A Week In My Gap Year
Celebrating the Saints Festival in a tiny town in Southern Italy
As September and the start of a new school year roll closer, not all high school graduates are planning on college. Many are starting new jobs, moving out of their house, finding apartments. But a growing number of students are opting for a break before college, a year to explore interests, a gap year. I graduated high school in 2019, and just completed my gap year before starting at Stanford this Fall. Here is an excerpt from my blog, from September 22nd.
I’m writing from the couch at the Nonna’s house after a delicious Sunday lunch (my last one 😦 )This week was a big week for the town of Copertino- it had the three-day festival honoring the town’s saint, St. Joseph (St. Guiseppe). The main day of celebration is September 18th, but the schools have the 17th and the 19th off as well. Essentially, a market spills onto all the main streets of Copertino, with vendors offering.. well, mostly junk. There are some people doing demonstrations (such as the juicer my family got), hardware booths, and table wares. Everything else is clothes, toys, hair braiding, nuts, and a little food.
One popular type of booth is candy- they have these light airy cookies, I think they must be made with whipped egg whites. They also have almonds coated in a sugary glaze and shaped into bars.
The town has been decorated in bright lights as long as I have been here, but they were finally turned on for the festival. They blinked in time to the music, and were on all the main streets.
Night one of the celebration was a parade with a band, to commemorate the carrying of the St. Giuseppe statue from one church to another. They also released huge, 10–20 foot lanterns into the sky. There were probably 8 of these beautiful lanterns, each hand painted. There was an orchestra and a man walking on stilts. We got hazelnuts and almonds and crepes.
The next night we went to a different part of Copertino to go on some of the rides — a Luna park is what they called it. One of the rides was really fun and I have never seen it in the US. Picture those swing chairs we have, that fling you out and around in a circle and are really high. Now picture those chairs much closer to the ground, with only a foot in between each chair. There is a Pom Pom hanging high above, and if you grab it you get a free ride. The only way to get high enough is to have the person behind you kick you towards it. So, I was behind Sofia and as we came towards the Pom Pom I would grab her chair, plant both my feet on the back and kick, attempting to fling her towards it. She got so close, but unfortunately some boys snagged the Pom Pom before we could.
On the last night, we would have gone back to the center market but unfortunately it poured all day. The booths packed up and the festival ended a day early. This is a fun festival, but tiring! So I was not upset with the early ending.
Another cool thing I did this week was pick wine grapes. Sandro has a friend who has a field, so we went to help harvest the grapes. They were small, round, blue, and left a chalky feeling in my mouth. The field was very overgrown and scratched our legs as we searched for blue grapes amongst the weeds. Then, using scissors we sliced off the bunch. I tapped each bunch twice first, so that the wasps eating the grapes would fly away. Miraculous that all of us made it out without any stings!
We went back to the man’s house and fed the grapes through a machine that took off the stems and left the grapes in a massive bucket. His elderly mom gave us bread she made with olives from their garden.
Friday was Davide’s school welcome ceremony, in the Copertino castle! I mentioned how cool it is that they have a castle in their town, and Guilia and Sofia looked at me in confusion, “you don’t?” … no, Bellevue does not have a castle! Except at a playground. Anyway, I looked through a window and could tell the walls are at least 8 feet thick. It’s now used as a community space and can be reserved for meetings. A bit cooler than a library.
Davide has a friend who’s Russian mom speaks English, so I have gone to hang out with them a few times. They like to go to a horse stables area where Ornella (the friend) takes lessons. It’s only 10 minutes away but feels nice to have so much land to look at. I went on a run here and it was perfect. Also nice to walk up and pet as many horses as I want! Ornella is also working on her English, always saying “oh my god” and belting out Queen. Her birthday party is this afternoon, and I am excited to see her baby sister, Mona Lisa (yes, that’s her name.)
Other notable things from this week:
1. I had an amazing pizza with mozzarella, mascarpone, walnuts, and speck (ham). MMMMM.
2. The day it rained, I felt immense joy. I love the rain!!!
3. I am starting a book project, inspired by a coffee table book at home called 100 Bad Girls Throughout History. I aspire to read one chapter book (or audio book) about each of these women by the end of my gap year. Cleopatra, check! 99 books to go.
4. I thought that I would feel fomo (fear of missing out) from all of my friends experiencing college. I don’t really feel that. Instead, I feel fear of missing out at Stanford… the few people I met at admit weekend have been posting as move-in day was this week, and it looks fun. Somehow though it also validates I think I am doing the right thing for myself. But as move in day was this week, I guess that means my gap year is officially happening and officially starting.. no backing out now!
Thanks for reading! See you next week.
Annie
Originally published at http://anniereller.wordpress.com on September 22, 2019.
