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    Once upon a time in Italy, in Cremona city... a handsome boy named Matteo who was 11 years old enjoyed watching television and playing Rocket League with friends.    

   He was tall and thin, brunette, and he has got brown hair and hazel eyes.

   Matteo was a very shy, funny and studious boy. At school, before classes started, he liked to meet with friends and talk with them. During breaks, students had always to be careful with Covid19 and so they strictly adhered to the rules: disinfection of hands with gel alcohol, social distance and the use of masks.

   One day at school, teacher llaria told students they would have a surprise.    Everyone was going to have a pen friend from an European school in order to send him a letter.

  The chosen country was Portugal, Sophia de Mello Breyner School, from Arcozelo. This school is on the north coast, next to the Atlantic Ocean. In summer, students usually go to the beaches of Granja, which is a famous beach and also Miramar and Aguda. 

     Near Arcozelo there are cities such as: Porto, Vila Nova de Gaia and Espinho. 

   Matteo did not know Portugal, but he had heard about the country in the news on television. Like in Italy, there were many Covid-19 cases and schools had to close. So, students were having classes online.

  During the lesson, the teacher told them to make a research about Portugal to learn some curiosities about the country's culture, gastronomy and history. During the research, Matteo found several interesting and very beautiful things, which pleased him a lot. He loved eating, especially Pizza. He discovered that the Portuguese had a very similar diet to the Italian people.

  There were typical dishes such as Bacalhau, Caldo Verde soup or Aletria dessert. The boy was very curious about Francesinha, who, according to his research, was a famous dish in the North region, where his Portuguese colleagues lived.

 Portugal also had beautiful monuments, such as the Castle of Santa

Maria da Feira (north zone) or Almourol (south zone), the Batalha Monastery (central zone), the Pena Palace (in Sintra) or the Mafra Palace (near Lisbon); he saw also some pictures and photos of beaches and mountains and he found everything so wonderful that he suddenly wished to spend a holiday in Portugal.

   Professor Ilaria also told them that they were going to exchange correspondence with two classes: 6A and 6F. So they had to make a lottery to find out which one would be his/her pen friend. He was a little nervous because he had never had that experience. He wasn't used to write letters and postcards ... just a few, from time to time. Despite being afraid of making a bad figure, he accepted the challenge. He was an optimist!

   When it was his turn to take a lucky paper, a girl came out and her name was Clara. She was tall and thin. She was blonde and had blue eyes. She was quite shy and she liked playing volleyball, basketball and watching anime. She was so sensitive that she was moved while reading the letter. She was also very unlucky, because before she could answer Matteo, the dog ate her letter.

  She wanted to keep in touch with Matteo so she started to look for him on the social networks, like Instagram.

   She found him and she contacted him. They had a videocall but they were both shy so they didn’t understand if they liked each other. Then they started to chat and videocall every day and they became more confident.

   They became really good friends, but they couldn’t meet each other because of the covid pandemic. They spent some years in keeping in touch, but not as frequently as before even because they couldn’t meet for the pandemic.

   After some years, they met randomly in a travel abroad on a beach in Australia, but they were also with other friends, so Matteo became very jealous of Clara, because she was always with her friends and he wanted to spend more time with her. Matteo was angry and he stopped answering her text messages.

   Clara at this point met him on the beach and asked her why he didn’t reply. Matteo acted hysterically and didn’t explain her why he had this behaviour, so she slapped him on his face. After a short time, he realised he needed to ask her sorry. But she didn’t want to listen to him. One evening, they met in the same restaurant in Australia and they decided to talk.

  He explained the reasons of his reaction and told her that he had always been in love with her. She decided to forgive him, but she said that she didn’t love him.

   They decided to be best friends and to meet first in Portugal then in Italy. Clara first came to Italy. They visited northern Italy and wonderful places such as Cremona, Milan and they travelled together on the Garda Lake. Matteo invited Clara to Seniga, his birthplace.

   Seniga is a little village in the countryside near Cremona, where Matteo lived with his family. Then Matteo went to visit Arcozelo. There Matteo met Clara’s twin sister, Asia, and he fell in love with her. Asia loved him as well, so Asia and Clara came to live in Italy, in the village of Seniga where Matteo lived.

   Era uma vez em Itália, na cidade de Cremona…um belo rapaz chamado Matteo que tinha 11 anos. Ele gostava de ver televisão e jogar Rocket League com os amigos. Fisicamente, era alto e magro, moreno, com cabelos castanhos e olhos claros como avelãs.

  Matteo era um rapaz muito tímido, engraçado e estudioso.