May 16th-Castello Reale di Serra

Today was amazing! The morning started off with cereal, croissant, yogurt, chappuchino, and some orange juice.  Right after breakfast, we all headed to the market, that took place right behind our hotel. It reminded me so much of the "Tiangis" in Mexico only with the difference that I had no idea on how to communicate with them for things like: "How much?", "I don't want it!", "What size is it?", "I'll come back!", etc. So, yes it was quite a challenge for me but a great experience.

After the market we went out for a little walk around the town and did our scavenger hunt. Our scavenger hunt consisted of finding certain areas and signs. Then we were to take selfies with the signs, statues, and stores. While we worked on the scavenger hunt, we stopped for some pizza. The pizza I had today was great! It was the prosciutto pizza. So early in the trip I miss soda. Here I refuse to purchase a coke at a restaurant because in American dollars I will be paying to much for a coke. Here there are no fountain drinks so that means no refills. All I have drank in these two days is water. Let me make that clear, I drink aqua naturale (regular water). If you don't make it clear, they will give you sparkling water. The sparkling water is good but I prefer the nature water. Oh yes, another thing up that I miss is Ice. They normally don't serve you ice with your drink so you have to ask for it. Sometimes and someplace they have it and in others they don't. After lunch we headed for some Gelato. This time I tried the Limone gelato. It was so good! It was very refreshing. As I ate the gelato, we headed back to the hotel and waited for the high school English teacher to arrive. By the way she is very friendly, nice, and very helpful. She offered to give us a quick tour of Valle D' Aosta and she took us to a beautiful historical place. 

Tada!!!! The beautiful and historical place she took us was the Sarre Castle in Sarre, Italy. The castle belonged to the King of Italy, Victor Emanuel II. The castle is placed on top of a hill in Aosta. When up in the castle you can get great view Aosta. Not only did it have a great view down to the surroundings but inside the castle there were two rooms with lots of details. These rooms consisted of many animal horns. You turned to your left and there where horns and painted ribbons, you turned right and it was the same. When you looked up, you can see the breath taking masterpiece. As we toured the castle, we learned a lot about the king and his family and the history behind it all. It was very interesting and molto bello (very beautiful).

After all the touring of the castle we built up an appetite and Elena (our Italian-English teacher friend) took us to a beautiful restaurant. The restaurant was IL Girasole ( the sunflower). This restaurant was decorated with sunflowers everywhere. The plate that I decided to try was the Bistecca alla Valdostana. It was steak with a layer if prosciutto and cheese. The plate was presented so well. They were some beautiful potatoes, carrots, herbs, and I believe cabbage. I can't forget about dessert, I had tiramisu. It was the best I have ever had. It was all just wonderful. Finally after dinner we walked back to the hotel and the day was over. So far everything in the trip is going very well.