clooney's backyard

With six consecutive weeks of teaching over, it's safe to say I was feeling pretty exhausted. I'd planned to visit my good friend Rhea in Berlin the following week, but I had three days until I was due to head to Berlin. As I was in the north, I decided to check out Italy's largest lake, Como, for those three days on the advice of my previous host father, Luca.

So, I caught five trains and found myself in Como on Saturday afternoon, with no real knowledge about the place except it's Italy's largest lake, and George Clooney has a house there. If it's good enough for Clooney, it's good enough for me!

I'd booked to stay at an Eco-hostel in the Spina Verde National Park, which was completely cut off from the town apart from a walking track and a very steep, very narrow road for authorised vehicles only. The hostel's policy was to pick up their guests from the bottom of the hill when they were checking in, and drop them off when they were checking out - the rest of the time guests had to make their way up the road or along the beautiful pat, which was quite a hike.

This was my first hostel experience in Europe, and it was a beautiful 11th-century building which so much character but it was still very comfortable and about as pleasant as a hostel could be. 

After catching up on some much-needed sleep, I spent my first full day in Como - it was very touristy with a lot of shops and restaurants, but I wanted to check out the lake. I went for a huge walk along the lakefront and found a Lido (outdoor pool) in the grounds of a grand old Villa which was a tourist destination in itself. 

Kids cooling off in some fountains along the lakefront 

Because it was a steaming hot day, and you can't really swim in the lake at the city end, I decided to spend the afternoon relaxing at the pool, taking turns between sunbathing, reading, sleeping and swimming. In Italy, swimming at a public pool means wearing a bathing cap, so I invested in one of these bad boys (which was way too small for my giant head).

 

View of the lake from the Lido with the New Zealand flag flying!

It was such a lovely, relaxing and refreshing afternoon and when the pool closed at 6pm I strolled back to the city, taking in the gorgeous scenery.

For dinner, I decided to treat myself to a non-Italian meal, as I was getting pretty sick of eating pasta. I found a Mexican restaurant on my walk back to the hostel, and I was so excited! I love Mexican food, so, even though it was a bit pricy, I decided it would be worth it..... Well, it wasn't. It was definitely the worst Mexican meal I've tasted, and it taught me an important lesson - in Italy, the only safe bet is Italian food unfortunately!

coredo.

My last camp was one short and sweet week in Coredo, a small mountain town in the north about 30 minutes from the Austrian border. This was my biggest camp, with eight tutors and around 80 kids.I bumped into two of the tutors on my third train of five - Eva, from my camp in Asolo, and Chris, who I hadn't worked with yet.

I was hosted by a lovely family of four: parents Susanna and Walter, six-year-old Daisy and two-year-old Kevin. Despite the family not speaking much English (and me speaking next-to-no Italian), we managed to communicate well enough to get by. They have a wonderful family and the children are very sweet and very well-behaved which was great - and Susanna is a great cook!

Daisy and Kevin playing with Photo Booth on my iPad

The family live in a typical arrangement in Italy - a very large home which is shared with other family members. In this case, Walter's mother lives in the self-contained ground level which was really convenient as Daisy could stay with her Nonna while I took over her room for the week. On my second day, Sunday, Nonna and Walter's sister along with her husband and baby took me to a potato festival in a neighbouring town as the family was out all day. Nonna even cooked me dinner when I got home from a trip to the lake with the other tutors.

It's very common for Italian families to live in this arrangement, in fact, all four families that I stayed with had lived in the same small town for their whole lives (the wife may be from a neighbouring town but the husband seems to stay in his hometown) and the husband's parents will either live downstairs, next door or just around the corner, in the family home. One of my camp directors explained that the family home is very important to Italians and once they put down roots, they simply do not move! The family unit is very tight and, in fact, most Italians I have spoken to cannot believe how far away from home I am and how long I plan to be away for - the typical response when I would tell them about my travel is "how do your parents feel about you being so far away". They can't believe I'm happily on the other side of the world to where I grew up and where all my friends and family are. 

It's just the Kiwi way though - most of us are raised to be independent and our parents take pride in the fact we can stand on our own two feet and not be overly dependent on them once we're adults.

Anyway, after our camp meeting on Sunday, our new director Valentina and her sister Nadia took us to a nearby lake for the afternoon, which was absolutely beautiful!

The tutors at the lake

Because we had one extra tutor, a really rare luxury at camp, I had the role of basically overseeing and planning all our afternoon games. We have lessons in the morning, and games in the afternoon, and usually all the tutors get together either before the day starts or at lunch time to arrange the afternoon's activities. As I didn't have a group in the morning, I could spend this time organising the afternoon, and it worked really well - I was feeling a bit burnt out and sick of teaching so it worked out really well.

The amazing view from the camp

 

Camp activities - making paper mâché volcanoes with Coke and Mentos

Our week ended with an absolutely delicious meal at a restaurant which serves local cuisine - which is very different from that of other parts of Italy. Polenta, beef goulash, cheeses, potatoes, coleslaw, cold meats (which you'll find everywhere in Italy), apple strudel for dessert and lots of red wine. The town had more of an Austrian or German feel to it which makes sense as it's so close to the border - the schools teach compulsory German as well as Italian and English.

On my last night, Walter and Susanna took me out for gelato to an amazing 400-year-old castle about 45 minutes from our town - it was really beautiful and I regret not taking my camera or phone (I thought we were just going down the road!) 

It was a great end to what had been a very full on six weeks,  I had decided while at the previous camp that this week would be my last so it was time to move on with my journey.

zero branco.

With my first two-week camp finished, I headed to an equally small town called Zero Branco, only two or three train stops away!

This camp was my biggest yet, with five tutors and around fifty kids. We were greeted warmly at the Treviso train station by the camp director, Valentina, and our host families, before I headed out with my new family for some gelato and a walk around the town, which is one of the biggest in the area.

My new host family was parents Luca and Chiara, 11-year-old Gaia and eight-year-old Filippo, who started off very shy but came out of his shell very, very quickly! We had dinner at a lovely pizza restaurant with another tutor, Austin from Colorado, and her host family, who are friends with my host family. No sooner had we been seated than a massive hailstorm started, so severe that the roof started to leak. It was quite funny as the day had been ridiculously hot, around 30*, but we soon learned these types of storms are common in summer here (and they were soon to be welcomed as a respite from the heat!)

Filippo and Gaia after messy games

On Sunday, the day before camp started, I got another taste of Italian Nonnas' (grandmother) hospitality and talent in the kitchen, as we walked around the corner to Luca's mother's house for lunch - and what a lunch it was! A huge plate of pasta followed by a selection of meats, bread, salad, and three types of desserts, along with free-flowing Prosecco and coffee to finish. For lunch! I still have not gotten used to the size of the meals Italians eat, especially the lunches! Luca's parents were lovely (despite nearly wanting to force-feed me) and we undoubtedly walked home a couple of kilograms heavier!

One aspect of Italian cuisine I just have not adjusted to is the coffee. I've never liked coffee but I decided to give it another shot a couple of times, but I just don't like the flavour. My Italian families have all been shocked when I decline coffee, because for them it is almost like oxygen, and unless it is breakfast time, they will nearly always drink it as a straight shot, like a short black, only ever a cappuccino or latte in the morning!

After lunch we took a walk down a beautiful river nearby, which was a really nice and relaxing way to walk off the meal. It was a lovely path which was brimming with families enjoying the sunshine and tranquility and we saw some interesting sights, including the "boat graveyard", where the locals literally just left the boats they no longer needed to become skeletones... it was quite eerie.

The camp at Zero Branco was the first of its kind in this small town, and all the parents, children and organisers were excited to see what each day would bring. It was challenging, as none of the children knew what to expect from the camp or what the activities, songs and games would be like and we really had to work hard to get them to leave behind their self consciousness and embrace our activities, but by the end of the two weeks it was really encouraging to see all the students' progress.

My host parents are only slightly older than me (31), which was quite funny as they are obviously at very different life stages to me! The small age gap was great though and meant we could relate to each other quite well - especially because both Luca and Chiara speak English well (no matter how much Luca claims he can't). It's quite funny here and in other parts of Europe, the locals are often embarassed about their level of English and will tell you they can only speak a little English, when in actual fact their English is very good!

My Zero Branco host 'papi', Luca

The other four tutors were great, and because we all lived close to each other and close to the school, we would walk to a nearby bar at the end of each day for a Spritz or two before heading home. We also went out a couple of nights, Luca taking us to a nearby town called Mirano for drinks one night, and dinner with all our host families at a lovely restaurant in Treviso later the same week.

On Saturday we headed to a popular beach about an hour and a half away from Zero Branco, which was a great way to spend a ridiculously hot day - relaxing in the sun, sleeping, reading and swimming in the wonderfully warm Mediterranean. Some of Luca's family were spending the week at the seaside, so we headed back to his sister's place for a great dinner, followed by gelato (of course) and a late-night walk through the town.

Sunday meant another huge, yet delicious lunch at Luca's parents' house and Monday was a special day for Chiara's family - her sister graduated from university, which meant a big party at Chiara's parents' house with around 80 guests. It was a really great evening - the highlight of which was a fun Italian tradition. When Italians graduate from university, their friends and family get together to write a poem about the graduate, kind of an embarassing thing similar to when friends make speeches at our 21sts here in New Zealand. The graduate has to read out the poem to all the guests and if they stumble over a word, she has to take a drink. Guests would try to put her off by throwing food and drinks over her as she read, it was really funny, even though I had no idea what was being said!

Another highlight of Zero Branco was another incredible hailstorm which hit right as the kids were leaving camp one day. It had been a stinking hot day, which is very challenging as the kids' attention span and enthusiasm just plummets. We couldn't believe when it started to hail, out of nowhere, and soon the small grassy patch in front of the school was flooded - so the tutors decided to cool down and have some fun by playing mud football - was a really fun afternoon!

On our final night, after the kids had put on their final show for parents and grandparents, us tutors headed back to my place for pizza and drinks, was a really nice way to cap off the two weeks, and most of us only had one more week of camps left.

The tutors and Luca on our last night