Camp Campo(galliano)

My first camp was in a tiny town called Campogalliano, which is near Modena in the upper/central part of Italy. My "host family" was actually two young teachers, Rita and Sara, room mates who worked at the school. It was sort of great because we went out and saw a bunch of free concerts and I met so many people; I sort of felt like the whole little community was taking care of me. Plus, it was nice not to have kids in the house, and I could pretty much just come and go as I pleased, although there were many late nights followed by early mornings. But you only live once, I guess, so it worked out.

I fell into my role at this camp very early on--I was the one who solved sharing problems on the swings, and who climbed a tree to jump the fence to retrieve balls that went rogue. I must've hopped that fence seven or eight times during the two weeks, and I earned bruises and scratches for my efforts. My policing of the swings wasn't quite as rigorous and over-the-fence-ball-retrieval, but still necessary. The kids never realized that, no matter what, I always told them they had two minutes to swing and then they had to change. lol

My class was a class of sixteen 10 and 11 year olds of varying English abilities. Here's a picture of some of my girls and I. They're working on making clothes for a paper-version of a class mate for body parts, clothes, and descriptions day.

The classes were split into two teams, Knights and Dragons. Here are my Knights and I in front of the banner they made the first day of camp.

The biggest struggle I had was when a kid was trying to explain something to me, and another kid would attempt to help (in Italian), and then about ten of them would all gather around me screaming in Italian when I've already gotten the message. Wow... it was... intense at times. There were just so many of them! But we had a good time, for the most part. They were super intense about their art (I don't think they get much in school), and they loved "Firework" by Katy Perry, so when we had extra time we'd put it on and dance around the room. I may or may not have gotten on a chair and used a tube of colored pencils as a microphone...

The "point" of the camp is to work towards "lo spetaccolo" or a show at the end. Each class does a little play or performance, and a couple of songs, all in English to show what they've learned. We did a play about four knights who tried to tame the King's dragons. Turns out, they were tamed with kindness (awwwww). I wrote the show myself, with some help and guidance from the kiddos, and they made their costumes and everything. The theme of camp was "Arthur and Friends" so there were lots of knights, dragons, jesters and the like around all week. Lots of swords, too, which is GREAT for 10 and 11 year old boys (and by "great" I mean horrifying!). All in all, it went well. The kids were happy and their parents were happy, so that's all that matters. Here are some of my boys and I after our performance.

My favorite memory of the camp might be the day we went swimming. There was a community pool in Campogalliano, I walked by it every day to get to camp, and one day one of the dads really wanted all of us to come swim one day after camp. We all felt sort of weird about it at first, but eventually the dad wore us down and we went. And it was really fun. Most of the kids there were in either my class or another tutor, Alison's, class. We just played volley ball with them in the water and splashed around and I think it really helped. The kiddos saw us as humans who laugh and enjoy the things that they enjoy, and they tried really hard to speak in English when we were there, even though we weren't at camp. It was cute. :)

My first free weekend in Italy happened to fall while I was working in Campogalliano, which is actually pretty centrally located. I took advantage of its location and took two day trips. One was to Bologna on Saturday, and the other was to Verona on Sunday.

Rick Steves failed me and said nothing at all about Bologna in his Italy guide, so I hopped on a train and winged it. The first thing I saw on my wander from the train station was this, which I think is the gate to the old city. Pretty cool, I thought.

My next order of business was food; I had lunch at this restaurant run by this old guy who was just adorable. There wasn't anyone else there when I sat down, which is kind of why I chose it, and I had the set menu of pasta and tomato sauce (YUM), salad and sausage, and then a coffee in true Italian lunch style. The food was plentiful and delicious, and definite fuel for an afternoon of wandering. Here's my little corner of a Bologna street.

Since I didn't really know what the "must sees" in Bologna were, although I'd read a few online, I just wandered. I saw several churches, and enjoyed wandering the covered sidewalks. One thing about Italy I fell in love with was the piazzas everywhere, and it started in Bologna. I just love a big open space, and a fountain, and some balconies and people. And that's a piazza. In one of the piazzas in Bologna, I caught this bird playing in the church windows.

As I wandered, I ended up running into and consequently befriending these two American guys, brothers from Kentucky. One was studying at a nearby university, and the other was just visiting. They were kind enough to let me tag along with them for the rest of the afternoon, and I was no longer alone.

Turns out, they had a guide book. From approximately 1974. And in this guide book (and also in what I read online) it said that we should see the Two Towers, symbols of Bologna. They are both leaning, but they are smaller, straighter, and slightly less famous than another leaning tower you may have heard of. These towers were built by nobles to exhibit wealth. Apparently back in the day you were judged by the size of your... tower. It's part of a So my new friends and I sought, and conquered, this tower. Here's a picture of the tower, leaning at about 13 degrees, I think.

You can climb it for only 3 euro a, and since there wasn't really much else to do, and it's always good for photographs to get high and see the entire city view, we climbed it. It was around 500 stairs, I think, and it was awkward because of the lean. And my giant feet and tallness. Here I am beginning the journey...

But we all made it. The guys were even taller than me, though, and had even bigger feet, so I'm sure it was even more awkward for them! We got to the top and waked around, and I took a panoramic of the lovely Bologna that awaited us there.

After the climb and a little more wandering, we had a drink together and I caught a train back to Modena, where I went out with my host sisters and ended up at a "discoteque" at, like, 1:30 in the morning with a very cute Italian boy and Rita and Sara and it was ridiculous. I hate "clubs" as a rule, and this one was no exception, but I'm glad I witnessed it once. The music was awful, and dudes tried to, like, touch me on my arm or face or whatever and I was NOT okay with it. But the mix of people there was sort of surprising--it was really a slice of life. Either way, that night was super fun, but went into the early hours. This was unfortunate because I was going to Verona early(ish) the next day with some of the other camp tutors.

We made it to Verona, only about an hour and a half away by train, and began our wander with Rick Steves as our guide. First, we took a group shot by the fountain, apparently a gift from, like, Denmark or something.

Then Rick told us to see the Roman Forum, which we did. One fascinating thing about Italy is that there's literally old crap everywhere. People dig in their backyards and find Roman coins or even ruins! So the fact that there's random Roman crap everywhere is just something you sort of get used to, strange as that may seem. So we go to the forum, and I got in a fight...

Kidding! They were kind of smelly, though. Definitely stayed away from them in Rome, let me tell you.

The real reason for going to Verona, as you can probably guess, is to see Giulietta's balcony and statue, a real refuge for lovers or nerdy English teachers like me. The wall of the entrance to her balcony area, called, shockingly, Juliet's Wall, is covered in the graffiti of people in love--which is sort of sweet, I guess. That people really believe in love, although I hope Romeo and Juliet are not their standards 'cause I'm just sayin'... it didn't really work out too well for them.

Then you enter the courtyard and see her balcony (you have to pay to go on it and it's not that serious so I opted out) and her statue, whose right breast is pretty worn down from people having touched it for good fortune. I touched it, of course, so I'm now just waiting for my good fortune to roll on in.

Also, above the embroidery shop right off the courtyard, you can go see the Juliet Club, where the people who respond to Juliet's letters work, like in the movie Letters to Juliet. No one was writing when I wandered up, which was a little disappointing, but that's fine. I saw the movie, I'm over it.

The last sight we saw in Verona was a statue of Dante Aleghiri, which is in another piazza. We ended our walk there because we were all quite tired, but it was a lovely day in beautiful Verona.

One of my favorite memories from the first camp was a night I went out for pizza with the girls, and met an old guy named, I kid you not, Guido. He spoke only Italian, but somehow he and I understood each other; I understood him better than I understand some people whose first language is English, which gives me pause. He actually took me on a tour of Modena, and I got quite a bit out of his explanations. Plus, he was obsessed with taking pictures and took all of the necessary shots as we walked around the town. He is a bus driver/photographer/friend of everyone, and he even bought me coffee before camp on a couple of mornings. He also bought me three post cards from Campogalliano, on which were featured his photographs. He is my new Italian BFF, and I only wish I could've actually spoken to him more.

Another memory was the night I came back "home" at 2:45 am (don't worry--I was making good choices) to find Rita cooking pasta, and I was so hungry and so happy I just couldn't even deal. So we all ate pasta at 3 in the morning--Rita, Sara, Cute Italian Boy, Cute Italian Boy's twin brother, and I, a mish-mash of new friends, sharing food and memories at 3 am. Perfect. :)

There's this line in a song by Adele called "Hometown Glory" where she says: "The people I've met are the wonder of my world." That's how I feel about Italy--everyone I met, for a moment or for a month, was just such an essential part of my experience there. Each person who tried to speak English, each foreigner who befriended me for even a few minutes, each local who smiled at me or helped me or fed me, was a blessing. And I couldn't be more grateful.

For a full album of pictures from my time in Campogalliano, Modena, Bologna, and Verona, click here.