research: Italy

Belongs to series about research: mind, Padova, Veneto, Italy. Here's what I found out through some serious researching about...


Italy


capital city - Rome
currency - euro
time zone - GMT +1
president - Giorgio Napolitano

Italy is a republic on the peninsula and its several islands in the Mediterranean sea. It has 301 000 km² (Finland: 338 000 km²) of land and about 59 million people (Finland: 5 million). The neighbour countries are France, Switzerland, Austria and Slovenia. The country includes two very small independent states, San Marino and The Vatican City.

The capital Rome lies in the middle of the country with another important city Naples, while the rest of the most important ones are in the North: Milan, Turin, Florence and Venice. Milan is probably the most important city of the country if viewed on the point of business. The official language is italian, though near the border there is other languages used too, mainly french and german. The language is also highly affected by dialects of different regions. Some people say that in the area of Florence people speak the most pure italian.

Italy's biggest religious group is catholics (87,8% of population, Finland: 0,08%).

(Wikipedia: Italy, Dino, Walter and Mario)


HISTORY

It became a republic in the year 1946 after being a kingdom for almost a century. The some of the most markable historical events of the country are:

962 - Otto the Great was crowned emperor, marking the beginning of the Holy Roman Empire
1796 - Napoleon Bonaparte conquered most of the northern Italy and established Italian republics.
1861, The Kingdom of Italy was formed, encompassing the entire peninsula except for Rome, Venice and San Marino.
1871, Rome becomes the capital of Italy.
1922, as Italy had entered World War I allied with Germany and Austria-Hungary, Mussolini became prime minister and rapidly assumed dictatorical powers.
1940-43, Italy entered World War II having previously formed an alliance with Germany in the end having to surrender.
1946, Italy became a republic by vote.
1952, Italy became a founding member of the European Coal and Steel Community, which would eventually become the European Union.
1984, Reflecting the diminished influence of the church in Italian life, Roman Catholicism was de-institutionalized as Italy's state religion.

just to mention a few. (Chronology of Italy's history)


POLITICS

I'm not too interested on this part, so I'll keep it short. The republic is represent by a president, who is currently Giorgio Napolitano (elected 2006). The prime minister is Romano Prodi who won the place from Silvio Berlusconi, which if you ask me isn't such a bad thing.. after all he mocked finnish food ;)

Italy is one of the founders of EU and NATO. (Wikipedia - Politics of Italy)


CULTURE

Italy is world famous for its cultural and natural heritage, which can also be noticed at the number of UNESCO World Heritage sites it has. More than any other nation in the world. Aside from that Italy is known from its cars, beautiful women, eating culture and cuisine, wine, pasta, cheese, pepperoni, though some say that italian cuisine is just a mix of several others.

Visual arts

One of the reasons why I wanted to this particular country is the cultural heritage. In visual arts, the country has impressive list of artists and their achievements. Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Donatello, Botticelli... The country has lead Europe to many artistic and intellectual movements like Renaissance and Baroque.

Literature

Poet Dante Alighieri with his greatest work, the Divina Commedia, is ofter considered the foremost literary statement in Europe from the Middle Ages and also on of the greatest works in the world literature. Other very famous and appreciated writers and poets are Boccaccio, Giacomo Leopardi, Alessandro Manzoni... and from the philosophic side a famous name: Machiavelli.

Science

In science, Italy has again an impressive list of names who made advancements towards scientific revolutions. Galileo Galilei and Leonardo da Vinci as leading men, Italy has been home for many scientists and inventors: the physicist Enrico Fermi, one of the fathers of quantum theory; the astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini; the physicist Alessandro Volta, inventor of the electric battery; the mathematicians Lagrange and Fibonacci; Nobel Prize in Physics laureate Guglielmo Marconi, inventor of the radio; and Antonio Meucci, inventor of the telephone.

Music

From folk music to classical, music has always played an important role in Italian culture. Having given birth to opera, Italy provides many of the foundations of the classical music tradition. Instruments associated with classical music, including the piano and violin, were invented in Italy. Italy's most famous composers in the world are Vivaldi, Puccini and Verdi.

Sports

Italians are renowned for their love of sports, from the Gladiatorial games of Ancient Rome, to the Stadio Olimpico of contemporary Rome, where football clubs compete. Popular sports include football, basketball (2nd national team sport since the '50s), volleyball, waterpolo, fencing, rugby, cycling, ice hockey (mainly in Milan, Trentino-Alto Adige and Veneto), roller hockey and F1 motor racing.

(Culture of Italy, Italian literature, Music of Italy, Sport in Italy, and Cinema of Italy, List of Italian painters)

GEOGRAPHY and TOPOGRAPHY

The country is divided administratively to 20 regions (regione), which divide to 110 provinces (provincia) and these to 8 101 communes (comune). The provinces are often named after the administrative cities. The regions: Abruzzo, Valle d'Aosta, Puglia, Basilicata, Calabria, Campania, Emilia-Romagna, Friulia-Venezia Giulia, Lazio, Liguria, Lombardia, Marche, Molise, Piemonte, Sardegna, Sicilia, Toscana, Trentino-Alto Adige, Umbria, Veneto.

Because of country's shape, it's also called the boot country. The Apennine Mountains form the peninsula's backbone; the Alps form its northern boundary. The largest of its many northern lakes is Garda; the Po, its principal river, flows from the Alps on Italy's western border and crosses the Lombard plain to the Adriatic Sea.

The climate in Italy is highly diverse and can be far from the stereotypical Mediterranean climate and "land of sun", depending on the location. The inland northern areas of Italy (Turin, Milan, and Bologna) have a continental climate, while the coastal areas of Liguria and the peninsula south of Florence fit the stereotype. The coastal areas of the peninsula can be very different from the interior, particularly during the winter months. The coastal regions, where most of the large towns are located, have a typical Mediterranean climate with mild winters and hot and generally dry summers. Between the north and south there can be a considerable difference in temperature, above all during the winter: in some winter days it can be -2 °C and snowing in Milan while Rome gets +12°C and it is +18°C in Palermo. Temperature differences are less extreme in the summer. (Geography of Italy)

Research: mind

Let's see how my story changes in the end of the stay, but - I had to answer quite a few questions for an assignment to get my scholarship from my school. One part of the tasks was to find out about the target city and country. There will be 4 entries. Before I tell you what I found out about (1) Italy, (2) Veneto and (3) Padova, (4) I will show you some pictures of my first impressions and tell what I knew before. This is the part where I tell about the first impressions and what I knew before.

I have been in Italy for 2 weeks with my parents and my brother in the summer of 2002. I had just signed up for starting to learn italian at highschool, which made me sad that I didn't know any before going there.

Back then I didn't know much about Italy. Basicly I knew what the nature was like, because we had visited Greece several times before. Much less greener than in here. Buildings are painted with white and everything looks a bit sunburned, including people who mixed our plans with their bloody siestas. I didn't care for old gorgeous churches and fresco's. I was there to holiday and swim a lot. I also remember that mom got heart pulsation of the strong coffee, they sold.

Later on, after attending to the italian classes, I got to know what the coffee was like.. and all kind of varieties of it: caffe, caffe lungo (in finnish laiha kahvi), caffe macchiato (with just a little bit of milk), caffe corretto (with alcohol), cappuccino, caffellatte.. and our teacher also told us that if we want a finnish kind of coffee, ask for caffe americano.

Of course, I knew to combine Italy with pasta, parmesan cheese, wine, vineyards, olive trees, calcio (football), ferrari and formula 1 races (how could I not because of the little fanatics in my family), fashion and art.

The italian professor showed us once a music video of an italian band called Gemelli Diversi. I have no idea of what their image is in Italy, but I fell in love with their song Mary.

Pictures from our stay in 2002 (all pictures are taken by Arja Tulonen - mom):

Ohjeita suomeksi,

Ciao,


Kirjoittelen teille jotain ohjeita, että on helpompaa käyttää koko päiväkirjasivustoa. Suurimmaksi osaksi kirjoittelen englanniksi, mutta kirjoitusten lomasta löytyy paljon valokuvia ja yritän kirjoittaa myös usein suomeksi. (Ainakin kerran viikossa kuulumisia!)

LINKIT JA NAVIGOINTI

Kaikki linkit aukeaa samaan ikkunaan, joten pääset takaisin päiväkirja-sivulle sillä back-nappulalla joka on internet-ikkunassa ylhäällä, vasemmalle osoittava nuoli. Kaikista mihin mikä tahansa linkki johdattaa pääsee takaisinpäin näin. Jokaisen sivun alalaidassa on linkit "Newer Posts" ja "Home" ja "Older Posts". Newer Posts - pääset uudempiin kirjoituksiin. Home - pääset aivan alkuun. Older Posts - pääset vanhempiin kirjoituksiin.

Sivuston laidassa on "Blog Archive", jonka alta voit valita tietyn kirjoituksen luettavaksi otsikon ja/tai kuukauden mukaan. Klikkaamalla kuukauden nimeä sinulle avautuu kaikki tuona kuuna kirjoitetut tekstit.

KUVAT

niitä pääsee lähemmin tarkastelemaan, kun klikkaa mitä tahansa minun sivuille pistämää kuvaa.

KOMMENTIT / TERVEISET

Kommentteja ja muita viestejä voi jättää kirjoitusten alareunasta löytyvän linkin "x comments" takana. Siellä voit kirjoittaa joko "Other" kirjoittajana, jolloin sinulta kysytään nimeä ja internetsivun osoitetta. Voit kirjoittaa vain nimi kohtaa oman nimesi ja jättää internetsivusto-kohtaan vastaamatta. Kumpaankaan ei ole pakko vastata. Tai voit kirjoittaa "Anynomous"ina, jolloin olisi suotavaa, että laitat nimesi viestin loppuun.

VAIN SUOMEKSI

Voit lukea pelkästään suomeksi kirjoittamani kirjoitukset, klikkaamalla vasemmalta löytyvää linkkiä "suomeksi" Labels-otsikon alta. Pääset sinne myös tämän kirjoituksen alta, klikkaamalla "Labels: suomeksi". Jotkut kirjoitukset olen kirjoittanut sekä englanniksi että suomeksi, joten suomenkielinen osuus saattaa löytyä vähän alempaa.

LABELS

Olen otsikoinut myös muita kirjoituksia erilaisilla hakusanoilla. Voit hakea esimerkiksi vain kirjoitukset, jossa on mukana kuvia, klikkaamalla "photographs". En ole linkittänyt niitä, joissa on muiden ottamia kuvia tai muuten internetin saloista lainattuja kuvia/karttoja.

Introduction to the past and me,

I created this journal for me to write in - about the adventures in the boot-country, Italy. Though, the idea of creating this journal started of four different things: 1) I didn't find all the practical and unpractical information I wanted easily (maybe someone will find this source useful someday), 2) offering my story to a finnish magazine or news paper, 3) letting my family and friends keep track of me and 4) remembering everything when I return back to Finland.

Just know that I appreciate and will write about everything. The good and the bad. I'm sure I will find both, though I of course hope everything will seem nothing but positive in the end.

My name is Milla. I'm 21-years-old (130586) and at the time of writing, I still live in Finland. If everything goes as planned, I will take off from Helsinki-Vantaa airport with Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) 23rd of September 9:25 (GMT+2) and via Copenhagen find myself in Venice 13:30 (GMT+1).

I'm quite outgoing, but can be shy in certain situations. I have some really basic finnish habits, like sometimes becoming a hermit, but thanks to my karelian roots.. I usually get over those phases very quick. I love baking, writing, photographing and dancing. Family and friends are really important to me.

I study in Laurea University of Applied Sciences, for the third year (four year study plan) for a degree in media and culture. In Padova, I will study in Università degli Studi di Padova, Visual and Performing Arts faculty. I will not be an Erasmus student only because it was too late for the two universities to make an Erasmus contract. Instead, I will study single courses paying 110 euros for 30 credits of studying. As far as I know it's about 5 courses that I will attend in 10 months. (More info in italian, if you need a translator: this one is very useful, though it doesn't translate in the perfect way - but you get the idea.)

I've always loved to travel and thanks to my lovely family, I've got a great chance to it too. Before starting find out about exchange programs and possibilities, I had travelled around Europe a lot and had been in Italy for 2 weeks in the year 2002. We drove near Venice to Porto di Garibaldi across Sweden, Denmark, Germany and Austria.

I started finding out about exchange about a year ago, in the fall of 2006. My degree program has Erasmus contracts to Austria and Ireland. Those were my first choices at that time. I had hard time deciding whether to go for half a year or a whole one. In the end, the decision was quite easy. I had just broke-up with a long time boyfriend and didn't see much challenges in my homecountry. I needed something fresh and new. The main reason why I chose Italy in the end was because of my love for the country of rich culture and art history and because I had studied the language before. This was a great opportunity to learn the language well and for that I would need the whole year. In the future, it would be a great advantage for me in the working life.

The way wasn't easy. The country seems to love byrocrachcy and because I live far away, it takes a long time to get everything done. So far, I've fought to get to know when the courses begin and end, which courses I can attend to and what I have to do to get on them. Apparently, these things work very differently in Finland than in Italy. First of all, I was amazed to find out that I can apply for the courses just 2 days before they actually start and they don't really except me in, they just need a confirmation that I'm able to study there. Practically that means that they need to send them my school report from highschool translated into italian. (I needed to get official copies from the city administration and an apostille (together 13euros). Then I contacted the Embassy of Italy in Helsinki, where Satu Vaahtera told me to get them translated (translation and the stamps to confirm that it's been done by a confirmed translator, 45euros) and after that send them in, where they will write a confirmation telling about how the University of Applied Sciences work here. After that, I should have all the papers ready. At the moment, I'm waiting to know when all the courses are, so that I will have courses for both semesters, spring and autumn.

For all the information so far about the school, I have to thank Mara Nardin - and about general help, Walter Caharija. I really recommend to get an italian contact to help to figure out all the language twirls. Even if you know good italian, law kind of text is hard to read and understand.

That brings me to the next thing. What I'm most nervious about is that I have to study in italian. I have studied 6 courses of italian in highschool. Back then, I didn't really care for it. I wanted to learn it but I was lazy in the classes and doing the homework. I started again when I entered Laurea and attended to basic italian course. The problem is possibly, that in the courses they teach us grammar and vocabulary, which are very important. But often, they forget about the talking part. Starting to talk in a foreign language is very difficult, but the best way of learning it. I've learned that while spending a lot of time with exchange students here. Within the last two years my english has gone a lot better and I've also got a lot more cultural knowledge! Now I accomplished basic italian II in Open University of Helsinki, this spring. All my teachers, say that that's just enough to get started.. and even though I won't probably understand more than few words in the first lectures, it will get better quite soon. Let's see if they're right.

Along learning the language, I'm very excited to get into the culture. Someway, like a friend of mine said, I'm going there to see if I could find a better place for me to live.. or how much I will miss home.

Moi äiti, iskä, Jussi, mummi, pappa, mamma, Iska ja muut,

Aloitin tämän päiväkirjan kirjoittamisen monesta syystä. Alunperin idea lähti siitä, että olisin tarjonnut jollekin suomalaiselle lehdelle tai sanomalehdelle juttuja vaihtoelämästä. Toinen on sama kuin monella muulla vaihtoon lähtevällä ystävälläni. Soittaminen on kallista ja kaikki eivät käytä skypeä. Tämä on kiva tapa pitää kaikki ajantasalla siitä mitä tapahtuu. Toki haluan myös muistaa osakseni mitä kaikkea on tapahtunut ja täällähän ne pysyy tallessa (koputtaa puuta). Kirjoittelen pääasiassa varmasti englanniksi, mutta pyrin kirjoittamaan ainakin kerran viikossa tai kahdessa myös suomeksi. Kommentit ovat aina tervetulleita piristämään päiviäni :)

Jos kaikki nyt sitten menee suunnitelmien mukaan niin lähden Helsinki-Vantaan lentokentältä Scandinavian Airlinesilla (SAS) 23. syyskuuta 9:25 ja lennän ensin Kööpenhaminaan, josta sitten Venetsiaan. Perillä pitäisi olla lentolipun mukaan 13:30 (Italian aikaa).

Italiaan menen siis opiskelemaan Padovan yliopistoon (Università degli Studi di Padova) visuaalisen ja esittävän taiteen tiedekunnassa. Minä en ole Erasmus-vaihtari, koska minun ja Padovan koulut eivät kerenneet enää tehdä sopimusta. Sen takia opiskelen ns. yksittäisiä kursseja (vähän niinkuin avoimessa yliopistossa). Padova on siellä samalla suunnalla, jossa käytiin perheen kanssa vuonna 2002. 40 kilometriä Venetsiasta, josta pääsee Padovaan noin puolessa tunnissa (ja vielä halavalla!)

Kaikkein hermostunein olen siitä, että minun pitäisi opiskella italiaksi. Onhan minulla ollut 6 kurssia italiaa lukiossa, mutten minä silloin siitä niin välittänyt. Halusin toki oppia kielen, mutta olin aika laiska tunneilla ja tekemään kotitehtävät. Aloitin uudestaan Laureaan päästyäni ja kävin italian peruskurssilla. Ongelma noilla kursseilla onkin, että he opettavat kieliopin ja sanastoa, jotka ovat kyllä tärkeitä, mutta unohtavat usein puhumisosan. Puhumisen aloittaminen ja yleensä tekstin tuottaminen on vaikeinta uudessa kielessä, mutta ehdottomasti paras tapa oppia. Sen olen oppinut myös tässä vaihto-opiskelijoiden kanssa häärätessäni. Kahden vuoden aikana englannin kieleni on parantunut huomattavasti maiden kulttuuritietämyksen ohessa. Kävin keväällä italian jatkokurssin Helsingin avoimessa yliopistossa.

Kaikki opettajani ovat sanoneet, että osaan kieltä tarpeeksi aloittaakseni ja vaikken ensimmäisillä tunneilla ymmärtäisi kuin sanan sieltä, toisen täältä, niin nopeasti kieli lähtee rullaamaan. Saa nähdä miten oikeassa ovat.

Kielen oppimisen ohella, on kiva mennä toiseen kulttuuriin ja päästä siihen sisälle. Vähän niinkun yksi ystäväni sanoi: "Menen sinne ottamaan selvää, josko se olisi sopivampi paikka minun elää... tai kuinka paljon ikävöin kotiin."

The adventure starts here.

Seikkailu alkaa tästä.

L'avventura comincia qui.