Hello, people of the OIB

So I just got back from Italy (yesterday evening x.x), and I'll talk to you about it, but let's take it in a chronological order - that is, from the start of the summer.

The first trip I went on was to Romania. I don't have a lot to say about it, because I spent most of the time at my cousin's wedding (it lasted three days !), but I also visited a beautiful fortificated church.

This is the inside of the fortification, civils could hide themselves in the rooms if they needed it, and if the danger lasted for a long time one of the rooms was turned into a school.

My conclusion of this was : Romania is beautiful (though I already knew that because I spent ten days there a few years ago), and I really hate the fact that it has such a negative image here.

After coming home and resting for a few days, my parents, my sisters, and I, spent a day in the car to drive my sisters to a summer camp in Switzerland, and then there was another day of driving so I could be dropped off at an Italian family's place, near Genova, where I spent two weeks. We spent every single day at the beach so I have no picture to show you, I'm sorry (but we all know what the sea looks like so it's not that bad).

My conclusion of this was : I am not going back to the beach for a long time. If my calculations are right, in the space of those two weeks, the time I spent at the beach in my lifetime was almost doubled.

The next two weeks, I was at home with the girl from the Italian family, and then I went back to Italy for a week - but near Milano this time, with other people.

I spent a day in Milano (to see this :

),

an afternoon in a village next to a canal (but that was just an excuse to buy ice cream), and an evening at the Expo. The Expo is an exposition (who would have guessed that ?) about one of my favourite things : food. There were many many many many pavilions, each representing a country, and inside, we could see the country's agricultural landscapes, traditional cooking tools... In front of each pavilion, however, there was actual food : either a restaurant serving the represented country's traditional meals, or a stand where we could buy food that we could eat while continuing to visit. For instance, the UK had a stand that served fish and chips, Belgium had waffles, Hungary (I was so happy when I saw that they had represented both my nationalities) had kürtòskalàcs (that's an amazing but undescribable sweet), and France had croissants.

At the end of the evening, we sat down on a lawn and watched the Tree of Life, which

 was

 beautiful

They even shot fireworks from its top, but I was too busy enjoying the sight to take more pictures.

However, most of my time in that family was spent at home, either awkwardly sitting on the sofa, trying to find something to talk about, or actually talking - and I think my Italian improved ! We'll see if it really did when class starts again though (and somehow I am not very eager for that to happen. I wonder why.).

My conclusion of this was : I need to go back because it was so cool.

So this was my summer everyone, I hope you're all fine, and see you soon !

Judith