Italian Wedding Anyone??

I have been very lucky since I have been here to have met many Italians and experienced some really cool things because of my relationship with those people. For example; I went to a really awesome chestnut festival in Cuneo last semester with my Italian roommate and some of "our Italian friends" (his friends that I like to call my friends). Another one is that I have had the chance to consistently play soccer with some Italian guys almost weekly last semester, and a few times this semester. I have been invited to Christmas at my professors house and spent a week there with him and his family. And next Wednesday, the 25th of April, is an Italian holiday and I believe that we are going to make a trip to the Cinque Terre and spend the day at our friend Matteo's house.

However, today I received the coolest invitation from any Italian since I have been here; A wedding invitation! Although that might not sound super cool, I can assure you that IT IS AWESOME!!!

I happened to meet him while at my professors house of spring break when he came over for dinner one night. The three of us (my professor, his friend, an

d myself) had some really great conversation about life, religion, family, politics, school, work, and history. In fact, we started eating dinner around 9:30, and talked well into 1:00 am! We talked about some very interesting things that night and I actually evolved some of my views on some political and religious topics because of the conversations that we had. We also spent some time talking about him getting married this summer. At one point he casually say that he wanted to invite me to their wedding! 

AND HERE IT IS!!!! - Today I received a very formal invitation to their wedding!

Unfortunately I don't think I will be able to make it to the wedding as I will be traveling around Italy with my family at the time (may try to buy a ticket to go up to Torino for the day and attent the wedding), however it is still a great honor to be invited. One of the things that I really wanted to do while here in Italy was go to an Italian wedding, and here is my opportunity!

In other news:

Last night we went and saw Pinocchio, the children's opera, and it was an absolute pleasure. I will try and put together a blog post about it in the next few days, but what I loved about the play was how interactive it was. There was a group of little kids in a section of the Opera house seated amongst everyone else and where actually a part of the play! In fact, it reminded me a lot of the scene in "Finding Neverland" where the orphans show up and absolutely change the dynamics of the crowd by laughing and having fun!

 Also, Tonight we will be going to Milano to spend the night playing charades in the park so that we can make our  flight to Crete, Greece tomorrow at 7am! We will be there tomorrow, all day Saturday and Sunday, and we don't leave until around 5pm on Monday. I am really excite to spend 4 days on the beach relaxing with some friends and enjoying Greece.