1st Excursion Weekend!

So this past weekend was our first trip as the DePaul group and my first trip while in Rome. We went to Cinque Terre, Torino, and Bra from early Saturday to super late Monday.

Saturday and half of Sunday was spend in Cinque Terre which is 5 small villages surrounding the sea. Each of the villages are around an hour hike from each other. I hiked for around 3 hours on this trip and they were hard hikes too. There are paths but it's not like someone made this paths on purpose. It's like they were made over time if you know what I'm saying. We only visited three of the 5 villages and each were so beautiful and quaint as well as their surroundings. This place is gorgeous! I have to convince my dad to let us come here instead of the beach one year. Cinque Terre is also known for their pesto and I was fortunate enough to have pasta and pesto and it was amazing...The last thing I did here was swim. Yes swim at the end of September. The water was so blue and clear. GORGEOUS! The weather was perfect as well but the water was a tad chilly for my taste.

The rest of Sunday and the morning of Monday was spent in Torino. We visited the National Museum of Cinema. We unfortunately got stuck in traffic so we weren't able to spend as much time as we were supposed to but it was still really cool. The place was huge with so many different props, scripts, sketches, storyboards, posters, costumes, etc. from so many famous American and Italian movies. It was also very interesting to learn the beginnings of film. I have already learned about this at school but I did learn some new and different things. In the morning we went to a church that has the cloth/linen Jesus was wrapped in in his tomb. It is a huge controversy and when historians and universities studied this they came to the conclusion that it really wasn't from Jesus but so many pilgrims and others believe it is. We saw a replica above the tomb that holds the real thing. The linen is supposed to have the face of Jesus on it. After this I got Torino chocolate which is supposed to be the best chocolate in Italy and where they first made nutella. The chocolate was great!

We then proceeded to Bra for the rest of the day where we went to the University of Gastronomica where they study food technology and slow cooked food. We just got a tour of the school and it was really cool. I was thinking I might get my masters there haha, probably not though. The last and probably the best thing was going to a small restaurant where the cook does slow cooked food. Slow cooked or processed food is when it is just natural and organic, very healthy. We had an awesome 4 course meal. It is probably and will only be the best meal I have had/will have. Also we learned how to wine taste which was fun. We also had exquisite wine. It was phenomenal!

I was/still am tired from the trip but it was so much fun. We got back around 1 in the morning on Tuesday and we were supposed to get in at 10 pm on Monday but oh well. I am sorry I don't update my blog too often or maybe as much as some (Merm) would like me to. I try but my school schedule is really weird and I don't know what to tell you guys half the time because some stuff isn't really new. I have just gotten into a routine. But everything I have and will post are the most exciting things that are happening! Peace out! Oh! I know I only put 2 pics. up but these are just the quintessential of Cinque Terre. The ones that just are all you need to see. Also I put the pic. of the Jesus cloth up. Other than that there was nothing worthwhile in Torino or Bra.