Boiled Meat

You may have read about my ill-fated evening at the rice festival. It was so bad, that it couldn't be anything other than hilarious, and certainly a favourite story of mine when conversation ebbs at dinner parties. I called the last post 'a very Italian obsession' because that is what the Italian attitude to food is.

A rice festival is understandable when you consider that the region produced rice and other natural produce - what better way to showcase it, but a few months later, my next jumping opportunity came at another food festival, when my housemate asked me if me and my friends wanted to go out with her and her friends.

Great! We'd all been out together once before and it was a laugh, so i had no reason to think that this time would be any different. So where was it that we ended up? What fun had my housemate planned?

A boiled meat festival.

I'm going to write it again so that you can be sure that's what I said.

A boiled meat festival.

We got our food and sat down together at the long canteen-style tables. We even had birthday cake for one of the girls. After that we got to chatting. It turns out I had a fan. One of my housemate's friends was an admirer of my jumping photos - first showcased on Facebook - and wanted to jump with me.

I'd never had an admirer before - well not of my work. I gladly obliged. The ironic thing was that the photographer (my housemate) cut his head off. I hate it when that happens...

Jump if you love boiled meat!

Isola della Scala, Italy, 2009

A Very Italian Obsession

Now safely settled in Verona, I began to get to grips with university life. You may have read that my last post happened after this one that I'm now writing, but I felt an introduction to Verona needed to begin with a picture of the city itself.

So what was it that happened before? Readers, the most monumental waste of time on earth.

When British universities organise Freshers' Week, there's usually lots of partying and some fun things to do so that all the sparkling new undergrads can get to know each other. The orientation week for Erasmus students in Verona had the same effect, only for a different reason. It had been so terribly, bone-crunchingly, earth-shatteringly boring that we all bonded out of sheer desperation.

The event I'm principally referring to is the tour of Isola della Scala, the Veneto region's rice cultivation hot-spot. Exciting huh. But it was free and I went on it with my friend. This was a mistake. We spent four hours touring the top rice sights and then another four hours at a rice festival.

Oh my goodness.

The tour guide couldn't speak English, most of the rice sights were no longer in use and those that were, were boring, and the festival was all about rice. There is literally no upside.

Well they gave us a dinner voucher for... you can probably guess this... a risotto. It was nice though and then after having rice cakes for pudding, my friend and I decided to go exploring in the rice festival. It was at this point I decided to take a jumping picture to kill some of the two hours we had left.

Jump if you love rice!

Isola della Scala, Italy, 2009

Ironically, it was only after the picture had been taken that we happened across a large market at the back of the festival and realised two hours would probably not be enough time for a look around...