When life gives you oranges

Ciao a tutti! / Sziasztok!

If you are not aware of the colour codes defining our lives here in Italy let me catch you up. All 20 regions are associated with a colour (yellow, orange, red) indicating the strictness of the rules introduced to slow down the pandemic. Until this week our region, Emilia-Romagna was in the orange zone, which meant that we had to stay within our municipality. Bars, restaurants and cultural places were closed that made it difficult to enjoy time outside of our homes. However, as an amazing group we are, we managed to fill these grey days with some colours, making an orange juice out of the situation (ok I stop sorry).

Funny thing is that on Italian class we just talked about the two ways to say juice for half an hour. One is succo and the other is spremuta and the difference is that the latter is the real thing squeezed fresh while the other is the one you can buy in the supermarket. So be careful what to ask for when you come to Italy, I warned you.

So going back to the ways we entertained ourselves while kinda stuck inside; we played games, watched movies, and of course, cooked a lot. There were pasta with vegetables, musaka, korvapuusti (a finnish cinnamon bun which can sound a bit vulgar to my fellow Hungarians) and paella on the menu in the last month. But I don’t want to talk more about the food (I know… crazy!), instead read the blog of Javier for that and for snippets of our karaoke night as well – it is also very funny which is kind of expected of him by now.

Find us on social media as Volunt.Hearts

So it doesn’t look like we only eat and never exercise (which is kinda true but there are some exceptions about which you can read in Laura’s blog) I would like to show some pictures of our recent hike to Castel Raniero this weekend. Seeing that the sun is out we decided to enjoy some time outside and oh, how great we did. It was the perfect balance of sun and wind indulging us during the trip providing a sense of calmness you can’t find in the town. Time spent outside should be valued more as we tend to forget how important it is (I know I do) but it really gives a different perspective on things we are surrounded by every day and makes one feel content. It is a thing that helps so much, especially in this pandemic, to improve our mental health as there is no better place for reflection than in nature.

At the beginning of this blog I mentioned that there are 20 regions in Italy and the more time I spend here the more I learn about them. Of course, I was also ignorant thinking about the country as the place for pizza and pasta, maybe knew about the division of the north and south (I wrote about it in a previous blog) and some other things but not about the regions. Some say it is only 19 as everyone forgets about Molise, but I follow Greta Ferro so it was actually a part I knew about – she should be an ambassador of the region. ANYWAY, here is a map for you with all the info you need to know about the Italian regions: