Asso-Canzo or how i started to speak italian

As you remember i plabed to spend in volunteer project 5 weeks, and when my campleader told me that we have work only for 3 weeks i understood that i can do something with one free week, but 2 - were too much, so i asked to find another project for me and she did, she found a place, that was also part of legambiente. It was a kind of holiday house in mountains in one hour by train from Milan. There i was supposed to help girl to manage this house - easy and nice work in a new plave sounded good. But there were a little problem - the girl didnt speak any english. Well, i love challanges, so i decded to go for it)

So Klaudi's friend left me at Milano's railway station, my train was only in one hour so i decided to charge my phone with money. Oh God, you should see me at this moment. I bought a card and i called a number, but then you have to follow instructions that were in italian... I called 6 times before i succeed)

Well, i took a train and arrived to the station called Asso-Canzo that is between two cities: Asso and Canzo =) There this girl met me. She was so friendly, but both of us were so confused with languages) I coulndnt understand a word of what she was saying but i was just smiling and say "si, si" XD By the car we arrived to that center, using list of duties (that she transaed in englsh), italian and language of signs (almost alian) she explained me what i had to do there. Basicly it was the same, but also this place was holding some summer festival and we had to cook for all the people there (around 300 people) - challenge accepted.

This place was really nice, house, where lived just two of us, was really good, we had internet and in general there were a lot of people around, so ive never been alone. This girl - Silvia - was really nice and soon i started to try to speak to her, every evening we had ice diners with vine or bear, actually we became real friends and it was very hard to say her good bye, even we didnt speak one language. Also there was a guy Marco who was so into Silvia that i was helping her to escape from him every time he was coming) Day by day my italian became better ( at least i could express myself)).

But day of festival also wa coming. To help us Silvia asked her family to oin us, and that was amazing forme: in one moment i became a part of a real big italian family, and as i was interested in learning their culture and habbits, i was just amazed by this fact.

What i really learnt in being surrounded by italian family - they always think about food. If they dont cook it, they eat it, and durong eatng discuss how good it is. And you know in Russia it i normal if you eat fast and go, in Italy - NO! Lunch cant be less than 1 hour and dineeer, oh dier. And also alcohol, italians are amazing, thestart to drink at lunch, than aperetivo, than vine with diner and than drinks after diner - and they say that we drink a lot in Russia)

Than festival came, we coped very good with it, everybody was happy and full with food, and the next day i left, because my big italian trip was about to start) 

Middle of nowhere or Kid's environment camp Legambiente

As you can remember the aim of my trip was volunteer work in the kid's camp in misterious place called Valvestino.

What is the best way to describe where was this place? Well, in Italy there is huge lake calles Garda. Near Lago di Garda there is small and pretty nice tawn Gargnano. And if you take a bus (that goes just twice a day) and drive for an hour or even more somewhere in the directions of mountains, pass Valvestino lake and if you are lucky enough you will reach place called Turano. Exactly there me and another volunteer from Estonia spent three weeks =) Why 3 when i was supposed to be there for 5? I think this place is so nowhere that parents are just scared of sandind their children there (i was, when  i arrived).

It is quite easy to describe his place Just imegine medieval tipical italian village, add there maximum 100 inhabbitants, one bar/shop, two churches (that ring every 30 minutes ALL the time) and here it is - Turano! Actually we lived not exactly in there, but in a small house 10 minutes walking away on mountain-nice, right)) And it wont be enough to say that i was scared of beng there: no heating, no internet, no TV, no phone (yeah, i didnt have connection) - and it is for me, for Moscow-girl. And yes first days were awful, i had literarly nohing to do, weather was awful (because we were surrounded by mountains).

But than kids came, we started to do some activities, we walked till thenext villages, and i really started to enjoy it. Nature around us was just wonderful, the other volunteer was really cool girl (Klaudi, i miss you!) and day by day i learned from our italian cook not only how to cook italian food (what i did and what im proud of now) but also how to do nothing - this italian talent, that we, ppl from north, simply dont have).

I have to write a bit about our work) Actually we didnt do a lot, just helped to play with kids, were looking after boiler, i was helping on the kitchen (because i wanted to learn and because our nice cook Marco and me became good friends, but oh god, he was so italian!) We had to look for a work to do just to do something and it was a bit boring, but i have nothing to complain)

Oh, and me and this estonian girl, we just found each other - we loved to eat (we even went to the other village just to pick some cherries), we loved to drink, what else did we need?) Yeah, we had very nice evenings there, ireally do miss it now.

On our last night there Klaudi's friend came and we had really strange night with limoncello, russian music and a lot of glowworms around. The next morning we went to Milan from where Klaudi and her friend went to Turino and i headed to another holy italian place Asso...