October 23rd, 2007

Zivjo!
We had our opening ceremony this weekend! As you probably know, this is the college's 25th anniversary year (along with UWCUSA) and lots of exciting things have been happening!
This weekend, the college had a ceremony in the Teatro Verdi in the center of Trieste. There were lots of speeches (in Italian and English) and various music performances by music scholars, the choir sang, etc.
Overall I thought it was quite good day. After the performance, we all had a nice lunch in the Perfettura - the city hall of Trieste. Lucy and Urska and I stayed in Trieste a while longer, and took a bus back around 5:30 that afternoon.
The international board and heads of other UWC's were all there, big news and media groups, they had flags from all the countries that students carried, I wore my cowboy costume.... I actually got a holster and toy guns that Salma had from my USA 3rd year who also had a cowboy costume, so that made my costume more fun.
Anyway, the weekend was good.
This week is quite short because we have a long weekend (no school friday) and today, Wednesday, is the Marca per la Pace to Trieste. The whole school is going to march for peace and then setup some workshops and things in Trieste. Should be a lot of fun!
Anyway, I have to go get ready for the march,
Ciao!

October 18th, 2007

Ciao everyone!
I've been so busy the last few weeks I haven't been keeping up very well with the blog, sorry!
The week after our Trento hiking trip was Latin Week.
At UWCAD each region has their own week over a two year period. This means that throughout the week and weekend, they do shows, have food taster sessions, poetry nights and parties. Latin week was really fun, I think they did a great job. I was also slightly sick however, so I got pretty tired by the weekend, and didn't really recover/rest as much as I should have! So I went on sick list (this means you go to the nurse and are approved for staying in your room and not attending classes and activities) on Monday, and it helped a lot.
On Sunday, I finally managed to get the people together for the band I've been intending to start. We got to play a while, and got a sense for what sort of equipment etc. we have, it was fun! We also played again this last Tuesday, although we've been having a little trouble getting everyone there at the same time (we're all very busy). Juoar and I are playing guitar, Vollen (not a UWCAD student, but the son of a teacher at the college) is drumming, and we have a few people interested in vocals that may switch off - Bongani (South Africa) is the only one that has joined us so far. I think it's going to be lots of fun, I love the opportunity I have here to play music so much of the time!
Anyway, taking Monday off has helped me survive the week (It's now Friday after classes are out!). I've found that classes are getting harder to keep up with now. The courses do not require huge amounts of work outside of class, but relative to the amount of free time we all seem to have, it feels like a lot.
This week (Wednesday) started our 25th Anniversary Opening Ceremony. Heads of other UWC's and members of the UWC International Board came to the college, along with 4 students form the UWC-USA campus (some of them carrying hugs and notes from home, which was great). This makes things even more exciting than usual, of course, and tomorrow we are having the official ceremony in 12 in Trieste in the main Piazza there. Tonight I am meeting the UWC-USA president, Lisa Darling, to bring her to Menza for dinner. I am looking forward to getting to speak with the heads of the colleges and the UWCUSA students, it should be really fun and interesting!
I've been hanging out with Urska a lot, and also with Lucy and Sarah some. I'm starting to feel like I know everyone at the school (even if I still don't have all the names and countries). The weather has been pretty cold mostly, but we have been getting some sun. In light of this and being sick I haven't been doing much exercise (I had to skip sailing on Tuesday, although I have continued my wind-surfing endeavors). Haven't been running or on my bike in a while, but I'm starting to feel like need to. I have been playing soccer once or twice a week, at least!
I also had a viola lesson (in Italian) that went quite well. I'm starting to a get a feel for the sound the viola can and should produce. I'm starting to practice a little more!

Anyway, I'll try keep up a little more so I don't have to summarize like this! This weekend should be eventful!
Ciao!
(the picture above was last week or two when Ingrid (Norway), Myself, and Urska (Slovenia) made dinner in Fore)

October 18th, 2007

October 16th, 2007

Ciao tutti!
It has been quite a while since I updated il mio blog, so lots has happened.
Two weekends ago (Oct. 6/7) I went with the school on a hiking trip to the dolomites, near Trento. I could never pronounce the name of the town we were in, so I don't remember what it was, but we were in the mountains hiking, and stayed overnight at a cottage with a group from the college and a group of Italians from a local school there. I the trip was amazing, there were beautiful mountain ranges that reminded me of the rockies at times, we had great weather (which wasn't expected) and I got to practice a little Italian.
We went on Sat. morning very early, drove about 4.5 hrs., met up with the Italian students, spent the night in a cottage after a short hike, got up the next morning and hiked about 2.5 hrs. to the top of a mountain range that was the Austria-Hungarian/Italian border in World War II, at returned to Duino by that evening (Sunday).
The trip was fantastic, it was nice to be at at least a slightly higher altitude for a while, and it was just great hanging out with everyone! We were about 30 in total: 15 UWC students/teachers and 15 Italians.


We ate lunch at this cottage above - the final destination for our hike.
To the left is the group we were with.
















Well, I have a break right now and I have to go to Italian Class, so that's all, I'll update more soon!
I'll tell you about latin week, being sick, starting my band, and meeting UWC-USA students.
Ciao!

Long Weekend (Sept. 28 - 30)

I went to Ljubljana! The plan for the long weekend (Fri. 28-Sun. 30) was to go camping in the nearby Karso Forest, however, in light of the heavy rain for the last 3 days, we had a backup. We traveled to Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, on Friday, mid-day, and stayed at Urska’s grandparents’ house.

The group was: (Myself) Diana, Urska and Lucy.






We took a bus from Duino to Trieste, and from Trieste to Sezana (a town just over the border). In Sezana, we got on a train, accidentally sat in first class, got kicked out into second class, and spent a lovely hour and a half or so traveling across the Slovenian Country sie (quite near Urska’s home).

When we arrived in Ljubljana around 18:00, we walked around the city for a while, and took a bus to Urska’s grandparents’ house. My first impressions of Ljubljana were, I think, that it was quite quiet, that it felt very Eastern-European, and that it is really very pretty (both in terms of the architecture and that mountains and hills surrounding it). Urska’s grandparents couldn’t have been nicer or more hospitable. Neither of them spoke any English (or if they did they didn’t learn it) but I think that made the experience even more fun. I started learning words (and trying to learn phrases) in Slovenian, and I really want to continue. I really like the language.

Anyway, the entire trip was really really really fun! Urska’s grandma is an exceptional cook and made us wonderful, healthy, vegetarian, homemade meals, and was very nice. I felt bad that I couldn’t say anything more than “Hvala” (thank you) to express how nice it was to be there. It really felt like a grandparents house; it was warm and cozy and smelled like very good food all the time. The food was especially nice compared to the rather repetitive, deep fried food at the college.


(It was Cold)


Anyway, we arrived at Urska’s grandparents home, ate a wonderful meal (something with broccoli and spinach and mozzarella), played a French card game I taught them, and watched a movie. We went to bed oddly early, and got up around 8:30-9:00 the next morning – most sleep I’ve gotten since I got to UWCAD!

As a result of said excess sleep, the day seemed very relaxed and was really great. We ate more great food (courtesy of Urska’s grandma), walked around the Ljubljana city center, walked up onto a really beautiful hill with a castle (Castle Hill?) near the city center, and enjoyed the beautiful autumn afternoon. I remember thinking sincerely that I didn’t want to be anywhere else in the world at the moment. It was really great.

(Lucy, Diana, Urska, Urska's Grandmother)

Urska’s grandma offered to drive us home (about 1 hr. 15 min. from Ljubljana to Duino by car – 6 hrs. traveling by bus and train!) and we stopped at some very cool caves on the way. We also had the pleasure of meeting Urska’s mother briefly, on the way down to the caves from Ljubljana (near Urska’s home). She was very nice, speak wonderful English, and invited us to come visit this winter some time. I would really love to; I’ve loved all of Urska’s family that I’ve had the pleasure of meeting!

The caves were very cool, although quite developed (as usual). They were, none the less, really pretty and I enjoyed seeing them.



(at the caves)




We got back to school around 20:00 and hung out in Diana’s room and had a mini dinner with some cheese and bread and such…
Slovenia was really wonderful, I hope to go back soon, and I am sincerely considering trying to learn Slovenian. It’s a language that is not even remotely similar to any I have ever studied at all, but I really like it!


Here are some of the words I learned that I can think of:
(these are all spelled phonetically, so I’m sure they’re way off – sorry Urska!)

ena – one
dva – two
tri – three
sditti – four
bet – five
hvala - thank you
dio – good bye
dan – hello
iti – to be
yus sum – I am
govoriti – to speak
yus ne govorim slovensko – I don’t speak Slovenian
govoris slovensko? – do you speak Slovenian?
fajn – fine?
prossimo – your welcome
kie yie – where is…. (I’m positive I severely massacred the spelling)
morati – ? (this is the one I was trying to learn…but accidentally said the next one)
morit – to massacre
mi premo – we go
midva – us two
mitri – us three
ti - you
srcek - darling

That is all my vocabulary after one day of asking Urska to repeat and sound out words over and over, I’m sure I got very annoying! (Hvala srcek!)

Now it’s 2:00 on Sunday, and I need to go to sleep, but the weekend turned out better than I could have imagined! I can’t even go into highlights, everything was wonderful…



Dio
Ciao

September 17-24, 2007

Ciao tutti!


I've been so busy lately with lots of school and extra-curricular stuff, I'm sorry I haven't been writing about recent events. So, here goes the last week in a nutshell...
Venice was last weekend, the went well, classes are starting to set in to some rhythm although I still have less homework than I expected/expect to. But, with all the other college activities and services I've been participating in, I've still been incredibly busy.
This week, for example (a pretty regular picture) I went to Sailing and Soccer (two evenings), Art, a photography meeting and the opening of a show by Eric Heartman (the photographer after who our art center is named), I spent a couple hours working on College Bikes, met with the 25th Anniversary Planning Committee (which I'm on), we had the opening of a new Hall/Auditorium which I filmed parts of and took pictures for, I visited the Duino Castle (which was amazing), I went to a 60's/70's themed dance party.... oh and Urska and Juor and I went swimming and attacked the Thursday sailing class and jumped on their boats... (that was a highlight) - just to name the things that come to mind immediately. It's amazing how one week can feel like months.

(Yes, I wore my national costume)
Simone (Canada), Remy


I've spent a lot of time this weekend and last week taking pictures, filming college shows, and then trying to rip all and upload all this media onto my computer and give it to the people who want it.... I still haven't managed to put anything on Facebook. (sorry)
The cool part about all this is, however, that I'm making a proposal to get a video camera for the college that can be used to film all of these events (in light of the 25th anniversary), and my sources of contact sounded optimistic about the possibility and told me to figure out what camera I wanted and the price...

This weekend and yesterday (Monday, 09/24/07) we were practicing and performing for a show we did at the University of Trieste in light of a ceremony the university was doing to honor people who had done various social projects... It was a big deal with the media and all, but I couldn't understand much as it was all in Italian. Anyway, they asked us if we would provide performances, so we did the show! I sang with the choir (I'm singing bass), and there were a number of very cool dances and a few instrumental/percussion performances students had put together. The shows we do here remind me a lot of those at UWCAD for those of you who know. I love them. This one was lots of fun to rehearse, perform, and film etc.


(This is the venue for the Trieste Show)






(Some of the Choir)



Anyway, it was yesterday we performed, and tomorrow we are doing a similar show in a town on the border with Slovenia (I'm not sure of the name or purpose of the show, but I will find out soon enough!). Last night, on the way back from the show, our van stopped in Trieste for Ice Cream at midnight, and I got up this morning at 7:00 to make Crepes with Salma in Sholtz residence. I haven't been sleeping much, but I love everything I'm doing, so it seems worth it! Today, I went sailing in very little wind (so it was quite boring), but I swam afterwards which was fun. I also went briefly to a ceremony some Asian students did that they celebrate at home that has to do with the Full Moon cycle and a new year. It was fun.

This weekend is our first long weekend which means that we don't have school on Friday (it's such a big deal here it's weird to think that it was normal at home). People plan trips everywhere - Myself, Lucy, Julie, Diana, Urska, Juor, Xana, and a few others are planning to bike for two days (hopefully to Slovenia) camp, andI come back.... Should be lots of fun, we'll leave on Friday Morning, and probably come back on Sat. Night/ Sunday morning.

I have been spending time with lots of people, I feel comfortable hanging out with just about anyone here. Especially been with:
Uska (Slovenia)
Salma (Canada)
Lucy (US)
Kaleigh, Juor, Simone, Julie...

I'm doing well overall. I am listening to music from the show this weekend - right now a song called the Israeli Chair Dance that the second years have an very impressive dance/routine to. I'm hoping to put some of these videos on youtube.com.

Hope everyone's doing great!
Ciao!