Here and gone again...

...I wrote this a couple of days ago. Now I am in Torino and leaving in about an hour for Rome. I don't have much time, so i'll explain with another post as soon as I get back on Monday. Love you all!


So. I’m sitting here outsside the ice skating rink with nothing to do, and thinking that I really should write a blog post, but I have no idea what to write about!

I’ve been doing a lot of sitting here outside the ice rink the last two weeks and I’m sure that most of the people here are wondering who I am and why I’m sitting outside when everyone else who is here is inside skating or outside exercising. The girls at these camps are really insane. For example, there is a girl staying in the family’s condo this week with us who skates 6 hours a day, does gym for 2 hours a day, and dance for 1 hour a day. Eugenia’s schedule isn’t quite so full, but most of the girls here do just as much.

Last week a different family stayed in the Condo with Eugenia and I, and they had a Scottish au pair with them. Her name is Tammy and she and I are going to Rome together this weekend. Hopefully I’ll have more interesting things to write in my blog after that trip.

So, this skating camp is in Courmayeur which is a small town near a city called Aosta, which you can easily find on a map of Italy. It is very near to both the French and Swiss borders. It is in the mountains, but it is still pretty hot in the sun. Supposedly it is close to Mont Blanc, the tallest mountain in Europe, but you can only see it from certain parts of the town; most of the time it is blocked by another mountain. It seems to me that every city in Italy has a big shopping street, and they are all called Via Roma. In Torino, Via roma is really long, with lots of majorly expensive stores on it (for example, Dolce & Gabana, Armani, etc.). Benedetta told me that Via Roma in Courmayeur is one of the most expensive places to shop in all of Italy. I’ve walked down it a few times, and it is fun to window shop, but when you see a belt that costs 400 euroes, it is pretty easy to avoid actually entering the shops.

“Firsts” since I last wrote…
First time in an internet café (in Courmayeur)
First time eating shrimp (here in Courmayeur, the mother who is staying with us cooked it with pasta)
First time eating gelato every day for a week (both at Metaponto and here in Courmayeur)
First time telling someone “basta” (enough) when I wasn’t full (I think I have been eating too much!)
First time meeting another au pair (Tammy)
First time watching someone fill bottles of wine from a keg (Nonno Amadeo, in Ceresole)
First time playing soccer with Italians (with the kids and their cousins in Ceresole)
First time craving something American (snickers bar) and actually finding it!
First time in an Italian Cemetery
First time riding a bus like a greyhound (from Courmayeur to Torino)
First time trying to buy something speaking in italian (my train ticket to Rome)


I’m working on trying 30 different flavors of Gelato while I am here. Here are the flavors I have tried so far.
1. Fragola (Strawberry)
2. Pera (Pear)
3. Lampone (Raspberry)
4. Stracciatella (cream with hard chocolate swirls)
5. Fiori di latte (tastes kind of like vanilla or cream, it is white)
6. Crema (Italian Vanilla)
7. Cioccolata Bianca (White Chocolate)
8. Cioccolato (Chocolate)
9. Limone (Lemon)
10. Menthe (Mint)
11. Nutellone (vanilla with nutella)
12. Pistacchio (Pistachio)
13. Pesca (Peach)
14. Bacio (chocolate with hazelnuts)
15. cocco (coconut)