Company Tour of Favini

On March 16th all the students in my program were split up into groups and went to different Italian companies in the area to learn about their business. I had the opportunity to tour Favini, a factory that produces specialty paper.

Favini patented a unique type of paper called Shiro Alga Carta which is produced from the algal blooms that grow in the Venice lagoon and damage the fragile ecosystem there. So in effect they are re-using material that would otherwise be polluting the environment and producing a unique high quality paper that has visible algae particles and whitens with age because of the chlorophyll. Other than algae, Favini also produces paper with residuals from fruit processing -- lemons, apples, oranges, grapes.

Favini's biggest seller is their shopping bags which are made for various retail stores popular in Italy including Gucci. They press special designs into the paper which give the shopping bag a unique feel and look.

At the end of the tour, we were provided with snacks and drinks and each of us was given a Favini shopping bag with a notebook, folder with specialty paper inside, and a journal.

Bible Study on Campus

So I haven't been saying much in my blog about what God has been doing in my life since I've been in Italy...and I was just thinking that needs to change because God is doing some cool things!

First, God has provided answers to a couple prayers of mine that have just revealed his love. First, the weekend I spent in Verona I was really overwhelmed at one point because the internet in our hotel would not work and we had no idea what time the trains left the next morning. So I was worried about not knowing the train times and also about check out because the people that ran the hotel we were staying at did not have a physical front desk so I didn't know when the manager would be there so we could check out. So I became really frustrated because I like being in control and I was in a situation in which I had no control over how we were going to check out or get home the next day. I finally just gave up and opened up my bible and searched for some passages about help and I just prayed that God would help me out with the situation because I had no idea what to do. And literally within 5 minutes, Brittany's phone rings and it is her mom so we were able to ask her mom to access the internet for us to tell us when the trains were leaving. And while Brittany was on the phone, someone knocks on our door so I answer and its the hotel manager asking when we would like to check out! So I just checked us out right then so we didn't have to worry about it in the morning. And within 15 minutes of finishing my prayer, everything was sorted out and taken care of. AND I didn't even realize it was an answered prayer til I was sitting down crying with relief and it dawned on me that it was some kind of miracle that I was overwhelmed and helpless minutes ago and all of a sudden everything was solved. It was obvious that God took control when I finally surrendered my control. So that was just really sweet to experience!

THEN, last week a friend was asking me if we had any bible studies on my campus in Italy and I said there wasn't and he challenged me to start one, so I said I would pray about it. So I brought the idea to God that night in prayer and asked him to show me if he wanted me to begin a bible study in Paderno. Well, literally the next afternoon I was going to the first floor of my dorm to get some coffee and I see a sign posted on the door so I go over to look and see what it says and believe it or not, it says "Bible Study, 8pm in Room 28 on Wednesday night." And I basically have a mini freak out session because it was another answered prayer and instead of telling me to start a bible study myself, God just provided a bible study for me to attend. And so I went to the first bible study on Wednesday night and found Christians I had no idea existed on this campus and I just got back from our second bible study and it is just a HUGE blessing because now we have a community in which we can talk about the word of God together and know about each other's relationships with the Lord and what that looks like living in a new country/culture.

So that's what's been happening and I love it because it just reminds me how good God is and how faithful he is in giving when we ask of him.

Add a Seat to the Table

Another great opportunity we have while studying in Italy is to have a dinner with a local Italian family. The families who host us have children who study in the high school on our campus. So this past Friday everyone who signed up for the event met outside and waited for the Italian families to come pick us up. Most families hosted two students and either took them out for dinner or had dinner at their home. In my case, I got placed in a group of 6 students who went to have dinner at a family's house. Two cars came to pick us up and it turned out that four female Italian friends who went to the high school made dinner for us and the parents left! Melania was the name of the girl whose house we were eating at. (We later came to find out that this house was her family's weekend/summer home and their other house was in the next town -- We really do live in the wealthiest region of Italy!)
(In picture: Vanessa, Michael, and Francesca)
When we pulled in, we were greeted by their two beautiful dogs. The house was really large and we stepped into the basement where a long table was set up for us with appetizers (bread, salami,
cheese). We were asked if we'd like beer, wine (prosecco), or pop and
I had the prosecco which was very good. Another one of the girls, Vanessa, sat at the table and talked with us while the other 3 worked on preparing the dinner. They came out with two plates of pizza (cheese, sausage, and ham) and then after that we had pasta. We asked them how often they ate pasta and they said everyday for at least one meal and then families usually went out for pizza on the weekends. Melania's father also made his own wine for the first time last fall so we got to try a little bit of that and some homemade grappa as well.

After everyone had finished their food, I thought it was time to go home but we were surprised to find out a fire had been made outside for us so we all went and sat around the fire while Melania made hot wine for us. I had heard of it but never tried it before and it was really cool to watch. It was a pot of her father's red wine mixed with cinnamon and apple slices and then cooked over the fire until the alcohol on top caught flame and the mixture started bubbling. She then took it off the fire and poured it in glasses for us. It tasted very good and eating the apples in the bottom afterward was even better. The guys who were in our group were having too much fun singing songs that Francesca (another HS Italian) had on her iphone. After sitting around the fire for about an hour, the girls' parents came back to pick us up and take us back to campus. It was a really great experience and I came back with 4 new Italian friends!

Gourmet Dinner #2

On Thursday, March 10 we had our 2nd formal dinner. This time we went to Ristorante Belvedere in Bassano Del Grappa. This dinner was a little different from the first one in that there was not an appetizer portion and the food and wine was better than at the last meal. I'll walk you through the courses ....

Course #1 : Treviso red chicory pie w/Asiago cheese sauce
This was by far the best dish I have tasted in Italy. I honestly have no idea what was in it but it was delicious!

Course #2 : Home made pasta w/ vegetable ragout
The pasta was extremely good and the vegetables in it were very flavorful--I had to have a second smaller helping of this one!







Course #3 : Risotto with pumpkin and rosemary
Risotto is a rice dish and this one inparticular was not a favorite amongst our table. I think the rosemary added a weird flavor.







Course #4 : Terragon veal stew with roast potatoes
The potatoes were excellent (the seasoning added great flavor) and the veal was ok.







Course $ 5 : Orange Bavarian with chocolate sauce
This dessert was absolutely fantastic. The texture was similar to flahn and it was an orange flavored cake with drizzled chocolate sauce.

Then of course we had a small cup of espresso to finish the night with. Our table had such a great time laughing and talking and enjoying the food, we didn't realize we'd been there nearly 3.5 hours before everything was finished and we hopped on the buses back to campus.

Carnevale di Venezia and Verona

Our first extended weekend travel break was March 3-6 and a friend and I left Thursday afternoon to celebrate Carnival in Venice (or Carnevale di Venezia). This celebration begins about 2 weeks before Ash Wednesday and ends on Fat Tuesday. Carnevale was developed around the Roman Catholic festival of Lent, so people would gamble, play games, dress up, and wear masks (so social classes were able to mix) before the fasting and abstinence of Lent began. The best way I can describe carnevale in Venice is CRAZY. Everywhere you went, there were people wearing masks and dressed in extravagant costumes. The mask/costume stores were endless. My friend, Brittany, and I had gotten tickets to a burlesque ball about a month before we came to Venice and so we got ready on Thursday night to have the time of our lives. The ball was located in Palace Pesaro Papafava, which was close to the hotel we stayed at. We both curled our hair, put on our dresses, and headed out to the ball. We got lost a couple times of course but we eventually found the palace. When we walked in, we showed our tickets and were greeted by trio of male singers with an accordion player. They sang to us while we mingled and had cocktails. We met four women who were originally from New York but moved to London 8 years ago for work. It was their first time celebrating carnevale too. After cocktails, we headed upstairs to the dining room and found our seats. It just so happened we had a French couple to our left (picture), a Spanish couple across from us, and a Greek couple to our right.....and the common language was English. It was so cool to have conversations with them. We talked to the French man about language and how important it is for Europeans to learn English because the language barriers are so much more vast in Europe. And since I am doing my project in International Marketing on Greece, I talked to the Greek couple about how it was living in Athens now with all of the riots going on because of the discontent with the present economy. It was really interesting to hear their perspective. After our amazing dinner and wine, the burlesque performance began.
A whole array of saucy, sultry dancers put on a performance amongst the dinner tables. It was so fun to watch -- especially the belly dancers who were balancing this huge hat on their head with at least 6 burning candles on it. After the performance, a band from New York played some great music and sang (in multiple languages--you never knew what u were going to hear next) and everyone danced. The French man took both Brittany and I out onto the dance floor. He was the nicest man I have ever met! We had such a wonderful time and finally left a little before 2am and walked back to our hotel.
The next day we got some serious shopping done in Venice and bought some sweet masks as souvenirs (picture). We went to the Rialto bridge and St. Mark's square which was crowded with people in costume. They had an area gated off in the square where you could pay to go in and dance with Venetians in costume. We then found a restaurant and had dinner and then went out for a few drinks at an Irish pub.
The next morning we had breakfast at our hotel and hopped on the waterbus to get to the train station. We missed our train by 5 minutes -- woops. So we sat in a caffe for an hour until the next train left for Verona. When we arrived in Verona we took a bus to our hotel which was extremely complicated to find -- after we got off at the stop we probably wandered around for an hour trying to find the street it was located on. Not fun. Buy when we got there it was very nice and the people who owned it were very friendly. We got settled in then went out to explore the city. Verona is probably my favorite city in Italy so far because of its size and beauty. It had a very small town feel and was very easy to navigate. The bridges that extended over the river were especially beautiful and provided gorgeous views of the city. We of course saw Juliet's balcony and went through her house which is now a museum and we explored a huge castle with a bridge over the river and went inside of the Roman amphitheatre. We had our first kebab sandwiches for lunch in Piazza Bra (great name, huh?) and we had pasta for dinner (best tortellini I've ever had). We saw everything we wanted to see in one afternoon and we loved it. We caught a train the next morning back to Paderno Del Grappa and enjoyed the sunshine.