Benvenuti a Verona! (Welcome to Verona!)

First off, let me start this post by saying thank you from the bottom of our hearts for getting us here. We absolutely would not have made it here without all of the love and support we received from you. As we walk the streets of Verona we recognize how truly blessed we are & hope to be able to share this experience with you as best we can.

Already since our last post, we have learned so much both musically and culturally. Classes and rehearsals started on Tuesday at  8:30 AM. I thought the jet lag was bad during the last post... if only I knew... For two days woke up at 3:30 AM and couldn’t go back to sleep till about 7:30, only to wake up again at 8. It was quite miserable. Fortunately I was able to recover by Tuesday night, but Nathan had to buy some sleeping pills which worked marvelously! In fact, they worked so well that before we knew it, there was a loud knock on the door. Thinking it was around 3-4 am we were quite puzzled as to who could be at the door. So Nathan groggily stumbles in the dark to answer the door in his boxers and meets one of our colleagues. She sympathetically asked if we were going on the walking tour with the rest of the group, to which Nathan frantically replied “What time is it?!” It was 10:50. Holy smokes we slept too well. Over corrected. We scrambled and got ready and thankfully made it on the tour which was marvelous!

Gate to Verona, past this entrance was customs.

Our wonderful tour guide! L'Arena in the background.

If you took the Lord's name in vain, they would chain you for the day, then throw rotten produce at you at night. Strict!

La Piazza Bra

This road actually does lead to Rome!

This is an ancient snitch box.... mouth?

Beauty like this all over Verona. Captivating & romantic!

Verona is historically phenomenal. Our tour guide had a very fresh approach to explaining the wonders of the buildings around us. He explained that in America, historical artifacts are hundreds of years old, but in Verona they are thousands of years old. In order to appreciate the historical significance of these grand buildings and arenas, we must change our perspective of time and history.

Castelvecchio

Castelvecchio Bridge

Castelvecchi! This castle was the most important military construction of the Scaliger Dynasty.

L’Arena in the Piazza Bra, is an enormous amphitheater and is the world’s largest opera stage. It attracts both locals and tourists to see famous operas like Aida, Turandot, La Boheme, etc. It can hold up to 20,000 patrons, but for safety reasons now it holds 15,000.

Wish it was this crowded at Seattle Opera!

Nathan and I watched George Bizet’s famous opera, Carmen last night and were blown away by the talent and beauty. It was such an honor to sit in l’arena where people have been entertained for thousands of years. The seats were hard marble, but the opera (though 3 hours long - not including intermissions!) was so wonderful we didn’t even notice how sore our bums were! It was truly magical to be apart of something so historically beyond yourself! 

Watching a live opera in such a historic building was amazing and inspiring. Listening to how the singers could 

project throughout the entire theatre was so impressive. 

Not only was the music fabulous, but the dancing, set and costume were all so extravagant as well. They even brought live animals onto the stage! So awesome! Smelling the mules really made the action come to life!!

Another memorable part of Italy has been the food. It’s been so fun and challenging to look at a menu, pick something and hope for the best. So far, the food has been amazing and we only had one entree that was...well.. interesting! I’ve been avoiding the offered horse meat meals. Yesterday Nathan ordered “Dried Meat,” which turned out to be a plate of very high quality sandwich meat for 16 euros! Not what we were expecting, but oh well! Live & learn!

Nathan and his "Dried Meat"

Mmmm! So yummy!!

On Wednesday, we had the pleasure of meeting with a good friend of ours from school, Alberto! He is a native of Italy and was kind enough to spend some time with us. We had wonderful conversation & gelato! While our time together was short, it was so great to see him in his homeland.

Somehow amidst all of this exploring, Nathan has had the energy to work hard on his music too. Working in such a musically historic setting with such a talented faculty has been so good for his career! During the weekdays, Nathan works both in private lessons and in sessions with colleagues on stage movement, Italian diction, concert repertoire and rehearsing opera scenes. Later this week he will be performing Schubert’s famous Ave Maria at the Sant’Anastasia Cathedral. Yes, I’m a little jealous, but I am so incredibly excited to hear him perform. He has been impressing the faculty and his colleagues with his great work ethic and angelic voice. So much so that Gordon Ostrowski, from the Manhattan School of Music, stopped Nathan after rehearsal and invited him to audition at Manhattan for a Performance Certificate! What a huge blessing!! Again, thank you for getting us here for these amazing connections and experiences.

Italian Diction Class

Stage Movement Class (Nathan's on the left!)




I have to say though, my favorite moment in this trip so far was today. For the first time all week, Nathan and I had the full day to explore Verona and enjoy its beauty. Our tour guide had suggested that we just find a place to sit and take in Verona, so that’s exactly what we did. We ordered some coffee and just sat under a nice umbrella in the square people watching and talking. There is something so freeing about not having a working phone. As convenient as it is to have the internet at your fingertips, we found it refreshing to leave our minds wandering with questions. After a couple hours we decided to hit the flea market, but ended up stumbling around in the streets for a while instead. Then it started to rain. There is no direct translation for “it’s raining cats and dogs” in Italian, but let me tell you. It was. So we ran and looking for shelter! There was a scary moment when we took a bit of a sketchy turn and ended up going through a dark little tunnel, but we ended up on the other side near a restaurant. We sat under the canopy in the pouring rain and had some delicious tiramisu, coffee and tea, just enjoying each other’s presence and hearing God’s power in the thunder and rain. It was so lovely and romantic. Absolutely my favorite part of the trip.

I think in the future I’m going to have to update more frequently so my posts are so long, but I appreciate you taking the time to see what we’ve been up to! We love you all so much!

Ciao till the next post! <3

Hana (& Nathan!)