Snow Carving, Pizza, Espresso and History

I just came back from an awesome 2.5 week excursion in Italy. The main reason for the excursion was to compete in an International Snow Carving competition in the Tyrollean region of northern Italy. But, before I get into that, I spent 4 days in Rome and for any person who’s interested in world history, Rome is a must-visit in Italy. The city is chocked full of historic ruins speckled through the entire city, fabulous coffee bars, ristorantes and gelaterias. I recommend walking through it to see and eat everything Rome has to offer…trust me, you won’t be sorry.

The Colosseum, the Roman Forum, Trevi Fountain and Vatican City are truly spectacular to see in person to feel the history. Most of these historic locations aren’t in parks, or sectioned off areas of the city. They’re actually integrated into its modern form and remain part of the city’s personality. As someone who lives in the US, you don’t really understand how young your country is until you visit a city like Rome where you can visually peal back moments in time.

Now, onto snow carving.

A little history behind this hobby is that while working towards my first Bachelor’s degree at Michigan Technological University, the school would host an annual Winter Carnival and during this festival, school organizations could participate in a 30-day snow carving competition. This is where it all started for me and the others on the team. We all went to school together and after graduation continued to enter in competitions throughout Michigan, Wisconsin and now…Italy. Italy is our first international competition and it was awesome to have the opportunity to participate.

With snow carving, each competition is different with rules and the size of the snow blocks. Once the blocks are given out, we use a variety of tools to complete rough-cuts before moving in for detail.

The snow blocks we were carving in Italy were 10ft wide, 10ft deep and 10ft high. We also were doing two of these back-to-back with each block taking three days to carve.

I never thought I would be carving snow after I graduated, but I’m glad I did. One of the decisions of my life that continuously brings in memories and time spent with good friends!