Hi people! I'm Veronica, but students and friends call me Vero. I'm a native Italian-speaking tutor here on Italki and I want to let you know that I just set my annual New year's resolution promo, so you'll have conversation practice classes available at a promo price until 31st January. If you are interested, check my profile :)

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - My opinion As I wrote in the previous post, I've recently read Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. I'm really fond of Harry Potter and the reason why I (had?) never read this book before is because I was concerend it couldn't be up to the saga. I also heard the opinion of some friends that read it before than me (does "previously" work here instead of "before than me"?) and they advised me against it, so I gave up. Anyway, I finally decided to give the book a chance and it's not so bad as I thought, indeed I liked it. I think the secret to make this book enjoyable is to consider it as something apart from the saga, that's easy enough because the main character is not Harry Potter but one of his sons. I have to admit that if I had considered this book as something strictly related to the others on Harry Potter's world I'd have never liked it, because the characters of the saga have been deeply altered in their personalities, so they are far from the ones that I'm used to love. Be that as it may, I had a good time reading this book and I took note of new English words to memorize that I'd like to learn to use. Note: with this post I wanted to get out of my comfort zone using tenses and expressions that I find particularly difficult to better understand them through the corrections (maybe this is my worst post ever 🙈). Any help you can give me is well accepted, thank you in advance!

The last book I read The last book I read is "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child". It's really different from the other books of the saga, because it isn't a novel but a playscript. I read the saga sveral times but always in Italian and, saw that I decided to work on my language skills, I decided to read this book in English. In the biginning I wasn't really sure of this decision because I thought that reading an entire book in English could be too much for me. I thought I'd had to stop frequently to look for the meaning of words, ending with loosing interest because of the luck of understanding and/or because of the low speed of my reading, but luckily it wasn't so. My reading was fluent and enjoyable and helped me to broaden my vocabulary. I liked the playscript and I hope that in the future I'll be able to go to the theatre and see the play.

A new post after a while I've been really busy in the last months and I feel I haven't dedicated enough time to my language learning. I really like learning languages and not to have (doubt: should I use don't have?) enough time to spend on this is making me feel frustrated. Today I talked to a friend about this topic and he recommended me to start posting again, because this helped him to find the right motivation to keep learning and to get over his frustration when he was stuck. I want to try to follow his suggestion, doing my best to post at least once or twice a week. If you have any recommendations about topics to talk about I'd be happy to know them :)

My trip to New York - Part 2 The fourth day was Sunday and we went to Harlem to visit the neighborhood and to try to see a Gosphel Mass. We found a church open to tourists and the celebration was really touching. After that, lunch time was coming so, following the recommendation of an American friend, we went to Katz's Delicatessen to eat an incredibly tasty pastrami sandwich. There was a very long line and we waited for more than 20 minutes before entering the restaurant, but the sandwich definitely worthed the wait. After eating we took the subway to downtown (I 'm not sure if I have to ad "to"in this sentence or it would be right to write "...we took the subway downtown") for a walk through the meanders of China Town and Little Italy, that is more Chinese than Italian. The day ended with a "tour" of Soho. We spent the most part of the fifth day in museums, visiting the American Natural History Museum and the Intrepid Sea, a former war ship turned into museum (here I have the same doubt, is the sentence correct or I should write "a former war ship turned museum"?) of air and space where we were able to see lots of interesting things. To get back home we opted for a walk through the skyscrapers, walking on the New York Highline to the subway. That was a beautiful day and, to top it off, we went to Brooklyn for dinner, visiting a rooftop and enjoying a breathtaking view over the city before going to an amazing BBQ restaurant.

My trip to New York - Part 1 I got back from my 9 days trip to New York a few days ago and I must say that this has been the most amazing trip of my entire life. I wanted to visit "The Big Apple" since I was a child and finally my dream comes true. My boyfriend and I were guested from a friend living there. His house is very close to Central Park so we were able to make a lot of walks through the park, both in cloudy and sunny days. The first day was really rainy and we opted out for visiting the first museum of our list, the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art. The museum was awsome and we spent all the day there. After that we went out for dinner to a Japanese restaurant where we tasted a delicious ramen. The second day was even better than the first and maybe my favourite of the entire vacation. That was a beautiful sunny day and we went to visit the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. I must admit, I had no high expectation about that visit because I thought that this attraction was too touristic, but I was definitely wrong. The park is outstanding and the visit with the audioguides is planned amazingly. During the visit I also had a beautiful surprise. I attempted an online lottery and I won the tickets for Aladdin's Broadway show! So that night, after a truly amazing day, we went to the New Amsterdam Theatre for the show, grabbing an hot dog for dinner and enjoying the performance. That was an incredible and unforgettable experience. The third day was sunny too and we went out for a brunch, during which I savoured Benedict eggs, pancakes, and French toasts. After that we went to Central Park and to the Empire State Building, where we were able to admire a stunning view over The City.

Finally on vacation! Since the beginning of the summer I spent a lot of time working and trying to handle several things, such as work, family, home and other important aspects of my life. I've been going through a lot of changings, fortunately positive for the best part, but that are making me feel more and more tired and a little confuse too. But some rest is coming. Yesterday was my last day at work and on tomorrow I'm leaving for a trip to New York. I'm really excited because this will be my first trip out of Europe and a very good opportunity to try my English among native speakers. I just hope not to arrive too much jetlagged and to be able to start discovering the city at once. I'm finally on vacation!