Orange is my favorite fruit

A week ago from yesterday, we started talking an Italian language class. We are in class about 4 hours a day and 5 days a week. The class seems to be a bit harder for me than for the other students in my class because most of the other international students have learned at least two other languages. But I am working hard at it. I am still too nervous to try to speak it but I’m hoping I will gain some confidence soon. I hope to have time this week to do more independent studying. I just need to figure out what the best process is for me to learn this language. The professor’s name is Elenora and she is one of the best professors I have ever had. She made the class very fun and even social. She tells us to get up and walk around the room repeating the phrases we learn to our classmates. This was very helpful in the speaking and the friend making process. Ben and I have been hanging out with a few of the other international students in our class almost every day. I love having friends from all over the world. It is so much fun to sit around and talk about what it is like in everyone’s respective country. 

Yesterday was probably the highlight of my stay here so far. Joseph, the boys from Arkansas (Justin, Grant, and Chris), and I skipped Italian class to travel about two hours north east to a small town called Ivrea to observe their orange throwing festival. I had heard about this festival from my Italian friends and it sounded like such a unique event that I could not miss it. So, after last minute planning the night before and still not exactly sure what to expect, we woke up at six in the morning to get to Ivrea around nine thirty. 

And oh my goodness, I am so glad I did not miss this. When we got off the bus in Ivrea, there was a man standing at the stop who introduced himself to us when he heard us speaking English. His name was Darin and he was from Canada. Hoping that he could help us get to the festival, we began walking with him to the center of town. However, it turned out that he was almost as clueless about the festivities as we were but he was happy to spend the rest of the day with us. For the rest of the morning, we just aimlessly walked around exploring the town. Since it was early, the festivities had not started yet and there were not many people in town yet. Only the occasional local walking around in what looked like his team uniform and small groups of visitors wearing a sock like red had. It was obvious though that the town was ready for something huge to happen soon:

Oh, and the town of Ivrea is absolutely beautiful:

We learned that the red hats were for people who did not want to have oranges thrown at them and immediately went to the first street vendor we could find to purchase one of these hats for 5 euro. 

After walking around a little more, we finally found a local who could speak a little bit of English. We began to question him about the festival. He told us the best places to stand as an onlooker and did his best to explain the rules of the festival to us in broken English. He told us how there were many different teams of people, some on the ground and some in carriages pulled by horses. The teams in carriages would ride all around the town while the teams on the ground stay in the same place, the whole time throwing oranges at each other. Then he let us get in his carriage and pretend to throw oranges. I think that was a pretty special thing especially as tourists. 

After talking to our new friend “the local,” we continued exploring the town. Then we heard a drum and a band playing music. When we turned around, there was a procession coming around the corner so we followed it to a piazza that was lined with countless cases of oranges and all the buildings had nets going all the way up the walls to keep the oranges off. This is when I knew they were serious about this orange throwing festival.  

Then someone dressed as a king spoke and we got free food.

This happened in every piazza where the battle would take place. Then, it was finally time for the battle to begin. Because I can’t explain what happened at this point, I took a video but for some reason I cant upload it here. I'll try to post the video on facebook. This pic will have to do for now:

During the middle of the battle, we all took off our red hats and threw a few oranges at the carriages. The ground was covered with squashed oranges and we all got it all over our shoes. I got hit in the arm by an orange and I’m pretty sure it bruised me, but it’s hard to go into battle and not come out with some battle wounds. After the festival was over, I found out I was pretty lucky because I saw several people walking around with black eyes.Then, finally it was time to go home. We got on the train back to Torino at 5:45. All of us were exhausted and covered in oranges. 

This was without a doubt an experience that I will remember for the rest of my life.