Friday June 20th 2008

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!!
Today is my mom's Birthday. I got confused to the date and accidentally called her a day ahead of time...opps..but she still appreciated it. I had not heard my parents voices in a while so it was great to talk to them. My mom gives me an e-mail update everyday and always checks my blog but hearing her voice in person was really nice!
Today was our last day of classes. Erin and I took the walk to class and made the most of it. Our first class was foods and we discussed our presentations. I was very excited about mine once I started the research the night before. There really is a lot to know about Olive Oil!
After class I had photography. From there I went back to my room and ate some of the left over food then went outside and tanned with Erin. After tanning Erin and I went to Italian class. I am not in Italian class but Rachel was showing the video that she made. It was done extremely well. It was really fun to watch it. I looked pretty silly in it whenever I spoke the rest was neat! After I did that I picked up some snacks for the opera and headed to the wine tasting.
Susan got everyone in our group to go to a wine tasting for free. We went to a restaurant that used to be a stop for horses and carriages. The wine tasting was very informative. We tried four different types of wine. We learned that you start with the lowest proof of wine and go to the highest in wine tasting. The first glass was a white wine followed by three reds. Our wine tasting was accompanied by small sandwiches and bread sticks. The food was good and the wine was also very good. The last glass was the oldest and the majority of our class did not like it. I really enjoyed the taste of it.
After wine tasting we went to the Opera! It was opening night and there were cameras and important people everywhere!! The opera was right in the coliseum. The mens dressing rooms were open and all of the costumes for the opera and actors were visible. It was pretty neat to see.
The opera was also very neat. Candles were passed out when we entered. This was how the script was read when there was no electricity. This is still done today. I followed the script in English as the opera was done in Italian. It was really neat to see! We sat on stone seating in the coliseum. Everyone had padding but it was still extremely uncomfortable. The opera was complete with soldiers. with torches, horses, and amazing costumes. It was really neat. There was little kids with Afro's that were precious. During one of the scenes the little kids came out and one of them lost their pants on the way out. It was precious! He had tights on underneath but the child grabbed his pants and ran out- probably my favorite part of the opera.
The opera had 3 twenty minute breaks and was very long. We decided not to stay for the entire thing because the stone got very uncomfortable. We also all found ourselves very tired sitting from the wine tasting. Rachel, Erin and myself headed out and stopped at Altimo bar on our way home. There was many people there that night and it was a lot of fun. I met up with my friend Roberto and he invited us to the disco tecka (which is a what Italians call night clubs) that was near lake Garda. Knowing it was our last weekend we decided to go. The disco was amazing! Roberto is a dancer at this particular club so he got us in with great treatment. We did not wait to park- the man that was doing parking took care of it for us. Once in the club we also head a reserved section for ourselves to be in. The club was amazing! It was all outside with chandlers and a pool in the middle. There was several DJ's. One was playing disco music and one was playing 70's music from the United States. We stayed in this room for a long time. It was a lot of fun. Our night ended early in the morning and we were all extremely tired from all the events of the day however we had an amazing time!