner was pure debauchery: 190 students went through 150 bottles of wine. fact. Then practically everyone stumbled into the bar slash gift shop slash office area and drank to an undeniably American extent. flip cup was played, glasses were shattered, and puking was to be found on almost all floors. The night was certainly a bonding experience for the fall 2008 JFRC class, though I'm pretty sure all woke up to feeling of slight embarrassment.