This weekend was another adventure with my exchange student friends. All of the exchange students in the 2060 region (up in the northeastern part of Italy) get to go on a lot of trips together. A few weeks ago, we all met at the large conference with all the exchange students, and we got pretty close. After this weekend, we got even closer! :) What did we do? We went to Trieste to watch Barcolana- a huge year event in Italy where thousands of boats race, on a really fancy boat ourselves, and had a fantastic lunch! But I have to start at the beginning of my weekend!
On Saturday, we all had to go to school because we are exchange student, and school is a very important part of our exchange. Saturday afternoon, Anika, Lauren and I went to the train station, and we wondered where Brock was. We realized he had taken the wrong train!! Thankfully, it was to the Venice train station where we would all meet, we hoped that we would stay there and not take another train. Us three girls took the train to Venice, and met up with Emily and Maddie- two girls from our district. We were very concerned for Brock and wondered where he went. We then went to McDonalds, had an ice cream, and walked into a few street vendors while we waited for our train. We then walked back to the train station and Emily told us "Uhhh guys? We missed our train!" We all freaked out and scrambled to find out if we really missed it and when the next one was! It was terrifying! We did end up finding a train that was an hour later, but we figured out it was a train that stopped at every single station!!! What should have taken only 2 hours to get to Trieste was actually 4 hours. We were very, very late for dinner that night, but all the kids already there found things to do. It was definitely an experience, and now I know not to ever leave the train station while waiting for a train!!
This is the train group- at least we bonded on the long train ride! From left to right: Emily, me, Maddie, Anika and Lauren. :)
That night, it was so crazy beautiful in Trieste, but also very busy because of the festival the next day. We went into a yummy pizza restaurant with all the exchange students, and we talked and had a good time until we had to go home. The exchange students who lived in Trieste hosted some of us who lived farther. I went to Alisa's home (the Finnish girl!). Alisa lives in the outskirts of Trieste, and this is the view of the city as we drove up into the hills. But by the time we got home it was 1 in the morning! We were exhausted, and so we crashed and burned.
Ahhhh, Trieste :)
The next day was even more beautiful. Alisa and I woke up, went to go get a coffee in a little café, met up with Emily and Maddie, and we got picked up by the President of Rotary in Trieste. We drove through the city while the sun was rising, which was so pretty!!! We also picked up Lauren and Anika and we went to where the boat was for us to get in for the day. The coolest part though was that the boat was in Slovenia!!!!! I WENT TO ANOTHER COUNTRY! Only for a few minutes to get on a boat, but it was still really exciting!
We met up with all the other exchange students (there are about 18 of us?) and we all sat by each other on this very large boat. That day, there was no wind and it was very warm, so the boat race with the thousands of boats was quite slow. That was all the better for us, then we got to be together longer and have fun on this boat. It was quite exciting though, when the first boat pulled away and was in the lead. It had been maybe 2 hours, and finally some excitement with the boats was fun. We were actually very close to the buoy where the boats had to turn around, so we got all the action! Here are a few pictures from the trip:
This is my friend Julian, who is from Mexico! He is very fun to be around!
A beautiful picture, taken by Anika, of a boat that was not racing but just watching the race further on ahead of them.
Here are me and some of the girls in the boat! Left to right: Sarah, Anika, me, Alisa, Emily and Maddie!
This is the view when the racing boats got a little bit closer to us and we could see all of them! It was crazy how many participated in the race, and it was a fantastic view.
This is what the boat looked like that we were on all afternoon.
During that boat ride, we got to eat delicious spaghetti and trout and veggies and fresh bread with olive oil and chocolate. The food was fantastic (as I have said before, there is never a bad meal here!!). After a few hours of watching the race, we went to the shore and had to return to the train station. It was sad to say goodbye to our friends and to leave the fantastic city and weather, but it was a fun weekend. We also get to see each other soon in Vernona! Another trip to look forward to, and I cannot wait!
So those were my two weekends! They were very interesting and busy. I wonder what this weekend will hold for me? :) Write to you soon! :)
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