For some reason when we were having our college photographs taken on Thursday morning (it seems like a year ago) I decided to sign up for the 9.20 Duino castle visit yesterday, as opposed to the 11.20 or 13.20 tours. Having said that, although I forfeited my lie-in, it did free up the rest of the day, as you will see in a bit.
The tour was led by Shie (not sure on the spelling – it’s pronounced ‘shy’) from Israel and Paolo from Italia, two secondi who’d volunteered to give us the tour. The castle in question is the newer of Duino’s two castles, and is still in part inhabited. Situated right on the cliff on the headland, no more than a two-minute walk from my bedroom (you can also see it from the window of our room), the castle is actually in quite good condition, especially compared to the Duino old castle that is on another headland on the other side of the Castello Nuovo (the newer castle). Unfortunately as we don’t have internet in the bedrooms I can’t look up the dates they were built. Since it was our first time visiting we met by the owner of the castle, some descendant of Napoleon, or so it seems from the many family trees in the castle. We had a look round the rooms in the castle, with some rather old violin and violin-like instruments, some of which dating from the early 1600s. We also looked around the battlements and the grounds, which gave a spectacular view of the old castle. Also fascinating was the huge WWII bunker built into the rock going underneath the castle and leading right down to the foot of the cliff, where it housed an AA gun. The sheer scale of the fortification was impressive, and it’s weird to think that 68 years ago the whole castle, not just the bunker, was used as a Nazi fortress, and that the whole of the region was part of the Third Reich. It’s perhaps fitting that we are situated so close to this reminder of one of the main reasons why UWC colleges was founded.
I popped into the shop/supermarket just next to the castle and therefore the college, and then went to have a second breakfast in the still nearly empty day room. After a lazy morning at half one we took the bus to Emisfero (literally ‘hemisphere’) a huge shopping centre in nearby Monfalcone, which basically consists of giant Wal-Mart-like supermarket thing and then a load of other shops and cafes (all very much soulless, but convenient nevertheless, and cheap). Here three of us were intending to purchase Italian sim-cards, however oddly enough you have to have your passport in Italy to buy them, and even though Moritz, an Italian citizen, presented his Italian ID card, they would not let him buy one. All of our passports are currently at the college’s administration to have copies taken and also so that we can get permesso to reside in Italy. I also bought a phone charger as although mine from the UK is in the post (yes, I forgot that, too), Moritz pointed out that using adapters slows the charging. I also bought Gomorra, the film of the famous book by Roberto Saviano about the mafia and hopefully we will get to watch on the projector in the day room one evening, as it has English subtitles. Alex, the secondo from Belgium, decided to buy an office chair (as at the college we each have a desk and a basic chair next to our beds) and then we thought it would be nice to buy some watermelon for our residence. So we ended up buying two 15 kilo watermelons (only €3 each!) and consumed one last night (as in Sunday night) and will consume one tonight.
On the way back I learnt a great trick for the bus tickets. What happens is you buy a ticket from either a local café/bar/shop or if there’s a machine (although the machine’s normally temperamental) and then when you get on the bus you insert into this machine, which stamps the ticket with the date and the time. But once the ink ahs dried, you can actually use a rubber, as in those ones where it’s normally one end is pink and one blue and the blue end is made out of really hard crumbly stuff, to rub out the ink. Using the blue end, you keep the ticket flat and rub for a while and it gradually disappears. It’s actually a UWC tradition to do this; apparently the knowledge is passed down from year to year. Also, when you consider that a trip into Trieste is €5, Monfalcone €2, this all builds up. It’s UWC spirit. As it happened we (the three of us who didn’t already have tickets) were intending to buy a ticket but there were no machines or shops nearby (you cant buy them on the bus either) and the bus driver just let us go on anyway. Although I imagine the bus driver regretted it when he saw us board with an office chair and two enormous watermelons.
Funnily enough, on the bus back to Duino (which takes about 10 minutes longer on a Sunday, I think, as it seems to go to extra places) at another stop in Monfalcone someone with a UWC t-shirt got on. He turned out to be Fernando, from Mexico, who is a third year of the UWC in New Mexico (so that means that he finished last may). He was staying the night at Duino to visit the college and it was really nice to have this interaction with this other UWCer from a college across the world. It made me think what an impressive organisation UWC is, that you can turn up and be welcomed by another of the colleges, through this shared experience.
After getting back to Fore, a few of us decided to go for a swim at porto, where we again saw Ricky (nice Italian name) from Monfalcone, as well as Max, the biology teacher. Max gets into the water at porto and swims to the beach at the foot of the castle (it was created by the excavations of the cliff when the Germans were building the fortification and gunner positions, and is now a relatively long beach. The only problem is that the path down to it is private and beyond a locked gate, so the only way to get there is by water) and back every day until it is too cold. We started talking and funnily enough it turned out that his best friend is from Gateshead (for those of you who don’t know it’s on the other side of the river to Newcastle), so he’s visited Newcastle loads of times. He also explained that the water is a lot colder than last year as the river in Monfalcone flows out fairly close, and that water comes from the mountains in Slovenia so is a lot colder, and due to the fact that there’ve been two storms recently the amount of cold water has pretty much doubled.
Although we had a lovely swim, we missed one of the concerts that are held in the school auditorium for local people as well as school pupils and students. Quite a few of my friends were playing so it was a shame to miss them, but the concerts happen every month so hopefully I’ll see them play. Outside the auditorium on the way to our residence I bumped into the French speakers, who were sitting on a bench in the trees nearby, which tehn drew my attention to the fact that there was an abundance of conkers coating the ground. Taking childlike delight in finding more and more I then proceeded to give them out to people to explain what they were and what some people did with them. Cultural learning.
By the way I did explain that not everybody in the British Isles plays conkers…
After mensa (what people say instead of Lunch and dinner, mensa means canteen) I really noticed how many mosquito bites I had. At the time of counting it was about 23 or so, with about 7 on one elbow (and the surrounding area). By now though I am starting to get used to them, although every now and then I can’t suppress the urge to scratch them.
At mensa I didn’t really eat much, due to the fact that Pablo, secondo from Mexico, had invited me and a few other people out for a real Italian pizza. Although the food is comparatively nice at mensa (far better than any institutional food in the UK. And yes, I’m afraid any of you reading, it is way better than Atlantic College) it is often a similar menu so it was nice to escape the pasta for an evening. Anyway, Pablo, Marcela (Brazilian seconda) and Pabel (Peruvian secondo), Aila (Finnish prima), Victor (Spanish primo) and I (British primo) all went to il ciro and had a lovely meal, where I learned a lot about South American culture, and also got invaluable advice on what options I should pick to study for the IB.
Also going on at the same time was Pala Party, (Pala is one of the residences) basically a disco, nut apparently it wasn’t the most enjoyable so in the end it was good I stayed at fore, also allowing me to skype my parents. After another discussion about my options, I cut the watermelon and put it out on plates, and then went to bed.
No comments:
Post a Comment