Finding Animals Everywhere [In southern Umbria]

We visited some towns and we saw lots of cats. There are lots of pictures to show you what they looked like. Where do you think the cats are in some pictures?

To Umbria: Feeding farm animals

I got to feed a baby lamb out of a milk bottle. We were at the Le Casette [an organic agritourism farm not far from Orvieto, where we stayed for three days]. I got to feed some horses and I got to feed a cow.


I also got to go swimming at the farm.

The Colosseum

The Colosseum has many cats in it. I only saw one but in the cooler seasons there might be 1000. The Colosseum used to have statues in it. The Colosseum is where gladiators fought. This is what I think the Colosseum used to look like:

(Drawing to be posted here)

Things to do if you are lost in Rome

1. If you get lost, number one thing, don't panic, don't run around in circles. All you have to do is go to your neighbors, if you know them, and say "aiutome."

2. If you do not know where you are, go to the nearest police station. Police are called "polizia."

The Museum

We went to a museum in Rome [The museums at Capitoline hill, above the Forum-K]. Did you know what museums in Rome are like? Here are some pictures from the museum. I'll tell you which one is which.


[Below] This is the she-wolf with Romulus and Remus. She raised them because Mars told her to take care of them. It happened a long time ago, before Rome was founded by Romulus.


Here is another picture. This is baby Hercules. Legend says that Hercules was the baby of the king of the Gods, Zeus. After Hercules' mother died, the step-mother put two snakes in his cradle. Eventually, he killed the snakes.


These are griffins. They each have two lion feet, a lion tail, and the rest is an eagle body.


[Below] Do you know who that is? Do you think it is Zeus? I do, too.

Our restaurant night

I made a restaurant. The restaurant is in our kitchen. It was so cool because we had a lot of fun and I made it myself by putting lots of things together because I didn't want to go out for dinner. We had so much fun when it happened that we even left the name of the restaurant and the arrow sign up. Here is the movie so you know what it looks like. [Note: The video is in two parts and shows her restaurant and her museum--it is a museum cafe].

Part 1: Welcome to D's Museum:



Part 2: D's museum collection:




These pictures are of us at another restaurant we went to right after my restaurant. This is a real restaurant. [It is one of the many restaurants on Piazza San Cosimato, a lively square with a farmers' market and playground just a block down the hill from our apartment. -k]. It was really fun and I liked it a lot until some people started smoking.

Activity Book for Italy

Please print this out and then work in your book. The answers are below.






If you've been wondering where Italy is, it is not close to America. Venice is almost at the top of Italy, which looks like a boot. And Grado is right above Venice. And Rome is not that close to those two. You can drive over to the starting of the heel, but if you drive all the way to the end of the heel, it is hard to get there.And to get to the toe of the boot, it is very hard. To get to the starting of the toe of the boot is very easy. If you are in Grado it will take a long time to get to Roma. If you are in Venice, it will take a little less time to get to Roma.

And if you were wondering what "love" was in Italian, it is "amore" and if you were wondering, wondering, wondering what was the symbol of Venice, it is easy: "winged lion." It is so easy to draw one because you can draw the ear in the hump closest to the eye and next to the ear is a wing. And you can draw little humps on that part, so it looks more like a wing. Down below, there is the tail, and next to the tail is the paws.

And were you wondering which English colors and Italian colors match? Red matches with "rosso", orange matches with "arancione," black matches with "nero," white matches with "bianco," blue matches with "blu."

Ciao from Danielle.

A good day in Rome

Today was really fun because for lunch we had chocolate butterfly pasta, but it didn't taste like chocolate.

[Above: Danielle and the cacao butterfly pasta, normally served with a generous knob of butter, cream, ricotta cheese and minced walnuts. Our landlord left us the pasta, and since most stores nearby are closed for the August vacation period, we ended up making an impromptu version of this for lunch, substituting peanuts for walnuts. -K]

At night we went to Castel Sant Angelo. It was fun. We saw a magician there.

[Above: View from Castel St. Angelo at dusk]

A Saturday at Villa Borghese (Rome's large park)

Today we met Rachel and her family at the park for a picnic playdate. We had fun. I loved the park.

Roman Activities

[As observed by Danielle]

1. Soccer. I had a soccer team at home in the USA. Our team had orange and black striped soccer shirts. Our team was "The Mighty Tigers."

2. Smoking. Smoking is bad for you. Don't do it. If you do it when you are young you will look like you are young for the rest of your life because it stops your growth. You will die quick if you do it, like my mom's dad did.

3. Go to restaurants.

4. Falling down. People fall down because there are cobblestones on the sidewalks and roads.

5. Go to stores.

6. Buy hats. I got a hat today at a flea market [Rome's famed Porta Portese Sunday flea market -K]. It has six horses on it, two stitched in blue and two regular on the front and two other regular horses on the back.

[Danielle in her new flea market hat, shoes & belt]

7. Saying "ciao." Everyone in Italy says "ciao" every day.

8. Drinking water from Roman water fountains. [Danielle asked me to add this one for her. One of her favorite things to do is taste the water from the different public water fountains of Rome. Rome has an ancient fountain system which is still used by Romans today and yields wonderful cold, delicious water. One such fountain is right in front of our apartment. The design of the fountains themselves are brilliant--all you have to do is plug up the bottom of the sprout with your thumb to transform the flow of water into a drinking fountain. Here are several shots of Danielle sampling water from various fountains in Trastevere and elsewhere in Rome. -K]

To the Dolomites: I Caught a Grasshopper!

When we went into the Dolomites we saw a dairy farm with no animals and I caught a grasshopper. This is a picture of the grasshopper.



[This was on a trip to Cortina and Lake Misurina in the Italian Dolomites at the end of July]

To Grado, Italy: Trains are boring

Trains are even more boring in Grado because it takes a long time to get there. If your parents say "its going to take a short time," it is going to take a LONG, LONG, LONG, LONG time. But once you get to Grado, you'll be happy that you are there. There are lots of gelato stores, about three at each corner. If you are going to pee wee golf in Grado, you TOTALLY don't want to go at nighttime or the mosquitoes will bite you because Grado is an island AND there are a lot of ponds at Pee Wee golf. Here is a picture of me and Dad doing pee wee golf.


Grado is REALLY fun. All you have to do is when you get there you have to run straight to a hotel that you think is best. And THEN go get GELATO.

[Note: Grado is a medieval Italian town on an Adriatic island between Trieste and Venice. We went there to do two weeks of intensive language study at Scoula Insieme. Grado evolved into a resort and spa town in the late 1800s and has miles of beaches, a medieval core with plenty of outdoor cafes, a seaside esplanade and, as Danielle notes, lots of gelato stores. -K]


[Above: Danielle and her dad on the Grado beach, first evening]


[Above: Danielle and her mom in the medieval part of Grado].


[Above: Danielle and her dad in the old quarter of Grado]

[Above: A view of the Grado beach]

[Above: Danielle and her language school friends at the Grado beach]

Italy is fun!

Pizza is yummy! Italy is hot! You don't want to go there when it is hot outside!

Gondola rides are fun! The real gondolas are VERY fancy. You don't want to go on the regular gondolas. Look for a fancy one. Check out my video of our gondola ride in Venice.



If you are in Venice, watch out--if you are right next to a canal you might fall in.

You should go to Italy when it is summertime. That is when better things happen and when more gelato is around. If you go on a train some trains go underground. Is that cool? I don't mean "cool" like cold-cool, I mean cool like fun.

In Rome, if you buy a fan watch out because the fan back could fall off, or the front could fall off.