Acquario di Genova

Hey everyone! This is Emma guest posting! Right now I will be taking time sharing with you about my field trip to the Acquario di Genova, I went with my class and the other two 6th grade classes in my school. The trip took place on Friday, 29th April. I just couldn't wait to return to this awesome aquarium for the second time.

The drive was about 3 hours and the whole time I was just chatting with my friends that I was sitting next to. The bus was really cool and it had two floors and since I get car sick all the time, I sat on the second floor in the very front. It felt like I was driving!!

Crossing over the Ligurian mountains

Vercelli's rice fields

Anyways, about the aquarium. The trip was meant for us to learn more English because the tour was in English. Actually, I was quite impressed on how well they spoke! What I didn't enjoy about the tour guide is that she was rushing the tour and said we couldn't take pictures because she had to explain (sigh).

But, you know what I did? I just went on and took pictures anyway, because even though our professors said we would see the aquarium again in the afternoon, I just knew that we wouldn't have had time to revisit it again (And in the end, we never revisited the whole aquarium again!!!) So, please don't be surprised if I took only a few pictures.

The explanations of the tour guides were superficial, but interesting. What kept distracting me was that most of my classmates were asking me: "What did she say? Could you translate that for me?" It gets really annoying after awhile, but I just kindly kept translating what the tour guide was saying. 

Then around 2 we ate lunch and after that I was playing with my friends and enjoying the sea breeze and seagulls singing (because we ate "on the roof" of the aquarium, which I call "oversized balcony" and it was by the port).

Then we went gift shopping. I got a really resistant bookmark with dolphins on it and two postcards with a seal and two dolphins. Everything in the shop was SUPER expensive!!! Example: you usually buy postcards for 50 cents, but the ones in the souvenir shop costed 1 euro and 20 cents. Crazy huh?!

I just can't BELIEVE I haven't said anything about a single animal!! And you all know I'm an extreme animal lover! So, about the animals (I will post pictures don't worry). We saw animals like manatees (they were so cute and fat), seals, LOTS of fish (big and ugly, and small and cute), snakes, frogs, crocodiles, sea turtles, eels, dolphins, sharks and so much more! My favourites were the dolphins and touching rays (don't worry, they were not sting rays). 

I'm DEEPLY sorry that I've just been talking. Hopefully I didn't make you bored, but up up and away,  here come the pictures!!!

The most adorable dolphins ever

Sea horses

My favourite fish of the aquarium

Jellyfish

I call these "Glass hugging jellyfish"

Of course, we all know Nemo...

... and Dori

Catfish

Fat manatees!

Sharks

Sleeping seal

Poisonous fish 

Sea turtle

Ugly huh?!

Same goes for this one

Snakes... my mom's favourite ;)

Celebrating Liberation Day

In Italy, we celebrate Liberation Day on April 25. This national holiday honors those who served in the Italian Resistance against the Nazis and Mussolini's troops during World War II. The Italians were formally liberated by Allied troops on April 25, 1945. Ceremonies will take place in most towns in tribute to the event. I saw a few Italian flags hung out on balconies but other than that it goes unnoticed unless you make a concerted effort to participate in the commemorative services. In other words it is not decked out like Memorial Day in America.

All across Europe there are celebrations of liberation at various times as it was the spring of 1945 that the Allied forces pushed through. Last year we traveled through Germany in the spring where we stopped to visit both Dachau and Flossenbürg concentration camps. It was the 70th anniversary and the heightened emotion was certainly felt in the air as survivors returned to be commemorated. We arrived at Flossenbürg just as the memorial service was starting.

Man with red tie is a survivor

 Flowers gifted from countries all over the world

Samuel shared a bit about our visit to both camps here. However, I never personally wrote anything. I really struggled with putting my thoughts to paper. How does one even begin to process the atrocities that took place? Having visited a concentration camp like Dachau, one can in a way understand how the greatest generation returned in silence. My maternal grandfather was a part of George S. Patton's army that helped liberate Buchenwald concentration camp. First they fought through Trier, Bullay and St. Goar, France and then crossed the Rhine into Lumbach. At Lumbach, my grandpa received the Silver Star for saving 4 men by leaving a covered position to get to where they lay wounded and raked by machine gun and artillery fire. With his skill as an army medic he amputated a leg on one man and kept him from bleeding to death and treated the other three while under fire. From there they fought close to Frankfurt and then on to Herzfeld, Eisennach, Gotha, Erfurt, Arnstadt, Jena, Kahla and ended at Zwickau on the Czech border on the Mulde River. (Thanks to my dad for researching this information) He also received the Croix de Guerre medal of honor from General de Gaulle, the president of France, for the liberation of France. Tata never spoke much of his experience in the war and I can now better understand why. However, stories need to be shared and passed along to the next and future generations so that we don't ever forget and don't repeat this horrific and dark time in world history. I am so grateful for the men and women who sacrificed so much for freedom both in Europe and the United States, in the military and the resistance.

Dachau was a very different experience than from Flossenbürg in that Dachau was left mostly untouched to be a visual reminder of what took place.

View from barrack

Lockers and eating area

Flossenbürg has been turned into more of a memorial as much of what it was either was torn down or built over since the time of its liberation. It was only in 2007 that it was opened as a Holocaust museum.

 Building where Dietrich Bonhoeffer was held before execution in the courtyard

This plaque is placed at the execution site in memory to members of the German resistance executed on April 9, 1945 which included the Lutheran pastor and theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

On our trip we listened to the story of Bonhoeffer by the Focus on the Family Radio Theatre. It was very good and we would recommend it. Since last spring I have done my share of reading historical novels and biographies from the WWII period. Having traveled now a good amount through Europe I can better comprehend things culturally and geographically. Here are some book recommendations if you are interested:

Things We Couldn't Say - Diet Eman (Dutch Resistance)
A Thread of Grace - Mary Doria Russell (Italian Resistance in Piedmont)

Zion Covenant Series - Bodie Thoene

Emma's class integrated a drama course into their studies this year and presented a production last Friday in collaboration with another 7th grade class from a different school. The play was based on the book "Fulmine, un cane coraggioso--La Resistenza raccontata ai bambini" (Fulmine, a courageous dog--The Resistance told to children). In the play there were narrators telling stories about partisans fighting the Nazis and the dog Fulmine passing along secret notes to partisans throughout Italy. The play also includes scenes in which grandparents tell stories to their families about the Resistance and the War, to help them remember what happened years ago. The play ends with Italy celebrating their liberation from the Nazis and Fascism at the end of the war.

She did an excellent job with her lines and really had a lot of fun.

Mantua + Sabbioneta = Two Day Field Trip for Samuel

Hey! It's Samuel! I'm guest posting again. Last time I guest posted I wrote about our trip as a family to Prague. Now I'm posting about my class trip earlier in April to two cities in the south-eastern part of the region of Lombardy: Mantua and Sabbioneta. My teacher wanted to take us there because that's close to where Virgil (a Roman poet) was born and we happened to be finishing off the Aeneid.

The trip lasted two days, Thursday thru Friday. I departed at around 7:30 a.m. and set off on the four hour ride to Sabbioneta. It wasn't long until we got to the first toll: that's when the cops stopped us. They were checking that the bus didn't carry any immigrants and to see if the driver got all of his speeding tickets (basically). We, then, stopped at a gas station to eat a snack so then we can hit the road (Jack!).

We arrived to Sabbioneta at around 11:00. Sabbioneta was a fortress, built like an irregular hexagon, for the Gonzaga dynasty. The tips of the hexagon are filled with compact dirt to cushion the impact of flying cannon balls and it was surrounded by a moat. By the looks of it to me, it doesn't seem to have been assaulted before. Then we went to find our tour guide that would lead us through the city.

The gate to Sabbioneta

The square outside the Gonzaga palace

Our first stop was the theater: the first modern theatre since the Hellenistic period. The inside looked like a very small greco-roman theater: the stage looked like a common street in the city and it was built slanted at an angle so you could see the perspective of the street with limited space. There are four rows of seats: two at the bottom for the knights and two at the top for the higher nobility. They are built following the greco-roman style of theater and the walls are covered with frescoes that show Rome on the left and Athens on the right.

The Sabbioneta theater

The reconstructed stage

The painting that illustrates Rome, the Athens one is almost completely gone

The seats for the higher nobility

The next stop was at a museum of the Gonzaga, which held many replicas of equestrian statues of Vespasian Gonzaga, the founder of the fortress, and his ancestors. Vespasian was part of an order of knights called the "Toson d'Oro". These knights always wore a necklace with a golden ram on it, so if you look closely at Vespasian's statue then you will see that necklace. Another interesting fact: the Gonzaga dynasty was the ugliest dynasty that ever ruled in Italy.

A chalk replica of the statue on top of the tombstone of Vespasian Gonzaga that never held his body 

The equestrian statue replica of Vespasian Gonzaga with his necklace if you look closely

The next stop was a Jewish synagogue. You had to wear a kippah to enter. No one saw that sign and I was the only one that saw it. But I couldn't find a kippah, so when we entered the place of worship I didn't know what else to do other than cover my head with my hand to respect it.

Inside the synagogue

The next stop was the Gonzaga palace. It wasn't as interesting as everything else, but it was still enjoyable.

The gallery of the Gonzaga palace, the third longest in Europe

After that the tour was done and we sat down and ate lunch in the square. Then we left for Mantua.
When we got there, you would expect me to settle down at the hotel, au contraire: we went on a boat tour on the river that runs through Mantua: Mincio. It was really nice, but you should also know that I was on the most dangerous river in Italy inhabited by crocodiles and 180 pound catfish. If I were reading this post for the first time I would be like: "AND THIS IS LEGAL!?". Yep, it is, and it's completely safe; however I'm not saying that you should throw your chihuahua into the water: it's very likely that it will be eaten by unsuspecting catfish. The river is also home to many herons. If you ever want to go there, July is the best time to go because the time you arrive it will be covered in lotuses. With all of these animals around you're probably asking: how did they all get there? Well for starters, one Gonzaga king decided to alter Mincio's course and make four lakes around his city, turning it into an island: Superiore, Inferiore, di Mezzo and Paiolo. However when the swamp came along, they were forced to dry out Paiolo and now it's a peninsula.

Swans

Grey heron

A rare red heron. My teacher said we were lucky to see one.

I wasn't joking about the catfish! Here's a dead one floating by.

After the boat tour we went to settle in the hotel. Be surprised if you will, but settling in the hotel was trickier business than I thought. When I got my room key the guy said it was on the first floor. I wasn't convinced when I started looking because the rooms aren't organised by order of the room numbers. The hotel was shaped like a halo and it had three floors, so getting lost is easy when you have a good chance of making a circle on the same floor and not even know it. I felt like Frodo and Sam when they're close to Mordor before they meet Gollum in the Two Towers and they get lost: everything looked so familiar looking for my room until I realised I was walking around in circles. I discovered that my room was on the second floor.

Hotel ABC (yes, that's its name)

After I settled in I ate dinner with my class and we set off for a midnight stroll (but I don't mean that it was literally midnight) in the city. When we came back I went straight to the shower and to bed.

The cathedral right next to the astronomical clock on our midnight stroll.

I was forced to wake up early in the morning for breakfast. I wanted to wake up at 7:00 and breakfast was at 7:30. However my teacher wanted everyone to wake up at 6:30. That stunk, big time.
Then we went off to a tour around Mantua (which I found a lot more interesting than Sabbioneta by the way). This was my favorite part of the trip.

The astronomical clock. It stopped ticking centuries ago and the mechanism is so complex that not even a genius can fix it! No one knows how to fix it because there are no more blueprints left of it.

The Duke Palace 

Outdoor prison cage 

Gonzaga dynasty

One of the hundreds of hallways in the Duke Palace

St. George's Castle

After we got past the immense amount of touring, we went to the Palace Te. Now there's a common misconception about it's name origin. Lots of people think that it comes from the Italian word for tea: tè. But this was built before tea was discovered, so the name came from the local vulgar term for "fun": in fact it was built for this very purpose. The most interesting room of this palace is the Room of the Giants (Camera dei Giganti) which is a room that is completely covered in one big fresco that shows the rebellion of the giants against Zeus who makes the ceiling of his temple crush them. It was built in such a way that when the spectator gasped at these images, the echoing of his/her very voice will scare him/her even more.

I did not zoom in on any of these!

After the tour we went to the bus and then home. It was a four hour trip and we departed at five o'clock. Then we stopped at a gas station to get snacks. I didn't eat any dinner and I could only afford a large bag of M&M's. While on the bus it was late and I was eating them. As some of you might know I get hyper when I eat lots sugar really late and surrounded by people. And the rest of the ride back I was like that. I hope never to do something of the sort again (although time can only tell and I might just break this vow at SHARE). I got back at 9:00 right when my whole family was waiting to receive me again in the house with a warm welcome, while watching Star Wars bonus features in the mean time. It was an awesome trip! I can't wait to go to France for a week next year with the exchange program!