I’ve been here 100 days!! Wowwww. On Friday I visited the city Mantova with Camilla and Carlotta! It was absolutely beautiful!! We started the day by waking up at 5:30, and then taking a one hour train ride to Milan. We had a little time before our next rain, so we stopped in a little cafe and grabbed some chocolate brioches. Our second train ride to Mantova was two hours, but it went by really quickly because I kept myself busy the whole time. On the train I listened to music, studied, and proof-read Carlotta’s brother’s Intercultura application that was written in english. When we finally got to Mantova, we took a bus to the center of the city and went to our first monument on the agenda. Carlotta was really prepared for today because she had made an agenda with everything we were going to see, along with a map and descriptions of every monument we were going to visit! If it wasn’t for her, this trip would not have been so successful, thanks Carlotta! The monuments were beautiful! We got to see old art, rooms with amazing architecture and paintings on the walls, and an old library! It was very interesting to see some of the monuments I learned in my art history class in real life! We ate lunch at a little restaurant on the street. Carlotta and I ordered the ravioli with pumpkin inside, and Camilla ordered some kind of risotto. We also had salads and our own plates with different kinds of salami. It was delicious! After lunch we went to see more monuments, and then took the train back to Angera.

Yesterday was also really fun! After school Carlotta came over and we made “salami cioccolato” which is basically chocolate and crackers mixed together to create some kind of dessert that looks like a roll of salami. It was really easy and fun to make, and it tasted soooo good! I played cards with Martino, he taught me three typical Italian games, and I also taught him two American ones – Crazy 8 and War. After dinner, Carlotta, Camilla, and I watched the movie “Dirty Dancing” in Italian with Italian subtitles. The subtitles really helped me, so I could understand most of what was happening :)

Today I’m going to Novara to meet up with my Intercultura friends. We are going to cook typical food from our countries. Cameron and I are going to make hamburgers haha. Until next time!