A new year...

No, your eyes do not deceive you, this is actually another blog post from me. And no your computers did not break last October, I did stop writing these blogs. I enjoyed writing them a lot: they gave me an excellent opportunity to reflect, to think about what I was doing and most importantly to share in detail my experiences here at the United World College of the Adriatic. I kept on intending to write the next post after the climbing trip, however being me I kept on procrastinating and as time passed the amount of stuff to write amassed. Combine with this the immense fatigue that develops (going to bed late + heavy workload + mentally intense lifestyle - e.g. not much time for slobbing = very very tired) and as just mentioned a lot of work, I didn’t get round to writing it.

But I have decided to restart the blog in a more reader friendly way, in other words more concise! And also more pictures (I now have a new camera, although typically I left it at home… it should be with me soon) will hopefully mean you can get an idea of what life is like here for me without spending an hour reading...

To start with I’ll give some of the highlights (I kept a note of what went on last term) of last term post-climbing trip (the subject of my last blog):

Thursday 30^th September – Sunday 3^rd October – First Long Weekend (Turin)

This was the first of two long weekends in the first term. (Basically instead of any ‘half term holiday’ like in the UK, in this first term, we have two weekends with an extra day of holiday added) Francesco, my Italian co-year, invited me to stay with him at his home in Torino for the weekend. After school on the Thursday, we took the (remarkably cheap and efficient) train and when a casa loro, I had the most comfortable night’s sleep since being in Italy.
Over the weekend I went to Francesco’s old school where I met some of his teachers, met his really kind friends (especially I enjoyed meeting George, of Romanian descent, who was pretty much fluent in English and whose aim is to learn all the Latin based languages, learn all the UN languages and become a diplomat. From my conversations I quite confidently think he will succeed), twice ate in pizzerias that did amazing pizza (the best so far) and I also experienced that famous Italian hospitality, especially where it comes to food. Francesco also showed me quite a bit of Torino, which, from my brief time, seems like a large, but still alive, city, with fascinating (like most of Italy) architecture and history. And if you are wandering about the driving, having watched the Italian Job (the original Michael Caine film, not the shoddy American remake) yes, I can testify that drivers in Torino are possibly the scariest I have experienced. Rules of driving: drive as fast as possible then slam on brakes. If space drive into it. Honk horn whenever possible.

All in all it was a lovely weekend.

Saturday 9^th October - Padua

This Saturday was the second of the ‘cultural visits’ organised by Henry, the college’s World Arts and Cultures teacher. Padua (or Padova in Italian) is an ancient Roman city (well now not that much Roman stuff remains, but still lots of buildings from all time periods since then) in the neighbouring province of Veneto, and is about three hours’ coach ride away. We started the tour with Giotto’s frescoes of biblical scenes in the Arena Chapel, which really were remarkable, how after 700 years they have remained in relatively good condition.
We also visited the Basilica of St. Anthony of Padua, a major catholic pilgrimage and also the home to a Franciscan monastery, and actually I enjoyed the day a lot more than I did with Venice. Obviously in Venice I wasn’t feeling well, but Padua felt a lot more alive. It was still beautiful (although obviously not so as Venice) but there were real Paduans (aren’t they something from Star Wars?) going about their daily lives, and the prices weren’t at least with a 200% mark up on normal retail price… I ended the day with a small group of us sitting on the huge grassed, oval shaped park thing in the centre of the city, just sitting in the sun…

The Basilica (all the photos here are taken with my phone)

Wednesday 13^th October – My birthday!

My birthday! Slightly before midnight (on the Tuesday), my roommates gave me their birthday present. Some boxers (as in underwear) with a crown on it, for the ‘British King’. At midnight, as is the tradition, I went to the day room of my residence, Foresteria (Fore for short), where people were waiting to sing me happy birthday. I was then really overwhelmed when I received no fewer than FIVE birthday cakes from various different people. Those of you who know me well will know that I don’t like chocolate, however at this time I really didn’t mind that all the cakes were chocolate, as it was so kind that people had gone to the effort of making them. I then opened my cards from home, and also found cards from people from the college. In the morning, after finishing my Italian homework, I found Gabriel (my second-year) and Hannah (sort of my second year as well, seeing as her mum’s British) making breakfast for me. Some Eggy bread and freshly squeezed orange juice. At lunchtime, everyone sang happy birthday in mensa (the Italian word for canteen), another college tradition. For the evening meal I didn’t have a repetition of this, as Sana (first year, India) and a few others had decided to cook me a meal for dinner. What an amazing curry! My evening ended with playing poker with some of the Italians and then watching a film, ‘The Box’, it didn’t matter if it was a terrible film, I had an absolutely amazing day. This was in contrast to before the birthday, when I had been quite apprehensive as I’ve never celebrated a birthday away from home before, so when everybody was so kind and nice to make me have a great day, it was even more appreciated.

Me in the middle.

Friday 22^nd October – Sunday 24^th October - Arezzo

This weekend a group of about 30 students from the college (accompanied by Viviana, one of the Italian teachers, who is also an alumnus of the college) and our head teacher, Peter, drove six or seven hours to the Tuscan countryside Arezzo, where we stayed in a hotel (wasn’t great, but space away from the college is always appreciated) prior to going into the mountains the next day. The purpose of our visit was to attend a conference at a monastery (another two hours away, right in the mountains), which was organised by a Catholic political party, on the subject of European relations with Africa, but for me was a good opportunity to practice Italian (the students who came who were not Italian native speakers were offered to come because they were good at Italian, and learn more about Italian history and culture. The food was INCREDIBLE. Four or five courses every meal, and home-produced wine, combined with being in the middle of the Tuscan hills, listening to speakers in Italian, certainly made me feel engaged in a culture.

Friday 29^th October – Monday 1^st November – Second long weekend (Cycling in Slovenia)

This was the second of the two long weekends. Originally the group of us was: Raza (my room-mate, Mauritius), Virginia (first-year, Italy), Hannah (second-year, Malta) and Moritz (first-year, Sud Tirol - Italy/Austria). We decided to go cycling in nearby Slovenia (when I say ‘decided’, it wasn’t impromptu, we had been planning for at least a week), and cycling in nearby Slovenia is what we did, borrowing the school’s bikes and tents. The difference between Slovenia and Italy is immediately noticeable. Slovenia seems very new, as if a lot of settlements have only been built in the last five or so years. At the same time the quality of life seems incredibly relaxed, along the way we passed many a person sitting in their garden, next to their vegetable plot/autumn-leaved vineyard, pumpkins out in style in preparation for Halloween, and because it was harvest season. The first night we camped, and the second, after seeing some spectacular underground caves in Skocjanske ( http://www.park-skocjanske-jame.si/eng/photogallery_1.shtml ) we slept indoors in an agriturismo (kind of like farms crossed with small hotels), which was in fact featured in the New York Times. Again, the food was delicious, the starter of walnut soup probably being the most palatable.

The ride home was a much simpler affair than the outbound journey, as much of it was downhill, and we even managed to get back in time on the Sunday for me to watch Newcastle, on some shady website, destroy Sunderland 5-1. Getting back on the Sunday also meant that I had time to revise for an upcoming biology test and catch up with work on the Monday, which was the day off for the long weekend.

As you can see the tent was literally freezing...

Saturday 6^th November – Art Marathon

In the evening, from 8 till 12 midnight, we had an ‘art marathon’. Basically the whole school building (ground floor lecture room and computer room; first and second floors 8 small to medium sized classrooms on each floor) was taken over and most of the rooms had some sort of art installation in. In one room was a group of people with guitars and percussion, improvising, in another photos (it’s hard to describe), and among all of them perhaps the best was in the auditorium (not actually in the school building), where for three solid hours Josh (first-year, South Africa) played piano, Theis (first-year, Denmark) played the drums and Teresa (second-year, Czech Republic) danced, all completely improvised. It’s kind of hard to say what it was like, but it was really beautiful...

Thursday 11^th November – Remembrance Day

By this date pretty much all of our history course had been about world war one. I had also seen the trenches nearby and in the hills slightly further afield. So being the day on which the atrocities of the first world war came to an end (or, at least the day on which fighting stopped), 92 years ago; being away from home and thinking more about the history of where I come from (in other words Britain) and how ridiculous a war it was, as are all the current ones we are in, I thought that I wanted to do something. A few days earlier I went to my tutor, Lydia, and asked if she would support me in having what’s called a personal day. These are basically days that the college has which people can request if need be, and you speak to your tutor about it and usually the college (very impressively) trusts you. Depending on your tutor, if you just feel completely overwhelmed by life, and need to walk along the coast somewhere (as I have heard of people doing) then you can request one of these days. So anyway, I did so far this day and went into the nearby hills to go and be amongst the trenches, which were the Italian – Austrian front. Later on I was told by the director of studies, Mike, that this personal day had been “an indulgence”, that I shouldn’t have been allowed it just because I couldn’t be bothered to go to school, which I was very insulted by, but being British didn’t say anything in response (I know I shouldn’t feel I have to justify myself to him, but whatevs…). I don’t really know what else to write about the day, just the fact that I was standing where thousands of men had been forced to die and forced to kill for mere metres of land, and that the beautiful plants and animals surrounding me were all living memorials, almost (for they can only be from after the war, as the upheaval made the land bare) to those who fell.

 My improvised poppy.

 One of the natural caves which was used as a trench

A more man-made trench

A local war memorial

Friday 12^th November – EE Show

Tonight was the EE show. EE stands for Extended Essay and the show was basically put on by us primi (first years) for our secondi (second years) to congratulate them on finishing their EEs (required and graded as part of the IB, basically a mini thesis on a subject of their choice). I somehow ended up organising the parodies, which took the process of a mini story going from residence to residence and mimicking (affectionately, of course) as many students as possible. The rest of the show was full of music and dance acts, which were almost all very high quality, all the more surprising since we had only had our first full rehearsal two hours before the show was due to start, and at that moment it was indeed a shambles…

If I find any videos of it on youtube, I'll post the link.

Sunday 14^th November – Orienteering in Venice

Today saw me return to Venice, although not in the usual tourist capacity. In fact I had somehow ended up going with the orienteering group (it is available as a physical activity at the college, as part of the IB) to the annual race even held there. It was certainly an unusual way to see Venice, although the race only took half an hour for me, due to the fact that I was in the beginners category, meaning I spend the rest of the day lolling around with Christian (my co-year, Indonesia).

Friday 19^th November – Saturday 21^st – Mum’s visit

This was a busy weekend, but I’ll try my best to keep it short. Mum arrived, with her good friend Shelagh and her daughter Natty, to come and visit me. Seeing mum for the first time in almost three months certainly was strange. Just that I had grown unaccustomed to it. I took them to Trieste for the evening, where we went to the pizzeria Vulcania, recommended by Gabriele, my Italian room-mate, as being the best pizzeria in town. I haven’t found anywhere that would make me disagree. The next day, following a tour of the school and a bit of the village, mum and I made a giant apple crumble for the commonwealth lunch, that Gabriel, my second year from Britain. I’d spoken to him about this and it wasn’t really that we felt any affinity to the commonwealth, just that we’d seen the Latini, Italian, Francophone etc having their dinners, so we decided to make an excuse to have one to include us. It consequently meant that we could eat from countries such as India, Singapore, Pakistan, Kenya, Tanzania, Canada, Hong Kong, etc. Everyone enjoyed it, and it was also a really good opportunity for mum to meet some really good people (because we were all happy in one place) and everyone enjoyed meeting mum, too.

On Sunday mum and Shelagh got the plane in the early afternoon, so I escorted them to the little airport of Trieste, and said a tearful goodbye. It really was so good to see her, but then it was worse when she was gone, because then you miss home even more, especially as I had been laden down with crumpets, sherbet lemons and British DVDs…
In the evening Gabriel and I gave a presentation for the ‘Focus’ session, which happens every Sunday evening, our one was titled ‘The Not So United Kingdom’. We covered the cultural and historic differences between England, Britain, the UK, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Northern Ireland, and I hope people found it informative.

Friday 26^th – Sunday 28^th November - Modena

This weekend I went with Francesco (who I stayed with in Torino) and Davide (another of our co-years) to his Davide’s home in Modena. A while back I had seen an advert for Italia Rugby somewhere about their upcoming games. When I saw that Fiji (nb: where I was born) was on the fixture list, and playing in Modena. This just happens to be Davide’s city, and rugby happens to be his favourite sport, and the rest, as they say, is history. On the Saturday we went to the stadium (with me proudly wearing my Fiji rugby shirt), where the atmosphere was, interestingly enough, very civilised (nothing like the Italian football ultras). At half time I managed to cross the stadium to where I could see the Fiji flag, and introduced myself to some of the fans. I sat there for the rest of the game, 17 of us vs. 16,000 Italy fans! We didn’t actually win, but at least we could take solace in the fact that we scored the only try…

Did I mention that Davide's dad owns (and cooks in) a restaurant? The above was my second helping of the same meal... 

Me with my fellow-place-of-birth mates!

Monday 6^th December – San Nicolo

In this region of Italy (and it seems to be a very local tradition) they celebrate ‘San Nicolo’ or Saint Nicolas’ Day ( http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Nicolò ). In Duino, the village throughout which our college finds it spread across, the normal tradition is to meet in the Piazza, where all the villagers come together, especially children from the local schools, and sing carols, meet San Nicolo himself, and generally have a nice time. However, the weather being not great (i.e. a bit of rain, but really not that much) and Italians being Italians (they frown on me if I ever go outside with slightly damp hair and not wearing a coat when it is below 15 Celsius is a big No-No) they had to move the ceremony inside a building in the primary school, and it was still fun, but (I imagine) lacked the atmosphere of being outside next to the giant Christmas tree. At least there was plenty of panetone.

Sunday 12^th December – Indonesia Fundraising

I started the day off by going to a ‘British Brunch’. Basically Helen (who is the ‘Director of Student Life’ and also teaches Biology) had arranged for me and my second-year, Gabriel, as well as Hannah (second-year from Malta, but half British) to go round to hers for a British brunch. We ended up staying for almost 4 hours talking about this and that and consuming the food Helen had brought over just before term in September (she basically loads her car up from Tesco and then drives through Europe to the college).

After an hour’s kickabout in the basketball courts I went to the (rather large) Christmas market in Trieste. Basically, to raise money for the relief effort in Indonesia, we had decided to sell pottery from the school’s pottery studio (so it was free in the first place, as stuff always gets made, and people also made loads of extra mugs and plates etc to sell). Even though I arrived at about 5 on a Sunday afternoon things were still really busy. Loads of us were there helping, either the Italians on the stall, selling the pottery, or us singing to attract attention (and also to spread the goodwill…), or some of us simply wandering around the market (was an excellent opportunity for Christmas presents, especially local stuff). In the end we managed to raise €461, which was really fantastic, and what was so impressive to me is that it was all completely organised by the students (apart from Pete and Tony, the teachers, who drove people to the market at the start of the day and Pete who picked people up at the end of the day), especially those who were there from 7in the morning till 9 at night, so I’d just like to say well done.

Monday 13^th December – Concert in Trieste

Another really nice day: after school Signe (my co-year, Denmark) and I baked biscuits and cakes for our social service the following day. Naturally I made Victoria Sponge. Signe then said about the concerts that she goes to on Mondays, organised by Rimma (our residence tutor for Fore), who gets free tickets (somehow) for up to 8 people from the college to the classical music performances held on Mondays in a theatre in Trieste. We watched various performances, and whilst I can’t recall the names, the performances were lovely and relaxing, to the extent where I fell asleep!

Thursday 16^th December – Last day of term

Well this day was a relief, I think, for everyone, teachers and students. The last day of term. In the end I had to skip my first lesson (Chemistry – all the others I had been given permission to skip) for last minute preparations, and then got the bus at 9 to the train station in Monfalcone. A whole group of us was there, travelling to Venice Marco Polo airport, which was nice, and eventually, after much travelling and sleeping, and stress caused by the easyjet shoot-to-kills (the people who go around checking for anybody they suspect might have oversize hand luggage or too many bags. In the end I had to go through both security and boarding the plane with 8 layers on – a t-shirt, three hoodies, two fleeces, a coat and a ski-jacket…) I got into London at 6, and then stayed the night with our good friend Hilary, who kindly hosted me for the night.

Me + 8 layers = two fingers in the face of easyJet.

(interesting point - in my experience easyjet are worse than Ryanair...)

It felt both strange and a relief to be back. When I say strange, I mean because everybody is speaking English with an English accent again (although having said, central London is not the best example for English speaking places, one of the amazing things about it…) and you are in a place you recognise yet haven’t been there for so long (similar feeling to when I got back home in Newcastle). What was even stranger was that I kept seeing people and thinking ‘oh they look just like so and so…’

When I say a relief, because I was tired, drained, missing friends and family and really missed my own comfy bed!

In the end I had an amazing holiday, just seeing friends and family, and also just not doing stuff (which is important after the college), but I wont bore you with a blog post about that. The next post, I promise, will be a lot shorter than this. This was only longer as I was trying to summarise the most memorable events of three months into as little words as possible. I still didn’t do that right, but hope you enjoyed reading it.

Robin