Torino and my 18th Birthday

I found out earlier on in the year that my class' trip (or 'gita' as it's called in Italian which each class normally does once a year, often to somewhere abroad) would be an overnight trip to Torino, a city in the north of Italy. It had originally been planned as a 3-4 day trip but it had to be cut short due to unavailability of the teachers. It just so happened that the second and last day of the trip was my 18th birthday as well!

We had a super jam-packed program while we were in Torino. We visited the Salone Internazionale Del Libro which is the second biggest book event in Europe and attracts around 300,000 visitors each year since it started in 1988. It was absolutely massive and was filled with different book stalls - both independent authors and publishers, as well as the big names in the business. There were also talks by different authors including one American who made me feel super special being one of the only people in the audience who completely understood what she was saying before the translator got in hahaha. Although the book fair was great to see, it definitely wasn't my favourite thing about the trip because after all it was just a huge book shop with some special guests...

Other than the book fair we managed to fit into our short trip visits to many of the city's icons such as; Piazza San Carlo, Cesare Lombroso Museum, The National Cinema Museum and Palazzo Reale. The National Cinema Museum was a real standout for me because it definitely wasn't your average museum. It was super interactive and although we only had about 1/5 of the required time needed to get around the whole thing it made such an impact on me. Inside was quite dark and most of the corridors were super narrow which you'd think would just be annoying but it honestly just added to the atmosphere of it and made it even more unique. There were sections which explained the history of cinema, how old and modern day cameras work, different genres of film and even history of the cinema itself. In the centre of the museum was a huge room where a movie was playing which you could watch from one of many chairs with built-in speakers, surrounding this was case after case of movie memorabilia and movie sets - it was honestly amazing! Palazzo Reale, or the Royal Palace of Turin, is a 16th century palace in the centre of the city. We went on a guided tour around it and each and every room brought new surprises because the decorations were so incredibly extreme. Sadly we weren't allowed to take photos while inside but believe me it was breathtaking, and I can safely say that after the amount of AFS and school trips I've had this year to places which you're told are "STUPENDO!" The Cesare Lombroso Museum was probably one of the most interesting museums I've ever been to (it was also super compact so by the time you started getting bored it was over which is pretty handy haha), as I'm pretty interested in anthropology and Lombroso himself was a criminal anthropologist.

As I said before the Sunday was my birthday, and 18th at that! To be honest I had extreme mixed feelings about this. My class at school is so lovely and I've made some great friends in it but they are and just seem a lot younger than me and I'm not particularly close to any of them so I was pretty disappointed that I would be spending my birthday with them and not my close friends who I'd made outside of school. However on Saturday night just before midnight my classmates took me into one of the hotel rooms where they had organised a little surprise party for me! It was the cutest thing ever complete with presents, balloons and even a cake! I honestly couldn't believe they'd done all of that for me, it was so lovely of them and really put my birthday off to a great start.

I would love to revisit Torino one day with more time and freedom to explore. Even from our overnight visit I could see how beautiful and unique it was with so many different things to see. You'll definitely be seeing me again one day Torino <3