During the Winter holidays I went on a trip to Italy where I went to Milan and to a town in the Alps called Bormio. I fell in love with the fashion capital as soon as I saw its centre. It is so full of so much history and yet so modern at the same time. In milan I visited many of the monuments and historical buildings such as Il Duomo, l'Arco della Pace, Il Castello Sforzesco. I also saw The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci in Santa Maria delle Grazie. During the New Year week, I stayed at Bormio. As we all well know, London might get very cold in the winter, but it is no where close to producing any significant amount of snow to do any snow sports, and even if there was its not like we could ski down the Shard since there are no mountains nearby. So whilst I was in the Alps, in Bormio, I took advantage of the scenery and had my first experience of snow boarding, skiing and sledding. This is useful for CAS because I increased my awareness of my own strengths and areas for growth and undertook new challenges whilst being a tourist in Milan and learning snow sports in Bormio. I planned and initiated activities every day to make the most of my trip and worked collaboratively with my hosts and others in order to do so. I engaged with issues of global importance many times whilst I was there for example, whilst I was on my visit to the Last Supper and when visiting Il Duomo. I also considered the ethical implications of my actions during these visits to make sure that I respected whatever I was visiting. Throughout the visit I developed new skills, for example in observation and also in doing the snow sports and became an inquirer, knowledgeable, a thinker, a communicator, principled, open-minded, caring, a risk-taker, balanced and reflective.
My aims for his activity were to visit and explore Milan and all of its incredible culture to develop my understanding of it and to find inspiration for my art course and personal advancement. I also of course wanted to learn these snow sports as I had never tried any of them before and I wanted to experience them (even it it was on the smallest slope of the mountain for kids and despite my friends torment and frustration at the fact that she couldn't snowboard). Overall, I wanted to improve my Italian expression for my studies and be able to develop a good spoken expression as going to the country of the language that one is learning is one of the best ways to develop the skills and learn it properly.During this trip i faced many challenges as it was a completely new setting for me, although I did have a dedicated tour guide. the most challenging part, I think was the trip to Bormio as it was very tiring and by the end of each day we were drained of energy because of the amount of exercise we had done.
This trip was Creative because of the vast amount of art and historical monuments and buildings we saw. It was also Active because on one hand, we were running around Milan (literally) trying to find all of the features we wanted to see, and on the other hand, we were sliding down a possible total of the radius of the earth on skis, boards and sledges and having to also climb up the same distance to get back to our house.
Overall I completely enjoyed this trip and learned many things and met all of my aims. I feel that through my experiences I have developed as a person and developed a new way of thinking through experiencing different culture, people and activities. I have found my love for the Italian culture and art through this trip, specifically the cathedral of Milan, Il Duomo. I also enjoyed my first ever experience of sporting on the snow and love it, despite its side effects of exhaustion, it was a good excuse to go to a spa and use jacuzzis in the middle of the snow.
