6 Months in Italy
Ciao a tutti! My name is Helena and I'm a 23 years old from Portugal. After finishing my degree in Modern Languages (Italian and English) I decided it would be good to take a year off to learn better Italian and to learn something new about the Italian culture and, hopefully, about myself. This six months in Italy passed so fast! I had the opportunity to travel a bit (Genova, Venezia and Perugia) and I met so many people, some of them are friends that I'm sure will be with me until the end of the times. I'm so grateful for this opportunity and I couldn't be happier with the work in the theater and the external activities we have opportunity to do.
[October] In October, me and Léonie (my partner in crime) arrived to Budrio, very excited about the project and happy that we met another crazy person (I don't know if she's happy about meeting me, but I know that we both are crazy and that we are living really nice moments together). We live together and we work together. Our project is in Teatro Consorziale di Budrio and our principle activity is to help in the office (answering to the phone and to emails and managing the teatro's social networks). When there are shows, we work as Ushers, Lobby Attendants and Ticket Takers (as you can see, is this picture – us with our colleagues).
Also in October we started doing the Tandem sessions with the other volunteers from Bologna Center and Anzola dell'Emilia. The first picture was taken when we did the firtst Tandem in Anzola and we did and interview with the local Radio Roxie; the second one was taken during the second Tandem in the same little city (and clearly I was happy that existed the Portuguese flag ❤).
[November] Our arrival training was in November and I met a lot of people here! I lived a very nice week in Genova with these volunteers that come from different countries and are in different parts os Italy! Some of them stood and we kept being friends, which is the nicest thing about the trainings. The second picture (the big yellow house) is the beautiful place where we slept and had our training.
[December] The month of December was the best way to finish 2017! Finally, my dream of visiting one of the most incredible Italian cities came true and I spent three amazing days discovering the amzing city of Venezia.
[Febraury] The experience in Budrio has been amazing! In the two last months (Febraury and March) I had the opportunity of having theater classes with the theater director and actor Alfonso di Fillipis. It's a great experience: I met a lot of people from different different age groups and I learned a lot not just about acting but it has being a way of learning Italian and gaining confidence to speak it in public, to better the accent and the entonation of this language that I'm still learning everyday. The activities are very difficult but very rewarding when I reach to do it right. The thing I like the most is when we exercise improvisation and I get to immagine a whole other person with my “Italian mind”.
[March] Also in March it snowed in Budrio! It was magical as I'm not used to it but in the end I didn't enjoyed it so much as I'm not a big fan of the cold (at least it was beautiful to take some pictures!).
One of the shows we had in March was with the well-known Serra Yilmaz. I was so happy to meet her as I'm a big fan of Özpetek movies!
As we help in the development of cultural activities of the Comune di Budrio, this month of March we spent a lot of time in the museums of Ocarina, Burattini and Pinacotca. We helped to clean the paints for the re-opening of Pinacoteca and did a video of all the museums to the launch of the facebook page Budrio Musei (which one we will help to mange in the next months).
To say goodbye to you, I leave to you two beautiful pictures! Because sharing food is to share memories, in the first picture there is Pasteis de Nata (a traditional cake from Portugal that is one of the most well-known symbol of the Portuguese gastronomy) that I do sometimes to kill the saudade from home and to share my own culture with others. In the second picture, a nice memory from an
aperitivo I did one of these days with my favorite people in Italy.
I hope you enjoyed this little trip in my memories as much I did to share it with you guys! I'm so in love with Budrio and Italy in general, and I couldn't be more grateful for having the opportunity to be here, doing something I love, with people that are teaching me so much and I'll never forget.
aperitivo I did one of these days with my favorite people in Italy.
I hope you enjoyed this little trip in my memories as much I did to share it with you guys! I'm so in love with Budrio and Italy in general, and I couldn't be more grateful for having the opportunity to be here, doing something I love, with people that are teaching me so much and I'll never forget.