La mia vita Italiana

Im home

2009-07-19T18:20:00.006+02:00

Well as most of you know by now, because you have probably seen me around town, i am home. Kendra Wagner is back in the USA, back in Wisconsin, and back in Monroe. Some times i don't believe it either so if its hard to believe that after a whole year in Italy I'm finally home, don't worry because well its something that is kind of hard to wrap your mind around.

Its not easy to get from Europe to the United States. Well wait, now that i think about it it is fairly easy if you compare the journey to back when planes didn't exist. when you had months on a cold, uncomfortable boat. but even if the journey is a relatively easy one it is a very LONG journey.

My long, long travels started on the morning of July 4th (much like i said in the post before this one) when my host dad and my host sister took me to the airport. well the Italian time perspective lasted right up until the last day of my stay in Italy. we were the first family that showed up at the airport. before AFS before everyone. that was one thing i was happy about. getting back to a country where people will be there when they say they will be and OMG they might, just possibly, be there 5 minutes early. we waited for the other families to get there and every time someone got there you saw the sadness in their eyes, faces and body language. and it wasn't even just the kids, it was the families as well. this good bye was not just hard for us, it as just as hard for our families. i realized something that morning: we are not the only one that had a unique, hard, amazing, confusing, wonderful, scary, happy experience, our families had the same type of experience that we had. i realized that when i saw that: wow its not just us that are sad that we are leaving all of our families are losing something as well. they are losing daughters and sons that they became so close to. they don't know just like us when we will see each other again. its not only hard for us, its hard for them as well.

Well all of us kids we did our check in. let me tell you that was the first hard thing we all did. we had to get our bags weighed. let me tell you that is stressful when you know that there is a good chance that our bags will be over weight and what will we do if it is over weight? well i got lucky and my bags were underweight :) once we went though check in we had to go through security. that was one of the hardest things that i have ever done. i had to officially say good bye to my family. it was SOOOOOOO HARD!!! we all hugged and said goodbye and said that this wouldn't really be good bye. it was so hard. i cant imagine telling you how hard it was to say goodbye to them because there are no words to explain the feelings that us exchange students go through in that moment. only other exchange students can understand what i am explaining. its like there is a giant balloon in your chest that is slowly leaking air leaving you with a big whole in your heart and chest that you have no idea how long its going to take to fill or if you will be able to fill it again. and that doesn't even come close to how it feels but that's about all i can think of to describe the pain and hurt.

getting on the plane i knew that i was leaving my Italian life forever. i had been thinking about it for a long time but in that moment it was real. it was real that my Italian life was leaving me forever and i wouldn't be able to get it back. well the flight to Rome went by very quickly and we got through everything and we got our bags. no ones bags got lost so that was good. but just as we were about to go out and meet the volunteers all of the kids from Sicily got to the airport so that was like a reunion with kids we had not seen in months and months. it was amazing. we waited for them to get there bags and then we all got packed in to buses to go to the hotel. it was MAJOR deja vu. we took the exact same route that we took when we got to Italy but this time we were leaving. it was like going around a circle exactly. like we were finishing the experience exactly the same way that we started it. it was a cool feeling but still sad. we knew that these were some of the last things that we would see of Italy. well we got to the hotel and we and we got our room numbers. we all threw our stuff in our rooms and we then ran to lunch. literally ran because there was only 20 minutes left of lunch and we were soo hungry. we all knew that our room numbers were pointless as soon as we saw our name tags. the Americans were group 1. which meant that we were the FIRST group to leave, we were going to be the first people to have to leave the hotel and say goodbye to everyone. and the worst part it was at 330 am. which meant that we were NOT going to be going to bed because it was our last night together and i was NOT going to waste that night sleeping. no way!!!

We were one of the first groups to get to the hotel so we waited and about every hour or so another group of students from all over Italy would show up. it was one of the coolest things that i have ever experienced because we got to see all of these kids that we had not seen in over 10 months. it was soo cool to all be able to see each other again and see how we had all changed and how everything was different but we were all still able to make friends so easily. the coolest thing was however. was that this time we were not all speaking English, we were speaking Italian. it was the coolest thing ever because we were able all communicate in a language that we had all learned. we were all on an even playing field this time.

Well at about 630/700 was when the two buses that i was waiting for showed up with kids from Trento and the kids from Leece which was bringing me some close friends that i hadnt seen in 4 months (since my week exchange) for the rest of the night we went around talking to the people that we had grown to really really like for the last time in the near future. we were all desperately avoiding talking about going home and the inevidible ending that would be comming at 330 AM for alot of us (that is when the americans were going to leave) Oh and remember when i raved about the food 10 months agao when i wrote about the Rome orientation? well they either got a new cook or it sucked the first orientation too and we just didnt know lol.. because for this orientation it REALLY REALLY sucked. for the 15 hours that i was there (with no appetite because we were all so sad we didnt even want to eat) i lived on Apples. because they couldnt mess those up lol.

We all decided that we wouldnt go to sleep because we didnt want to waste the last few hours that we had together sleeping. whats an all nighter when its the last night you have together? so basically for most of us we hadnt slept all night the night before becuase we were sad, scared, excited, nervous, happy and a million other things at the same time that arent good for sleeping. then we didnt sleep that night so basically we were in for a very awake meeting with our families lol!! as the night went on it started to get colder and the mood got sadder and sadder as we all started to realize that in just a few short hours it would be over. about an hour before the Americans left we had to start getting our bags together and getting ready for the bus and the most dreaded thing:saying goodbye. we all started to gather in a HUGE group around the busses that had arrived and we started to say goodbye. it was the hardest thing that ive ever done in my whole life. i was saying goodbye to people that i had learned to really love over the last year and we were all crying sooooo hard. we gave out our last gifts and our last hugs that we may ever get from these friends and some of those hugs were the wettest saddest hugs that ive ever had in my life. then all of these sad hugs with volunteers are our necks saying "you have to go you have to go the bus is going to leave and you will miss your plane. and trust me that sounded like a good thing to some of us!!!

we got on the bus and i cried the whole way to the bus which was about 1 hour long. i sat with Efren (the boy from venezuela) and just cried we got to the airport and we got in to the line to check our bags which honestly was a big ordeal because for alot of people this was there first plane ride and they were worried about what there bags weighed but the airport workers were pretty lenient and they let us all pass though and we got to the plane. by this time most of us were still really sad but we were just ready to be home. we had accepted the fact that it was over (not that we were ready for that) but we were just ready to be at home with our friends and families at this point skip all the travel and just be there in our own beds and just not be on a plane. even though the plane that we had from Zurich to New York was VERY VERY nice!!! this time we only had about 1 hour in Zurich which was really nice becaue by the time we got there we were already going back though check in again. and this time we had a cool chaperone who just let us do what we wanted and was pretty chill.

On the plane we all tired to sleep watch movies and just waste time as much as possible and to not think of what was going on and the fact that we were just leaving italy after a year, and how sad we were. There were some good movie choices and we all decided to watch our last badly dubbed italian movie. and i chose to watch "hes just not that in to you" and it was REALLY bad. I imagine it was bad in english well it was even worse in italian!! i love italian but they still arent good at dubbing movies. I would like to say the 8 hours passed quickly but it really didnt. We talked alot, slept, read books, watched movies and just tried not to think about leaving italy. We finally got close enough to see the USA on the map of the world that showed the planes path (which is really cool and fun to watch actually) and we started cheering (which made the other passengers look at us oddly because a group of 60 students just randomly started cheering) then when we did finally land we started clapping, cheering and saying WE'RE HOME!!!!!!! which again got us odd looks from other passengers. when we got off of the plane we had to go through customs in the usa. they gave us a sheet to fill out about stuff we had with us in our bags then we had to wait in a line where we handed the workers this paper, then get our bags (which took FOREVER) then get in another line and have them stamp our passports and then go wait for everyone else to get through that line.

There were alot of kids parents there waiting for them which was nice for them because they didnt have to go on another plane like all of the rest of us. afs gave us there last speech "be good in the airport, have fun and you did it you did your year congratulations" and they let us go our separate ways. so i made my way to delta and went through security again (which was really starting to get annoying) and then set in to wait my 4 hours for my plane to Milwaukee. in the begining i just walked up and down the delta waiting area which is pretty big then i ate burger king. which i know exciting first meal in the states right? well not so much i didnt really eat it but i knew that i needed to eat something cuase i had no idea how much time it had been since i had last eaten so i knew that i needed to eat. but it didnt really work very well lol.. well after that i saw another girl that had an AFS luggage tag so i decided to go up and ask her were she went. it turns out that she had just gotten back from belgium and was headed back home to California. we talked for about 2 hours until i had to board my flight.

My flight to milwaukee went really really fast surprsingly. it was only about 2 hours long and it was on a VERY small pane. i was in the 12th isle and it was the last isle on the plane lol. with only 3 seats across the plane. when we got off the plane it was really exciitng because my Mom, dad and sister shannon were all there waiting for me along with 3 other AFS waiting families (there were 4 of us on the plane) then after getting a little lost getting out of the parking garage we got home fairly fast because there was no traffic at 9 pm going out of milwaukee.

That was pretty much my journey home now since ive been home ive been really busy trying to get ready for school and finish up all of my homework. but really this summer has been good. Ive been avoiding all things Italy just because its easier not to think or talk about it then it is to constantly talking about it. which is why i havent updated my blog or my pictures. in fact all of my italy stuff is sitting in bins and bags in my closet and all my pics still on pen drives that i have yet to touch now that im states side.

I would like to thank all of you for reading my blog and i really appreciate all of your support during my year it really had been an amazing expierence that i would not give up for anything in the world. thank you all!!

Grazie mille a tutti!!! Arrivederci!!

my last day

2009-06-30T22:34:00.004+02:00

---NOTICE---Well I would like to start this entry by saying that all pictures will be updated when I get home and when I have fast Internet again because quite honestly the Internet here in Italy is VERY slow and it takes me HOURS to upload pictures here and lately I have not had time to sit at the computer for hours on end uploading pictures. But I do promise that when I get home I will upload all of the remaining pictures that I have so that you guys can all see the pictures from the last 2 months of my trip :)

Now for the real reason that I’m writing this blog entry... If you do not know by now I will be leaving Sardegna tomorrow and I will be leaving Italy on July 5th 2009 so that leaves me today as my last full day left here in Sardegna. I just would like you all to know that this blog entry might not be as long or as thought out as my normal ones because if I tell you in all honestly I’m FREEKING OUT. I woke up today and the first thought in my head was "this is the last time that I will be waking up in this bed to have a full day here in Sardegna!" (I will wake up in it tomorrow but just to leave directly for the airport). I now can't stop running the lists of things that I still need to do (my blog being one of them) in my head over and over and still not fully grasping the fact that I really do only have ONE day here left! It still doesn't seem real that this experience is already over. That the 10 months have gone by this fast. It can’t be true this has to be some kind of joke that everyone is playing on all of us exchangers...

I couldn’t tell you guys if I was more happy then sad, more scared then excited, more nervous then ecstatic. I honestly couldn't tell anyone how I exactly feel right now. My stomach is in knots and my head still can’t grasp the concept that I HAVE to finish everything today because there WILL NOT BE any more days to finish it. That just doesn’t seem real or right to me. I can’t believe that that’s how it is. None of this means that I'm not actually ready to come home and excited to come home because I really am. I really am excited to see all of my friends and my family and my town and everything. I’m just not quite ready to leave here. I love Italy and I love my life here, I love my family and my friends and I know that when I leave here. When I get on that plane tomorrow at 1100 that even if I were to come back. (Which I WILL) nothing will be the same. The world, my world in Sardegna, will have changed forever and I will never get that world back. It’s impossible to get it back exactly how it was this year. It will never be the same as it was and that that is the hardest thing to accept with all of this. its hard to accept the fact that no matter how hard I try how much I continue to study and contact my friends and family here.. If I come back, when I come back, it will never be the same. All of my friends will NEVER all be here at the same place at the same time. It just won’t ever happen. And that’s depressing it really is. I hate it. It’s horrible!

I feel like today, I have too much to do in too little time. When in reality I don’t really have that much to do but because it’s my last day everything seems to feel like it will take me 10 hours and that I will never have time to finish it. But I know that I HAVE to finish it. Like in reality there are only 4 things I HAVE to get finished today. I have to finish this blog (which I’m doing right NOW) then I have to finish writing 4 letters to friends and family, I have to do last minute packing and I have to finish up the gift for my host family. It doesn't seem like much right? Well just because I still have those 4 things I’m like freaking out. I’m freaking out that I won’t finish everything that needs to be finished that I won’t have time that I won’t do them good. (So I should apologize if this blog entry is really crappy, and makes no sense I’m not exactly in a good state to write loll).

Tomorrow I will have to wake up early, by 730 because by 830 I will have to get in the car with my host family so that they can take me to the airport. I will have to have the exact same car ride that I had exactly 10 months ago tomorrow. Only this time, I know that I will be crying instead of incredibly happy, this time I will understand everything that they are saying to me and not need translations like the first time. This time I know that I will be leaving them for a long time and not that I will be going to stay in their house. This time I will be leaving a house that I know and love instead of going to a house that I don’t know and that I don’t feel comfortable in. This time I will be totally comfortable in Italy and really sad to leave instead of being in a new place where I know nothing where I don’t know the language or my family. This time I will be dreading arriving at the airport instead of excited to arrive at home. This time I know I will be saying goodbye instead of hi for the first time. This time I will be envying the person I was 10 months ago because she still had 10 months in Italy instead of me envying the person I am now like I was 10 months ago. This time is the end not the beginning.

I will get to the airport and meet up with all of the people from AFS; about 25 of us will be leaving the Cagliari airport at the same time. We will all be there with our families and we will all be saying good bye to our families and then all of the AFS workers. I can image that that will be one of the saddest airports in the world in that moment. I never really thought about it. But airports are some of the saddest and happiest places in the world. People are constantly leaving and reuniting with the people they love. Whether it be for 3 days or for 3 years they are leaving and reuniting in the airport. There are 2 types of people on a plane the people that are really sad and the people that are really happy. I can guarantee you that we 25 kids will be in the really sad group. its not that we're not all excited to reunite with our family and friends its just that for now all we can think about is leaving these friends and this family and NOT coming back for a while. It wasn’t like when we left that we knew that we would be home in 10 months... now we're leaving with out certainty when we will come back. And how it will be when we come back. It’s all unknown. This time we are leaving into the unknown

I don’t want any of you to get the wrong idea about this post. I am super excited to come home and to see you all again just right now my brain is stuck on "OH NO IM LEAVING" because I still cant comprehend the fact that this time tomorrow I will be in the airport, going through security and leaving my host family and Sardegna forever. I do love you all and miss you all like crazy and I’m excited to be coming home. Just know that.

I will write about the rest of my journey and a "closing blog" when I am finally home became I don’t know how it’s going to go or whats going to happen yet. So i'll let you all know when I get home how it all went and how I’m doing. I’m sorry this one was so strange, short, without grammar, and sporadic but my brain isn’t in the best place to write correctly right now. I hope you all understand what I’m writing. I love and miss you all... see you soon!

Love,
Kendra

End of stay camp!! and saying goodbye

2009-06-15T17:16:00.007+02:00

I just got home from one of the SADDEST and one of the FUNNEST 4 days in my whole life!!

I bet you are all wondering how on earth can a time period be the saddest and funniest at the same time well it can be. Especially in the life of AFS that I'm talking about is what they call "End of stay camp" (they call it this even in Italy, even though its in English lol) and its basically the last time that all of the exchange students of Sardegna will be together at the same time in the same place again. Depressing i know, but one good thing about when you get 50 16, 17, and 18 year old exchange students together we always manage to have fun even if its not in the best circumstances like: being sad about going home. Well I'll tell you how it went:

On June 10(which would have been the last day of school but none of the exchange students could go because we had this camp) I got up and got on the train at 830 so that i could get to Cagliari by 10 which is when the bus for Sassari when i got there there were already a whole bunch of kids there so i just joined the group and i waited until the bus got there. we ended up leaving a little late because there were a few kids that got there late because they didn't know where they needed to go or what time they were supposed to be there so we ended up leaving a little bit late which sucked lol because that mean we got there even later!

It was just like the bus ride that we took for the first camp. So for about the first hour of trip we were all by our selves (just Cagliari and Iglesais)because we hadn't picked up anyone else yet and then we stopped in Terallba and picked up more kids, then Macromer, then Sassari. And every time that we would go and pick up more it was crazy because everyone would have to say hi to everyone which meant the 2 kiss thingy and with a TINY aisle in the bus and like 50 students it doesn't really work out that well, but we make it work. well when we finally had all of the kids we could finally start on to the place where we had to go for the orientation!! When we got there the first thing they did was give us our room assignments and gave us our name tags!! yes MORE name tags!! I think that Ive had more name tags this year then i have ever had in my whole life! and now they seem kinda pointless because we know each others names already so we didn't really need them any more. well i was in a room with Lilla, Hendrikje, Marium, and Me so that was nice! they obviously did the rooms by friends this time and not just randomly like they did last time!

Well once our rooms were all organized we all had to go to the main meeting place so that we could start orientation. They say that this is the orientation that is the most important because it will help us realize that we are going home and that this experience is ending and that we are going into what they say is one of the hardest part of the exchange the "re-entry". We were divided up in to 3 groups because you cant just have one massive orientation because no one would get to talk or do anything because we would be in one gigantic group of 50 lol. My group leaders were Nicola and Maria Luisa. We had goups of about 15 or so which was a good number to have. we started with those silly orientation games that they always make you do to try to get you having fun by having everyone make a fool of themselves? yes you all know them.. even if you dont want to admit you've played them you all know your guilty of playing at least one of them! we all pretend to hate them but we secretly know that we love them! hahahah then we started the actual orientation. We talked about how it would be difficult to readjust to our home countries now that we are used to Italy because we have gotten used to and come to accept the cultural differences of Italy as our own and have begun to forget the small things that make up our own countrys so we will have a little bit of "culture shock" for our own country.

They told us that they were trying to get us ready for the things that we would experience when we went back to our home countries so that we wouldnt be completely alone with no knowledge of what we were about to do. They warned us that we would not be going back to the same place that we left for 2 reasons. Everything there has had a life for 1 year with out you, its grown, changed and will continue to change in ways that you will not understand because you were not there for a year and 2 the even bigger reason is that we have changed. we have matured and we are not going back to our homes the same way that we left them. They say that in one year (of exchange) the exchange students mature 3 or 4 years more then normal. They dont want us to think that we will be going back to things being exactly the same as if we never left.

We then had free time which we all spent in the SEA. yes there was a beach at the resort! it was soo nice we loved it! we all went in the water even though it was completely freezing but we went in anyways because we are strong! hahaha not really we went in screaming. but we couldnt stay long because of dinner. well after dinner we had another orientation type of thing. we all sat in a circle and they gave us each a candle and we had to light the candle and then go up in front of everyone and tell them an experence. it could be good or bad but it had to be an experience from this year. if it was a good experience we left the candle lit and if it was a bad experience we blew it out. then we left them there. and almost all of them were good experiences at the end which was really nice. then came the really hard part. we all had to go up in front of everyone and we had to thank someone. someone that helped us during the year someone that we had relied on during that whole year. it was something really hard to do and we were all crying while we were doing it because saying thanks is not something that is easy to do. especially in front of alot of people. but we did it. lets just say we were all really sad after that because i think we all kind realized that "WOW" this is really ending .. we're really coming to the end of this experience and that we really dont have that much time left here.

The next day we had to get up so that we could do more orientation we started with some general orientation with everyone and then we played this game where you stand in a big circle and one person goes in the middle. and they go up to people and say "sweetie, I love you and if you love me smile for me" and you have to respond "i love you very much honey but i cant smile for you" with out smiling and if you smile you have to go in the circle. its HARD let me tell you.. IT was fun tho! then we had more orientation because, that was the point of all of us getting together at this place hahaha.. we did some more talking but today it was just about our experiences over all here in Italy. About how we thought it went and how we thought about it over all. we talked about the problems that we had had and how we resolved them. we also got to talk to Ikka which was a Finnish exchange student in Sardenga the last year and he came back to visit so we got to ask him some questions about how his life was now that he was back and all of that stuff so that was nice. its nice to hear about the experiences of all of the exchange students! now that the year is over and how much we have all changed.

Then we had more free time so we basically all went into the water again because it was hot and well its fun. we all went in to the sea even tho well its FREEZING but it felt good because it was hot. After dinner we had another thing to do like the night before. there was a circle of candles and we all had to lay down in a circle and we had to listen to a lady talk and imagine that it was real. she had us imagine that we were leaving Italy, on the plane going home, seeing our families and friends for the first time in months. going back to our town and house and finding it different. finding our friends a little different then they were when we left them. had to imagine all of the things that could happen this year when we get back home. it was something really really really hard to listen to because because we know that all of this will be happening in just 2 weeks. we cant say anymore.. oh yeah when i leave... and still know that we have months.. we all now know we only have 2 more weeks here in Italy so its getting harder and harder to think about. Its not that we dont want to go home it's just the fact that we know when we leave here on July 5th we are leaving this life forever. Even if we do come back it will NEVER be the same. all of these kids will NEVER be in the same place at the same time ever again. that we will never be able to get this exact life back even if we were to come back and visit and thats the hard thing to accept. It wont ever be the same as it was this year. well all good things have to come to an end!

The next day we had the morning off so we mostly spent it by the beach and getting ready for the talent show. Seriously!! they have not realized by the 3rd talent show that we do NOT have any talent hahaha. All the talent shows they watch must get really really boring lol. but no this one was alot more fun then the other one because we all know each other now and we aren't afraid of making a fool of ourselves any more which is nice.. we were all trying to organize the talent show most of the night but we also had to do AFS stuff. we had to fill out our last evaluations of AFS, we had to write how our experiences went and how we thought AFS was and what they could have done better and what they can change and all the normal stuff that these type of organizations make you fill out lol. it seemd to never end as well. when we finished one packet they just kept giving us another one, like it would NEVER stop lol. in the end i think it was like 3 or 4 packets of info that we had to fill out. Then we had a break for dinner then the TALENT SHOW

Well i must say this talent show was soooooo much better then the other 2 that we put on. (even AFS said it was one of the best ones they had ever seen) the presenters were really funny and interesting this time and some of the acts were really funny. some of the guys dressed up as girls and danced (not sure what that was but it was really funny lol) and some of the girls played this game where like 10 people stood in a semi circle and they passed around a fake rabbit and you had to say where you were gonna kiss it and no one could kiss it in the same place as another person well when all had said they said that they now had to kiss the person on their left in the same place as they had said they would kiss the rabbit.. so there were definately some awkward ones like hmm lets see: foot, neck, lips, BUTT.. but they were all good sports and they did it. and then at the end of the talent show we got the pleasure of having the volenteers (Nicola, Luca and Ikka) do a performance. They stripped hahaha.. it was the funniest thing ever. they said that they had never done a talent show before so we all felt a little honored that they would do one for us :) and trust me we all have videos that will eventually (when we have fast internet again) be on facebook! hahaha

Then after the talent show we had the AFS party because during camp we had 3 birthdays!! Carissa 17, Gonzalo 18, Ami 19.. HAPPY BDAY ALL!!! so we had a little party for them with dancing and all that fun stuff it was fun but still a little depressing because we knew that it was the last night that we were there so we were obviously really sad. we all went to bed REALLY late but still had to get up really early because breakfast was done at 930 lol..

The next day we spent it taking pictures and having everyone sign our flags and our memory books and all of that kind of stuff. which is really nice we had time (not enough tho) to do that because we all had flags to sign and we wanted people to write things for us so that we could remember later. well at 1200 we had to get on the bus, for the dreaded bus ride home. we knew that we would slowly be losing people. We were all walking up and down the aisle having the rest of the people sign our flags and our books and we were talking to everyone. then the first hard stage. We lost all of the Sassari kids, then the next stop Macromer. we lost all of the kids that live on the east or middle of Sardnega. Every stop got harder and harder because we knew that we probably wouldnt be seeing these friends any more until Rome and even then we probably wont get to see them all. By this time the bus was pretty empty.. I sat up near the front and was talking to Nicola and some of the other kids because we knew that we wouldnt get to see him after today because he was going to Rome the next day to study. I had the volunteers write in my book because the volenteers this year were amazing (the Cagliari Iglesais ones!! especially!) and i knew that when we all got off the bus in Caglairi it was going to suck big time. well then we stopped in Terralba. It was just the Cagliari kids now! Well let me tell you it was a VERY sad bus ride. we were all sad and crying because we knew that there were kids that we just said good-bye to that we would never see again (or at least for a very long time) then we got to Cagliari. and we all had to say goodbye to Nicola because we wouldnt see him any more. that was hard because he was a big help to us this year (especially to the Iglesais kids :) ) and for me it was really really sad! then we all said goodbye but that wasnt that hard because we knew that we would all see each other again because we're all from Caglairi!

All in all this was one of the funnest weekends that i have had in all of my experience but it was also by far the saddest and the hardest because this year, the people (beside your family) that you get close to is your AFS family. they are the people that understand you and the people that you really click with during the year and saying goodbye to them is the hardest thing ever because you dont know when you are going to have money to go visit them all over the world! and you know you will all never be in the same place again! If this camp was hard (when we all know we will still see each other in Rome and maybe another time in Sardenga) i can only imagine and dread going to Rome because then it will be real. the goodbyes will be real and final. We will all be getting on planes and really be heading home. well everyone i leave you with 2 words GOODBYES SUCK but you know when the goodbyes suck and when they are the hardest that you have made real friends and that you have had an amazing experience that you will remember forever

Kendra

P.S. Love and miss you all and i am excited to come home! see you all in 2 weeks!
P.S.S Ill try to blog another time before I leave and as for pictures i will continue to post those even after i get home because here the interenet is so slow that it takes me FOREVER to upload pictures!

I WON!!!

2009-06-15T17:09:00.002+02:00

Well i would just like to thank everyone that voted for me and let you all know that i got the number one spot on the blog contest!!! I will post the email they sent me here!

Dear Kendra,

Hearty congratulations from the team at bab.la and Lexiophiles! Your blog has been voted number 1 in our Top 100 International Exchange & Experience Blogs competition for 2009 . We had more votes for this competition than we have ever had before, so you should be really proud of yourself for attracting so many readers!

We have published the entire list of blogs and how they ranked after the voting on our bab.la site. We have also written an article explaining more about how the competition came to be, which you can read here if you are interested.

We have also created the buttons for you to put onto your blog telling everyone that you came 1st in the competition. Follow this link and simply copy and paste it the code for the relevant button and put it in your sidebar so everyone knows how well you did!

You should also have received your certificate today from Unicef regarding the donation we made on your behalf. I have attached a copy here in case it hasn't arrived yet! You should be very proud that not only was your blog voted number 1 by your fans, it is also helping people in Africa… how many bloggers can say that?! ;)

We really hope you enjoyed the competition, keep your eyes on bab.la and Lexiophiles for the next one!

Kind regards,

Erin

Grazie mille per l'aiuto!!!

Kendra

Vote for ME!!!

2009-05-30T15:22:00.003+02:00

Hey everyone!

It seems as if i was nominated for a blog contest. I'm not sure who nominated me but I got a comment that said that i was nominated for the blog contest of 100 best international blogs of 2009! I'm still waiting for a risponce from the contest runners for the exact details but I thought that I would put a little notice up here to tell everyone to VOTE FOR ME!!!

http://www.lexiophiles.com/english/ix09-nominated-blogs

Go to that link ^ and im number 79!! You have to click on the "vote here" or "vote for your favorite" links at the top and then scroll down untill you find my blog named "La mia vita italiana" and you click on the bubble and then VOTE!!

I would like to thank all of you in advance for voting for me!! The voting ends June 7th so we dont have much time

Grazie a tutti!!
Kendra

Calcio Crazyness!!!

2009-05-27T21:06:00.004+02:00

In the USA the main sport is Football and in the rest of the world the main sport is also football, but a football of another type. And by another type I mean SOCCER!!! While I have been in Italy I have heard more talk of Calico (which is soccer in Italian, even thought it really is the word for “kick”) then I have ever heard in my entire life of 17 years combined!! But I was bound to learn about why the Italians love it so much before I left Italy so hence the goal (get the pun???) to go to a professional soccer game before my time in Italy was up!!

I have never really (and am still not,even though I played for many years) been a huge fan of soccer but while I have been here in Italy this year I have heard all about it and have even started learning who the players are and who the famous people of European soccer are. I’m not going to claim myself to be an expert by any means but I will say that I am much less ignorant about soccer now then I was when I left the USA. Although even though I’ve heard a lot about it here in Italy I’ve never really understood the “craziness” that everyone talks about when they talk about soccer games here in Europe. Well on May 10th (my dad’s birthday and the day that my parents left) I got to experience this madness first hand at a Cagliari – Rome soccer game that took place in Cagliari.

After we (me and my host dad) left the airport he took me in to Cagliari so that I could meet up with my friends that I was going to go to the game with. I will admit to you all right now that I wasn’t going to the game so much for the soccer as I was going to experience something new and to have fun with my friends. I could honestly careless about the soccer game itself but I knew that because I was going to be going with my friends it would be a lot of fun! Well when I got to Cagliari I met up with Marga, Sofia, and Lilla and we went to Lilla’s house to hang out for a little while because we had some time before the game started. About an hour and a half before the game we started the 20 minute walk to the stadium.

When we started to get closer to the stadium we started to be joined by a TON of people. There were sooooo many people there that we didn’t even have to worry about not knowing exactly where the stadium was (because we didn’t hahaha) we just followed the big mass of people wearing red and blue (the colors of Cagliari) We did eventually arrive at the stadium, but there was only one problem. There were about 30 different doors that you could enter the stadium in (and you had to enter in the correct one, meaning the one that is written on your ticket) so we started walking around the stadium because we had no clue where the door that we had to enter was and we eventually just had to ask because it felt as if we had been walking around the stadium for ever (when in reality we had really only walked around ¼ of the stadium) but we found out that we were going in the correct direction and that we just had to keep walking because we had come in on the northern side of the stadium and we had tickets for the southern side of the stadium. So when we finally found our entrance we got in line! I was glad that we got there early because it didn’t seem like they were letting in the people very fast because they were checking everyone’s tickets and name cards so it was taking sooooo long!! And my friends were freaking out because they didn’t want to miss the beginning of the game but it started moving a little faster thankfully!

Let me tell you the line was LONG!! We apparently had really good seats (I didn’t know I just was going by what the other people told me) so we waited with our tickets and our passports in hand. Yes I said our PASSPORTS!! We needed our passports to get in to a soccer game because we were foreiners and they want some kind of ID and because we don’t have Italian ID cards we had to take our passports! I thought this was a bit much but honestly I had never been to any type of professional sporting event before this so I didn’t know if it was normal procedure or if this was some kind of Italian red tape. Well we eventually got to the front of the line and we showed them our tickets and our passports and they checked to see if the names were the same and then they asked us if we had water bottles. We all did so they made us throw away the caps (because they had problems with people putting soap in to them shaking them up and spraying people with soapy water) and we were allowed to go in to the stadium!!

I walked in and I’m not going to lie I was a little bit in awe because it was HUGE!! The field looked so big and the players so small. When we got in there it was just the warm up practice thing for the players because the game had not yet started. We found our seats really easily and we sat down and waited for the game to start. OMG when the players came out for real, like when they all had there uniforms on, the crowds went WILD. Not just for Cagliari but also the crowd that was there for Rome. Everyone went crazy and so far all they had done was walk out on to the field in a straight line. To me not so impressive yet but still every one went completely crazy. Then that’s when the game started. I was surprised that there was no like ceremony or anything they just all took there places and started to play. There was no person commenting on the game or anything there was no score board or a place to tell you how much time was left or what was happening they just took the field and started playing. I was surprised at how many complications there weren’t (although I don’t view the commentary or a score board complications because they help the people like me that are a little confused all through the game haha)

I was rooting for Cagliari (I mean come on I do live on SARDEGNA!! And I'm pretty sure that if I was rooting for Rome in the section that I was in I might just have been murdered by all of the Cagliari fans that were sitting around us because we were in a Cagliari fan section!!) but as soon as the game started I didn’t honestly think that Cagliari had much chance at winning because Rome seemed to be a much better team over all. For most of the first part of the first half (I was a little confused because I had no clue how much time was passing and what not) it was mostly Cagliari on defense and Rome trying to score because they were better. This made the Cagliari fans go CRAZY because they were convinced that the refs were partial to Rome because in there opinions every time Cagliari would get they ball they would call some sort of foul and make them give it to Rome. But before the second half was over Cagliari scored so that made all of the fans really happy because it mint that Cagliari was in the lead and that they only had one more half and if they could keep the lead they would win the game. Well as you can imagine there was an intermission between the 45 minute halves. But we stayed in our seats waiting for them to restart the game.

In the beginning of the second half Cagliari scored another goal which made the fans very happy because they were winning 2-0 against Rome! Then the problems started to set in! Rome started to take control of the ball more which eventually lead to them scouring a goal on Cagliari which made the fans really really mad. Some of the fans were getting so mad that they were starting yell some very bad things at the refs and the players and fans of the other teams! They were really getting into the fact that there team had a chance of losing its lead so they started to get a bit mean to the other teams and especially the refs. Every time the refs would call something on Cagliari they would get called so many names by the fans (especially in my section because we had the good seats so it was the people who really liked soccer! So they were really in to the game and wanted to see Cagliari win) it was really funny to watch all of the fans (if I dare to say it, it might have been more entertaining to watch the fans then it was to watch the actual game of soccer. They were more lively and did different stuff and the game started to get boring after a while becauseI'm not a huge fan of soccer so it did get boring but the yelling screaming people were very funny even all the way to the end of the game)

When Rome scored its second goal the Cagliari people were enraged because one of the Cagliari players had been pushed (or so they said) before Rome scored its goal so they were convinced that the goal shouldn't count because he was pushed down before the goal was scored. They were all standing up in there seats and hanging over the edges of the rails yelling some not so pleasant things to the refs trying to get them to take back the goal that they thought shouldn’t count because of what happened. Which made the fans of Rome really mad because they thought that the goal should count and that he was not pushed down but that he just fell. So the were yelling at each other across the field which was really amusing. Especially when it was like adults in suits yelling at each other all red faced and angry. In the end the ref decided that he was not pushed down and that the second Rome goal would count for Rome so the score was now 2-2 with only like 3 minutes left in the game.

As you can imagine the game ended in a tie much to the Cagliari fans dismay because they were all still thoroughly convinced that it should have been 2-1 because the last Rome goal should not count. Honestly I would have loved to see Cagliari win just to see them win but they didn’t and that’s fine with me too. In the end though I’m really really glad that I went to the game, soccer is a part of the culture of Italy that I had not yet seen. It’s a past time that a lot of the Italians enjoy (although it seems like more of a stress then a stress reliever to them hahaha) so I’m glad that I got to experience something that is part of there culture that I had not yet experienced. Gli Italiani sono PAZZI per calcio! (The Italians are crazy for soccer)

And above all it was a very fun day that I had with the other exchange students (it was there first Italian soccer game as well) having an “Italian first”

Pace, Amore, e felicità, (peace, love and happiness)
Kendra

10 days with my AMERICAN parents :D

2009-05-25T12:52:00.000+02:00

As most of you readers probably know my American parents came to visit me in Sardegna from May 1st through May 10th (my daddy's birthday: D) but now I'm going to tell you about all of the adventures that we had while my parents were here.

First off let me tell you how nervous I was to see them. I know that sounds weird but really all of you right now imagine not seeing your parents for 8 months and then preparing yourself for seeing them for 10 days and then having them leave again and not seeing them for 2 more months. It’s an odd feeling. The whole morning of the first I was really nervous and I kept checking my watch for when we would have to go to the airport. The host mom of one of the girls was nice enough and she took me to the airport in her car so that I wouldn't have to try and find a bus that would take me to the airport on a holiday. While I was sitting in the car all I could think was "OMG in less then an hour my parents are going to be here!! What is it going to be like? Are they going to be different? Am I going to seem different? Will they get along with my host family? Will it be weird having both my families here? Will it be hard to translate for them all the time?" my mind was running a mile a minute and I couldn't think about anything else. When I got to the airport I thanked Paula and went in to the airport only to find that the plane had been delayed 20 minutes.

I found my host dad talking to one of his friends (who was also waiting for someone in the airport) we had to wait because my parent’s plane had been delayed. I decided to watch the TV (that says the status of the planes that are coming in to the airport) and when there plane landed I went and told my host dad but before I could wait for my parents by the door I had to go outside and add money to the “meter” for the car because its only for 20 minutes at a time and because there plane was late landing our half hour was up so I had to go add a new ticket. I did it really fast because I was afraid that my parents would get there. When I got inside I found out that no one from my parents flight had come out yet so I just waited, I talked to the other people waiting to pass some of the time. I started to get nervous that my parents had missed there flight because people from the other flight after heir’s were starting to come already and my parents had not yet come out. After waiting for ever I finally saw my parents and when I did I ran through the gates and gave them both a big hug. The guard seemed really mad at me because I ran through the gates. I said I was sorry and we went back through the gates together.

Then came the first weird part: Introducing my real parents to my host dad!! We walked up to my host dad and I introduced them then we all got in to the car and I found out why it had taken them so long to get through baggage pick up. They didn’t know that they had an international terminal because they were coming from Rome (but their bags had been checked all the way through from Chicago to Cagliari) so they waited for their bags in the national place and then they went to claim them missing and the lady told them that they had to go to the international place. So they went there and then finally got their baggage and well I told you I had made great friends with the airport guard.

In the car mostly me and my mom and dad spoke in English catching up a little bit. They were obviously really really really tired because they had gone a whole 24 hours with out sleeping. They got on their plane at 5pm in Chicago and got to Europe at 8 am the next day. So they had gone a whole day with out sleeping because when they were in the plane it was night in Europe but the evening of the USA so they weren't tired enough to sleep so they didn’t end up getting much sleep. I'm sure that they felt like that hour long flight was just as long as I felt like it was that first day I got here 8 months ago!! When we finally did get back to the house my parents were determined to stay awake because they didn’t want to suffer from jet lag all week so they were determined to stay awake the first day so that they could get in the habit of the time in Europe.

I showed them around them around the house so that they could get used to it a little bit. And then I helped them unpack. While I was helping them unpack I realized something. Almost all of the stuff that they had in one whole suitcase was ALL my clothes. It was all my STUFF. They actually brought a whole suitcase full of my stuff haha. I knew I shouldn’t have been surprised because I knew that they were going to be bringing me clothes and stuff but I was still slightly surprised as to just how much they did end up bringing me. I was really happy though because I really needed some summer clothes which are what they brought me. Up until that point it hadn’t really gotten that warm but my family said that it was going to start getting hotter so I knew that I would need some clothes. So I was really happy that my parents brought me some clothes. We got all of their clothes put away in the spaces that we cleared for them so that they wouldn’t have to live out of their suitcases for the whole 10 days that they were here. We decided that we would stay home that night because we were sure that my parents would be really tired, and they were, and we wanted them to have an easy night at home. Then we did something that was VERY un-Italian. We ate dinner at 7:00p.m. So that my parents could go to bed early that night. Now I know your all thinking WHAT 7:00p.m.?? That’s early?? Well in Italy it’s VERY early to eat dinner. In fact it was very strange for me to eat dinner that early. I and my dad watched a movie and then we all went to bed.

I know that I normally do a day by day recount but I've decided this time (mostly because I don’t remember exactly what we did on what days) that I will spare you all that and give you a general recount of what we did with the 10 days that my parents were here. With telling you some specifics and some highlights in specifics.

Well on the first day we gave them a choice about what they wanted to do. Because it was Saturday and their first day they decided that they wanted to see my city. But first we had to get through breakfast. My dad tried café for the first time. His reaction was that it was just like normal coffee but that he prefers American coffee. And my big news about breakfast I had CAPTAIN CRUNCH for the first time in 8 months. I must tell you that it tastes AMAZING especially after not eating it for 8 whole months. Man was it AMAZING. I never thought that I would miss something like breakfast cereal (even thought it’s not something I realized I missed until I started eating it) but you end up missing the little things a lot. Anyways because that it was Saturday there was the market in my town. I don’t get to go to it very often because normally I have school but obviously because it was the first day with my parents my host parents let me miss (plus none of my classmates went to school either because we had planned to just make it a holiday) which was really nice of them.

We took them in to the centre of town and then we decided that we would walk around the market. The market is actually pretty cool. I like it a lot. You can find a little bit of everything there which is really nice. My mom really liked it a lot which was good. We walked around the market one time and then we had to go to the bankomat but its obvious that everyone decides to get all of there money out on Saturdays because there was a line for every one that we decided to go to. We then went for another round of the little market because mom wanted to: D.

We went to A LOT of different beaches while my parents were here. I will tell you some of the more memorable stories that we have from while we were here. Well I would have to say that the most memorable beach that we went to would have to be the one where we had to ROCK climb to get there. Yes I (and most importantly YES my parents) said it right I ROCK Climbed to get to a beach. Basically you drive up to this one beach (which is really pretty in itself) and then there is this small path that is on the side of the mountain that is really really rocky and there is a pretty steep fall to the water if you were to fall. My host dad tells us that we are going to go on that path and we will be arriving at another beach. My host dad went first so that he could help my mom and me and my dad went behind him. It was really hard to do especially because I and my mom were in flip flops and not tennis shoes so it made climbing a mountain a little difficult. Well basically when we got there the beach that we saw was BEAUTIFUL and small and we had it all to ourselves!!! It was one of the prettiest little beaches that I have ever seen in Sardegna. My host dad told me that the only way to get to that beach was to do what we did or to swim so alot of the times there aren't alot of people on the beach because they don’t know about it or just didn’t want to go to the hassle of going over there. We stayed at the beach for a while and I and my mom put our feet in the cold water because we were hot from climbing the rocks. Then... bum bum bum... We had to GO BACK on the same path that we came on so that meant more rock climbing. Although going back was a lot easier then getting there was. So that’s good!!!

One of the other good "beach" stories is when we went all around the coast of Sardegna right north of where I live. It was so beautiful. My dad kept comparing it to the coast line of California because the roads were carved right in to the mountains and all you saw for miles was the water that was right to your left (or right depending). They said that it was one of the most beautiful coast lines that they had ever seen. We then went up to this little town that is in the mountains that is sooo beautiful. Honestly when you see it you think of the stereotypical fishing towns in Italy. All of the small low houses with red roofs that are all close to the sea. I can’t imagine waking up to see that view every day. I would LOVE to see that view every day as the first thing that I saw when I woke up in the mornings. We went to a Sand dune while we were in this little town. Basically REALLY high up in the mountains there is a few really huge sand dunes which means that at one point the ocean arrived at that point in the mountains because it is sand from the ocean. My parents were really tired at this point but I decided that I was going to run up to the top of the sand dune. So I started running, but I realized that running up sand is very difficult, and when I got about half way I was already really tired but I was determined. I was determined to make it all the way to the top. Well when i did make it I made my mom take my picture: D just to prove that I did really climb that giant sand mountain. Well when you go up something really high coming down is always more fun but then there’s the thing that it always takes soooooooo much less time to come down then it did to actually go up so it doesn’t seem like it was worth all of the work that it took to go up the mountain (wether it be a real mountain or one of sand) but it was fun anyways!!!

Those are a few of our fun beach related stories now i'll move on and tell you a few other stories that we had while we were here: One day while they were here me and my host dad decided that we would take them to the middle of Sardegna so that they could see the Nuraghe. Nuraghe are the old houses that the ancient Sardi people lived in. These houses are made entirely of stone and are older then all of the Roman things that exist in Italy. They just started finding and uncovering them in the last 50 years because in the thousands of years since they were used the land has changed and covered them up and until about 50 years ago no one had ever bothered to uncover them. I had seen Nuraghe before but I had never seen these particular ones that we went to see that day so it wasn’t boring for me either which I was glad about. It took about 2 hours for us to get to the middle of Sardegna where they were so we decided to get on the road early in the morning (at around 8am) And when we got there we paid for our tickets so that we could see 3 different things which ended up being a really good idea.. We got our tour guide and we were in a group with one other Italian guy who came from northern Italia and he was going around Sardegna on his bike. The tour guide was really nice and he gave me all the time I needed to translate all of the stuff to my parents because he didn’t speak English. So he would explain in Italian and then I would explain it to my parents in English.

I've decided that the Sardi people were even short then when they made these houses because the ceilings were really short and on the stair cases the ceilings were really close to the floor. And let me tell you that it made it very difficult for my dad who is 6’3” (almost 2 meters)!! We walked up and down the different floors of the Nuraghe while the guide explained all of the different parts and what they were used for. For this kind of thing you really do need a guide because if we were to have done it alone we would have had no idea what we were looking at and it would have seemed to us like a bunch of rocks put together with out much sense. But because he was there to help us know what we were seeing we actually understood what we were looking at which was good. We then went to the other 2 museums that we had paid for and one was really neat. It was this old house that is of some famous Spanis person and they found a Nuraghe UNDERNEATH of the house. But the house is a land mark they can’t just tear down the house to get the Nuraghe so they are digging underneath of the house to dig out the Nuraghe but they have to slowly support the house as well so that it doesn’t just cave in... It is really cool to be inside of the house that seems like it is balanced on nothing and you are floating. Plus all of the floors are made of this like glass materiel so you can see the Nuraghe underneath!!

That very same day we decided that we were also going to go to this wild horse reserve. So we kept driving closer and closer to the middle of Sardegna so that we could go see this reserve. It ended up being really cool because it wasn’t all wild horses it was also normal horses that were so used to people you could just go right up to them and pet them and stuff. And my mom had brought apples for US to eat but she decided that she wanted to give them to the horses instead (thanks mom!!) so then the horses really loved us because we kept giving them food. There was even one who kept following me around because he thought that maybe I had more food even though he had already eaten all of the apples that I had to give him. We went around the rest of the reserve and even saw the wild horses too but those ones you cant touch because well there wild so we just saw them from a distance. After the reserve we were all tired so we decided to head back home especially because I and my parents had to get up early again the next day so that I could take them to Cagliari to show them around and so that they could meet my friends!

Me and my parents got up early and got all ready so that we could catch the train to go to Cagliari. They wanted to see exactly how I did it so that meant going by the train and not going in the car. So we went to the station so that I could get the tickets. We got our tickets and we got on the train. They were lucky because the early train in the morning from Carbonia to Cagliari is a direct train that is one of the new trains so their first thoughts of the Italian trains were that they were really nice (even if that’s wrong mostly haha) Well when we got to Cagliari we decided to go in to the McDonalds so that my dad could get a cup of “American” coffee. Although we found out that really what they do for “American” coffee is they just dump 5 Italian espressos in to 1 cup and they call it American coffee. When in reality it’s really nasty!! Then we went outside and we waited for Lilla. I had decided to ask her to help me show them around because she knows Cagliari way better then I do so I figured she would be a better tour guide then I would. WE decided to go the Bastione (the fort of Cagliari) and to the church (which I have explained in the week exchange to Cagliari post) But by that point my parents were hot and tired (and so were me and Lilla) so we decided that we wouldn’t go anywhere by foot any more and that we would buy bus passes so that we could take the busses to go around.

This turned out to be the BEST thing that we did because we ended up going really far to see the next thing that we saw. We decided to go see the Ampitheatre of Cagliari. It is an ancient Roman theatre so it’s really pretty and really old. After that we went to this church that has the BODY (yes I said the real body) of Sant’Efisio which is the Saint that was born in Sardegna. I must say it was really weird seeing a dead body of a very short man in a plexy glass box and imagining all of the people that come here to worship a dead body. I know that it’s a church thing but still its a little bit creepy how they keep the body on display for people to see. At this point it was almost time for lunch so we decided to walk back to the centre of town (it was all down hill and it had started to cool off) so that we could meet up with all of my other friends so that we could all eat lunch together.

We ended up getting back to the centre earlier then the other kids got there so we sat down and took a much needed rest and we waited for them all to get there. In the end we all (Me, My parents, Lilla, Hendrikje, Maddie, Sofia, Marga, and Bruna) all decided to go to “La Cantina” to eat lunch. We decided that if my parents really wanted to see how we students lived that we would take them to the best (and cheapest) sandwich shop that we always go to. And let them see how we live the cheap student life. WE all went there in a HUGE group so it eneded up being a little hard to get a table but we did eventually find one which was good and my parents were really surprised that we at a VERY VERY good lunch for 10 people and spent less then 50 euros. That’s not possible in the states even in McDonalds. After lunch we went to a place that we could get ice-cream and we then went and sat down in a park and waited until the stores started to open so that we could go walk around the shopping streets. When they started to open, we got on the bus and we went up to the shopping streets while we were there my mom bought herself a Sardinian ring. There is this type of jewelery that is only found in Sardegna. It’s really pretty too. Almost all of us (girls) exchange students have something from there because it’s just so pretty and it’s something that can only be found in Sardegna. We continued to walk around with my friends for a while and then I and my parents had to go so that we could catch the train to go home to Carbonia. While we were on the train going home my parents told me that they really liked all of my friends and that they really enjoyed there day in Cagliari so that made me really happy.

One other thing that we did that was also really fun was that we went out to dinner with my host parents so that my real parents could taste Italian pizza. It was really fun because it was really hard to decide what kinds of pizzas to order for my parents because there were so many choices they couldn’t decide. Plus they couldn't believe that we had to order one pizza for one person instead of like we do it in the states. They ended up really liking the pizza in Italy though even if it is a little bit different it still is really good and hey pizza CAME from Italy you cant knock it until you try it!!

Now I will tell you a little about what we did in the nights. We would always have dinner with my family every night which always proved to be really fun because I would basically have to be the translator for my family because my real parents don’t speak Italian and my host parents don’t speak much English so when ever we would have to have big conversations I would have to translate but when my parents just wanted to get something small across (like when I was in school the few days that I went and they went around with just my host dad with out me ) they could normally get all (or at least the point) of what they wanted to say with a mix of English and my host dads knowledge of English and the use of my dictionary which my dad took to carrying around with him at all times. That way they wouldn’t have to translate every single thing that they wanted to say. Well after dinner I and my dad usually would watch a movie together like we used to when I was at home. That was something that I hadn’t realized that I missed but I really did miss. It was really nice to have that again.

Well I helped them pack up there luggage (which was A LOT of my stuff) and they ended up within one pound of what they had to be at because of all of the stuff that I had added to their bags and of all of the stuff that they had bought here in Italy. It was really hard to pack up all of the stuff because we had all of the stuff that couldn’t be broken so my dad had to pack it up so that it wouldn’t break on their way to home. Well on the morning that they were to leave we all woke up early so that we could drive to Cagliari. It was me my parents and my host dad. We got to the airport and they got all of there stuff checked in without a problem which was good because we were worried about them being over weight with all of the stuff that had to be added. Then we walked over to security. Then we had to say our goodbyes. It was really sad to say goodbye to them because honestly it had been 8 months and I had forgot how much I missed them then I saw them again and then had to leave them again for 2 months and wait to see them again until I got home. It felt like I was just leaving again. Well we said our good byes in front of security and I and my host dad waited until they were through security until we left and then we left the airport. I was sad...

It was sooooo nice to have my parents here in Italy. It was so nice to show them my life. I'm not goin to lie there were times that were a little strange but over all I would not change them coming for ANYTHING I loved having them here and I loved showing them all around and about my life here in Italy. I am so glad that they came to visit me here: D it was one of the best weeks of my exchange. And I hope that they had as much fun as I did: D

Thanks for reading guys.. Love and miss you all!!!

Coming soon: My experience with Italian soccer

Settimana di scambio: Cagliari

2009-05-19T12:47:00.004+02:00

I already had my exchange week in Trento, Italy but as of 2 weeks ago there were still plenty of kids that had not yet had there exchange week. This is because they were going to have there exchange week in Cagliari. Cagliari has one of the latest exchange weeks of all of Italy because in that time period of the year (April 24th through May 2nd) there are lots of holidays in Cagliari and there is one of the biggest holidays of the year in Cagliari on May 1st. AFS organizes the week exchange this way so that the kids get to see some of Cagliari when there are lots of people here and when its in "party mode" or "festival mode" which is much more interesting then it is normally and plus there is more things to do in Cagliari during these holidays.

The first thing that was on the schedule to do with the new exchange kids was to go to the Mines/Caves of Iglesias. well the night before was the birthday party of Mateo (the Colombian boy= and almost all of the kids in my local chapter had spent the night at his house so we all arrived to the first mine together and still half asleep and not wanting to go see a mine that we had already seen. we all got there before all of the new kids so we wanted for them (because they were coming from Cagliari) all I was thinking was wow were going to make a great first impression on them: half asleep, unshowered , not well put together, and really not wanting to be here at all. maybe a party the night before something big wasn’t a good idea.. but it was fun!

When they finally got there they all (about 20 of them) piled off the bus. There were about 3 boys and the rest were girls. They were all Germans!!! There were like 10 Germans in the group. there were a few kids that I recognized from Rome and 2 that I recognized from Trento but most of the others ones I did not know because they were semester kids or I just didn’t meet them in Rome or I didn’t remember them from Rome. We all introduced our selves to some people but not everyone but in reality we pretty much stuck to our groups of Cagliari-Iglesias kids and “settimana di scambio" kids. Except of maybe 1 or 2 kids who went back and forth.

But it was the first day so I guess you can’t really expect much more then that. We were split in to two groups to go into the mines which, I didn’t know about for the new kids, for us from Cagliari was really boring because we had already seen this mine and we were all really tired. After the mine (we were all really hungry because no one bothered to tell us Cagliari kids that we needed a sack lunch) we all went to the beach of Iglesias so that we could eat. The weather was really crappy so no one wanted to swim but we did roll up our pants and put our feet into the water. It was cold. We all started eating (Andrea brought us food) and going into the water was fun but we got all sandy and wet which wasn’t very fun. Then we all had to go in cars up to the next cave we were going to. It was even more boring then the first one but this time I was in a fun group of new kids. A girl named Vivi from Paraguay, Rosie from Peru, Marie from Belgium, and Marte from Norway, they were all really fun!!

Well after the mine we were finally allowed to go home! a volunteer from a town close to mine took me home and I showered and went right to sleep because I knew that even though it was vacation from school I needed to get up and go to the train so I could go to Cagliari and do the tour of Cagliari with the new kids and Andrea the next day. I woke up to find out that the weather was going to suck that day too... I was just hoping that the rain would hold off until the end of the day so that we didn’t have to do the tour of Cagliari in the rain because that would suck A LOT!!! Well I got on to the train and went to Cagliari and as soon as I got there, I'm talking about the minute I stepped off the train it started to rain. I mean it didn’t start raining a little bit it started pouring down rain. I’m like OMG you have to be kidding me. Well I met up with Sofi, Marga, and Ami and we started walking to the meeting point. It was just our luck that the meeting point for the day was a good 20-30 minute walk from the train station.
The next good thing is we weren't totally 100% sure where we were going so we had to keep asking people. The people were helpful and we did eventually arrive. But we arrived soaking wet because between the 4 of us there were only 2 umbrellas so we were soaked from head to toe with water by the time that we got there.

All of the new kids were dry and happy because they had arrived in a car but we were already for the day to be over. Well we started the tour by going to the place in Cagliari where the Americans bombed it during WWII. There are still the markings of the bombs because they preserved some of the broken down apartment buildings. Of course me being the only American in the group they all looked at me this point and I just smiled… I had nothing to do with it I wasn’t even born yet… I mean my PARENTS weren’t even born yet so really people its not my fault we then went to see this REALLY beautiful church that is in Cagliari. Its one of the oldest roman churches that is in Cagliari. I am in love with that church. It took them 400 years to build it when they did build it. I love it a lot! Then when we left the church... yup it started raining AGAIN so we decided to go in to the bar at the top of the bastione. It was really nice but the bar was really touristy so that wasn’t that nice but still I liked the bar it was coolly decorated. When it stopped raining we went out side of the bar to look at the view from the bastione. Which all of the new kids liked a lot. I’m used to the view but I must say Cagliari is a really beautiful city. But you do start to forget about it after a while. After we were done with the bastione we really didn’t have anything else planned so we all went to McDonald's for lunch. And after lunch we all just hung out for a while and we then went shopping and planned for the next day about going to the beach.

I decided to come back to Cagliari again the next day so that we could all go to the beach again. All of us Cagliari kids got ready, which for us that means getting lunch (at an AMAZING sandwich shop in Cagliari, La Cantina) and then going to the supermarket to buy water and something for dessert. Then we meet up with all of the new kids so that we could take them to the beach that is close to Cagliari. I mean you can’t come to Sardegna with out going to the beach at least once can you? I mean really… it’s just not right. We got a group of about 8 of the new kids and we all got on a bus and when we finally arrived at the beach all of the new kids were in aww because it was so beautiful, when us kids from Sardegna knew that this was not the prettiest beach (not even close) in Sardegna. But they were all very happy so, so were we. We all opened our lunches (and the kids who didn’t have them bought their lunches there) and we spent an amazing (HOT) day at the beach. Then the only problem was is that we didn't know where we were supposed to get the bus to go back to Cagliari so we needed up missing the bus by like 2 minutes and we had to wait till the next bus came. I was nervous because I thought that I was going to miss my train but we ended up getting a bus not much later and I made it on my train to go home. Only with the plan on coming back again the NEXT day because we had to go to a school to listen to a presentation by the dad of Cornelia.

The next day I arrived in Cagliari to receive a phone call as I’m stepping off the train that said “Kendra where are you guys??? You were supposed to be here 30 minutes ago the appointment was at 900 not 1000 you guys need to get here NOW” well we had been told the day before that the appointment was going to be at 10:00 so we all planned to meet in Cagliari at 930 and all go there together. So I had to call all of the girls so that they could hurry up and get there so we could get a bus to go to this school. When we finally got there we walked in to this meeting room and there were about 300 people in there watching us as us 8 girls sat down. We walked in to the middle of the presentation and our vice president was looking at us like she was going to kill us because we were late. All I was thinking is “well if you had told us the right time we would be here at the right time” so it really wasn’t our fault.

The presentation was really nice. It turns out that the dad of Cornelia (who is Austrian and so is all of her family) is Jewish and was living in Austria during the time of WWII and he told us about his life and what he did to help stop the war. It turns out that all of his family (mom dad and siblings) were all captured and all of them died in concentration camps during the war and that he is the only one of his family that survived the war. He fought against the war in Spain with a group of other kids that were from Nazi countries. He fought against the war because he did not support the Nazis in WWII. He also helped fight the war in France with the same group of kids. He is the only one that is alive from that group now. He told us about his life after the war about how he volunteered in South America building houses for people who didn’t have homes. We were also allowed to ask him questions which were really nice. He spoke a lot of languages: German, Italian, French, Spanish, and English. The presentation was really really nice.

All of us kids decided that we were going to go the beach again so we all took the bus back in to central Cagliari and we gave the kids about 2 hours to go do what ever they wanted because Lilla had to go buy a swim suit and me and Sofi needed to go to the supermarket to buy water again and we all needed to buy sandwiches. Most of the new kids ate at La Cantina but we bought our sandwiches so that we could eat at the beach. Me and Sofi then went to the same supermarket so that we could buy water and cookies for dessert. While we were in the supermarket we found 2 American couples that were in Cagliari for the day because they were on a Mediterranean cruise that stopped in Cagliari for one day. They were completely lost so we decided that we would help them find the Bastione. And show them the shopping streets. They were really really nice. It was nice to help them some times tourists are not very nice but these couples really were. They really seemed glad that we were willing to help them and interested in AFS and our years.

We made it to the beach and it went pretty much like it did the day before except I went in to the water this time because I had my swim suit. It was REALLY REALLY REALLY cold!!!!!!!!!!! We knew where the bus was this time so I caught my train easily and had the only thought in my head was “damn I have to go to school tomorrow”

Well the next day I did go to school (the only time that week) but right after school I found out that I was going to be sleeping in Cagliari that day because I needed to be there the next morning early and because I wanted to go to the pizza party with the new kids for there last night. Me and Nicolas and Mateo caught the train together and while we were walking to the pizza restaurant we got totally lost for like 20 minutes. But we did eventually find it which was good but still we got really really lost until we did find it. They didn’t want to ask for directions. The party was fun but I noticed that even though it was the last day of there exchange week we were still separated in to groups “Cagliari kids” and “week exchange kids” It made me a little sad because I remembered my exchange week and that we were all together in one big group all the time. The pizza was really good but we didn’t get to do anything after wards because we had no way of getting to and from the places. I stayed the night at Bruna's house which was really fun. Her family is really really nice and I like them a lot.

The next day was Sant’Efisio which is the Saint of Cagliair so there was a HUGE parade. We all met up in Cagliari so that we could watch the procession. Basically the procession was all of the costumes of Sardegna that there are (every town has a different costume) walk down the streets so that everyone can see them. Then the horsemen go down the streets. They are really really good horsemen too!! The procession was really pretty but I was a bit disappointed that what we were waiting for in the end was about 200 priests and nuns to walk down the street then the police and military caring a wooden statue of Sant’Efisio. All I was thinking was “I waited all this time for that?” it was really pretty but honestly I think they make too big of a deal out of it! Well I had to say all of my good byes then because the host mom of Bruna was going to take me to the airport to meet my parents when they got there. So I said my goodbyes to all of the week exchange kids that I wouldn’t be seeing any more until Rome. Then we walked back to the car and by this time I was really nervous because my parents would be in Sardegna in just like 30 minutes. Well we got to the airport a little late but it wasn’t a big deal because there plane was delayed. Me and my host dad were waiting for a while but then it started to seem like they weren’t going to come because all of the people that were coming at this point were from the airplane that landed after my parents. They did eventually come. I ran through the doors to hug them. The guard got mad at me but it didn’t matter. It turns out that they didn’t know there baggage would be at the international terminal and not the national terminal so they waited at the national terminal until all the baggage had been claimed and then had to go to the other one to get their baggage.

My parent’s week here will be in the next blog all. This one was about my week exchange with Cagliari. I hope you enjoyed it. I’m so sorry that its taking me longer to blog now. My time is running really short and I don’t have much time these days. Ill try to update more often!!
Ciao a tutti!!

80% through..and growing up

2009-05-09T13:40:00.008+02:00

Percentages are funny things. They are completely scientific and completely with out emotions. They do not take in to account anything except the numbers. They don’t lie to lessen to blow of what they are saying. They don’t care if they are bringing good news or bad news. They give you the way it is without emotion. Tell you how it is and you have to accept it one way or another. I've never really thought about it before but you know percentages are usually very cruel or sad things. You almost only ever see them when they are giving you bad news. When its good news you don’t need to think about the percentages because everything is going fine. You only ever look at them when they give bad or depressing news.

Like when I was just 2 or 3 months in to my experience I didn’t think of it like "I'm 20 or 30% through with my experience" I just didn't think about it at all... but now, now that I’m 80% through its all that I can think about. I can’t believe that it’s already 80% over that I only have 20% left of it now. 20 seem like such a little number when you compare it to 80. They are so disproportionate. The numbers aren’t close and they seem so much more disproportionate then 60 and 40 did two months ago. Something just changes when it gets to 80 and 20... You start to think... Wow I really only have 2 months left. How on earth am I going to fit everything that I want to do in just 2 more months? How am I going to fit it all in when time is FLYING by... flying by faster then I’ve ever felt it fly in my whole life. How am I going to fit everything in when I seem to have no more time? With all of the stuff that I still have to do with all my plans how can I fit anything else it and still have time with my friends and family for my last 3 months.

2 more months just isn’t enough time. 2 months is so short and the 2 month left mark sneaks up on you. You don’t see it coming and then one day you realize. OMG it’s already MAY... I only have 2 months left. How can that be? How can I have already been here for 8 months? It’s just not possible that I've already been here for 8 months! It’s all gone by way to fast!! How is it possible? 8 months seems like such a long time but when you’re actually living it 8 months is nothing. 8 months goes by faster then you can ever imagine. So fast that you don’t even realize that 8 months is over until you look at a calendar... When i would think.. WOW its already may I didn’t really realize that it really was may and that my time was going by this fast...

It’s going by way to fast and I don’t like that it’s going by this fast because I know that when I go back home I can’t come back to this experience like it is now. I will be happy to go home to go back to my old life but it’s still hard to think about the fact that when I do go home its impossible to go back to how my life is this year. It’s really hard to think about that. Even if I were to come back here to live. In my town and in my family it wouldn’t be the same because there are something’s that will never all be in the same place at the same time. The main thing is the fact that all the exchange students are leaving at the same time as me. We are all going back to our old lives and the chances that we will all be in the same place at the same time ever again is very small and that is really hard to think about because I know that these are some of the best friends that I have ever had in my whole life. They have done one of the hardest experiences in our lives at the same time as me and they are the only ones that will ever understand exactly how I feel about my experience and will be the only ones that I will be able to talk to about this experience for ever and not have them get annoyed.

When we all leave that Rome airport on July 5th that is the day that our lives (our Italian lives) will change forever because we can ever come back to this experience. and because this experience is just one year it makes me appreciate it even more because I have to learn that I only have one year to do all the things that I want to do and I really appreciate all of the experiences because I know that I wont just be able to do them another time any time I want because I do live very far away from them. It makes you more thankful for the time you do have here because you know its going to end but I was here for long enough to really learn to love the people and the culture. It’s kind of a catch 22. your here long enough to really learn and love the culture but when you do start to learn and love it you have to go home and you don’t know when you will be able to come back to this place that you really do love because its so far away.
While it is so far away my AFS experience makes the world seem VERY small. I know kids from all over the world from Iceland to Russia to Thailand to Chile and I can easily say that they are all my friends. How many people do you know that can say they have friends from all over the world? AFS does that for you. I and the other exchangers have been thinking about it and we have decided no matter how amazing this experience is the best thing about it is the friends you make from all over the world. You make some of the best friends of all of your life and they live all over the world. It makes the world seem very small and then because we have done this experience we are in the AFS world. And the AFS world is very tiny. I must say its one of the best worlds to live in because it has some of the nicest, open, funniest people that you will ever meet. I'm so thankful to be apart of this world and to have all of the friends that I do have because of being in this world

They say that on a 1 year experience with AFS that you normally mature 3 years in just your one year experience because the experience that you do in this year is much harder and requires much more maturity then a normal year at home with your friends and family would be. Before I got here I didn’t really believe that I could mature for three years in just one year but now that I’m almost done with this year I one hundred percent believe that it is possible to mature that much or even more in just one year.I have noticed that even I have changed over this year. When I first got here I had the mentality about college or university that was like “oh well its pretty far away its no big deal if I think about it later and decide on it later” now I’m starting to realize that it really is starting to get close and that I need to start thinking about what I want to do and where I want to do it and all of the finer details that I never really thought were that important when I was back in the states. I have also noticed that I've started to act more grown up and things like that. It’s really weird to think that I have matured so much in just 8 months when normally to mature this much it would take me about 3 years.

There is only one bad thing about this. I don’t know if it's a good thing or if it’s a bad thing to be so much mature then kids my age. While maturity is never a bad thing it will be a little strange to go back to kids my age (this year most of the kids I have hung out with have been the exchange students so they have gotten older just like I have this year so there maturity level is just about where mine is so its not like I am with kids my age) and they have the maturity level of a normal person of 17 years old when I have the maturity level of an age a little older then that. I’m afraid that when I go back (especially because I have to go back to High school not go right to college) to all of my friends I’m afraid that I wont fit in with them any more because I do feel so much more mature then I did when I left.

I know that this Is a normal fear for exchange students and the thing that scares me more then anything is that most former exchange students have a hard time going back to high school because they have matured a lot on exchange and usually they feel more mature then the kids in there grade. I’m hoping so much that this does not happen to me because I want to be able to be friends with my old friends with out there being a big difference like people tell me that there is when you come back from exchange. I’m hoping that I will still be able to be friends with my friends easily but that is something that I will just have to wait and see for when I get back.

Before I was talking about college and I thought that some of you might be interested that while I have been here in Italy I have changed my interests a lot and that I have decided what I want to do when I grow up. I know people always say “when I grow up” but when your 10 it seems sooooo far away but now that I’m 17 going on 18 it doesn’t seem that far away when I really have to go to college and decide for real what I want to do when I grow up. I have decided that I want to either go in to International business or International Economy. It sounds like kind of a dull job for must but for me it sounds amazing because I chose it because I have decided this year that I LOVE learning languages and that I really want to be able to travel with my job. I’m interested in economy and business so it’s something that I have decided that I want to do. Although I have starting to realize that deciding what you want to did is a lot easier then decided WHERE you want to do it because there are soooooooo many places you can study business and economy. There are so many places all over the world that I can study business and economy and even receive an American degree. Is so amazing. I love it so much. But I’m having such a hard time on deciding the where. I’m so torn between all the amazing universities in the world. Ill keep you all updated on what I decide.

I know that that this has been along time since I've gotten a blog out and I would like to apologize but these last few months have been very busy. In the next few days I will be sure to get out a blog about the exchange week in Cagliari and about the week that my American parents visited me in Italy. Yes that’s right my American parents were here for 10 days and ill be sure to write all about that.

Ok I’m going to get going now. I hope you are all enjoying the fact the weather is starting to get better. Ciao a tutti

Beaurcracy and Trento (Part 2)

2009-04-10T12:58:00.002+02:00

Well I have finished with part 1 so that's good if you haven't read that one then Part one precedes this one! well anyways this part is all about my week in Trento, Italy!!! (<- Click on the link to read a little bit about Trento..Thanks Wikipedia!)

Well I should start with why i chose Trento. honestly when you think of Italy you do not think TRENTO. well i did have a reason i promise. I chose Trento because i am on Sardegna and i have the sea all year round so i wanted to see the mountains and the snow.. ( i know.. ive seen snow but still i wanted to see it again i missed it). I also wanted to see the differences between the north and the south of Italy and there was the fact that i could also go to Venice if i went there and we got a day to play in the snow which i hate to admit but i do miss the snow because I'm used to having snow in the winter but this year i hadnt even seen any snow and i wanted to see it. so i chose Trento Italy because it seemed to be a place that fit in with everything i wanted from my exchange week. (then i found out later that one of my best friends (Kayla) was also going there so i was super happy!!)

Well because I'm on Sardegna (which as you know is an island) I would have to fly to Trento because there are no trains that can cross that much sea. but i found out that i wouldn't be flying alone because one of my best exchange friends, Lilla, was going to be going with me. so we bought our tickets together but we realized that the schedule for these tickets was horrible because the only plane out of Cagliari to Verona was at 750 am and the only return tickets were at 930 pm so we bought our tickets for march 7th and coming back March 15th with the plan for me sleeping at her house the night before and the night after because i live too far from the airport.
On March 6th after school i took the train (with my 9 kilo suit case) to Elmas so that i could spend the night at Lillas house. We were both very very excited because we were getting to leave Sardegna and for her it was the first time since she got here that she was leaving. I helped her get all of her stuff together and then we went to bed a little bit early because we knew we were going to have to get up early.

March 7th
Me and Lilla woke up at 530 am so that we could be at the airport by 600 - 630 am but we were pretty much all ready so it didnt take us long to get ready to go to the airport. Lillas mom dropped us off at the airport and me and lilla went in to the place where we had to check our bags in. I was a little nervous. We both successfully checked in our bags which weighed a TON and then we went through security with out any problems. the only problem was that we were way ahead of schedule. we had an hour before our plane was supposed to leave so we went in and and had some breakfast at the bar and then we finally got to get on the plane. the ride was pretty uneventful and that was nice. when we arrived in Verona we had to wait in the airport for about 3 hours until the kids from Bari got there on thier plane. When they got there a volenteer came and picked us up from the airport and drove us into Trento. All i remember about the ride is that my ears kept annoyingly popping.

Well then they took us in to our families. I had only a host mom and a host dad this time because all of their kids were either in college or they were on there own exchanges so i was the only kid in the house.. when i got there i got to put all my stuff away (but i decided i didnt really want to unpack) and got ready to go out again because they told me that there was this womans day festival thing which sounded like fun so i got ready with my host dad and we walked into town (about 15 minutes) and we walked around all of the tables that were there. it was all hand made stuff that the women had made or were making right then. it was all really cool. everywhere you looked was yellow because that was the color of the day.. Well me and my host dad stayed in the center of town for a few hours and then we went back home and we had dinnner as a family. then me and my host mom and her sister went out and we saw the woman's fair again. it was an ok day but i really wanted to get with the other exchange students!!!

March 8th
Well for most of the day we walked around Trento because I still hadnt seen the city. It is a REALLY beautiful city. i really liked it. everywhere you look you see the Alps and you can see the snow and its just so beautiful. all of the buildings are very old looking but everything is kept in really really good shape. then there's the fact that its SOOOOOO CLEAN. i didnt expect that. like in Sardegna there is spray paint all over but here no. everything is so clean. everyone puts the garbage in the trash can and keeps everything really clean. its really nice. all the buildings are really pretty colors like yellow and red and things and it makes the city look really pretty. there is also this really big river that runs through the city and that was really nice. i liked it alot. they have really nice paths all around it so that you can walk along the river. I've noticed that they use bikes way more then they do in Sardegna. Everyone here uses a bike its really nice to see actually. That night we had a dinner with AFS., so we went to this place in Trento that had a kitchen so that we could all make the dinner. well first we had a meeting which explained what we were going to be doing for the week aand all that jazz. then the host parents left and as soon as they let us get up me and Kayla took our opportunity to run like mad men at each other and give each other a HUGE hug. She arrived late so we couldnt do it before... then we all got acquainted with each other and the kids that live in Trento all the time. there seemed to be about 10 of them .. they were really nice. well we then went down stairs to make this typical Trento dish. it was like bread crumbs and meat and water and stuff. (think Thanksgiving stuffing) then you roll it into balls and you cook it. i didnt like it because I dont like stuffing and it tastes the same as stuffing. well... we all started talking to all of the other kdis that were in Trento. i had already talked to Laura (American) but there were others too. there are 3 chinese boys. but the one i talked to is named Baolong (which means baby dragon) and then there is a German girl, a colombian girl named Cris, and a Mexican boy named Manuel. we all sat down to eat dinner (which i didnt really like).. we kept talking to everyone even after dinner and they were basically kicking us out to go home because we needed to be out of there. but when you get new AFSers together all we do is talk. well we found out that the regular Trento kids had to go to school the next day (except Manuel) and that we were going to go up the mountains to play in the snow.

March 9th
We got to the train station at about 830 so that we could take cars up the mountain. everyone was already there and dressed like we do in Wisconsin when you go for the snow. i had thoroughly forgotten how much i HATE snow pants. i really really really really really hate them. they are so uncomfortable we all said hi to each other and i started talking to Kayla, Ashley (american), Amalia (brazilian) and Manuel (mexican) about how excited we were to go see the snow and how much fun it was to play in it. manuel is used to it because he lives in Trento all year long but still he was excited for us because we hadn't seen it this year. We all got in to 4 cars and we went up the mountains. ive decided that i dont really like how the mountains make my ears pop. its abit uncomfortable. plus you get a little sickish going up the mountains. on my way up i saw this sign that said Sardagna.. and i thought it said Sardegna so i thought it was really funny.. well when we got up the mountain we took our usual group shot of AFS where everyone gives there camera and it takes 20 years to do. well we took the sleds and all the stuff up the little kids mountain and we sledded for a while. We piled like 3 people on one sled and we had sled races it was alot of fun then they told us that we could get our sack lunches and that we should put on our snow shoes so we could start our walk up the mountain. I started talking to Manuel about spanish. he had heard me speak Italian and he asked me if i had taken Spanish before in the states because it sounded to him like i had. Then we started talking about the differences between Mexican Spanish and Spain Spanish are. we both agree that the Spanish from Spain sounds like the people have a lisp lol. and that we prefer the Mexician accent. it was a good thing i had someone to talk to because it was a LONG walk up the mountain. it was a steady incline until.. a really steep hill we had to climb to get to the top. we climbed it and were rewarded. there was a really really really pretty view of this tiny little town buried in the mountains. we all sat down (exhausted) and we started eating lunch. we stayed there for a while and then we started taking pictures then we wlked back down the mountain. walking back down was alot faster then walking up. lol We were all too tired to do more sledding so instead they took us to Sardagna for the landscape view of Trento. it was SOOOOOO beautiful. i loved it. we took a ton of pictures of course and then they took us back down the mountain and we all went back to our families homes.

March 10th

Well today we all got together in the morning because we were headed to this university in a small city close to Trento.Well im not going to go in to too many details because honestly the university was fairly boring. it was a research university and well one.. i hate RESEARCH papers and i know that i could NEVER do general research all my life cause i would die of boredum and then there was the other fact that they were researching things that i find really boring so i thought that for the most part the university was really boring but thats ok... After that we went to go visit a castle that was really really pretty from the outside.. I really enjoyed the castle.. we met up with a bunch of other kids that live in Trento normally which was really cool.. i liked hanging out with them.. well after we went to the castle we met up with all of the other kids which was fun.. we walked around the town for a while with them,then we went back and we had lunch with our families.. it was a very tranquil day.. but it was still fun.. i hung out with all the kids and we talked alot.. i talked alot in English with Kayla, Ashley, Manuel, and Amlia because Ashley didn't speak Italian very well yet..

March 11

Well today was the day that all of the exchange students of Southern Italy realized how shitty (excuse my words but it fits) our schools actually are. One of the local PUBLIC high schools invited us exchange students to come for half of the day to visit the school and then afterwards we would hang out with one of the classes and hang around with them and talk to some kids in Trento. So we went to the school all thinking of OUR schools in Southern italy. Well let me tell you up north they do it SOOOOO much differently. everything in the school was clean and well put together. there was no writing on the walls there were no holes and all of the heaters in the school were there and they worked. all of the windows were correct.. as in not broken.. they actually had a computer lab that worked.. in fact they had 3 computer labs that worked.. at the LINGUISTICS school they had a lab for biology, chemestry and for LANGUAGE with computers where the students can go after school to study with their language teachers.. they actually had a library.. which apparently my school has but i have NEVER seen this library and i dont even know where it is in my school. We all walked around this school with our mouths open.. literally.. we could not believe there were actually nice schools in Italy. We had thought that all the schools were like ours.. but they are not.. we live in the south.. another world.. the south and the north have different priorities.. and obviously the north thinks that the schools deserve more money.. After the tour of the school we hung out with a third year language class and they were really nice. we played "orientation" type games which were fun because the kids were nice and participated.. we all exchanged contacts and stuff.. we had alot of fun with them.

For lunch we went to the college lunch place. The comme of Trento paid for us to all have lunch there. it was really good actually. and here we met up with most of the other kids from Trento. i sat at a table that was all Spanish speaking people (manuel, Cris (colombia) and Ofo (argentina)) so i sat in silence some of the time because i dont speak spanish very well. After dinner we went to this presentation that was really cool about how we would go about going to an Italian University if we wanted to. what tests we would have to take and what we would have to do. and how Italian Universities worked for foreigners. it was actually really really interesting because there were some people that were acutally looking into going to Universities in Italy. so it was really interesting.. well after this presentation we went to the Comune di Trento.. which is usually really really boring but this time it wasnt.. the lady was really cool and we talked about all of the differences that we had from where we normally are (for example sardegna for me) and of Trento and then our countries and Italy.. it was alot of fun. then we all went out with the kids and walked around the town before we went back to our homes for dinner..

March 12 - VENICE

This was the day that i was truly looking forward too on this trip. We all met up at the train station at 830 so that we could get on the train at 9am for the 3 hour train ride to Venice. well.. when we got on the train it was kind of boring .. i sat next to Manuel and Baolong (the chinese boy) and we kinda slept for some of the ride.. then we mostly just talked because there wasnt really much to do on a 3 hour train ride.. well when we got to Venice it was SOOOO beautiful i loved it sooo much.. we walked around Venice in a big group for a while. we saw the old ghetto which is where they kept the Jews during WWII in Venice.. it was interesting but I wanted to go off on my own.. well not on my own.. but off and looking around in a small group like they said they would let us.. when we finally made it to Saint Marks Square they let us go off on our own and i went off with Amalia, Manuel, Kayla and Ashely shopping.. it was alot of fun to walk up and down the streets of Venice shopping for stuff you can only buy in Venice. sutff like the masks and stuff. i knew that i would not want to leave there. Venice was soo pretty but it is sooo easy to get lost. seriously all the streets look the same in Venice. and there's tons of little streets that aren't on the maps.. its not very map friendly. we got lost when we had to go back to Saint Marks Square to meet up with AFS to walk back to the train station. when we did finally arrive at the train station we had missed our train.. so we had to wait for another train that was about an hour later.. well when we did finally get on the train we knew we had about 4 hours so we (my group) all sat together and we talked.. we knew that when Manuel got off the train it would be goodbye for him because he was leaving the next day for his exchange week. so when he had to get off we were all really sad we gave him hugs and we made sure that we would talk again later.. well we finally got home and my host parents picked me up and i went straight to bed..

march 13

Well today we all met up to go to this art museum.. i knew that i would be pretty bored because well to be quite honest i do not like art museums.. i think they are very very boring. and well i was right. it was even more boring because it was the kind of art where the lady tells you what you should see but for the life of you all you can see is a big orange blob.. that your brain CAN NOT MAKE A BLOB IN TO A HORSE.. i just cant do it.. i thought it was just too boring.. i didnt like it. then we had lunch and ... went to another art museum which was really boring again... after the museums we redeemed ourselves by going shopping.. me kayla and ashley and amalia went shopping around Trento for a while before the going away dinner. the dinner was SOO much fun.. we were all in this pizza restuarante which was really yummy i sat at the table with kayla, amalia, baolong, and ashly and some random host siblings which was so much fun.. i wrote on kaylas bag which in the end made absolutely no sense because well honestly i have forgotten my English...lol.. i went into town with some of the kids after dinner so we could hang out a little bit more.. I cried when me and kayla had to say goodbye.. shes my best exchange friend..

March 14..

This was the day that everyone left except for Me, Lilla and the kids from Bari.. we were leaving the next day so me and ashley decided that we were going to go shopping. we had sooo much fun shopping together. i missed shopping.. thats basically all i did all day.. hahaha..

March 15

We left for the airport at about 3 pm because the Bari kids had to leave at 530.. but the only problem was that they left and then.. well.. me and lilla had 3 more hours to wait for our flight.. it SUCKED there was nothing to do and we were all really tired... so we basically slept in the airport lol.. the flight went well and we made it to Sardegna all safe and sound..

That was my AMAZING trip to Trento italy!!! I loved it SOOOOOOOO MUCH!!!

Sorry that this took me so long..

Earthquake

2009-04-07T14:43:00.004+02:00

Hey everyone,

I just thought that i would address this issue really quickly. Yes there was a very large earthquake in central Italy. This earthquake was close to Rome and it was one of the biggest ones that has hit Italy in along time.. click HERE for a link to the story.

I just wanted to let you all know that I'M OK and that no one that i knew or that my family knew was hurt in the earthquake. There are not many exchange students in that part of the country and no one that i know..

I just wanted to let you all know that I'm OK and that everything is good

and I'm working on getting out another blog about my week in Trento. I'm soo sorry its taken so long the computers have been really slow these last few weeks..

Kendra

Beaurcracy and Trento (PART 1)

2009-03-18T10:31:00.017+01:00

Hey guys!!! I know i've been kind of absent on my blog and pictures (especially pictures) for a while but I do have an excuse! I'm Really behind on my pictures i know, Im sorry, I will hopefully be getting caught up in the next few days. the last few weeks have been totally crazy because of my orientation then i had a whole bunch of stuff with AFS in the week in between the time i redeparted for Trento for a week. So i promise that I will have pictures up as soon as i possibly can.. And im going to warn you all now, I was told by a couple people that my last blog was REALLY long so ive decided to do this one in a few different parts so that it doesn't get too long:

Beaurcracy = Part 1

Trento = Part 2

Well you are all probably wondering why Beaurcracy is in the title of this blog right? it doesn't really seem to fit with the other parts of the title right? yes i know but i thought i would fill you all in a little bit about what I ended up doing the week between Carnivale/Orentation and my week in Trento.

Well around last December I got a letter in the mail from the Italian government saying that I had to come to Cagliari to the office of Immigration on March 3rd at 9:18. Yes you read right the time read 9:18. they actually wanted me to be there at this specific of a time. Well for the most part i forgot about it but when I got back from Trento my host dad said that we would have to go to Cagliari on March 3rd and thats pretty much when I remembered. So the night before we got all of my stuff ready that I would have to take: 6 Passport photos, My mail receipt, and my residence permit, and my school enrollment form. I honestly wasn't sure why they needed all of this stuff or why I was even going to be going to this place and what it was all for.

The next morning, which was a Tuesday which meant that I was skipping school so that i could go to the Office of Immigration, me and my host dad got up early because we had to leave the house at about 745 so that we could be there by 845 (because it was in Cagliari which is an hour away) and still have a half an hour to find the place where we needed to be because we had never been there before. This is earlier then i normally get up considering i normally get UP at 745 not leave the house at 745. (man im gonna have a hard time when i get back to the states lol, in the states im normally at school by 730 and up by 645 lol... its definitely going to be an adjustment for me) We got into the car and started the hour long trip that it takes to get to Cagliari. we weren't really talking that much because honestly i was still half asleep (ok possibly more then half) and it was still really early in the day and we still didn't know why exactly we were having to go to this place. We get to Cagliari finally but my host dad says that we're not really going to Caglairi really we're going to Quartu which is another city (actually bigger then Caglairi) that touches Cagliari so it took us a little bit longer to get there, It also took us a little bit longer because we got a little bit lost so we had to stop and ask for directions a couple of times but we still ended up getting there early, at about 900 am.

When we get there we see that there is a really big line of people waiting to go in. i was like why is there a line. it says 918 on the sheet for us? then my host dad said he knew there would be a line because this is how Italian government things work. well we parked the car (and it was raining really hard so we were glad we got there when we did because they were starting to let the people go into the building instead of waiting outside like they were before) and got our number "26" we knew that we would be waiting for a while. while we were waiting for our number we figured out that the people that work in these offices are not that nice. I mean i understand that they work with people that probably dont speak Italian very well all day but seriously they should at least be a little bit nicer!

We got in there and there were these 3 windows with people from this office standing behind them and they started to call 1, 2, and 3. me and my host dad started talking because we knew that it would be a while but we were hopeing that these people were quick. I started looking around the room to see who else was there, most of the people that were there were Chinese, Arabic or from Africa. In fact on all of the signs the directions were written in Italian, English, Spanish, French, Chinese, and Arabic. So almost all of the people that i saw were obviously foreigners. I did see one blond girl who seemed to speak Italian with just about the same accent as i do so i was wondering about her if maybe she was American but i didnt want to freak her out by going up to her and asking her where she was from. because one i didn't know if she spoke Italian or English and it would be really awkward just to go someone who was obviously foreign (you wouldn't be there if you weren't foreign) and ask them where they are from so i decided not to go ask.

It was taking soooo long because these people didnt seem to have the papers that they needed plus the people were really rude and didnt speak clearly so obviously these people couldnt understand. they were so mean to them. they would be talking to the people but be looking at someone else or be talking obviously way to fast. i felt so bad for the people.. the numbers were going up so fast and we started to get a bit worried because we were told if it wasnt our turn before noon we would have to come back. well back to this girl. i heard her talking on her cell phone in english with and OBVIOUS American accent so when she was off the phone i decided to go up to her and ask her where she was from in English.

She told me that she was from Chicago and im like WOW thats REALLY close to where im from. im from Wisconsin. then she's all like I love Wisconsin we go there all the time. because your from Wisconsin i can tell you where im really from because you will know.. shes like im from Rockford. im like thats like 1 hour from my house in Wisconsin. im from Monroe Wisconsin.. shes all like.. WOW me and my family go to Monroe all the time because my family loves Monroe. we go eating at Baumgardners all the time. It turns out she comes to Monroe at least 3 or 4 times a year so they can eat at Baumgardners and they know all about cheese days and everything and she only lives about an hour from our house.. it was so cool.

So i asked her how old she was and why she was in italy. she told me that she was 19 and that she lives in Italy because she married an Italian man when she was 18 and moved here with him. they live in a city just about 40 minutes from my house which is pretty cool. she was there trying to renew her visa so that she could go back to the states and visit her family. so we exchanged phone numbers and msns so that we could talk and stuff later

We kept talking for a long time because her number was 23 and mine was 26 so we both had to wait an insanely long time.. well her number was finally called so she went up to the window with her Italian mother in law and me and my host dad waited for number 26 to finally come up. she told us her visa wasnt ready yet that she would have to come back after her vacation to the states. she left then but we said we would keep in touch..

Well they finally called number 26 so me and my host dad went up to the window and the man started talking really really fast. he took my mail receipt thing and looked at it for like 10 mintues comparing all the information and then looked at my pictures and then at me and like he was making sure it was me. then i had to get my fingerprints taken by this really old machine and he was really bad at explaining about what i had to do and how long i had to hold my finger on there.. he was really rude.. i dont like him.. well then the next thing he says is that "the lady to do the other fingerprints isnt here so you have to come back on Thursday" we are like what? we live in Carbonia we have to come BACK another day????? it was so stupid. so we said our good byes.. for the rest of the day i stayed in Cagliari but my host dad went home and i took the train back.. soooo thursday..

We looked at the sheet that the man gave us on Tuesday and it said that we had to be there by 1030 on thursday so on thursday we left the house at 900 am instead because we didnt need to be there super early this time. well this time we got even more lost then we did the first time which was pretty funny to me because we already knew where we were going this time and we got more lost.. well oh well. when we finally got there there were sooo many people there but this time we didnt need a number which was good. we didnt know what we were supposed to do today because we didnt have a number so my host dad waited in a short line to ask our "friend" from tuesday what we were suppsoed to do. he very rudely told us that we had to wait in this other line (that was REALLY long) for this other door. we didnt even know what we were supposed to be waiting for all we knew is that door had not opened the entire time we were there.

Well we kept waiting.. and today there was this girl there who was about my age and she seemed to be there with an older man (just like i was) so i thought maybe it was another girl of exchange like me there with her host dad because the older man seemed to speak Italian really well but she wasnt talking to anyone so i thought that maybe she was with another program.. when they went up to the window i heard that she was on a scholarship to a highschool and that she was 17 years old so i figured she must be an exchange student as well so i figured i would ask her where she is from..

I started in Italian because i didnt know if she would understand english. but it turns out her host dad translated it into English anyway so then i just switched to english and told her that i was from the USA. she turned out to be here in Sardenga (elmas) with another program and she was from Austrialia. She has only been here in Italy for about 2 months now because shes doing her year program from Feburary to November instead of September to July.. because in Australia the school year is different because it is in the southern hemisphere. So we started talking about exchange and everything while we were waiting for this stupid room too open up but we had still not seen the door open up yet so we figured it must take FOREVER to get in to this room which was not a good thing because we were like the millionth in line..

Well finally the door opened and we saw this girl who was in all these doctors uniform and she had the thing over her mouth and gloves on so then me and Maddie (the austrailian girl) started to get worried because we didnt know why we had to go in that room or why the heck this woman was dressed like she was!! well we kept talking but it kept getting closer and closer too 1200 and we were afraid that they would tell us that we had to come back another day but i couldnt come back because i was going to leave saturday for Trento so i couldnt come back another day.. well our "friend" came out of his window and asked us if we were all in line to go in to that room and we all said yes and he asked us who was first so i started explaining to him who was where in the line.. but he yelled at me to be quiet so i just kept quiet and let him figure it out on his own..

We Me and Maddie.. some how ended up at the very end of the line im not sure how that happened because honestly we werent the last ones but ok it was fine because we were there together and it wasnt boring when we were talking so its all good.. she was going to go to Sicilly with her shcool right after i got back from Trento so we didnt know when we would be able to meet up but i told her that when we did i would introduce her to all of the AFS kdis because she doesnt know any of them and she is the only one from her program in Sardegna so she doesnt know any other exchange kids.. we exchanged numbers and everything and then finally it was my turn to go into this window.. well i went in and it was this really nice lady who just had to take my fingerprints (AGAIN) this time more professionally with the computer. it took about 10 minutes to get the prints and for her to print them out and everything.. then i went back out and told maddie what she had to do. then me and my host dad went home after we said goodbye to maddie and her family.

well i found out that im going to have to go to go back to this place to pick up my residence permit (which will be like a card) but honestly there a bit late.. i leave in 4 months and im just NOW getting my permit lol.. it's a bit useless lol.. oh well.. that would be italian red tape!!!

(this was part one.. im going to start writing part 2 right now...)

VI VOGLIO BENE!!!

Terralba, Carnivale, Half Way through

2009-02-27T15:35:00.020+01:00

I'm a little behind in this blog so i guess i should start again with apologizing because i know that i should have done this a couple of days ago i just simply did not have the time to do it because i just got back home on Wednesday and Ive been a little sick since then but anyways.... As you can all see from the title of this blog i have a lot to tell you but I'm going to try to keep it at a reasonable length because my last few posts have been very long. These last weeks have been very busy for me which is just CRAZINESS. Ill tell you about my mid stay orientation, my experience with the Italian carnival and about the fact that ....... (keep reading)

I guess that i first off have to sadly admit to myself (although I'm still secretly denying it to myself because living in denial is easier then accepting what I'm about to tell you all...Ignorance is Bliss (just kidding..only for somethings)) that my time here in Italy is sadly half way over. I reached my half way mark on February 5, 2009. It was both a very sad and happy day for me. Honestly for me personally it was a VERY VERY sad day because it means that i am half way over in my experience and that it has gone by WAY to fast for my liking. these five months seem to be going by faster then five months in my life have ever gone by. Then there is the fact that Intercultura says that the last five months goes by twenty times faster then the first five do and honestly this scares the M*RDA out of me (i love speaking a new language ;) ) I thought that i would give you all a little recap on my life here because well i am half way through my experience here in Italy and well yeah soooo recap time..

With my family everything is simply amazing. I could not have possibly gotten a better match for a family then i actually did in Italy. I got soooooo lucky with my family. I found something out while i was here. In Italy things with host students work a little different then they do in the USA. When you want to host a student in the USA you get to read there applications and pick the ones that best "fit" with your family. You get to read about there likes and about there dislikes and about what they do when there not in school and all of that good stuff and in the end you decide who you are going to be going with. but in Italy the system works a little bit different. here the volunteers read all of the applications and they choose who they want to be in there local chapter and then as the host family applications come in THEY (the volunteers) match the family's and the kids up. The family's do not know who they are getting before intercultura tells them that they are taking in an American girl for instance. I did not know this before. So i guess that my good fortune was really good fortune. I have thanked the volunteer who matched me with my family extensively already because honestly its all up to him that i got to be with my amazing family. I LOVE my family. Me and my host sister are closer then i could have ever possibly imagined being with a host sister. Its the best thing that I've ever experienced. I was never really that close to my real siblings in the states (although that is now changing, me and my sister Shannon have been getting ALOT closer lately because of our letters.. love you sis!) and then when i came here to Italy me and Eleonora are like the exact same person. its so amazing. we have one of the best relationships that i have ever had in my whole life. she is a VERY good friend of mine here in Italy and i could not have possibly asked for a better host sister. my host parents are also absolutely AMAZING. they treat me like i am there real daughter which makes me really feel like I'm part of there family not just some girl who is living with them for a year. I'm so glad that i feel like part of the family because i was afraid that i wouldn't actually feel like part of the family in my experience but now that I'm here i could not have possibly asked for a better host family then i do have this year. i know that they will be my family for life. i know that we will not lose contact with each other because honestly i feel like family when I'm with them. I love that and i LOVE my family here :D

School is still School. Ive come to the conclusion that school in the whole world is pretty much boring (sorry to all the teachers reading this you all know that verrrrrrrry deeeeeeeep down in side i secretly love school....but(shhhhhhh) don't tell anyone). Although I must admit Italian school is more boring then most. My schedule is still going good although i have made some more minor changes to my schedule since the last time that i have told you all. I have decided to drop my Spanish class (yes i know i just cant seem to make my mind up about Spanish) because it just got to be WAY to hard to keep Spanish and Italian straight. Heck even the NATIVE Spanish people learning Italian have hard time or the NATIVE Italians have a hard time learning Spanish and not mixing them up so imagine me trying to learn them both at the same time... yes basically its IMPOSSIBLE so i decided that i would drop Spanish. I've already learned more Spanish here in Italy then i ever did in the states WITHOUT even studying Spanish. when i read Spanish or when i listen to it i can pretty much understand most of whats being said or whats written because i can understand Italian. its really cool actually. but i must say its really weird to have your brain thinking in 2 foreign languages at the same time. like now when i learn Spanish i just don't think in English at all i think directly in Italian which is a really really strange thing to happen. like I'm not using my English at all just Italian and Spanish. trust me the first time that it happened i was really shocked. with other classes in school there pretty much boring too. i still cant seem to understand my math class in Italian. i know they say that math is the same everywhere that its numbers and it cant change but i just cant seem to make any connections to my "English math" and my "Italian math" maybe its my brain right now or i don't know.. its something but i still cant seem to do it in Italian. physics is impossible. I've never studied it before and its just way to hard to start something that's difficult to begin with in a new language. plus the fact that the first 2/3 months i understood NOTHING so i lost all of the base of the subject and when i did start to understand the explanation i had no clue what was going on in the math because i didn't understand the first 2 months.. its kind of a catch 22. Also school is starting to get better because I'm starting to make more friends in school. I'm starting to get closer to the friends that i do have in my class. while i still don't go out with them much i can tell that we are getting closer which is really nice. its nice to feel like i have friends again. it really sucked in the beginning of the year when i didn't have like any friends..

Then we get to the thing that is probably one of the most important parts of my exchange. Italian. i am already to the point where i can understand 100% everything and i can for the most part express myself whenever i need to get my point across. i still don't have all of the vocabulary that i would like to have and some times the grammar still kicks my butt because honestly not even the Italians can keep Italian grammar straight sometimes. they're sooooo many exceptions to every rule and there are things that only exist for one little job that you might use like once a year. its such a pain in the butt. everyone says that around half way your Italian (or other language) just "clicks" i don't know if mine has "clicked" yet. I'm hoping that it will soon because i have less then half of my time left here and i want to be able to write without the whole sheet coming back red from corrections and be able to talk and actually say sentences perfect and to have people stop looking at me like I'm stupid when i make dumb mistakes that I know are mistakes but that i stupidly make. I know that it will happen soon. everyone just says that one day it just happens. I'm hoping that my day comes soon. i really do because i want to be able to speak more like a native then i actually do now. Italian is a very easy language to pick up but after the base the grammar is KILLER i mean even in high school the kids take grammar classes because they still make mistakes with the grammar because its so complicated.

And then there's the thing that inevitably happens to all exchange students.. Maturity. I know that i have become ALOT more mature then i was when i left for exchange. I feel so much more independent now then i did when i left the USA i know that i CAN do things on my own. i trust myself enough. i freak out way less then when i got here. I've learned to go with the flow more then i did when i was still in the USA.. I've learned that i am capable of solving my own problems and that if i think about it and work it out that i can do it on my own but then again i also know that there are times when i really do need to get help from someone and after this year i am no longer afraid to ask anyone for help. I've asked more people for help in these 5 months then i ever have in my whole life combined. I've asked EVERYONE from help from how to say something to how to get somewhere to how to put minutes on my phone to EVERYTHING. honestly when i was in the states i was sometimes embarrassed to ask for help but now that I'm here I've learned that there is nothing embarrassing about asking for help when you actually do need someones help. (i don't care what guys say when your lost ASK for help!!!! you get there faster!!!) Ive learned so many things while I've been here in Italy. I've learned that i can be alot less wound up about little things and have alot more fun. I've learned that i CAN read a map and find my way around a strange city by my self (and the help from people i ask) and eventually get to where i want to go. Ive learned that i am capable of going up to random people and start up a conversation and they will not laugh in your face when you do it. I've learned to be less shy around people and to try to express myself more. I've grown up so much this year...i mean in these 5 months that its more then even i expected of myself. i know that I'm more mature even the AFS here has said that I'm more mature then i was when i got here. then there are the little things that have changed of course. like my style of clothes here (I'm a little more preppy now because that's how things go in Italy) my taste in music has slowly been changing as well.. i listen to less rap now and i listen to more house music.. its weird all of these changes happen slowly and then when you think about them (like i am now) there really are alot of the 5 months but when they are happening you do not really notice them. I'm glad of all of things that I've learned and how that i have changed while I'm here in Italy.

Over all I'm very happy with my first 5 months of my experience but I'm not going to lie when i say that i wouldn't be at all sad if the next 5 were even better. i know that they will be because i will only get closer to my friends and family and my Italian will get better but i would not change a thing with my first 5 months honestly i have had the picture perfect exchange so far this year. I'm hoping that it doesn't change. I'm LOVING my life here. yes I've had problems but I've learned how to work them out and I've concentrated on the things that were good and happy.

_______________________________________________________________

Now that I'm done with the recap of my life that I'm sure was not that interesting to you guys (sorry) I will now tell you about my Mid-Stay Orientation that i had this last week in Terralba. We had to be in Terralba on February 18-25th. We were told that this week was set up for us to talk to AFS about how our life has been these last 5 months since we got to Sardegna but in all honesty we all knew that it was also partly so that we could get together all together (all 50 of us on Sardegna) and so that we could experience the real Italian Carnival. So I'll start with what we did while we were there in Terralba, it ended up being very different then the orientation that we had in October. but different in a MUCH better way because it was SOOOOOOO much more fun then the orientation that we had in Sassari in October. I honestly did not think that that was possible but then we got to Carnival and honestly it is now a goal in my life to come back to Carnival in Italy and experience it again in my life. it was SOO much fun!!

Feb 18
We had to be at the train station in Cagliari by 11 Am so that we could all catch the 12 o'clock train to Terralba. Well because I do not live in Cagliari I had to get to Cagliari when there was a train from Carbonia. that means that I left Carbonia at 830 am and arrived in Cagliari at 930 and we (me and Nicolàs) had to sit in the train station for an hour and a half until all of the others started to arrive. let me tell you its really really boring waiting for everyone to get there especially for 2 reasons. me and Nicolas were both so tired that we did not talk at all and so the time seemed to go by even slower, then there's the fact that I'm in Italy so there 11 o clock is ALOT different then the 11o'clock in the states. Their 11 really means about 11:20 so we were sitting there waiting for what seemed to be like the LONGEST time EVER. then the others started to arrive which was nice and finally our president arrived and we started buying our tickets. we all bought our tickets together because if you buy more then 13 tickets together then you get a discount which is nice. i was put in charge of collecting the money and getting the ticket (why idk...they told me to do it) We all got on the train but there was only one problem. the train was VERY full and so we couldn't sit together. not normally a problem but we only had one ticket and the fact that not everyone knew where they had to get off was a little bit of a problem. the train went by really fast and on the second to last stop a whole bunch of other kids got on that we had not seen in a long time so it was really really nice to see them. We got off at the right station and all of the other kids were there (we were the last to arrive) and we all had amazing hello's because we had not seen each other in such a long time. it was SOOOOO amazingly nice to see everyone that i hadn't seen in a long time again. i missed these kids more then i ever thought that i ever would. i love them all. exchangers are the BEST! we then all took a bus in to Terralba so that our families could pick us up. that's right we were staying in family's for this orientation and not at a hotel. no one knew anything about there families yet but when i got on the bus the president of AFS Sardegna told me my family couldn't make it to pick me up so they were sending someone else. so i got my bag and there was this 20 or so year old guy named Nicola there to pick me up and take me to my house. It turns out that i had a Mom, a dad, and 2 little sisters. One of them was Ilaria and she was 10 and the other one was Laura and she was 8. We hung out all together for a while and the girls showed me around the house and told me who all the people in the pictures were which was nice of them. they are soooooo cute. then with AFS we had to go listen to the government of Terrable welcome us. so we all went there and honestly it was really boring. plus another thing they KNOW there are 50 of us and they still only gave us 30 chairs.. oh well.. we listened to them welcoming us for about 30 minutes and then we were told we had to be at orientation at 930 the next morning. So i went back to my house and they told me how to walk to orientation the next morning then we all went to bed.

Feb 19
I woke up in the morning so that i could have breakfast with my family before the little girls went off to school and the dad went off to work. then i finished getting ready and at about 900 am i started walking (only 10 min walk but i wasn't totally sure how to get there) and i got there really early but i found it ok which was nice. i found out something. the people in Carbonia are used to seeing me with red hair because no one turns around like I'm an alien anymore. but people in Terralba aren't used to it so i got a lot of stares when i walked through town because everyone turns to look at the "red hair" its such an oddity here.. its really quite funny actually. Well in the morning we had "orientation" which turned out to be pretty boring. we got to know all of the new kids that came on Jan 31st. there are 6 new ones in my chapter and 4 others in Sardegna so they all stood up and introduced themselves in Italian (they are all really good) and we had some time to talk to them for a while which was nice while the volunteers got all organized and what not. then we started to have orientation which consisted of talking to the volunteers about all of our problems that we have been having so far. we talked about families and about school just like we did in Sassari 4 months ago but we had way better answers now because we have actually have time to get used to everything and learn more about Italy. then we had an "Italian lunch" which basically means that we had about 2 hours to have lunch. We all ate our sack lunch and walked around Terralba for a while we found this really really cute little cafè that has everything. it has ice cream, cafè stuff as well as homemade pastas and stuff. there was room for all of us so we all basically went in there and hung out drank and ate and had an amazing time (this ended up being our hang out of the orientation) we eventually had to go back to orientation where we sang happy birthday to Nicolas who turned 18 today. he got happy birthday sang to him in about a million different languages which was really cool. its so fun to hear it in so many different languages. then we went back to our orientation but we were all making plans to have a party afterward for his birthday. so we all went home to dinner and then everyone re-met up at the bar (which means cafè in Italian) at about 830. Nicola's family had bought him a cake and then the bar bought us some traditional carnival pastas which are REALLY amazing..Zeppole... we all just hung out and ate there for a couple hours. it was alot of fun. I'm sure for him it was a little bit of a boring birthday but it was pretty fun considering the circumstances. we all left the bar at midnight because that was are curfew from AFS for the week. i had to walk home (i walked home with some other girls) and then went RIGHT to sleep because we had another day of orientation to do tomorrow.

Feb 20
I again woke up today so that i could eat breakfast with the little ones before they went off to school and then i continued to get ready but today i knew how long it took me to get to the orientation spot so i didn't leave quite so early today. well today orientation was a lot less structured and we did a lot less. First we had to fill out this survey about our time in Italy so far. i wrote SOO much. i wrote about 2 pages full of only 10 questions worth of stuff.. yeah I've found that i like to write a lot (although I'm sure you have all noticed you read this book every time i update ...LOVE you all) and that when i get started i really cant stop. then we started the "personal interviews" i didn't really need one so when Andrea asked me i said no i don't really need one and he said if there was time that we would do it. then we all started to make our little personal posters. which we had to write our name, Italy 0809 and then draw our flag. i always dread when someone says.. oh DRAW your country's flag.. the USA had to go and make a really complicated flag with 50 STARS and 13 STRIPES its horrible. and takes FOREVER to draw.. while everyone was working on there little posters we also had to make this HUGE banner for our year.. this girl named Mia started writing "AFS Intercultura" on the top of it because she draws really really well so she started writing that and then we had to get everyone to go over there and draw there country's flag on the big banner. well no one else stepped up to organize anything so eventually i stepped up and started telling people they needed to do it.. and reminding them and showing them where and repeating 10 million times what exactly they had to do because they don't seem to listen the first time you tell them, damn teenagers. I've come to find out I'm pretty good at organizing things :D. eventually we got all of the people over to the banner to start drawing their flags on the paper.. everyone naturally wanted to make there flag really really big (but the you could only do the size of a sheet of paper). we didn't quite finish it but it looked SOO pretty!! then we all went home so that we could have some dinner. then guess what we did.. that's right we all went back to the bar-cafè place again so that we could all hang out another time ( all together we spent a TON of money there)

Feb 21
In the morning I first went to the carnival with my little sisters at there school.. the whole school dressed up as scare crows and they did a circle around Terralba.. it was a lot of fun. then in the morning with AFS we had to go around and sell raffle tickets for AFS. We all split up in to 4 groups and we had to go around Terralba (which is the size of Monroe) and sell them to the shop owners and the people in the street. well because there were 50 of us in this really tiny town we went around the whole town very very quickly so it didn't even take the whole 2 hours to sell out all the tickets to raise money for AFS. Then we all went home for lunch then back out to the bar again.. haha we spent like ALL of our time at this bar while we were there. it was actually a really cute little place. there are these tables that are all glass and have money from all over the world in them.. its really really really cool i loved those tables.. its inspired me to save money from every place that i go so that i can save the money it seems like such a cool thing to save. well we had an AFS party that night. We all had to go to this place that was outside of Terralba (I saw my first cows in Sardegna lol) so that we could have the party. It was for all of the kids, volunteers, family's of Terralbe and then if your real family wanted to come them too.. so when we got there we were obviously there before the party started so we were all practicing our ... TALENT SHOW ACTS.. yes AFS seems to think that we are all very talented which is wrong. we are not talented and we weren't in October I don't know why they think that we are now.. i think they just like a good laugh with the talent show to be honest with you. we also had to finish our banner which was WAY better then all of the ones from the other years.. i was proud of us!! when all of the people started to arrive we started talking to all of the families and we listened to all of these people talk which turned out to be pretty boring and they just kept talking and we were all STARVING! so at about 930 they finally let us eat. we were all starving.. i just walked around and talked to all of the people that were there.. the family of Mateo was there so i talked to his brothers for a while because i knew them before hand i talked to the family of another boy in my chapter then of course the other students.. we then did our talent show.. all of the people did a pretty good job. there were a whole bunch of songs (in a TON of languages) there were some kids who danced some who did a little skit and then my group who sung the chorus of Hakuna Matata in like 6 different languages: German, English, Hungarian, Spanish, Russian and Italian.. it was alot of fun.. after the talent show most of the families left and all the kids started dancing around for a while which was fun then we all went home at around 1 am..

Feb 22 - CARNIVALE
Well today we had the morning free but my family decided that we were going to go to Oristano (another city) to see these horses. i had no clue why these horses were so special in Oristano for a while ( i figured it out later on Tuesday when we went and saw them in action) when we got there the horses were soo beautiful and sooooo fast.. they are trained to run REALLY fast. like the day before some stupid man had walked in front of where they were running and he almost died because of getting run over by these horses. well it turns out that the riders have to wear these special costumes and that they have to wear masks.and apparently when they ride the horses they are not allowed to touch the mask.. i'll explain why and what they do a little later when i actually figured out what they did lol.. well when we got back we went to lunch with my family (of Terralba) we had to do lunch quick because I had to be at the orientation place so i could get ready for the parade of carnivale. it was a good lunch.. we had baby pig again.. soo yummy.. idk i personally think the meat of it is too soft i don't really like it that much i prefer pig or cow..the grown up ones.. but maybe that's just me. anyway we had to all dress up like pirates for the parade. (Italians have carnival to scare away winter and the bad stuff of the year past and to bring in good things and the warmth of the new year.. and only good things.. that's why they wear masks.) well when i got there i was one of the only ones that was there yet (cause i went by my time and actually arrived on time lol) When everyone finally arrived ,some as late as 2 hours, well we eventually all got dressed to be pirates and took a bunch of pictures of course because when AFS kids are together that's basically all we do, we take pictures and more pictures and more pictures (i have about 600 from that week) then we went outside and there weren't that many people yet so we were all a little confused as to where the "thousands" of people they were talking about were. then they told us that the "Sfilata" started at 500. which made me wonder why we all had to be there at 2 oh well that's Italian organization.. we went near our float , which was a big boat that had our big banner that we had made the night before and then all the banners from the years past, there are some really funny ones but ours is definitely better then the other ones, there is one on there that the Americans drew the American flag wrong. they had the blue square on the right and side and not on the left. i was embarrassed for them.. how sad is that i mean i know its complicated but its not THAT complicated. We started walking with our float.. well for this night our float didn't have any music so they let us go in front of our float so that we could dance along with the music of the other floats.. because when you are in the "Sfilata" that's what you do. you go in your group and you dance around to some really really loud music and you throw confetti and spray that fake foam all over the place, its actually really fun. but they wouldn't let us mingle with the other groups because it was dangerous for us because basically everyone was REALLY REALLY drunk there.. they were sooooo drunk.. we weren't but all of the other people were.. the "Sfilata" ended at about 930 and we all had to go back to the place that we changed so we could pick up all of our stuff. we were then told to be careful and be smart but that we were allowed to go out until midnight. well basically we all went to our bar for a little while but then we decided that we were hungry so we went to find a pizza place were we could buy pizza.. it was really nasty but that's ok. we then pretty much went and danced and had a good time till about midnight and then we all went home.

Feb 23
During the day we had nothing to do because AFS had not organized anything for us because they assumed that we would all be a sleep.. that's pretty much was true.. but some of us got up at a reasonable hour and we all met at the bar at round 1130 for some coffee and some snacks and to talk and look at the pictures from the night before. we then had to go home for lunch and we all met back up at the bar after lunch .. yes i know we seemed to spend ALL of our time at this bar but what can i say it was really nice and the people were really nice and it holds all of us so that's where we spent most of our time.. later in the day we had to go to another town that is close to Terralbe "Marrubiu" so we could listen to there town council talk to us and thank us for being there and basically it was really really boring just like all of the other days that we were there at that town council.. after the town council we all decided to go get pizza together in Terrallba.. we all rode the bus back to Terralba and one of the people from Terralba knew where there was a pizzeria that would hold us all so we all went there and they were like shocked when we told them we were in 30 so that we needed more places. we waited outside for a while while they got it ready then we went in and we all ordered our pizza.. it was really really yummy..when we were done we all walked back home to go to bed because we had an incredibly long day tomorrow

Feb 24
Well today we had to wake up early so that we could all get on the bus to go to Oristano. This is where i will tell you what those horses and riders do. OK basically once a year during carnival Oristano holds this festival.. There are about 40 horsemen (who they call knights) who where these really extravagant costumes and masks (with really tiny eye wholes) and they ride on these really really fast horses (who are also elaborately decorated) and they have a sword that's really really thin. they start at one end of this long path they they ride REALLY REALLY fast and there is this star with a small whole in the middle of it hanging from the air.. they have to try to stick their sword through the hole in the star while they are running SUPER fast..(their like a blur) in these masks they can barely see out of.. basically its really really really hard to do because you are going so fast and you have to aim just right.. there are only about 40 in all of Sardenga who are good enough to do this. well basically we went to Oristano so that we could watch this. we got there a little early so we first went around a little bit but there were a ton of people.. then when it started we all started to watch.. first all of the horsemen went by why they read off the names and the costumes were sooo pretty..then when they actually started it i could not believe how fast the horses ran.. they went soooo fast.. we watched it for about an hour and a half.. about 6 guys got the star while we were there.. Nicola (a volunteer) told me that when these guys returned to their towns they will be treated like kings .. we then all got back on the bus to go to Terralba to do the Sfilata again. we had all brought our costumes with us. we went back and quickly changed (we did it really quick) and we went out.. we were a little late this time so we were the last group in the parade.. this time our thing was a truck so we had music this time.. they hooked up the ipod of the Colombian boy and we danced to his music.. tonight AFS was alot more lax about people coming into our group and us going into other groups which was nice.. we were all sooo tired at the end of the night that we all met up at the bar and drank some coffee and then we went home and slept.

25 Feb
I woke up today a little late around 10 because i was really really exhausted from this week.. i got all of my stuff together and made sure that my room that i was in was all nice and clean and everything and that i remembered everything that i needed to bring with me and that i didn't leave anything behind.. at 130 my family got home and we ate lunch together and then my little sisters and my host mom took me to Marrubiu where the train station was at 2 pm.. all of the exchange students said our good byes which was 35,468,465,416,846,354 times harder this time then it was back in October.. we were soooooooo sad to leave.. tears were a sure thing and we just hated saying good bye.. we are all so close that at the end of this experience its going to be so hard to leave the Sardegna kids but most of all for me the Cagliari-Iglesais kids.. well the Cagliari Iglesais kids were the first ones to leave so we had to get on our train.. then about 10 minutes later 4 kids from Guspuini got off and so we had to say good bye to them which was really really sad too.. then it was just us Cagliari Iglesais kids left on the train.. we were all talking about how hard it is going to be to say good bye to everyone at the end of the year.. because we know we wont all ever be together again.. not like this.. it was one of the saddest.. no it was the saddest moment of the week... on the good side.. i got back to my real family who i was sooo happy to be with again. i had missed them all soo much!!
______________________________________________________________

So this is my experience with Orientation, Carnival and being half way through.. I'm sorry that its so long but i had so much to say.. then in just a matter of days i will be re-departing for a week in Trento and i will be living with yet another family for a week. I'm looking forward to this SOOO much for multiple reasons.. 1.. i get to see Venice 2... I get to see my best AFS friend Kayla from the states who just happens to be going to Trento too 3.. my best friend from Cagliari is also going to Trento with me 4... i get to see the alps and the snow.... basically I'm super excited.. that will be my next blog post.. love and miss you all!!

I'm Proud to be an American

2009-02-03T14:59:00.019+01:00

Its time that I write a serious blog. While I'm still having a very good time here in Italy I have recently had a bad experience here. I am American and I am very proud to be an American. but i would be lying if I told you that me being American has not affected my exchange this year. While in a perfect world me being American would not have any affect at all on my exchange but unfortunately we do not live in a perfect world. We live in a world where it has become popular or "fashionable" to hate/bash Americans and America.

I have found out that being in Italy has made me alot more proud to be an American and alot more ready to defend my country. I have now lived outside of the United States and I realize that we have so many good things that the bad things seem like nothing. That we actually do have alot more then other countries do. that we have alot more opportunities then alot of people in the world. I've realized that I love my country and I really am proud to be an American and that i was really lucky to be born here. before i came to Italy and saw that what people said about how lucky we were i never really believed it was like that but now i see how much i am proud of the United States of America and I'm proud to be an American. But I have also found out that people don't always like the USA/Americans. that they don't think that we should be proud of our country because of how our government is right now. But what would they like Americans to do? live in continual shame and apology for Bush's Actions in Iraq? Be embarrassed and humiliated when ever someone asks us where we are from? is that what everyone wants? and if we were to start doing that then "those Americans have no pride in their country how can they even call themselves Americans?" I am proud of my country! I may not like what is going on with the war right now but i am proud of my country and what it was founded on. I'm proud that all of the founding fathers respected man and acknowledged that we are capable of and have the right to look after ourselves and are not the children of a governmental machine. That our government helps us increase our dignity not take it away from us. I'M proud that my country started on these morals and that they still exist today. I would rather have people disgusted that I was proud to be an American then being ashamed every day of being American because i am NOT ashamed of being American. I guess its time that I tell you why I decided to write this blog.

About 2 days ago I was in school and me and one of my "friends" were talking and she started about how the USA is so horrible for being on Israels side in the war in Gaza and she was saying how we were so wrong to be for them and all of this stuff. I was so surprised because before she was always really nice to me and never had a problem with me being American. then she started saying that we have never done anything good in all of our existence at which this point i was really mad. I told her that i would like to see how the world would be without all of the Americans and America and without all of the things that we have done for the world and have contributed to the world. after this she goes on to tell me that she would rather live in a world where America didn't exist and neither did the Americans. that she believes the world would be better off without us. At this point I asked her "who would you rather be your WORLD leader? Hitler or Stalin? do you want to be in communist Russia or in Hitlers Germany? because without the USA there is a good chance that one of them would have done ALOT more damage to the world then they did do in there respective times" she didn't respond to me about this but she went on to say that we were horrible people. that we were hungry for war all the time. who thinks its ok to just go to war with other countries because we want to. that we only want to kill people that we think we are the worlds police force. but we have no right to be and the people shouldn't even be proud to be Americans that we should be ashamed of our country and our government. Well after this happened i was obviously very hurt. These are MY people MY country and MY home that she was insulting. I have thought alot about why people think this and give Americans such a hard time . these are the reasons that i have come up with along with alot of other exchange students/ volunteers from around the world.

We should get the first and most obvious reason out of the way first. Bush and the Iraq war. NO one better then Americans know how unpopular Bush was and how some of his actions were very unpopular. yes we know that. Yes we are a government of the people, for the people and by the people so that makes some people think that when they think of Americans they only think "Bush, i hate Bush so i hate all Americans!" that's not right. not all Americans voted for Bush, not all Americans like Bush, and not all Americans agree with his actions! A quote from Pedro Rodrigues (a host dad in Portugal) " A second line of defense of anti-Americanism comes from "the actions of Bush and America..." Well it may not look that way, but before I have heard this one I heard the ones about Clinton, Bush Sr. or going back in time Reagan... and I am sure that the same people who are now hailing Mr. Obama, will soon be justifying there anti-Americanism on the "actions of Mr. Obama". " I completely agree with him. Bush was just something to justify there actions. Then there is the fact of the Iraq war. and about that i have another quote from Pedro Rodrigues "Yes the Iraq war was a mistake.. but life is full of mistakes and one mistake does not justify tons of others... I am always appalled as to what people want to believe... I still get shocked at the supposedly intelligent people who believe some of the most ridiculous conspiracy theories, who blame 9/11 on "American arrogance" (and I suppose it was also probably the fault of the English, German, French, Italian and Portuguese,... victims at the world trade center)" So while yes I do believe that in the last 8 years the USA has made some bad choices and has made some mistakes in its policies i do not believe that these mistakes justify all of the world hating us and bashing us because one mistake does not justify others.

There is no denying the power that the United States has in the worlds politics/business/money and in almost every aspect of the world together. we do have alot of power in this world. we are one of the first countries in need turn to when they need help and we are one of the first countries to help when a country really needs it. but because of all of this power has come alot of eyes watching our every move. in every country in the world if you watch the news you will more then likely hear something about the USA. We have countries all over the world watching our every move, our every decision but all of these eyes that are watching us seem to be blind when ever we do something good. or just chalk it up to "well they just did what they had to do. what anyone would have done" but when heaven forbid we do something that is unpopular, make a decision that is not good for everyone involved, or our country does something that is bad for someone else all of these little eyes are all wide open. They do not seem to register the things that we do do that are good. And what's even worse then that they seem to forget all the good that we have done in the past. We have done alot for the world in the past (and even now). They forget that their history (not every country but a fair few) would be alot different for the worse if the USA had not existed. They only think about the bad stuff that they are hearing about now and forget that even just as much as a generation before they were relying on us to keep them safe. Pedro Rodrigues " Unfortunately we Europeans owe America and the Americans a great deal. they have fought and spilled their blood for us, against Nazi oppression, Soviet oppression and now Muslim fundamentalism, because we ourselves were (and are) too weak, too lazy or too cozy to do it ourselves... many felt more comfortable ranting for peace, forgetting history teaches us that peace has to be won, looking the other way at the evidence the peace movement was infiltrated by the KGB for its own purposes.. Were it not for Mr. Reagan's vision and determination, they would have preferred to be blackmailed by the Soviets and the SS-20's" This is true. there are graveyards all over Europe with more American bodies in them then there are the people native to that country because Americans have spilled there blood to save their country, their people. we were NOT doing that for ourselves we were doing it for the better of the world!

With all of this news that we do get and have gotten we have become the worlds scapegoat for almost everything that is bad or wrong in the world. everyone always wants someone to blame for problems and right now in this world people are blaming the USA for there problems, whether its because of our government, because of the war in Iraq, because of the economy, or because we didn't do something that they wanted us to do or didn't help them in exactly the way that they wanted us to help them in. When the whole world is watching you and wants something from you it is impossible to please everyone at the same time!

The rest of the world not only gets our news about serious things such as the government and the economy but about our movies and our pop culture as well. In Italy 95% of the movies are from the USA. they have our movies and our music. they have the news about our stars and think they are like a normal American. they watch our movies and the shows on MTV and think that all of the Americans are like this. Europeans and the rest of the world have so many stereotypes for Americans and about Americans because of what they have seen on TV, heard from a friend of a friend, or had an experience of meeting one American. most if not all of these stereotypes are 100% wrong. people in Europe tend to think that Americans are all dumb, fat, over religious/conservative rude people that don't speak the local language or have respect for the local traditions. here is yet another quote from Pedro Rodrigues " First of all let me say I find it disgusting that anyone can excuse anti-American sentiment on some " fat loud American who misbehaves and cannot speak the local language or has no respect for the local tradition", because for any one of those i have encountered, living in a holiday destination, i have also in countered more of the " fat loud English, German, French, Spaniard who misbehaves and cannot speak the local language or has no respect for local tradition", and believe me even more of the "fat loud Portuguese who misbehaves and CAN speak the local language and still has no respect for local tradition"... In fact, how many of you can speak most of the other languages and would not get by in English when visiting another country? why is it that it is ok for us to do that, but not if the person is English or American?" and another one from him " Yes, many Americans speak only one language, but really living in a continental country, for most people there will never be the need to speak other languages as others have put it. Other big continental countries, like Brazil, China or Russia do not fare better. Yet contrary to popular belief, Europeans do not fare that much better... the Spanish are the worst linguists (I had a company in Spain, and we initially required our staff to speak English, as we did in Portugal... well we soon faced a choice: hire people who could speak English or hire people with technical training, both was impossible!...) and yes most of my foreign customers were always impressed with the fact that we had English speaking technicians in Portugal because in Spain they never could.. as for the French, ditto, almost as bad.. and the English, even worse. the Germans have improved alot in recent years but at governmental level, they do not speak anything other then German... Italians ... let me tell you I learned Italian because i simply could not understand when my Italian friends spoke English; it was that bad!!!" and another " The idea Europeans speak several languages is a myth..other then the Scandinavians and Dutch (and you need to add a generation factor in here.. under 45 maybe) not that many Europeans speak a foreign language. ie English. Those that speak several languages are from countries with several official languages, such as the Swiss... English, French, Spanish, Italians and even Germans above a certain age are really poor linguists...I speak from experience having worked in the field of simultaneous interpretation for several years..." Well i agree alot with him but now i will give you my take on the matter. First I will share a joke i have heard that they have in Switzerland "A person who speaks 3 languages is trilingual, a person who speaks 2 languages is bilingual and a person who only speaks 1 language is American!"

They are all convinced that we think our language is so much better then other people's because we don't bother to learn anyone else's language. while in the USA yes our languages do need to improve in our schools. the average American will probably never encounter a situation when they will need to speak another language. Learning a language in school is completely different from speaking it on the street. Probably 90% of my high school gets a passing grade in school for there foreign language...but none of them actually speak the language. Because honestly how are they going to? once you leave your classroom what are you going to do with that language? In the United States it would be a big waste of time and money for all of our students to learn another language to fluency. in 2006 only 12,333,428 Americans had passports (there are over 300,000,000 Americans) and that's just do to the need for passports to go into Canada and Mexico Why should you teach someone something they are never going to have a need for? America is ALOT different then Europe we don't have 23 official languages like Europe does. in all of north America we have 3 official languages (English, French and Spanish) with a MUCH bigger land mass! There is almost no use for normal Americans to learn other languages when they will more then likely never need it. From where I live in the United States i have to drive more then 30 hours to get to a non-English speaking country (Mexico). Our states are the size (and some even bigger then) a European country. If in the states the languages were something like, Illinoisan, Minnesotan, Ohioan then yes i would probably speak them because i would need to to communicate but they are not. IN the united states we speak English. every state speaks English. I do not need to know how to use another language to exist outside of the United States. Most Americans wont be involved in international affairs (and most of them wont even travel out side of the country during there lives becuase for us it costs so much to travel to a place that speaks another language). When I look around my high school ... how practical would it be that we all learned Chinese? most ordinary people will be nurses or teachers, work in offices or as electricians and mechanics, etc etc. how is it practical that these people become proficient or fluent in a foreign tongue if they'll never step foot outside of the country? even though English isn't the only language in the world, it's the only language in most Americans' worlds. But when we do go over seas and use English just like ALOT of other tourists from all over the world because in case you haven't realized by now it is the most studied (second) language in the world. There is a good chance where every you go people will speak English but Italian? German? not as big of a chance. but yet if an American only speaks English it's because they're ignorant and don't want to learn but if [ insert nationality here] only speaks [insert language here] its becuase they haven't had the opportunity/reason to learn...why is that fair? why is it fair that we get all of the gruff because we are Americans? Even among exchange students I got looked down upon for only being able to speak English (and they are some of the most acccepting people in the world) but the Chinese who could only speak Chinese were ok, the Japanese who could only speak Japanese were ok..how does that work???

(****Disclaimer**** I am in NO way saying that learning a language isn't important because I'm an exchange student i obviously think that it is. but I'm simply stating the fact why the average American does not have the NEED to be fluent in say Swedish. That English is the only language in most average Americans lives)

There also seems to be a HUGE generalizatoin when it comes to Americans. "Americans are all from America and they are all the same with exactly the same culture" We are a country the size of Europe and i know that all Europeans would get mad at me if i said "yes all Europeans live in Europe so they are all the same and all have the same culture" They would be pissed. the Italians would be pissed if i called them the same as the French the French would be mad if i said they were the same as the Germans just like the Germans would be mad if i said they were the same as the Finns. yet they don't seem to get the difference when they say that all the Americans are the same. The East is VERY different from the West. the South is VERY different from the North. you can't group that many people and make generalizations about them and have to be right about everyone. They don't seem to grasp just how big the USA is. That it IS in fact as big as Europe.

One last quote by Pedro Rodriguez "If you look at all these stereotypes and if you were to substitute American for Jew or black or Asian or Muslim, its suddenly no longer acceptable for those same people who promote these stereotypes"

I was really hurt by what my "friend" said to me two days ago but it did help me realize how much i loved my country and how much i would defend it. but over all it hurt to hear these things about my country about the people in my country. the USA is my birth place. it is my home.

I AM AMERICAN AND I AM PROUD TO BE AMERICAN

ps. sorry this was so long and ranty!

Not all italian food is amazing (but most of it is)

2009-02-02T19:47:00.008+01:00

While I know the sterotype in Italy is that all of the food is pasta and all of it is to die for and in all honesty i thought this too before i actually got to Italy and LIVED here. The Italian food was one of the reasons that i chose Italy. I knew that i liked pasta and that i would be able to find things to eat that i would like. because if any of you knew me before i came to Italy you will know that i was a very picky eater before i got here to Italy. That it was hard just to get me to try new things so i figured that if i came to Italy that i would only eat pasta and that it wouldn't be a problem..right? I mean if i went to Russia one of the main dishes there is cabbage soup how on earth would i survive on that? so i chose Italy thinking "oh god i love italian food i'll be JUST fine. i bet i wont even find anything i don't like" While if you were to just come here for vacation you could probably only have pasta and have it be some of the most amazing pasta that you have ever eaten in your whole life. I'm also not saying that the "gross" food tastes all that bad either but Italians have a different view on what is ok to eat and what looks or seems to gross to eat then the i have in the usa.

I dont really know how to explain this and it might turn out that i have just lead a really sheltered food life in the USA but here I go. Before I came to Italy I had never eaten (or really even seen) the meat that i was about to eat with the head/feet still attached. When we go and buy meat at the grocery store they kindly cut off the head for you so you can take it home and pretend that it wasnt really a living thing just something that tastes good. I was quite fine with this technique to be completely 100% honest with you. I liked not having to stare my food in the eyes when i went to cut in to it. Well in Italy that is not really the case. In Italy, well not really in Italy but in SARDEGNA, a very traditional meal is baby pig. I have personally before I came to Italy never really eaten baby ANYTHING. but in Sardegna it is completely normal and almost all of the families on Sardegna have baby pig for Christmas dinner and then at random times in the year.

Let me explain. They do not just cook the meat of this pig. they cook the WHOLE thing over the open the fire.. they buy the baby pig whole and they slice right up the stomach through the bottom of the chin (so the head is in two pieces) so that the pig is completely open. They then stick a big pole up through the bottom of the pig and out of the neck so that they can slowly roast this pig over the open fire usually in the kitchen. I have honestly never seen this in my whole life in the USA (apparently there are pig roasts but i have never been to one or honestly never even heard of cooking the entire animal)

When you go to eat this pig you would think that you would normally cut of the head and throw it away right? well no. They cut off the head but then 2 "lucky" people get to eat the head. What is on the head to eat you may ask? well they find things to eat. Like for example: The meat of the cheek is said to be the best meat on the pig, they eat the brain, the tounge, the eyes!!! I didnt even know you could eat eyes before I came to Italy!! They do eat the eyes. That is one thing that grosses me out even more then anything else. I mean how can you eat the eyes of something. its not meat. and i just have these nasty flashbacks to when i dissected a cows eye in biology class and it gushed and was really nasty. i could not imagine putting that in my mouth and actually chewing and swallowing. I still gag when i get a piece of meat fat in my mouth. Needless to say they did not get me to eat eyeball.

While i didnt eat the eyeball they did eventually get me to try the baby pig head. I did end up trying the cheek meat (which to me tasted just like all of the rest of the meat) and i tried the BRAIN!! you are all probably thinking "kendra? eat brain? NO way i dont believe it" but believe it people. your kendra ate pig brain. and i even have pictures to prove it!! i have pictures of me eating brain. i never thought that i would say that!!! but YUP YUP YUP i did it i tried the brain!!

They also have these things called "little birds" I have only eaten 2 kinds of bird in the USA: chicken and turkey. well in italy they also have these "little birds" when i first saw my papà cooking them i was like "OMD CHE COS'E' perchè tu stai cucinando uccellini?" (OMG WHAT IS THAT? why are you cooking little birds?) the reason that i knew that they were little birds is that they still had there little heads and their beaks and wings and feet and EVERYTHING they were still compleetly intact. he told me that these were italian favorites. that if you bought them in a store it was like 100€ for just 10 of these TINEY little birds. meaning you would need at least 20 to make a meal for one person!! but that he saves them from when he shoots them when he goes hunting. I told him that i had never even seen them before that but i would try it when it got time to come to dinner. well i found out that you actually have to pull off the head off of these little birds and crack the skull open with your teeth. I was in aww because this is something i would have never in my life thought that i would do but i was determined to try it. so i did. i know you probably dont believe me but i have pictures!!

They also eat ALOT of vegetables here in italy. I have lived in Italy for 5 months and i can still not bring myself to eat a green olive or a tomato. i know. two very typical Italian things but i can just not eat them. they are just SOO gross. i just dont like them. Also. My family LOVES artichoke! I had never eaten an artichoke before i got to italy. I have been very good at trying everything here in italy but i have tried artichokes: cooked, raw, baked on a fire, in lasagna, and in the oven. and i still dont like them. they well to put it simply they still taste like artichokes.

Over all I LOVE the food in italy it is sooo amazing. although i think i have had more pasta in these 5 months then i have in my whole life times 5. I have a feeling when i get back im not gonna eat it for a while lol. Italian food is really good just some if it is VERY different then it is in the USA. And you all have to promise me. if you do ever come to Italy try something a little more exotic then pasta every day! there are really good Italian dishes that are not pasta!

Vi Voglio TANTO Bene!!!

New years twice and the befana

2009-01-14T19:57:00.003+01:00

Well since I have Christmas done I thought that I would get started on my blog about New Years...just 2 weeks after the fact.. I'm sorry that I've been so laid back on getting my blogs up I promise that I will start being better about it. The holidays were just kind of hectic and well I'm going to use that as my excuse and not the fact that i was a little lazy and didn't feel like writing almost 3000 words (that's how long the natale post was) on to the computer. so here is what i did in on New Years and what the heck the Befana is.

Well me and ele went to the party that my brother was hosting in Sant'antioco. I invited Lilla to come to the party with as well. We ended up getting to the party about 7:30 ish and there were already people there but because me and ele had slept in that day pretty late and we had to go get Lilla from the train station before we went to Sant'antioco none of us were ready yet so we had to get ready at the beach house. In that house there are really 2 houses. Our house that is upstairs then the house of my Nonna which is downstairs and that is were we were going to get ready and where we were going to be sleeping. Well there was only one problem with that. It was locked and the only key was upstairs so one of us had to go upstairs in the middle of the party, find claudio, and get the key. Well I was nominated to do that so I got to go upstairs while i was totally not ready for the party and search for claudio and the key. Me Lilla and Ele went downstairs and finished (well really we started) getting ready for the party which took us about an hour. Then when we did finally go upstairs we spent most of the night outside because it was SUCH a nice night. I must say this was the best weather that I have ever had on a New Years in my entire life. there was no snow and i was outside in just a sweatshirt the whole night. Which i must say was AMAZING. Ok ill admit I'm bragging just a tiny bit right now because i know that most of you reading this are drowned in snow (can you drown in snow?) and are getting off of school because of "cold days" and my New Years was amazingly warm. but i will stop bragging now because i think if i continue my mom might come here and personally kill me. sooo moving on.

During the party ele had set up the "thing where you sing along to the songs while reading the words" that I totally can not remember the name for right now..soooo..awkward moment.. It was really amusing to listen to all of Claudio's friends singing along to songs that i had never heard of because most of them were in italian. that might explain why i had never heard of them before because i haven to been able to update my Ipod since i got here because well if i load it to my computer here all of my music that's on there now goes bye bye.. sooo no new music for me.. damn.. well any ways.. It was really fun to sing along to them with them because now i understand what the songs are saying and i can actually pronounce the words that are written on the screen (ok .. and now for a shameless plug for the Italian language and how amazing it is.. you read EVERY SINGLE WORD exactly how its written.. its not like English.. you write the word "the way it sounds".. again there is an English word for this but i cannot for the life of me remember what that word is... ) My mouth has adapted to the new sounds that i need to make in the Italian language which is nice.. Well we were mostly singing these duet things where the guys sing one part and the girls sing another part and were mostly pretty sappy but it was fun just the same. a couple of Claudio's guy friends have really amazing voices so that drowned (i have never in my life used the word "drowned" in the same story 3 times lol) out our voices which pretty much sounded like dieing turkeys..

Well for dinner everyone brought some food. mostly "pasta you cook in the oven" (gahhhh such a bad day for English..but its the one with the noodles that are really thin and wide that has cheese and sauce between them and just you cook it in the oven but that's all i can think of because in italian you say "pasta al forno" which means "pasta in the oven"..but there's another word for it that i cant think of...) but i was surprised that there were vegetables there too. i was surprised because it was all kids 19-22 years old and i didn't think they would bring veggies but well there were veggies and some meat as well. All of the food was really really amazingly yummy. I love italian food, who doesn't tho? really its like amazing! Well after dinner we all went back upstairs and we continued to sing and have fun like that. Me and Lilla and Ele were talking to some of Claudio's friends who were all really nice to us...We were just talking for alot of the night which turned out to be soo cool because we were talking all in italian and i could understand everything. Ive also decided that giving champagne bottles to 3 different 20 year old guys is probably not he smartest idea ever because they all started shaking it when our count down got to 30 and by the time we got to 0 and they opened them we all got a champagne bath. It was alot of fun though. oh and the traditional "kiss at midnight" thing they do that here too but you kiss everyone with that 2 cheek kiss thingy. But because of all of the champagne your face ended up VERY wet and stinky by the time you have done that 2 cheek kiss thing with about 30 people lol. After that there were some fireworks that were set off over the sea and that was really pretty. then we talked some more..and then we ended up going to bed around 630 AM which was really late but we were having fun so we didn't go to bed till late.

Well we woke up at around 1 pm which is actually earlier then i thought that we were going to wake up. i was actually dreading going outside because i knew what a mess we had left the house in and i was NOT looking forward to going outside and having to clean it all up. well me and Lilla and ele got ready to go out side but when we got out there ...... IT WAS ALL CLEANED. it turns out that 2 of Claudio's friends (who i still don't know who they are but it doesn't matter i love them..vi amo! (means i love you (but like you all..plural..idk)) had cleaned up the entire house. so me and Lilla and ele decided to go down to the beach so Lilla could see it . And i know i said i was done bragging but just once more. i walked down to the beach in jeans and a TANK TOP and i was still hot. i would estimate it to be around 75 or 80 degrees on JANUARY 1ST can you believe that?? well we went down to the beach which was fun and when we got back we had to do a little cleaning and then we had to go back home because Lilla had a train to catch back to Elmas.. well that was pretty much my new years..

I actually celebrated New Years 2 times this year.. how did i do that? well I had another new years party for AFS on January 3rd at the house of a volunteer of AFS. We all rode the train of the bus in my case to a city called Iglesias which is like 30 minutes from my house and then we all listened to music and talked. It is sooo different then our first couple of parties, because we all actually speak Italian now which is sooo cool... well we had pizza for dinner which was really really yummy. It was all of the kids in my chapter plus some volunteers which were really cool.. I don't really have much to say but we did talk and listen to music and take some stupid pictures that i will post when i have some more time.. and it was another really late night for me cause i went to bed at about 6:00 AM because we were all just talking and just chilling ..and idk..that's basically it.. the next day me and Nicola (the volunteer whose house we stayed at) and Nicolàs went to the beach before he took us home...and that was my second new years... and now for that elusive befana??

Well in Italy your Christmas vacation from school ends on January 7th every year because there is a holiday on January 6th. This holiday is called "The Befana" basically the Befana is kind of a mix of Christmas traditions and Halloween characters all in one holiday. well i will explain. On the night of January 5th the little kids will hang socks (think stockings) on the mantle of the fireplace and then the Befana will come down the fire shoot and put candy and other small gifts in to the socks. And i know your probably all thinking of a pretty woman right? NOPE she is UGLY. she is old and has a huge nose and is dressed like a stereotypical witch (think Halloween) and she rides on a broom stick. Well in Italy this used to be the holiday that we used on Christmas. They just recently started using Santa clause (babbo natale) to bring the Christmas presents. Before babbo natale the Befana brought the big presents to the kids on January 6th.. Now most of Italy babbo natale brings the Christmas presents but there are still some regions of Italy (Campagna) that use the befana to bring the presents.. Well that is a quick overview of the befana

Well i just reread this blog and i would like to congratulate to everyone who suffered through my horrid English grammar and forgetfulness of my used to be good English skills and made it to this point..

TI VOGLIO BENE (i love you..for friends and family)

Buon Natale means Merry Christmas to you

2009-01-01T18:11:00.012+01:00

Buon Natale, means Merry Christmas to you
Buon Natale, to everyone
Happy New Year and lots of fun
Buon Natale may all your wishes come true
Buon Natale in Italy means
A Merry Christmas to you

Far away across the sea
In sunny Italy
There's a quaint little town
Not a clock has been wound
For over a century

They don't know the time or year
And no one seems to care
And this is the reason
The Christmas season
Is celebrated all year

Buon Natale, means Merry Christmas to you
Buon Natale, to everyone
Happy New Year and lots of fun
Buon Natale may all your wishes come true
Buon Natale in Italy means
A Merry Christmas to you

This is officially my new favorite Christmas song as of this holiday season. As some of you may know I do love Christmas songs but they do eventually get old but I must say I am still singing this Christmas song and it is offically 2009. It mixes my Christmas in the USA and in Italy in one short adorable song.

So I know that I've been bad and that its been awhile since I updated on my blog and that it is well after Christmas and I am just now getting to the Christmas post, but here I go with the explanation of my first (but hopefully not last) Italian Christmas.

Well as all exchange students know the holiday time is one time particularly difficult in our year aboard. This is one time that is specifically set aside for families and family traditions. In our homes in the USA (or respective countries) we know exactly what is expected of us on which days, on which days we go visit our families, on which days we are allowed to sleep in, which days we know we need to get up early, what days we open presents, whether we celebrate with family or what foods we eat and at which time, who to buy gifts for and when we open them, whether you open them in public or in private or any of those small traditions that we all know in our own families. but when you are in another family, in foreign country you dont know what is the correct procedure for any of these things so it makes the holiday season rather difficult and strange because its not our normal schedule that we have finally gotten used too after 4 months and we almost go back to how we were that first week when we were still missing our families and being led around like we were 2 years old and when everything was still new. For the week of Christmas you are basically "deported" back to that first couple of weeks, with the exception of understanding the langauge, because you don't know how to celebrate or what is ok and what is wrong for that time of year.. Let me tell you, it's a very strange feeling not knowing what to do and when we do it because when I'm home in Monroe we have done the same things on the same days for as long as I can remember.

It is also very difficult to be away from home at this time of year. This is traditionally a time of year that is set aside for families and for alot of families this is the time of year when you go see your other family members that you might not see very often. But as exchange students we aren't at home we are in another home, with another family. Yes by the time we get to Christmas, we are normally well adjusted, we have a handle on the language, we are closer to our families but no matter how close we are to our families they still aren't our real families and we are still in a different place that especially for me is very different then home.

Thats in general for exchange students for me while Christmas was difficult overall I found that I really did enjoy Christmas here in Italy and that I did have alot of fun. While yes I had fun it was still hard, for me in Italy it doesn't seem like Christmas. It is still warm and there is no snow on the ground. I have lived in Wisconsin my entire life and have come to know that there is snow for Christmas, that its cold on Christmas but here in Italy, there is no snow and it doesn't get cold not even in January. So while my brain knows that its Christmas time it doesn't really accept that it's Christmas time because the things that I see around me are just so different then what I have grown up with my entire life. My body still hasn't accepted that its winter because its not cold like I'm used to around the holidays. While I'm certainly not complaining that its warm its just weird around this time of year when you're so used to one thing for so long your body and brain connect those things so when you have one without the other its strange. Like in my brain when I think of Christmas I think of snow and cold but here its not cold or snowy so the season just feels like its missing something, it feels like its not really Christmas. I'm not sure if that makes sense to anyone else but me, but that's one thing that I felt about Christmas while I was here.. Ok well I guess i should start my story of my 3 day Christmas in italy.

Yes you all read that last sentence correct I said "my 3 day Christmas in Italy" in all practicality Christmas lasts for 3 days in Italy. It starts on December 24th and ends on December 26th. Well this was obviously pretty weird for me because in the States or at least in my family Christmas is one day... Christmas.. the 24th and 26th really don't mean anything except I get to sleep in because there is no school. But in Italy you celebrate Natale all three days soooo here is what I did..

Well on the 24th we got up late because when we don't have school me and Ele both sleep in late because why should we wake up super early if there's nothing to do once we are awake and its super early? So we normally stay in bed until around 11 or noon which is really nice to sleep in because during the week we can only sleep in on Sundays because we have school on Saturdays. So anyway I knew that we would be going to my grandmothers house for dinner so I asked what time we would be going over that day and my mamma said that we would be going over there at 8pm for dinner. Well during the day we prepared the food that we were going to take over to her house and we got ready for going to her house. I told them that these would be the first good pictures that I have ever taken on Christmas for opening presents because for once my hair is done and I'm in nice clothes because it's not just how I wake up on Christmas morning lol. So we went over to my nonnas (gramma) house and when we got there were a whole bunch of people there.. All of the brothers and sister of my papà and their kids where there. All in all there were about 15 of us for dinner, and let me tell you my nonna does not live in the biggest of houses. She lives in a rather small house actually. But all the adults sat at one table and me, Ele, Nicola and Claudio sat at another table because we were the "kids" even though Claudio and Nicola are both over, or almost, 20. Well we all had dinner and I must say the only thing that was weird about the dinner at this nonnas house was the "little birds" when someone goes hunting they bring back these little birds (because to buy them there REALLY expensive) and when you eat them you have to pull off the head (because its still attached) and you eat them that way. They still have all of the guts in them and most people eat the heart and the brain. I must say seeing someone crack open the head of a little bird with their teeth was a bit gross the first time lol. The meat of these birds was actually really very good. Although I couldn't bring myself to try the head. I just couldn't eat the head of an animal (give me a few days..hahah... that story later) So dinner lasted about 2 hours so we were done at about 10:30 but we had to wait around because we open presents at midnight. Well we all waited around and me , Ele, Claudio and Nicola started to watch the Little Mermaid (me and Ele picked the movie) but we didn't get very far into it because "Babbo Natale" came to the house and brought the little kids presents. (I still haven't figured out how they trick the little kids into believing that he brings the presents if they don't go to sleep and the presents just mysteriously arrive at midnight? Oh well it works for them).

So we were all called into the main dining room where all of the adults started handing out the gifts for everyone. For each other it was usually a bottle of Champagne or something like that and for us kids it was either money, jewelry or bathroom things like perfume and lotion and things like that. It was way different to see how they do it from how we do it at my house. at my house I usually hand out all of the gifts and people open them when they want to and the person who gave the gift does not nessesarily watch you open the present. But here when someone gives you a present they watch you open it and then everyone asks to see it. Which I might add when that something is earrings that are in an unopenable box and everyone asks to see it AFTER you have spent 10 minutes opening it the first time and have already closed the box. Well after all of the gifts were handed out they gave everyone champagne and we all toasted in the New Year with champagne and pannatone. Pannatone is a dessert in Italy that is eaten at Christmas time. It has these little pieces of fruit in it that I usually pick out because I personally think they are really nasty but alot of people like them. The actual bread part is really good though. Its really sweet. Well after everyone had opened all the presents from the people at nonnas house everyone started to leave and go back to their respective houses. When me and my family got back home we then started to open the presents from everyone else in our family. It was really fun and overall I felt really included in Christmas. It wasn't as weird or as awkward as I thought that it was going to be which I'm really thankful for. After opening up all of the presents at our house we all got ready to go to bed (by this time it was like 2 am) because we all had to get up to go to Sant'Antioco for lunch the next day at my uncles house.

The rest of the 25th

Well when we got up on the 25th I still had not fully accepted that it was Christmas because my body was telling me "its too warm out and there is no snow its really October not December" Its weird being in a completely different climate then you are used to. It does not really seem like a big thing but when you have associated Christmas with cold and snow all of your life and then you suddenly have warm and no snow its kind of a shock because it doesn't really seem like Christmas. Well me and ele got ready for going to lunch at my Uncles house in Sant'antioco. I got a really big shock when I went in to the kitchen and saw that my papà was cooking a baby pig over the open fire.. No i do not mean pork chops or anything like that . I mean a whole pig with the head still attached where the slice open the stomach and then shove a metal pole up the pigs but and out the neck so that they can slowly roast it over the open fire. (pictures are on my picture web sight :D) I must say this gave me some very unnecessary bio 11 flashbacks that weren't the most pleasant memories to begin with. Well we finished getting ready and we packed up all of the food that we made and the pig and we went to my uncles house which is about 30 minutes away in the car. I must say i now know why we do not travel to relatives houses in the states. it is a pain in the butt to take all the stuff in the car then unload it then reload it again when you need to go home. well when we got there we said hi to everyone and then everyone started passing out the presents. there is no name reading or anything every individual person just starts handing out their presents and you open them as you get them. i must say i missed reading off the names of the presents then handing them out like i normally do at home. Then we finally started eating. Ive decided that I really don't like the "first dish" in Italy much. It is usually little things that all have olives in them or another type of cheese that i really don't like very much. Then the next course was pasta which is really good. but in Italy you need to remember that you have another course of meat coming so you don't eat much of the pasta because you still have to eat meat. well after the pasta came the pig. I'm not going to lie to you i was rather nervous to eat this pig. i realize that it's just pig but i don't normally see the pig with the head still attached so I'm able to pretend that its not a real animal that I'm eating but when they bring it to the table still with the head and the feet and everything you can't really pretend its not a real pig. but i was determined to try it. I took a normal piece that was just from the side or what ever you call it in "meat language ." So i preceded to eat this baby pig which in all reality was not that bad. But the bad part was i got to see my sister eat the head of the baby pig. and when i say head i mean EVERYTHING.. the brain, meat, eyes, tongue, cheeks everything. it was pretty nasty. Well after dinner we really didn't do much just sat around and waited to go home. when we did get home we did nothing because we were so tired and we had done sooooo much eating in the last 2 days we just went to bed early.. but oh wait.. the holidays aren't over in Italy.

on December 26th

Well me and ele put off getting up as long as we possibly could and when we did finally get up we had a half an hour to get ready before going back to Sant'Antioco for lunch at my Nonnas house. When we got there everyone was already there and we sat down for lunch. I must say i really was not hungry even though I hadn't ate all day because I had eaten sooo much the previous two days. So when they were dishing out the soup and the meat I didn't eat hardly anything because I just was not hungry. When you eat enough for 4 days in 2 meals your stomach is basically full for days afterwards.. Well after lunch me and ele started watching a movie on tv. around the holiday season every channel on tv had movies on because everyone is at home . We watched Ele Enchanged in Italian. And I am proud to report i understood everything. I am starting to understand sooo much now and i speak sooo much better. even in school i can write a whole page (front and back) in 2 hours in Italian. I'm proud of my Italian. Well after that we went home and basically went back to bed because we were so tired and so full.. think... thanksgiving people times 10 over .. SOOOOOO much food..!!

Well this is a little sneak peek into my holiday season here in italy. I hope that you all had a happy holiday in the USA or where ever you are in the world... HAPPY BELATED HOLIDAYS

School...in general

2008-12-28T19:43:00.005+01:00

I haven't updated in a while and I'm very sorry for that. I have been very busy with my 3 day long Christmas celebrations which I will tell you about in the next post which will be coming soon...hopefully tomorrow??

Well I thought that I would explain to you some of the Italian school system is run a little bit because its a little bit confusing for even me and I have been living in it for the past 4 months. But a disclaimer to all of you who are reading this that go to school in the USA right now be ready to be VERY grateful you go to school in the USA. once you have experienced how it is in other country's you realize just how good we have it in the states and our "boring" is really AMAZING compared to other places.

Well I guess the most logical place to start is in the way the kids here receive their grades. As all of you know in the USA we use a point system that eventually leads up to an A B C D or F (hopefully not an F but not really the point of this blog lol) but in Italy they do things different then we do in the USA. (well they do most things differently but again that is for another post) In Italy they use a system that numbers your grades from 1-10. They do not use the point system in deciding the grades either. When they take a test (which is the only thing they actually get grades on because the teachers do not check there homework EVER. they go over it in class but they never take any grades on any of it. I don't think in the whole time that I have been in Italy I have seen a teacher go around and check to see if homework was done) the teacher gives them the grade that they think the student earned. It is not based on points like it is in the USA. Personally I think that the point system is alot better then this system as do the other students because if you have a teacher that really does not like you it is very easy for them to fail you.

So the 1-10 system here's basically how it breaks down. 10 is impossible to get. in the four months that i have been in Italian schools i have not seen one student (not even the best ones) receive a 10 on anything. I have seen kids get perfect papers on a math test (meaning NOTHING wrong) and they still do not get 10's. Teachers just never give them out even if the paper is perfect. so lets move on to 9. Well a 9 is another grade that is hardly ever given out i mean hardly EVER. I have seen one student get a 9 on a test and that was from a really really nice teacher. so ok 8. 8 is what the really really good students get on their tests. and I mean you have to study hard and have basically no mistakes to get an 8 yeah its hard. and it makes me miss the point system. so there 7 which would technically be equal to a C here in the states is something they are EXTREMELY happy to get. if they get a 7 they know they did a good job. i don't know about any of you but a C on a test for me i would not be extremely happy with my self (although i was here when i got a 7 on my first test :D) the 6 is the last grade you can get before it goes into the fail range. so technically its actual a D but people are still happy when they get 6's so I'm convinced it doesn't really a D lol... 1-5 are all fails.

In Italy if you fail 3 or less classes (with a score 1-5) you can study the material over the summer and take a test in the fall before school starts to recuperate the grade that you got during the school year. This is completely normal for kids in Italy. It is normal to fail a class and to even repeat the year because school is so difficult. If you fail more then 2 classes then you have to repeat the year which is something that happens more in Italy then in the USA.

Then they have something that is similar to our parent teacher meetings here in Italy. 2 times a year all of the teachers stay late (but only to 6 o'clock so the parents all have to take off work because the teachers all get up and leave after 6 pm) there are 2 teachers per room and there is a sign up sheet outside of the classroom and the parents have to write their names on the list and wait for their turn. and let me tell you lines do not exist in Italy so this concept is very difficult for them to accept. when the name of your parent comes up you (if the child goes which is not necessary) and your parent go in to the room and the teacher and your parents talk and they give you your grade for that class.. basically it is alot like it works in the USA but its set up way less organized lol.

I should also say that for any one that thinks the USA schools are going through a budget crisis right now they really need to come see schools here in Italy. all of my classrooms in the USA have tv's and projectors and I'm lucky if my classroom in Italy has a chalk board. The schools here in Italy do not even have enough money to buy toilet paper for the school (the kids bring there own) or to buy chalk. I really used to think that we had a big budget crisis in the USA but honestly my school in the states has about 10 times as much stuff then my school here in Italy has. my school here has one room of working computers, it doesn't have a library and when you need a TV you have to go to the room that has a TV. I must say I wont take the things that my school in the states does have for granted again.

so the reason that i decided to post this is because earlier i had posted about the strikes and i just thought that i would give you a little but of knowledge on how the Italian school system runs a little bit.. now I have had Christmas and i promise that I will update you on that VERY soon lets just say you have some exciting stories about roasting baby pigs head and me eating something really WEIRD!!! that I bet none of you would have thought i would have tried..New Year's Eve is tomorrow and I'm super excited for the party.. I'll update pictures as soon as possible.. love you all

AFS meeting

2008-12-15T15:41:00.004+01:00

Sorry for not updating in a while i promise this one will have one following it probably tomorrow. ive been super busy finishing up school for the year. so here i go about AFS

So I got an email from Andrea Sanna (the president from my Afs chapter in Cagliari) the other day that went something like this:

considerando la mancanza assoluta di orientation da parte della maggior parte degli studenti stranieri, ed il comportamento di altri. da giovedì 12 dicembre 2008 inizieranno una serie di incontri, per chiarire le idee a tutti gli studenti, e per spiegare che tipo di programma venga proposto da intercultura. il primo incontro si terrà ad elmas in via dell'arma azzurra 43 alle ore 14,30-15,00. gli studenti del cl iglesias possono scendere alla stazione di elmas col treno. Per tutti gli altri, il posto dove ci dobbiamo incontrare, è sotto casa della famiglia Desogus, dove è ospitata Lilla. per chi non sapesse arrivarci chieda info atraverso email. tutti gli studenti devono rispondere a questa email per far sapere che avete letto questa email e la vostra partecipazione. la partecipazione è obbligatoria per tutti gli studenti e riguarda solo gli studenti. saluti a tutti andrea

(the reason i put Italian in my blog is because well I'm in Italy, and i want to show you all I'm learning to speak this BEAUTIFUL language.)

But now in English.

Considering the absolute lack of orientation on the part of most students, and the behavior of others. Wednesday December 11 2008 will begin a series of meetings to clarify the ideas to all students, and to explain what kind of program being proposed by interculture. The first meeting will be held in Elmas at 14,30-15,00. students churches can get off at station Elmas by train, For everyone else, the place where we must meet, is at the house of Desogus family, hosted by Lilla. for those who do not know ask to get info through email. all students must respond to this email to know that you have read this email and your participation. Participation is mandatory for all students and covers only students. greetings to all andrea

so needless to say when I got this email I was a little bit scared because the way the email sounds it sounds like we were all going to get yelled at because someone had done something wrong. Well originally i had a problem with the time because Elmas is 1 hour away and i don't finish school until 200 every day so i emailed Andrea and he told me to just come late because i couldn't make the first train to Elmas. Well I got out of school and went to the train station and obviously i was nervous because I thought we were in some kind of major trouble or something. When I got to Elmas I walked to Lilla's house and walked up to her floor and when I got there every one was happy and laughing so I wasn't nervous anymore.

Well it seems like this was one of Andreas little "jokes" that he didn't mean the email seriously but I must say being an exchange student has made me alot more gullible because of the language barrier i cant ever tell if people are kidding or if they are being serious with me. He wanted to make sure everyone showed up and he thought it was funny. while this may seem mean you all don't know Andrea Sanna this is just his type of sense of humor. and If you all knew him you would get it I don't know why I didn't get it before lol.

They waited to start the meeting until when I got there so when I did arrive they finally got to what they really wanted to talk about. Well it seems that what they really wanted us there to talk about was our last remaining 6 months that we have here in Italy. The first thing that he said was (in Italian of course) "these last 6 months are going to go by twice as fast as the first 4 have gone by" which of course scared all of us so much because these 4 months have gone by soooooooo fast and we don't want them to go by any faster then they already are. And they wanted to talk about or schedule with AFS for the next 6 months. So here is my schedule for AFS (and some from school as well) for my last 6 months in Italy:

December:

School vacation starts on December 22 (TODAY!!!)
Possible get together with the kids for a Christmas lunch - We did end up doing this on December 21st. We all met up in Cagliari on Sunday at about 230 for lunch. On Sundays the trains don't run nearly as much so we had to meet up late. We couldn't all make it to lunch but after lunch we went to McDonald's for some ice cream and the rest of the kids met us at Mcdonalds. Then we all walked up and down the port of Cagliari because its SOOO beautiful and up the main shopping street of Cagliari and talked and had soooo much fun .i love my get togethers with the other kids they are all soooo amazing!!
Christmas eve which is more important here in Italy. Me and my family all go over to my nonna's house (the mom of my papà) and have a big lunch or dinner with his whole family.
Christmas which is obvously on December 25 and me and my family will go to my other nonnas house for lucnh with her family in sant'antioco.
New Years Eve me and ele are going to a party in sant'antioco with Claudio at our beach house with all of claudios friends.

January:

Befana which is a holiday on January 6th where this really old ugly woman brings treats and candy to the little kids and puts them in a stocking. In Sardegna its not a really big thing but near Napels they use the day of Befana as like the day of Christmas and give the kids and family there presents on January 6th instead of on Christmas.
School- we go back to school on January 7th after the day of Befana. And we have shcool all through January.
January 31st all of the semester kids arrive in Italy and there are 6 new kids coming to my chapter (i believe) and we are all going to meet them at the airport in Cagliari to welcome them to our chapter and to Italy.

Febrary

some time in the first week of Febrary we are going to have a party with the new kids in our chapter to get to know them all and welcome them to Italy even better. We are all excited about having new people in our chapter.
Some time in February (they weren't sure) we will be going to Terellba for the Carnival and for our mid year orientation. This orientation will be alot like the one we had in Sassari in October except this time we are going to be living with families for the week so that we can experience more culture with the Carnival and everything. But i feel kind of bad for all of the kids that actually live in Terellba because they just have to stay home lol.

March

For a week in march (it depends) we have our week long exchange to a city of our choosing. We get to go to another city in Italy for one week and live with another family for a week and be a tourist for one week. I haven't yet decided where i'm going to go but I would really LOVE to go to Venice. my papà says that its the most beautiful city in Italy and i REALLY want to see it :D
Also for a week in March I have a trip with my chapter of AFS (only Cagliari chapter) to Rome and Tuscany. Which does mean that I will get to see Florence and Pisa again but I'm super excited to see them both again. I only got one day in both places last time and it will be great to see them again. im SUPER DUPER excited about seeing Rome. I mean I can't live in Italy for a year and not see Rome.

April

For a week in April (or possibly March) I have a "gita" with my school. That means you go on vacation with your school to another country. Im sooo excited for this because i really really want to see another country in Europe. It seems my class is debating between Paris, Madrid, and Budapest. Personally I want to go to Budapest but I'll be happy with any one of the three :D
For a week in April the kids that chose Sardegna for there week exchange will come to the Cagliari area and stay with families for a week and we (the kids in our chapter normally) will get to go on little day trips with them around Sardegna. :D

May

The last month of school. and that's really all that exciting that happens in May lol

June

End of stay orientation will be for a week in June they are not sure where it will be but Honestly I'm NOT looking forward to this one becuase that will mean that I'm in my last month and thats just toooooooooo sad to think about.

July

July 5th we (all of the AFS USA people here in Italy) depart from Rome and fly to Paris and from Paris we fly to NYC and we will arrive in NYC on July 5th

Well this is what I will be up to in the next couple of months and if i do say so my self I'm VERY excited!!! well in the next few days I will be updating my blog again on school and I'll have more pictures to come too.. love and miss you all

Pisa, Palermo and Florence

2008-12-03T18:07:00.026+01:00

So this post is all about my week long jaunt through Italy! All I have to say is Italy is truly the most beautiful country that I have ever seen. While I've only seen The USA and Italy. Italy is much more beautiful then USA. Yes big tall shiny buildings are pretty for a while but the old buildings the rivers the landscapes the EVERYTHING (except maybe the graffiti) is beautiful!! so now on too my vacation. I guess I will start with Pisa because well that's where it starts lol.

PISA!
So on November 24 we got up at normal time as if we were going to go to school but when papà woke us up we got to get ready for the airport and not for school. It was definitely a nice change then from getting ready for school that's for sure. So we left the house at about 830 to drive the one hour to the Airport in Cagliari. When we got there we ended up having to pay for my ticket check in because mamma had checked the "check in online" box but because I'm not an Italian citizen I can't check in online. So we went to the ticket booth and payed for my ticket then we all had to weigh out bags because we were only taking carry ons they needed to be under 10 KG which is like 20 LBS and we could only have ONE bag and NO personal item. You can not have any personal items, you are only allowed to bring one bag with you on the plane. So we got though security no problem which was nice. In Italy you only need to be at the airport about an hour before departure because security is so much easier then in the USA. Well the plane ride was pretty uneventful. Its only about an hour and 5 minutes off of Sardegna to get to Pisa which is where we were going for the first day of our trip.

When we arrived in Pisa we didn't have to pick up any luggage so we went right out in to the meeting area to meet mamma's friend who is who we were staying with for the night and who was going to show us around Pisa for the day. She was there so we didn't have to wait at all. She drove us to her house which was about 30 minutes away from the airport because the airport isn't in the city of Pisa but just out side like most cities. so when we got to her house she showed us to our rooms. Me and Ele slept together in one room and mamma in another room. we had about 20 minutes before lunch and then we left again so we could see Pisa!!

So we left the house and we drove in to the center of Pisa and parked the car in a parking garage and we started to walk in to the center of town. It was a little cold and rainy so it wasn't perfect weather but it was still nice cause there weren't crazy amounts of people at the attractions. So before i knew it we were coming to this place that had lots of arches and i could see the top of the leaning tower of Pisa. I was so excited. This is something that is FAMOUS for people to see and famous all over the world and I was actually going to get to see it in person. yeah i was super excited. So we walked through the arches and you could see the tower with the other two buildings that stand with it and they are all white and sooo beautiful. its hard to believe that there hundreds of years old they look almost new. they are so well maintained. So i took a million pictures of the tower and of the buildings and of course the famous "holding up Pisa pose" which i must say made me feel like a HUGE tourist! which was a weird feeling cause honestly while i was there i didn't really feel like a tourist because i speak the language (kinda) and just in Italy i don't really feel like a tourist any more. which is a nice feeling!! Well after we saw the monuments we walked towards the river to see the famous river that runs from Pisa all the way to Florence. When I first saw the river i was in awe. It was sooo beautiful. All of the houses and buildings around the river are all original to Pisa and just its amazing that they are still standing and still so beautiful. they are so gorgeous. Pisa is so beautiful! Then we continued to walk around Pisa to see the other sights. there is a University in Pisa and when I saw it for the first time i could hardly believe that it was a university. It was so beautiful and so old just its gorgeous! I loved it. I thought the UW Madison was pretty. well i was wrong Pisa is BEAUTIFUL!!!

Well we were cold and hungry for dinner and tired of walking so we walked back to the car and we went back to her house. She made us and her family dinner which was nice and it was good. me and Ele were goofing off making funny monkey faces at each other making each other laugh really hard which was a blast . we couldn't stay up late because we had a flight out to Palermo at 11 am the next morning and needed to leave the house at 9 am to get to the airport.

Palermo!
Well we woke up at about 8 am so we could get our bags repacked. Its amazing me and Ele were there only for one day and we both managed to almost unpack our whole bags lol. Well we went back to the airport and we had to pay for my ticket again but this time it was different price. the first time we paid 8 euro but this time we only paid 5 euro so we weren't sure what was going on lol. So we got through security all right it was really easy. Security is really no big deal here in Italy. you don't have to take off your shoes or anything like that like we do in the USA. which is kind of nice not having to be at the airport 3 hours early for a flight that is only an hour and a half lol. SO on the plane the first thing that i noticed was that everyone was speaking Italian around me but it sounded REALLY funny. I asked Ele about it and she said that it was the Sicilian accent. To me it sounded just like a person from Ireland speaking Italian. which is a strange combination if you can imagine it or not. well it took me the whole plane ride just to be able to understand what the people were saying and i still had to concentrate really hard because of the different accents. the pronunciation is so different then what I'm used to but people say the Sardo accent is really strong but for me its normal because its what i hear every day.

Well we got to Palermo and we had to take an hour long train ride in to the city because the airport is so far out of the city. Its almost equal to the Chicago airport is close to Chicago. Well the train ride was nice but I've decided that every train in Italy is exactly the same as the others because the trains in Palermo looked identical to the trains in Carbonia. well when we got to Palermo station we ate lunch in the station at a fast food pizza place and then one of mamma's friends showed us where our bed and breakfast was. We went in to our rooms (me and Ele shared the big room and mamma slept in the single) and tidied up a little bit then we went out and met up with 3 of mamma's friends. They started showing us the principal tourist attractions which i must say are sooo beautiful. I know people say churches are boring but they are so not boring in Italy. they are sooo beautiful in Italy. they are all of marble and so intricately made with the most amazing art work that you could ever see and the art work is not on the walls but on the ceiling. its all paintings. ok i cant explain straight how on earth do people paint something above their heads. its just amazingly beautiful. they all have complicated Mosaic windows just yeah i was in awe the whole time and with every single one of them. then we saw this one cathedral in Palermo. it is the most beautiful building that i have ever seen in my whole life. Its huge and all made of stone and the outside is soo intricate and just me and Ele took so many pictures of us with this building because its just so beautiful all we could say was WOW. then we say a Classico school that looked sooo beautiful we were both jealous of all of the kids that get to go to this school.

Well everyone in the group was a bit cold (i wasn't) so we decided to go get some cafè. we went to this cute little cafè but i didn't want cafè i wanted some hot chocolate. So i told my mamma and then she gave me another menu to choose from cause there were so many different flavors of hot chocolate. well i ordered chocolate with mint because it sounded so yummy. well when it came it was more like hot pudding but it was still really really good. just wasn't exactly what i was expecting when i ordered hot chocolate. well by the time that we left the cafè it was dark out so I got to take some pictures of Palermo at night which was sooo beautiful. Then we went to one of mammas friends house so that we could all use the bathroom before we went to dinner. we ended up playing her WII which was REALLY fun!! we played a game of group bowling and i found out that i suck at WII bowling just as much as i suck at real bowling. it really isn't my sport. then we all went to dinner at this little pizzeria and Sicilian restaurant. Me and Ele both got pizza because the Sicilian food looked a bit scary. well dinner was really good. After dinner we walked back to the bed and breakfast and me and Ele got in to bed but we ended up talking for like 3 hours before we went to bed so we didn't get much sleep but that didn't matter to us cause we knew that we would have an hour on the train and an hour and a half on the plane.

Florence (Firenze)!!
Well we woke up and we walked to the train station so that we could take a train to the airport. well we missed the train we were planning to take which was fine because it was about an hour earlier then we needed to be there so it didn't matter. so we stayed in the train station until we could get on the next train to the airport. well the train ride was really boring and me and Ele were a little bit tired cause we didn't sleep much but that didn't really matter. when we finally got to the airport we saw that the check in line was like a MILE long so i stood in line while mamma and Ele went to see if we could check me in upstairs because i didn't have to check my bag. the first person she asked said not but the she asked some one higher up and they said that i could so we went up stairs where there was no line and i got all checked in. then we had to go through security which was kinda a pain cause my necklaces got caught in the machine (fell out of the bucket) so they had to get it out of the machine lol. and they wanted to take Ele's bracelet but they let her keep it so this security was kind of a pain. but it was still pretty quick. we were still about 1 hour early for our plane so we went and we sat down and killed some time while we waited for our plane to board. well the plane ride was about an hour and a half long and we arrived in the Pisa airport again because apparently the Florence airport had deadly runways. I don't know but that's what everyone says.

so when we got there there was a another one of mamma's friends that lives in Florence there waiting for us to pick us up and take us to her house that's about an hour away from Pisa. Both me and Ele slept on the way to her house which turned out to be a good thing lol because shes a CRAZY driver. Well when we got to Florence we decided that we were going to just stay in for the day because we were tired. so we just lounged around her house and took a nap for the first day then at about 7 o'clock we left the house for what me and ele thought was dinner because we were REALLY hungry but really we were went to walk around Florence at night for a about an hour before we went back to the restaurant. when we got there we had to wait for the other people in the group to arrive which took about an hour so by the time we ordered our food it was about 9 PM and by the time we got it, it was almost 10:00PM well we had this amazing Tuscan pizza that is only in Tuscany. it was the yummiest pizza I've had while in Italy. After dinner we went home and went to bed because we were planning on seeing Florence the next day.

The next day we woke up and we got ready for a day in Florence. I was SOOO very excited because this is a city that i have always wanted to see because just its always seemed so beautiful in pictures and it was 100 times more beautiful then the pictures could ever be. We drove down to the center of Florence and we parked and started to walk around and at first it just seemed like a normal town but then we saw it. we saw the center of Florence. it was breathtaking. it was the most beautiful thing that i have ever seen in my whole entire life. We saw the river that we saw in Pisa but it was about a million times prettier in Florence then it was in Pisa. the river was too beautiful all the buildings that flank the river are old and historic and sooo beautiful. then we crossed the famous bridge that leads to the other main tourist attractions. It is full of jewelry stores that sell almost exclusively gold. they are all very beautiful but soooo expensive that normal people could Not afford what was in these shops but they were beautiful and beautiful to look at. When we crossed the bridge it was the first time that i saw the Duomo. It was the most beautiful building that I have ever seen in my entire life. It is so intricately designed and sooo HUGE. I truly love this building. Right now I'm debating if it is my favorite building or if the one on Palermo is my favorite. You guys can tell me what you think based on the pictures. Then we went to get lunch at this little restaurant with some of mamma's friends in Florence. When one of the ladies got there the first thing she said to me was "Happy Thanksgiving" it was really sweet of her because I had totally forgotten that it was Thanksgiving. They obviously don't celebrate it here because its an American holiday but explaining Thanksgiving is a bit hard cause it uses some odd vocabulary lol. But i have had to explain it about a million times so far lol. Well after lunch we walked up this GIANT hill to see a panoramic view of Florence. This was the prettiest view i have ever seen in my whole life. I am soooo jealous of people who wake up to that view every day. It sure as heck beats the "newness" of American cities. All of the buildings are so old hand have so much history to them. They all have so many stories to tell and are all so famous. The architecture of ancient Italy is AMAZING just the time it must have taken these people without modern equipment to build these churches and put in all of the details they have on them it sure makes building an all steel skyscraper look like a cinch.. Well we were all getting pretty tired so we decided to go back home.

Well for dinner that night the lady that we were staying with had a whole bunch of friends over and we all had dinner. i didn't eat very much of it and neither did Ele cause neither one of us really liked the food so it was an interesting dinner because they all knew we were hungry but kept asking why we weren't eating. then there is there deranged cat. it kept going around and around the table and peoples laps.. and normally i don't have problems with this cat but when i saw it just an hour before with its face covered in rat blood and a half dead chewed rat in it's mouth. sorry i really don't want it on my lap at all lol.. but maybe that's just me no one else seemed to think this was weird. lol.

The next day when we got up it was raining so mamma told us that we wouldn't be going out in Florence today but that we were going to go to another town to pick up some steaks for dinner. Well we all got ready and we got in to the car and drove an HOUR to buy steaks. its in this little Tuscan town that is apparently famous for there steaks which are thick (and to me looked just like normal steaks in Wisconsin). we walked around the town for about 20 minutes (very tiny) and there were like 10 butcher shops in just the main road.. Well in my time in Italy i have decided butcher shops are truly gross. they have hanging meat on the ceiling and just soo nasty. I am very content with Pick-in-Save deli thank you very much. Then we went to a store of one of mamma's friends and helped her organize it for a little while which was fun but i don't know how she worked in it before it was sooo disorganized.. ahhhh.. Well when we finally got back home they started cooking the steaks and me and Ele packed up our bags because we were leaving the house at 3 am to drive back to Pisa to get our 6 am flight. Well we had dinner and the steaks were SOOO good although I don't know how "Tuscan" they are cause they taste just like normal steak from the USA.. i think they just fed the cow more corn like we do with all cows lol.. idk.. personally when it comes to cow meat i'll stick with USA. lol. Well we attempted to go to bed early because of our flight but me and Ele for some reason didn't end up going to bed until about midnight.

At 2:45 mamma woke us up and we got in to the car and drove to the airport in Pisa (because apparently the Florence airport is scary or something i don't know) we got to the airport and went through security very easily and then we waited for our flight to board which was on time thankfully. well Ele slept in the plane but i have decided that i just cannot sleep on planes. it just does not work for me to sleep on planes. so when we got to the Cagliari airport i had a MAJOR deja vu moment going into the room where you would pick up your luggage that you checked and the area where people pick you up. My first thought was. "wow 3 months ago i was picking up my bag and meeting my family for the very first time and was sooo nervous...now I'm just happy to be home and to be with my family again" it was a really strange moment. Well papà picked us up and drove us home.

Well this was my week long vacation in Tuscany and Palermo. I hope you enjoyed reading about i know that i enjoyed it soo much. I'm sorry that its taken me so long to get this out. there were some technical difficulties lol..

My 17th Birthday in Italy

2008-12-02T18:14:00.005+01:00

Someones first birthday away from home does not usually happen at 17 but mine, because I am in Italy, has happened. So I'm going to tell you all about my first birthday away from home and my birthday in Italy. I really have 2 days to tell you about because my birthday happened on 2 days here. The day of my actual birthday and the day of my party.

November 21 - Actual Birthday
My actual birthday was a Friday this year so I had school on my birthday. When I woke up in the morning, the first thing that happened was my sister and my mom came to me and gave me my birthday presents which was really nice. My sister gave me a really pretty necklace that has a charm of Sardegna on it and my mom gave me a book which I cant read yet but I'm determined to read it later. Everyone in the family gave me a big hug and wished me "Tanti Aguri" which is like Happy Birthday in Italian. When I got to school and went in the the class room everyone in my class came up and gave me a hug and the double kissy thing and wished me a happy birthday which was nice cause I know that they didn't forget. After my normal break after 3rd hour the English teacher stops me and asked me to come to the room for a minute which i have no clue why because I don't have English on Fridays. So I went back to the room with her and she had bought me a cake and brought some soda and it was really nice. Some of the teachers were there and they wished me a happy birthday as well. Which was a little strange for me because well, in Italy, when you wish someone happy birthday you give them a hug and a double kiss thing on the cheek. This is for everyone including teachers. so yes I have hugged and kissed 3 or more of my teachers. It was really weird for me because in the states that could possibly be illegal, I'm not sure lol.. The party in school was soooo much fun and the cake was sooo good. I felt really included because well i was a little nervous for my birthday because I've only been here 3 months (not even) and I wasn't sure how close my friends were so just I was a bit nervous. But everyone was sooo nice and they were so great on my birthday in school. Well I got to leave school early on that day because there was a teachers strike so I got to leave at 12:30 instead of 2:00 like my class. While I was in school I got a whole bunch of text messages from different people wishing me a happy birthday: Virginia, Kayla, Lilla, Katia, Hendrikje, and Yue Soo it was nice that people remembered my birthday. :D.

After school seemed a little like a normal day. I talked to my mom for a little bit on messenger trying to figure out Skype a little bit which was rather interesting lol (more on that later) then my friend Katia (an exchange student from Russia) called me and we talked on the phone for over an hour. The cool part was that the conversation was ALL, i mean 100% in Italian. This was my first successful conversation in Italian. Mind you it was with an exchange student but still I'm proud of myself for having a full hour long conversation over the phone, phone conversations are much harder then ones in real life because you can't point to things or use hand or arm movements to help you describe what your trying to say. So yes YAY on my birthday I had my first successful conversation over the phone. She is one of my really good friends on exchange so I plan on calling her more often now that I'm not afraid to use the telephone lol.

After Mamma and Papà got home, mamma said were were going to nonnas house but I wasn't sure why because I usually only ever go to nonnas house with papà because it is his mom but I went with mamma and when I got there, nonna had gotten me a birthday present. It was a ring from the same jewelery company that Ele got my necklace from. It's a company that only sells jewelry in Sardenga. Its a really beautiful ring that I like very much. We stayed and talked to her for about 20 minutes which I enjoy alot. Nonna is really nice :D. When I got home I got ready to talk to my Mom and my friends over the computer which I was really excited for.Well it took us forever to get the microphone to work and then we got my webcam to work but we never did get my mom's web cam to work so that I could see them lol. but I got to talk to Emma and Stephanie while they were on Lunch break from school so that was really nice so we talked for about an hour which was so nice because I miss them alot. Then I got to talk to my mom which was kinda strange because I'm talking to my mom from 6000 miles away on my birthday..

Well for dinner on my birthday we had something that I have never had before. We had lamb. And the way that Italians cook lamb is on this little rotating stick like thing that you put near the fire. So i walk in to the kitchen and I see this big hunk of meat over the fire like were camping or something (not that I've ever BEEN camping, but i can imagine). So I got to try Lamb for supper, it wasn't bad but it wasn't my favorite. Its common in Sardenga because sheep in Sardegna are like cows to Wisconsin.

A little funny about my birthday. I was born at 5:15 PM on November 21 in WISCONSIN. So if you factor in the time difference to Italy. Technically my birthday is not until 12:16 AM on November 22 here. I'm not sure if this is real logic but it works in my brain and makes sense to me lol.

November 22 - Party
So while my party was on a Saturday I still had to go to school which kind of sucked because I really don't like to go to school on Saturdays. But then again I do because I'm not sitting home on Saturdays and it gives me a reason to see everyone so i still have mixed feelings about the whole school on Saturday situation. So basically school was really really boring because I was thinking about my birthday party the whole day and so 1:30 could not come fast enough for me. When I finally did get out at 1:30 I rode home with Claudio from school and when I got home Ele already had everything decorated because she gets out at 12:30 every day. We just had to put the food out and get ourselves ready. While we were getting ourselves ready people started to come to the party. Here is who was at my party: Federica, Sylvia, and Virgina (school friends). Lilla, Hendrikje, Yue, Saskia, Olivia, and Cao-Cao (AFS'ers), Giulia (one of my sisters friends) and then 4 friends of Claudio's: Alessandro, Marco, Demo and Daniele. So the first couple people came but then I had to leave with my papà to go to the train station to pick up all of the AFS'ers at the train station. There were too many so we had to make two trips back to the house to get everyone there. So after a little while of hanging out we all went in to the kitchen to eat some of the amazing food that we had made the few days before. Everyone filled up on some amazing desserts and some amazing cookies and some rollish type thingies.

Then we decided to cut the cake and sing happy birthday. Well everyone sang happy birthday in Italian to me and I blew out the candles, but then we had to sing happy birthday in everyone's natural language. so we had: Chinese, Germany, Hungarian, Dutch and Norwegian, then Italian of course. It was really cool to hear the same song in so many different languages. Well then obviously we cut the cake and everyone ate the yummy cake that me and Ele made. Then Claudio's friends got there so then they ate the rest of the food that was left on the table lol. 5 teenage guys what do you expect hahaha. So then we all went back in to the living room and we started listing to some music and people were singing along which was alot of fun. Then we had this little mini talent show where Lilla danced hip-hop. Ele danced and Hendrikje and Claudio both played the piano. Alot of my school friends had to leave because none of them live in Carbonia so they started leaving the party earlier and so did Olivia and Cao Cao so all that was left was the rest of the AFS'ers and Claudio's friends. But both Saskia and Yue were asleep so me, Lilla and Hendrikje were hanging out with Claudio's friends at the party. One of them plays the Guitar so he was playing the guitar and we were all just sitting and listening to him play and singing along which fun. We hung out with them for about an hour to hour and a half or so just taking goofy pictures and listening to music so that was fun. Well by this point it was already like midnight or so. Every one left the party and Me, Lilla, Hendrikje, Yue, Saskia and Ele all piled in to Claudio's bed and we watched Phantom of the Opera in English and then we all crashed for the night at around 430.

Over all both days of my birthday were very much fun and I enjoyed them both very very much.

My vacation stories are on there way as well as pictures, be sure to check them out. love and miss you all!!

ho cambiato mia orario ancora (i have changed my schedule again)

2008-11-22T16:02:00.008+01:00

So as you all know from 2 posts back I had changed my schedule to better fit my needs and understanding level but after having this schedule for about 2 weeks i found out that I wasn't totally happy with my schedule so I have decided to change it once again. I have decided that I wanted to take more Spanish (with the first year so it doesn't clash with my math and physics) and a little less French and Italian so that I wont totally lose all of my Spanish while I'm here in Italy. I have made a few changes so that I can have 3 more Spanish classes and 2 less french classes and 1 less Italian classes. I am very happy with this schedule.

Lunadi (Monday)
1) Italiano 1C
2) French 1C
3) French 4C
4) Italiano 4C
5) English 4C

6) Gym 4C

Martedi (tuesday)
1) Science 4C
2) Italiano 2D
3) Spagnolo 3C
4) French 3C
5) French 2D

6) Math 4C

Mercoledi (Wednesday)
1) Spanish 3C
2) Spanish 3C
3) French 1C
4) Gym 4C
5) Science 4C

6) Science 4C

Giovedi (Thursday)
1) Italiano 1C
2) Italiano 1C
3) Italiano 2D
4) Math 4C
5) English 4C

6) Religion 4C

Venerdi (Friday)
1) French 4C
2) Italiano 4C
3) Spanish 3C
4) Science 4C
5) French 1C

Sabato (Friday)
1) French 1C
2) French 2D
3) English 4C
4) Italiano 1C
5) Math 4C

Well I should give you a couple updates quickly. I have bought some books for school now. I have a Spanish book and a French book so it makes it easier to keep up with the classes so that helps. My Spanish teacher took the time to catch me up on what they have learned because I have forgotten all of my Spanish the 3 months that I've been here. Plus because Italian and Spanish are sooo close they learn more in 3 months then I did in basically 2 years. So I think even though I'm in the first year ill come back knowing more then the last year does when I return to the USA. I'm excited to have my Spanish class because I'll come back with a little more of another language. YAY.

My birthday party starts in about 2 hours and I'm super excited!!! 4 AFS girls are spending the night tonight and 2 others are coming to the party and then 4 friends from school are coming, well I'll update you on that after I get back on vacation in which i leave for on MONDAY I'm super excited...well this week is hopefully going to be amazing..

Ciao

Quasi 3 mese (almost 3 months)

2008-11-17T10:27:00.005+01:00

Wow, so as the title of this article implies I have been in Italy for about 3 months already!! while this post does not have a specific reason like a lot of my posts do, ie.. changes or parties, i thought that I would give you a quick (are any of my blog posts quick reads? I'm not so sure about that lol there pretty long) update on life here in Italy thus far in the 3 months I've been here.

My Italian has greatly improved which is amazing because at times i thought that i would most certainly have the vocabulary of a 2 year old forever. Although now I can have a proper conversation with someone one-on-one. When I'm talking one-on-one with someone i usually have no problems communicating what I need to. Some times its weird because I will get stuck on a word that I don't know so I will describe that word with a whole bunch of other words and hope that the person gets what I'm trying to get my point. (Ill give you an example, if I was trying to say elephant but i didn't know the word i would say something like, BIG animal, lives in the zoo, has big ears and a HUGE nose, naturally in in Africa, and afraid of mice.) i only have to do this a couple of times, ok maybe more then a couple, in one conversation now but that is a far improvement from the first and second month of my exchange. Honestly the first 1 to 2 months of exchange is like one GIANT game of charades. While it was fun while it lasted it really was frustrating when you really needed to get a point across and you don't have the vocabulary to say what you need or want to say. And having all little kid conversations all day long for 2 months gets seriously boring, or having the same conversation over and over with different people gets really boring. but in the first two months it was nice to have those conversations sometimes because I knew that I would be able to get through them with out a problem because people pretty much asked me the same questions so I kind of have scripted answers for them so that is nice. But now its nice to be able to get through a new and deeper conversation with out having to use my dictionary every couple of sentences. Now when I have a conversation I might need my dictionary once or twice but i can usually make my own definition with other words and then the people can guess what I mean so that's nice because people get frustrated when you have to stop a conversation to check the dictionary for a word that you don't know. So now that my Italian is getting better its easier to have conversations with people, but there is one down side to understanding and speaking more Italian. I can no longer speak or write in English.

As you may have noticed as my posts get later and later into the year my English is slowly disappearing. I have been speaking more and more Italian therefore less and less English so I am starting to forget English words and English grammar. When I speak and write in English now i tend to leave out the subject of the sentence, (because in Italian the subject is told by the conjugation of the verb so it's not needed) I use too many articles (the) (because in Italian you HAVE to use an article before every noun) now in English because I'm starting to mix up English grammar and Italian grammar. I'm also starting to talk like a person who speaks English as a second language. I caught my self saying "I have not understood" because to say "I don't understand" in Italian you say "non ho capito" which directly translates to "I have not understood" which is something a foreigner would say not a native speaker. So I would like to apologize to all of you that have to read this blog because I know that my writing and grammar skills are not like they used to be when I started writing my blog.

School is getting better. It is still boring, but well I'm sorry to all teachers reading this blog, I've come to the conclusion that school is pretty much boring every where in the world. Although I do have to say school in Italy is really rather boring but I am starting to get to know more people in the school and become closer to the people so when I walk down the halls now I see way more people that I know and way more people say hi now so its less lonely at school only knowing like 13 people like I did before. I'm also starting to make more friends then I had before. We're not super close but it is getting better so that's good. I'm also starting to understand classes more so it helps make school less boring now that I actually understand some of whats going on in most of my classes. although I'm still totally lost in physics and math lol.

My family is just as amazing as they have been these last 3 months. I truly do love my family here I got really lucky and a good normal family chose me. We are an amazing fit honestly. They help me out so much. I think that they are the main reason that I have not been very homesick in these three months. Since the very first day that they brought me home they made me feel like part of the family and not like a guest. I think that was the best thing that they could have done, its made me feel at home here even though I've only been here for 3 months. I know that I am truly going to miss them soooo much when I have to leave its one of the saddest things to think about is to leave this family.

Ive covered all the normal topics so i guess its on to the topic of feelings. Oh my. everyone reading this blog knows that teenagers have crazy emotions to begin with but then you add exchange on to that and everything kinda goes haywire for a while. I truly have not really had that much of a problem here which I'm very grateful for. Although it is complicated being away from home, away from everyone and everything that is familiar to you. You also finding yourself homesick for the most random things. Things that you took for granted when you were at home. Like big bear hugs from your parents. I think i can agree this is one thing that every exchange student misses. Also just emotions are weird especially when you really don't know how to express your self properly. When you don't know the language its hard to express yourself and emotions tend to all build. I write in my journal every day so that really helps me i think. Over all this has been a fun exchange .I really have not had many hard times so that's good and I've loved sooo much of it so far and i can not wait to find out whats going to happen in these next 7 months.

Well my next post will be about my birthday which is in 4 days and then families and I are going on vacation to Pisa, Palermo and Florence that is coming up next Monday. So I wont be updating until after that probably so It will be awhile. I love and miss you all

Ciao

Changes

2008-11-06T14:42:00.010+01:00

Well a lot has happened all over the world in this last week and there have been a few of those things that have personally affected my life. I guess that I will start with the small thing and lead up to the big thing. (this is going to be like all of my other posts, long hahaha, sorry)

Well the small thing that has changed in my life since my last update was my school schedule. My English teacher and french teacher got together and made up a new schedule for me because there was no way that i would be able to follow the Philosophy, Latin or History classes (actually I was following my history lesson pretty well but my History teacher decided she didn't want to deal with someone who couldn't follow fully that i could stay but she would prefer me to be moved to another class, so i made the decision just to leave because its easier then having a class where the the teacher didn't want me there) so those two teachers got together to try to fix me a personalized schedule. There was also a conflicting problem with changing my Spanish classes. I knew that I wanted to take extra Italian classes with the first year students because there class was all about grammar and I knew that it would help me if I took a class on grammar. So I was given the option that I could cut the amount of Spanish classes I was taking and take French and the grammar class and another Italian class or keep the Spanish classes and only pick up French. So I decided to cut my Spanish classes and take french instead for 2 reasons. 1) It will help me in the long run to take extra Italian classes that aren't literature because I can understand them a little bit and it will help me improve my Italian faster then taking Spanish would. and 2) I take Spanish at home and French is not an option. I know that when I get back I will be able to pick up Spanish fairly quickly because I will speak Italian fluently but I do not have the option to take French in school at home so I figured that I would take another language here while I got the chance so that I could start learning another language. Plus the language classes in Italy are much faster here in Italy so I will learn a lot of French in just one year and I'm excited about picking up a new language.

This change in schedule is good for a couple of reasons. 1) I will understand more during the day because I'm with younger classes and I'm in classes that i find more interesting so I will want to pay attention more. 2) I get to meet more kids because I'm in classes with other kids besides just my class even if they are younger then me. and 3) I have a better chance of getting better or half descent grades because I'm in easier classes. I'm excited to be able to actually be able to do something in class. I miss understanding whats going on in school. I always took language and understanding for granted in the USA like even if i was zoned out in class i could still half listen and understand everything that was said. In Italy i have to concentrate very hard on every word just to get the general idea of whats being said. I can honestly say that I'm not going to ever take that for granted again. So I thought I would give you a look as to what my schedule looked like before the change and what it looks like now.

BEFORE:

Lunadi (monday)
1) Philosophy
2) Spanish
3) French
4) Latin
5) English

6) Gym

Martadi (Tuesday)

1) Science

2) History

3) Italian

4) Spanish

5) Spanish

6) Math

Mercoladi (Wednesday)

1) French

2) Philosophy

3) Art History

4) Gym

5) Science

6) Science

Govadi (Thursday)

1) Latin

2) Italian

3) History

4) Math

5) English

6) Religion

Venerdi (Friday)

1) French

2) Latin

3) Art History

4) Science

5) Philosophy

6) History

Sabato (Saturday)

1) Spanish

2) Spanish

3) English

4) Italian

5) Math

NOW: (the numbers and letters after it are the class I'm with, 1 is like freshmen and up from there)

Lunadi (Monday)
1) Italiano 1C
2) French 1C
3) French 4C
4) Italiano 4C
5) English 4C

6) Gym 4C

Martedi (tuesday)
1) Science 4C
2) Italiano 2D
3) Spagnolo 3C
4) French 3C
5) French 2D

6) Math 4C

Mercoledi (Wednesday)
1) French 4C
2) French 2D
3) French 1C
4) Gym 4c
5) Science 4C

6) Science 4C

Giovedi (Thursday)
1) Italiano 1C
2) Italiano 1C
3) Italiano 2D
4) Math 4C
5) English 4C

6) Religion 4C

Venerdi (Friday)
1) French 4C
2) Italiano 4C
3) Italiano 2D
4) Science 4C
5) French 1C

Sabato (Friday)
1) French 1C
2) French 2D
3) English 4C
4) Italiano 1C
5) Math 4C

So that is my new schedule and I must say I do love my new schedule. I'm excited that I get to learn French and that I'm in extra Italian Classes because it will help me learn the language faster. And I love being in classes with the other kids. SO that is the change that happened to me personally now I want to talk about the big change that has happened in the , well i was going to say USA but that wouldn't really be correct, in the world.

So unless you have been living in a cave for the last few days you know that Barack Obama was elected the new president of the United States of America. I thought it would be interesting to tell you how my view of the last 2 months of the elections were from an over seas point of view.

So these last 2 months every couple of days there would be something on the news about the election that was going on in the States. I would never totally understand what they were saying but I could get the general idea about what they were saying because I already knew what they were talking about. For me it was really interesting to hear about news from the USA so often on the news in Italy because I know for one in the USA most of the news is not international but domestic. So basically for the last two months I have been hearing about the election on the italian news and reading about it on the internet. Then there is when i first meet people one of the first things that they would ask me is "Obama or McCain" Which was interesting to me because people in the states do not usually ask you this question right out because it is generally seen as a more private choice and private matter. So that is what has been happening in Italy about the elections for about the past 2 months. Which brings me to November 3rd.

So on November 3rd In Italy I was very nervous and planned on doing nothing all day but watching American News on the computer so that I could keep updated on what was going on with the election. But with the time difference when I got home from school at 2 pm it was just 8am in NYC so the elections were just starting but it was very very interesting to watch and listen to the news because everyone seemed to have different opinion even though they were all looking at the same data. I have found that since I have been in Italy I have become a lot more interested in government, politics, economy and just the world in general. I'm not sure why this is but i most certainly have. maybe its because I've seen more of the world now and I've gotten to meet other people and now i want to see how the world works together and that stuff, or maybe that's too deep and I'm really just growing up now and i realize i don't live in perfect lala land and I want to see what kind of world I really live in. So I watched the news for a couple hours after school but because of the time difference the good part of the elections 8pm-11pm are in the middle of the night and very early in the morning here in Europe so I did not get to watch any of that news coverage because I was asleep because I had school the next day. So I went to sleep very nervous thinking that when I woke up the USA would have a new president.

When I woke up the first thing that I did was to turn on the computer and open up MSN. That is when I found out that Obama was the new president of the USA. When I went to school no one knew about the outcome of the elections yet so when I told them that "Obama won" every one seemed and was so excited. Italy is very Pro Obama. And that is basically what happened all day. Except people when they would see me felt the need to tell me that Obama won because I'm American. SO i heard it about 10000 times that day. well i will skip ahead one day just to add that even in the Italian news papers something about the elections and something about Obama was on EVERY page of the italian news papers. I found it very interesting how global this election was.

SO that is a semi-foreigner American got to view the election for the history books. Hope you enjoyed reading about the changes in my life that have all happened in the last 4 days. Ciao

Halloween Party and Exchange students

2008-11-01T18:50:00.008+01:00

Yes I am updating again lol, October has been a very event filled month.

So me and my sister decided about 2 weeks ago that we were going to have a Halloween party. about a week before the party, so a week before Halloween, we started cooking all these different cookies and cupcakes and figuring out how we were going to decorate the house and everything. Which was a lot of fun but also a lot of work for food we had: Ghost, pumpkin, bat, mummy and headstone shaped cookies, a grave yard themed pizza, Halloween shaped sandwiches, Halloween colored cupcakes, a gelatin face with the brain coming out, and little hot dog mummies. (for pictures check out my picture web sight) We also decorated the house with ghosts, fake dust, paper cutouts in different shapes, and a headless woman (again for pictures check out the picture web sight).

Ele invited all of her friends and I invited all of the AFS kids but only Lilla, Hendrikje, and Yue were able to come but we had soooo much fun. The party was a lot of fun because there was a lot of great food and there was music. We brought the sound system from Sant'Antioco back up to Carbonia so that we could all sing along to songs at the party. Singing along to the sound system was a lot of fun because we all sang at one time so that no one sounded horrible. Then we all danced around to the bad euro-pop music that is so popular here right now and just over all the party was a lot of fun. The food was amazing and the people here were amazing. but what made my party so good was the exchange students that were there.

If I do say so my self, not that I'm biased or anything, exchange students are the best people on this planet!! It was so nice to be able to talk to Lilla, Hendrikje, and Yue about everything that has happened in these last 2 months, OMG can you believe it??? its been 2 months already!!!, well I most certainly cant believe that it has been 2 months already. well for most of the party we all hung out in the kitchen or in my room because well it helps to talk to exchange students. we all know what the other one is going through and you don't feel guilty complaining to other students as you do when you complain to an intercultural volunteer. its just really nice to be able to talk about family, feelings, things that are different with someone that actually understands what you are talking about. No one but an exchange student can actually understand what they are going through. While the adults in the program can say they do but really they don't, its only the kids that went on exchange can relate. its such a crazy insane life choice that we all made and such a unique experience that we are all having it is something that only we can understand. Well we all talked for a couple of hours about everything that's happened in the last 2 months and i have to say it makes you feel really good to get everything of your chest and to have the other person understand what your complaining about or why your sad. So honestly this has been one of the best time that I've had in Italy. Just being with other exchange students automatically means a good time. Because we are just the funnest people. We all know what we are all feeling. just seriously i love hanging out with the other exchange students. we made plans to meet and everything because now that the lessons are over we don't have to see each other 3 times a week like we did when we had the lessons for italian in cagliari (IM SOO HAPPY THEY'RE OVER) but we all still want to get together because we do want to stay close and its nice to just sit and talk to the other kids for a while. So we made plans to meet in Cagliari and do things like shop and get pizza.

I already know that I'm going to be VERY VERY VERY sad to leave all of these kids that i have become soo close to in just 2 months. Even in Sassari when we were together for just 4 days it was sooo hard to leave and I''ve gotten so close to the kids in my chapter that I'm starting to realize that maybe these are the friends that its going to hurt to leave the most. and i know that i have 8 more months but you can't help but think "after these 8 months am I ever going to see these people again?" I mean I now have friends from all over the globe: Hungary, France, China, Japan, Chile, Germany, Russia, Iceland, Norway, New Zealand, Australia, Venezuela, Colombia, and Paraguay and sooo many more. Am I ever going to get to see these amazing friends that I have made again? Its going to be soo hard to leave them because its so easy to make friends with an exchange student. Exchange students are soo open and soo accepting to just about everything. And because we are all living the same crazy life for one year we all become friends sooo quickly. Even Just today when Lilla, Hendrikje, and Yue were going home i didn't want them to leave because we are so close, its just really sad to say good bye even when you know your going to see them again, I don't even want to think about how its going to be in July when we're all in Roma and slowly one group at a time leaves for the airport to fly home and you have to say goodbye to all of the amazing friends that you have made this year. I honestly think that saying good bye to all of the people here and leaving Italy is going to be harder then saying good bye and leaving the USA was because when i left the USA i knew that i would see all of these people again 10 months and that no matter how much i missed them that i would get to see them again just 10 short (and i mean very short, time flies when your on exchange) months later. But when I leave the other exchange students come July in Roma I wont know when or if i ever will see these kids again. it is going to be very sad and very hard, but I wouldn't take back being friends these people even with the painful goodbye because they are some of the best friends that I've had and i know that some of them could even last my whole life.

Over all my Halloween part was alot of fun because i got to hang out with exchange students.

SCIOPERA

2008-10-24T19:08:00.007+02:00

For those of you non-Italian speakers out there a sciopera (pronounced kinda like show-per-a ) is a strike. Strike's especially for teachers and students, yes in Italy students go on strike too, are not near as a big of a deal as they are in the states. Strikes here are usually only for one day where one party or the other boycotts school (or work, but this post is about school strikes) for the day and protests in the piazza. Well the reason that I thought that I would update my blog again so soon after updating it last time is something sort-of big has been happening in my town for the last two days and is possibly happening again tomorrow. That big thing is a sciopera for the students. Here has how the last 2 days of school have been for me.

Thursday:
When I arrived at school on Thursday all of the kids were gathered around the entrance of my school. Which is normal but today no one was going in to the school, which was weird. I asked a few of my class mates what was going on and they said that today there might be a strike. To me this sounded very weird because in the States students don't go on strike. Well one of the older kids got up and started speaking to the big group and then a whole bunch (almost all of the school) started walking back out of the gate. My class stayed because they had a big Latin test that they had to take that day so my class stayed so i did too. I didn't join the strike (which I didn't have any clue why they were striking because I didn't understand). So we didn't really have normal classes because the teachers didn't really teach anything all day because there were hardly any students in the school. Well at 1130 when we have our normal break what students were in the school went out so that we could have our break. About 5 minutes in to our break we see this GIANT mob of students holding signs and chanting (in Italian so i don't know what they were saying) So all of us students went back in side the building while this mob surrounded the school (it was really amusing to me because it was soo different) They all gathered around the school and one of the older boys got up with a megaphone and was talking to the whole crowd (me and my class were watching from the classroom) and they were all chanting and they had whistles and blow horns and signs and everything. The teachers were all watching and honestly they seemed amused too. The mob stayed for about 30 minutes at our school then continued walking down to do the same at the other schools. When I got out of school and came home I found out that there were student strikes all over Italy today and that they were on TV. The strike in Carbonia even made it on TV. Then My sister informs me that there is going to be another strike on Friday and Saturday. and that brings me to Friday, today.

Friday:
Me and Ele get ready for school like normal except this time we don't take any of our school things with us to school because we know that there is going to be a strike and we don't want to carry our school books with us while we strike. So we get to school and again everyone is crowding around the entrance but this time NO ONE is entering the school, unlike yesterday when a few people went in. The same few older guys got up on the ledge thing and started talking saying that they didn't want to enter so the whole group of kids walked down the street to the piazza and waited for the kids from the other schools to get there because they aren't as close to the piazza as the classic/linguistic school is. Once everyone got there finally a few of the senior (5th year) students got up and started talking about all the problems and why we were striking while everyone stood around... there were sooo many students it was truly craziness but it was soo cool to see all the kids together for one thing. After they talked for a while we all just had to wait for the president of the school to show up, I'm not sure why but that's what I was told. To be honest it was really really boring and kind of hot waiting for the president to come talk to us. Well the boys got up and talked a few more times I'm not totally sure what they were saying but its something about the classes being cut and it not being fair for the little kids I think. At around 1130 they told us that we would be having another sciopera tomarro and we will be protesting at each one of the schools starting at 900 am.. So really today we didn't do anything but sit in the piazza for 3 hours and not go to school.

Saturday:
We all got ready for school just like we would normally but this time Claudio didn't drive us to school we went right to the piazza because this strike was already planned and everything was set in to place. so everyone waited around for about an hour until everyone showed up because it was planned for 900 some people didn't even come until 900 even though school normally starts at 830. there were SOOO many people there at least twice as many as there were yesterday. So they started passing out whistles and balloons for everyone to use and to blow up and then the whole mob started to (very slowly) walk in the middle of the street down the main street in downtown Carbonia. We were stopping traffic and everyone from there house s and the shops came out to watch the strike. everyone was shouting, yelling, using there whistles, blowing there blow horns and just being really loud (i have the massive headache to prove it). we walked all the way down the main street of Carbonia really slowly and stopping alot so that they could yell and chant together. I don't know for sure what they were saying cause i didn't really understand. Then at random times we would all sit down in the middle of the road so that we could listen to the "organizers" of sorts talk. We all walked together for about 2 hours very slowly through the streets of downtown Carbonia. We finally made it back to the piazza and then it was over. It was alot of fun even if i have a huge headache and am not sure why we were striking.. but hey... no school!!!

So I have figured out why I am striking (which we are still doing by the way). There is a new piece of Ledislation that is trying to be passed by the Italian Goverment. This legislation, created by Italian Leaders Gelmini and Berlusconi, is taking funds away from public schools (elementary and secondary, for now). With this piece of legislation, they are secretely trying to privatise the schools. As funds get taken away from the public schools, and given to the private schools, that means that teachers will be laid off, it means some students wont have chairs and desks to sit at. Because parents want the best for their children and their childrens education, they will take their children out of public schools, and place them into private schools, that, even though they receive large grants from the government, demand large sums of money for education. By this time, if there are less then 300 students in a school, that school must close. With the closures of most public schools, many students will, of course, be in private schools. But there is an even bigger, more sinister thing behind this as well. The government is also trying to shut down the public universities, In public university, you only have to pay like a thousand euro to go their for a year, but with the private universities, you have to pay, large, exorbitant amounts of money, like back in America (the government says it is trying to make the school system more "european", but it is looking more and more american). Many of my friends now are worrying that they will have to go to France or to Spain, or to some European country far from their home, to get a good, cheap, university education.
With that said, I am joining my friends in some of the protesting(peacefully) against this piece of legislation. We have protests almost everyday, that involve sit ins, traffic jamming, and the likes. (so yes, it is like I am living in the 70s, really it is like the 70s :) I have put up pictures on my web sight if you would like to see.

(side note: thank you for everyone who has left me comments on my blog, I love reading them they are very interesting, keep them coming)

You know your an exchange student when

2008-10-20T20:24:00.003+02:00

I know that I just posted earlier today but I found this list on Facebook and I just had to add it to my blog. I know that all the exchange students out there will understand exactly what they are saying and everyone else will be wondering .... "that's funny??" but here is a taste of the life of an exchange student everyone. While not all of these apply to me alot of them still do and even if they don't there really funny to read. So I hope you all enjoy them. Don't forget to check out the "Differences" post that i posted earlier today

1] before waiting to see if anyone understood what you meant, you start acting it out.

2] you think 100 pounds to pack up your entire life is plenty of space.

3] you don't have preferences anymore, especially when it comes to food. Nothing tastes familiar, that's for sure.

4] you spend a lot of time smiling, nodding, and pretending you understand what's going on.

5] you classify "doing your homework" as translating half of it. And that alone took three hours.

*6] when your grandma asks you what you've been learning, you tell her something general, instead of "how to open beer bottles with a 50 cent coin."

7] you sometimes use the excuse "Sorry, I don't understand" to avoid answering a question....even if you do.

*8] they offer cocktails at the back-to-school party.

9] you want to hug the people who attempt to speak your native language to you.

10] you've called every person who says "hi" to you your friend... because you don't really have any yet.

11]you'll read anything in your native language just to have something to read...even packaging labels.

12]you've got on the bus and had the driver say "you don't want to be on this bus" because you got on the same bus the night before and it was wrong then, too.

13] you sometimes walk around the school during breaks to act like you're doing something, because you don't see anyone you recognize and don't want to stand there awkwardly.

14] you know the answer to a question in a class but don't raise your hand because you don't want people to expect to much from you.

15] you're better than your teacher in your foreign language class.

16] you are a master of pantomime and circumlocution and still can't have a conversation.

*17] you actually think the language barrier is a good thing when it comes to things like lying to your host parents.

18] you've ever mispronounced something in your native language (for example, names of products, TV shows, companies) because you know the others will understand it better if you say it with an accent.

19] you've tried so many different foods due entirely to the fact that you cannot understand the person asking you what you want so you just nod your head, say "yes", and hope to god it tastes half-decent.

20]you've tried to order something in your host country's language only to be answered in English because you did it so badly.

21]you've gotten annoyed with said people that automatically answer you in English when you try to speak to them in their language.

22] after you come back everybody tells you that you have a weird accent.

23] your dreams are bilingual.

24]sometimes it takes you about 5 minutes to remember a word in your native language that you were going to use.

25] you automatically use words in a foreign language that you cant even translate but they just seem to fit the context.

26] you watch television shows and movies that you know in your native language, just to understand it for once.

27] you begin to enjoy foods that you had previously despised at home.

*28] you've gotten out of a punishment or being yelled at because you didn't understand the language, or at least pretended you didn't.

29] it becomes a habit to introduce yourself by saying: "I am from (country) and my name is (name)."

30] you've gotten upset because someone assumed you wanted to do something...and then were told you were asked if you wanted too, and you said yes!

31] you've said something like 'oh yes' or 'not thanks' only to have everyone laugh because your answer made no sense compared to the question.

32] you actually got a high five when you understood what someone said to you.

33] you're never sure if someones being your friend, flirting, seducing you, or sexually harassing you.

*34] while you're having a nice conversation with your Gastopa and Oma, your host sister is making out on the same couch. Then her and her boyfriend are always sure to announce when they are going to take a bath together.

35] you're not sure whether it's a children's book or porn.

36] you get a little scared before starting a sentence with big words in it in another language.

*37] you have been put in a one or more classes with the fifth graders, because you're supposed to understand more there.

38] you are always counting the time difference between where you are and home.

39] you always forget the time difference when you call a friend or family member back home.....sorry for waking you up at 4 AM mom.

40] you do something wrong and people look at you weird, your excuse is "That's how we do it in my country" even if it isn't.

41] you have gone in to greet someone with a shake of hands and find yourself being pulled into an awkward hug/double kiss on the cheek or the other way around.
42] you carry a dictionary and a camera in your bag.

43] you get so used to broken English you finish people's sentences even though no one else can understand them.

44] you get into arguments with the foreign language teacher (English) over how to pronounce something.

45] you try to speak in the native language and everyone immediately knows "You're not from around here".

*46] you can get into the strictest clubs with your ID from you host country, because most people get confused and just let you get in.

47] you know every cuss word in your host language, but still cant conjugate into past or future tense.

48] peoples stares don't bother you anymore.

*49] you're ready to drink anytime of the day.

*50] you have mastered the arts of deception and sneakery.

*51] you've spent more than one night getting drunk with your host parents.

52] everyone thinks your playing the tough guy when you say you haven't called your mom yet and don't miss her too much.

53] a conversation is going fine, before it suddenly get stuck on some word or phrase which makes you completely forget what you were talking about.

54] you buy clothes in your country so you don't look so much like a foreigner.

The numbers marked with a * are the ones that don't, or haven't yet applied to me so mom, dad, teachers, anyone else reading this blog... don't freak out lol. I hope you all enjoyed reading this as much as I did...

Differences

2008-10-20T17:50:00.003+02:00

Hi everyone, Sorry this has taken me so long to put up. Ive been really busy with my Italian class and being sick so I haven't really had the time but I thought that everyone at home would get a kick out of seeing some differences from life in Carbonia Italy and life in Monroe Wisconsin. Oh disclaimer this is going to be a very long post because I wrote this during school on one of the days when I have: French, Italian Lit, History, Latin, Art History, and Philosophy so basically i understand NOTHING so i had alot of time. LOL

School

The school day starts at 8:30 but that does not mean that the teachers or the students will actually show up at 8:30 and this is completely normal and accepted.
The teachers are late almost every day when all they are really doing is sitting in the "lounge" talking to each other.
Classes are a full 1 hour long
You have a different schedule every day of the week that can be changed at any time. (I've been in school for a month and still don't have a concrete schedule)
You get out at different times every day depending on your schedule. Some time between 1200 and 200.
You stay in the same classroom all day and the teachers change rooms.
You are with the same kids all day and you have the same class for all 5 years of high school.
YES they have FIVE years of high school
The classrooms have nothing on the walls and are just white boxes because the teachers move classrooms so they aren't decorated like they are in the states.
There are no substitute teachers. If a teacher is gone for a day then you just have a free period.
They have no lockers they keep all of there books at home and bring what they need to school every day.
They have to buy there own books every year because the school doesn't provide them.
The teachers are not guaranteed to know the subjects that they are teaching. (my English teacher does not speak English)
In a class when you need a tv or projector you have to go to another room because not every classroom has one.
The classes are all lecture style. there is no discussion. the teachers talk AT the class and the class takes notes for the whole hour.
The teachers are ALWAYS right even if you know for a fact they are wrong like if its written in the book differently then what they say you do not correct them because they are right and the book is wrong.
All of there tests are oral tests. they have to study the whole chapter and the teacher can ask them any question she or he wants and they have to have studied that part of the chapter. they are not given the questions ahead of time either.
There are no sports or clubs in school. school is for learning and that's it..
There is no school "pride" or school spirit.
There are routinely strikes for the students and for the teachers and this is a normal thing. Its not a huge deal like it is in the states.
You do not eat lunch at school. you go home and eat lunch with your family.
It is normal for teachers or students to just get up and leave class to answer there ringing cell phones.

Family/Home/Food

Family meals are very important
Italians eat ALOT
A normal meal consists of a full plate of pasta (that would be the end of the meal in the states) then there's some kind of meat dish. (the first meal we had in Rome we all filled up on pasta because we didn't know there was more.. then we of course filled up on the meat cause it was so delicious.) and then you have fruit after wards.
When you empty your plate they think you want more and if you don't empty your plate they think your some kind of alien with an eating disorder because you don't eat enough.
They don't have sliced white bread. they either have fresh homemade bread or they go buy fresh bread from the store every day.
Bread with EVERY meal
Sandwiches here are ALOT of bread with a little meat as apposed to the opposite in the states.
They don't have snack food
There is really no fast food or take out here.
McDonalds is REALLY expensive like 3 euro for one burger (i haven't had it yet so idk if its more or less good)
When you go out for pizza everyone orders there OWN pizza. which is about the size of a medium pizza in the states. then if you don't finish it the waiters look at you like your nuts because normal people can eat the whole thing even if its piled high with STRANGE toppings.
They put french fries on there pizza.
Breakfast is really really light. usually only water or cafè and a small cake like thing.
Lunch is late too.. its around 230
They eat dinner really late. Usually at around 830-1000 is normal time for dinner
If you want a glass of water here you have to pay for it its not free like it is in the states.
When you want water you have to ask for flat water because other wise they will give you bubbly water. and you have to ask for a small bottle or you get a whole liter.
They do not drink tap water here EVERYTHING is in bottles.
cafè is espresso and is REALLY strong
American coffee is basically water here and is really nasty.
They do not use cloths dryers. they hang everything out side.
You cant walk around the house barefoot you have to have shoes on at all times
They do not have carpet they only have tile floors
It is normal to only have one or two electrical sockets in one room.
There are light switches in the hallway for the bedroom and light switches in the bedrooms for the hallway so your never in the dark.
The toilet bowl part (in the states the part that holds the water that is behind the toilet that the flusher is on) is mounted on the wall up by the ceiling.
The flusher is a tiny button on the wall.
You cant flush the toilet right after its already been flushed because it takes forever for the water to fill back up in order to flush again.
Italians have a weird second toilet called a bidet (which im not going to explain because i don't really know what its for because i don't use it. but if you want to know click HERE that is the Wikipedia definition of bidet)

Cars/Traffic

Most of the cars here are small
All cars are manual transmission
Stop signs are optional annoyances to Italians that the government puts up to make the roads look more organized but are not things that have to be taken seriously.
Cars drive VERY fast even in town.
Roads are very narrow. for two cars to fit through at once time one car has to pull over to the side of the road to let the other one pass.
It is perfectly acceptable to park on the sidewalk, or where ever else you choose to put your car.
When you are crossing the street you look both ways and then run because you know that cars will not stop for you.
Honking is a perfectly normal thing to hear and you hear it ALOT.
you don't get your drivers license until you are 18.
You can drive a scooter/moped type thing when you are 16
It is normal and not gay to see two boys on one scooter
In fact you see 2 boys on one more often then you see a boy and a girl on one..

Speaking

Italians talk very loud and very dramatically with ALOT of emotion.
When your talking to someone (this could very well just be me but i have thought it on more then one occasion) you can sometimes think to your self that the person should be saying "1 and 2 and 3 and 4 come on ladies feel the burn" (like a bad Richard Simmons work out video in the 70's) because they are moving there hands so much.
a normal conversations can sound like a fight because they speak so loud and with so much emotion.
it is normal and acceptable to have a verbal argument with someone on the street.

Style/Friends

Everyone is very friendly and likes to talk
they are very open to new people
when there is a new person everyone wants to get to know them
Girls style

Skinny jeans
sweaters
converse/flats/heals
polos
Tight fancy t shirts

Boys Style

Unfortunately the same as the girls (Italian boys look somewhat gay by American standards lol)

Everyone LOVES sunglasses
They are very in to designer labels
everyone wears glasses (designer) and not many people wear contacts
they don't dress casually
when you go out you have to change because your "home clothes" are different then your "going out" cloths.
you don't hang out at each others houses
you hang out at the piazza and walk around in circles for a couple hours then go home.

Public Transportation

Busses and trains in every city and town
They are not always on time and not of the best quality but its very nice and very cheap to get around Sardegna on the bus or the train.

Well those are some Italian --> USA differences to amuse your selves with for a while.. hope you enjoyed reading them.

Living Life in Italy

2008-10-15T16:13:00.004+02:00

I thought that I would update everyone on how I am doing in Italy. So far life has been great in Italy. I really love it here. The people are very nice and the culture is so open and friendly that it is easier to make friends and easier to talk to people because there more interested in you and what you have to say. So I am very glad that I picked Italy I believe that it is a very good match for me and that I ended up with the right country for me. I have basically been living life day to day just getting through one day at a time trying to learn more every day so that I'm not as lost the next day. I still spend some of my time following around people like I'm two because I don't understand whats going on around me, or why we are doing something, and sometimes I don't even figure it out until we are there or sometimes after lol. Being on exchange really does remind you of what it was like when you were about two years old because that's the language skills you have and how much understand. So my life so far since my last update...

School is very hard! I still don't understand very much in school because the teachers talk very fast and they are talking to the whole group and I really only understand people when they are talking directly to me because then they are concentrating on me and they remember to speak slower. So in class I really don't understand anything in most of my classes because the teachers talk way to fast for me to be able to follow. I understand a little of my math class but he does everything different then the way that I learned it so its hard because he says that my way is wrong so I have to do it there way and there way is very hard. I really don't understand my Spanish class now because my class is way ahead of where I am in Spanish. Ive decided that language classes in the USA have a lot to learn from other countries. I had 2 years of Spanish and they have had 1 year of Spanish and they know 4 times as much as I do. While yes they do have an advantage because Italian and Spanish are very close so it is easier for them to learn. In general the USA needs to come along way in there language classes. For one they need to start them earlier because 4 years of one language is not enough to even become proficient in a language. Ive met so many AFSers who speak 3 and 4 languages well enough that they can have full conversations about anything with out a problem. I wish US schools did classes like this. So I don't understand my Spanish class and my teacher is convinced thatI'm stupid because I told her that I have had 2 years of Spanish so she expected me to be AMAZING but they don't understand that it was my first language and that we don't get nearly as far in Spanish because English and Spanish really aren't that similar. I understand my physics class a little bit but not very much because its alot of story problems. My English classes are getting a little bit better because my teacher has started to speak a little more English (she cant speak English she can only translate from English to Italian when she reads). So for my English class i read out loud for the class the whole class period. All of my other classes I'm kind of lost in because there so difficult so i usually just study my Italian during them because it passes the time quicker and it will help me learn Italian faster....i hope.

I'm starting to make friends in school but its hard because my class has been together in the same class for 4 years now so they are already really close friends so its hard to break into there little groups that are already formed. I wish that it was easier. Like for the kids that have other exchange students in there classes/schools its easier for them because they have built in friends that i don't have but I'm also glad that I'm the only student in my school because I cant rely on the other students for English and I will (hopefully) have more Italian friends at the end of my experience.

My family is amazing. I really do love my family and they are a great match for me. My family and i get along really really well. They always make sure that I am where I need to be when I need to be and for that I thank them alot because half of the time I don't even know my own schedule because it was explained in very fast Italian and I didn't understand what was said. They also help me by speaking somewhat slow even when they speak to each other they make sure that they are speaking a little slower then normal so that I can try to follow the conversation. Me and my sister get along really well. We share a bedroom and I think that its a good thing actually because we have gotten closer then normal. If i have a problem or a question I usually go to my sister. One day she came to me and decided that she was going to dress me up goth for the day (if you want proof go look at the pictures on my web sight) It was definately an interesting experience but I definately think I will never go goth again. for one it takes WAY to much time. My papà is very very nice to me. We have conversations together after dinner sometimes and its always really nice and I always feel really good afterwards because I realize that Ive just had a whole conversation in Italian. Although in our conversations dictionaries are a must lol. My mamma is also very nice and she helps me and treats me like her own daughter which is really nice. And like I said i don't really know my brother that well but I hope that will come a little later. My family has also planned a semi "birthday" present for me and they are taking me to Pisa, Palermo, and Florence for a week after my birthday. So I am very excited about that because I get to see more of Italy..

The Italian language is VERY frustrating because I still cant say everything that I want to say when I want to say it and that is soooo frustrating. I want to have an intelligent conversation with someone and that's not about school or food. I want to have an actual conversation about something that matters. When i'm talking to someone that's not my family they always get frustrated with me because I take along time to answer a question even though I understood the question and I know the answer it just takes me a while to arrange the answer in my head. People get annoyed that it takes me so long and then they just stop the conversation. so that is really frustrating. I guess I expected this time to come because the first month of major learning has ended and now I need to start really working harder (I have been working on it alot) on my Italian if i want it to improve more rapidly. Well we will see how that goes. The Italian lessons are starting to help more because they are getting a little bit harder which is nice because I don't feel like I'm wasting my time going to Cagliari three times a week. Now that they are helping more I'm grateful for them but I still cant wait for them to be over because they make for VERY long days.

Exchange is definately the hardest thing that I have ever done in my life because I am only 16 years old and I am 6000+ miles away from my home, my family, my friends and everything else that I know. I'm not going to lie it is hard but i know that it will also be the most meaning full experience of my life. I do love it and I am loving my time that I'm having here. Yes I do miss home. I miss my family and my friends and that Is hard sometimes because I cant just see them and talk to them when ever I wanted like I could at home. I really have not had that much homesickness for which I'm very grateful because that can cause alot of problems with exchange and I am personally glad that I haven't had to experience those particular problems. But I don't want to allude anyone. Exchange is Hard but it is most definately worth the experience because while its hard it is also alot of fun!!

Because this post is already insanely long I'm going to make another post right now from a list of "differences" that I have compiled for your reading enjoyment.

(I'm sorry for my horrible English, its getting harder to speak and write in English because I''m starting to use Italian grammar and word order in my English sentences making them make no sense. so I'm very sorry if something is a little bit confusing)

First Orentation Camp

2008-10-05T13:04:00.000+02:00

So I have officially been in Italy for 1 month today because today is October 5th and I arrived in Italy on September 5th. I can not believe that it has been 1 month already. My journey had gone by so fast I can not believe that it is 1/10th over already because it feels as if I just arrived in Italy because the time here has gone by so quickly. Well on to what my post was supposed to be about. This last week I had my first orientation camp for Sardegna Italy. It was SOOOO much fun!!! I seriously had so much fun with the other exchangers, but I guess when you put 40 teenagers in one hotel with only 6 volunteers your bound to have an interesting time.

October 1st
I woke up extra early to drive one hour with my papà to Cagliari. The bus left from Cagliari at 930 so me and my papà left Carbonia at about 730 because we knew there would be traffic going in to the city at that time of the morning. Well before we left Carbonia we went to a small deli to get me some sandwiches for lunch because the students would be eating lunch on the bus. When we got there he asked me one sandwich or two. When I said 1 he sais "but there small" so I said that I would have two because well it takes longer to convince Italians that your not hungry then to just eat what there giving you. When they started making my pannini they were 2 HUGE pannini!! Then at the register he also bought 2 soda's and chocolate. In my head im thinking. ok wow i can not eat all of this food for lunch. I mean who has 2 giant sandwiches for just lunch. Then we made our way in to Cagliari which took about an hour and a half when it should have only taken about 50 minutes because of traffic. We went and got some breakfast at this small cafè. I had a cafè and a small breakfast cake thingie. And my papà had milk. Ive never seen anyone put sugar in milk before but it seems to be common practice for Italians. Then we went and waited for the other Cagliari - Iglesias students to arrive so that we could get on to the bus. When everyone got on to the bus we started our 6 hour bus ride to Sassari. All of the Cagliari -
Iglesias kids sat in the back of the bus and we talked soo much it was so much fun. About an hour and a half in to the ride we stopped at Tarellba to pick up the kids in that chapter. It was really nice to see all of the kids again because i realized how much i actually missed them. Then we stopped in Oristano to pick up the kids in that chapter. The bus kept getting fuller and fuller with kids we hadn't seen in a full month. The last stop to pick up kids was Sassari. There were a few kids inSassari that I was looking forward to seeing again! Then we drove the one hour from Sassari to the Resort that we were staying at for the orientation. When we got there we checked in and we got our room assignments, I roomed with a Thai girl and a German girl, and we were given one hour to walk around and to go to our rooms and stuff. Well after that hour we went down and we had a big meeting with all of the kids and the volunteers. We introduced our selves in Italian to the whole group which was kinda fun because there were some kids that i didn't remember. Then we were spilt in to 3 big groups with 2 volunteers for each group. My group was really cool i liked them alot. on the first day because we didn't get there till like 3 we only did one section of orientation. We talked about our families and problems and stuff with our families. Then we had free time until dinner which was at 8. so we had about 3 hours of free time. my little "group" here , Me, Lilla (aHungarian girl in my chapter), Ami (aParaguaian girl), Sergio (a Colombian boy) and Efren (a Venezuelean boy) and Katerina (aRussian girl), hung out together for the 3 hours we had before dinner. We just walked around and talked. I like those 3 students alot they are so nice. Ive decided that out of all the people South Americans are the nicest for sure. then we had dinner which
was AMAZING it was like 4 courses just wow. After dinner we had about 3 more hours of free time and my little "group" went to Lilla's room and we played cards and listened to music. it was alot of fun. at about midnight we went to bed because we didn't know the volunteers well yet so we didn't want to push curfue the first night. But when i got back to my room both of my roommates were asleep so i had to be really quiet lol.

October 2ond
We had to wake up at 730 so that we could be down to breakfast at 830. At breakfast at my table every kid was from a different country so that was really cool. after breakfast we had to have more orientation which was really really boring. we talked about our school and about the language and stuff so it was really boring. But we had only about 2 hours of it and then they gave us pool time. Now mind you its October 2nd and we are all going to swim outside. we all went and got on swimsuits and went swimming. it was SOOOOOO cold but oh so much fun. I probably wouldn't have gotten in but people started throwing people in to the pool and I heard my name and i didn't want to get thrown in the pool so i just got in on my own but it was sooo much fun. The whole group (well most) took a big group picture in the pool it was sooo cold but so much fun!! Then we had lunch which we found out is the same size as dinner just minus the dessert at the end. After dinner we played some "tennis" with my group it was so much fun. After tennis we had more orientations but this time we talked about sterotypes for each country that was represented in our group. There was a big poster board for every country represented in our group and each person had to write something they thought or knew about the country on the board. It was fun to see what people thought about the USA and about the other countries. Then the kids from that country went up and told if they were right or wrong about the countries sterotypes. Then we had "personal interviews" I talked to Andrea Sana (the president of my chapter) about our families and school and language and stuff like that so that was nice but i really haven't had any problems yet so it was all good. Then was dinner which was the same as the night before so VERY yummy. Then there was a traditional Sardinian dance performed for us so that was really really cool!! It was nice to see some of the culture that was in Sardegna long
before us exchange students ever stepped foot here. It was so interesting to see that people used to do this for special occasions all the time and how elaborate the costumes were and just it really was amazing. Then we, my group, played bullshit (a card game) for a while while everyone was getting called over for there interviews. After that we suddenly hear some one playing the piano so my group decides to go listen to the music. We all pile on 1 couch and one chair. so basically we were all laying and sitting on one an other but it was alot of fun. and we all stayed up listing to him play until like 130 am (curfew at 1 am but the voluteers didn't care) and after that we went to bed.

October 3

We woke up at 730 again and breakfast was at 830 again. I had breakfast with my little group again and It was so much fun. I love all the kids that I hung out with at orientation. Just they are so nice and so much fun. South Americans are so nice all the time. The weather today was really crappy and rainy so we all had to stay in the piano room and the balcony today because it was so wet. We had to stick around between breakfast and lunch because the rest of the kids had to stick around and do a survey which was really stupid. Then lunch was really really yummy I love Italian food! Then after dinner all of the kids decided that we were going to attempt to draw the world. It was alot of fun but our world ended up really really weird looking but we had so much fun. The "exchange student" world is a very messed up world. With many added countries and many countries that don't exist in our world. But it was so fun to draw because we weren't looking at a map when we drew it and we drew it in pen and marker so there was no going back once we started drawing. (and teachers that are reading this forgive us we tried) Oh one of the Chinese boys in my chapter in Sardegna is named Cao-Cao (pronounced cow-cow) and we all found out that in Chinese Cao-Cao means (excuse the language if it offends any one but this is what it means) Fuck-Fuck. So basically all of the exchange students LOVED Cao-Cao. He was like the most popular kid at orientation. And we basically named all of the Asian boys Cao-Cao.. they were 1 2 3 and 4 but they got a huge kick out of it and liked it. In our world South America and Africa were really close (we ran out of room) and they were connected with Cao-Cao bridge. Our middle Europe didn't exist and we forgot or left out alot of countries or we just didn't know what countries were there but just we had a BLAST drawing the world. Just I guess when you put 40 teenagers together were gonna come up with some weird things. Then we had dinner. After dinner we had a talent show which was alot of fun! Everyone's talents were sooo good and just it was fun to watch. Then we all just decided that we were all going to go on the stage and dance. so the dj put on music and we all just danced and had alot of fun. Then we all went to the pool and alot of people decided to swim at like midnight. It was soooo cold so i didn't swim but it was fun hanging out with everyone. Then me Sergio, Sheron (a girl from Alaska) and Voltier (an Icelandic boy) were walking around hanging out and that was alot of fun. then we went to bed because we were leaving the next day.

October 4th (a very sad day)

We all woke up and had breakfast together but this time I ate breakfast with some of the volunteers and that was alot of fun they're fun to talk to. Then all of the AFS kids went to an outside stage so that we could all take pictures. I took soooo many pictures. We all did weird groups together. Like Cold countries or America. Just it was alot of fun and i took sooooo many pictures. We also took one big group picture which was alot of fun. Let me tell you trying to get 40 kids that haven't slept in 3 days to sit still long enough to take a group picture is not the easiest thing in the world. It took our group about 5 tries before we finally had everyone in the picture. Then we all started walking to the place where we were going to have lunch but lunch wasn't ready yet so we all walked down to the beach. The waves were HUGE and coming in all different directions but we were all taking pictures. but sometimes you wouldn't see a wave coming and you would get your feet really wet because the wave would come up and suddenly you were standing in water. Then we had lunch in a place where we could see the sea. Then it was on the bus to drive back home. We stopped in Sassari and my group began to be broken up because Sergio left in Sassari because that's where he lives. Then we stopped in Oristano and we lost Ami and Efren. then we stopped in Tarellba and we lost Katerina and Sheran and then it was just me and Lilla left and it was sooo hard to leave all of the exchange students because you get really close to them all even if we were only together for 4 days you become friends with them really really fast. so it sucks to leave all of them. I am going to be very sad at the end of this because we are all very close already and just i miss them alot. When we got home to Cagliari it was nice to see my papà and mamma and my family because i missed them while i was in Sassari. Me and my family have gotten pretty close and i like them alot. We came home and had dinner and then I went to bed because i was REALLY tired because i basically didn't sleep in Sassari.

Well that is a summary of my first AFS orientation it was sooo much fun but a little sad at the end saying good bye to everyone.

(Pictures: 1: The first picture is of my "group" of friends at orientation, from left to right its, Me, Ami, Sergio, Efren, Lilla.... 2: Is our group pool picture.... 3: Is the USA poster of Stereotypes (most are bush and fast food)... 4: the video of the dance.... 5: All of the students crowded around the piano on 1 couch... 6: is the exchange student world (forgive us its really bad but it was oh so much fun) ... 7: is all of the kids on Sardegna.... (if i figure out how to put the captions with the pictures i will but i don't have time right now..hahaha) IF YOU CLICK ON THE PICTURES YOU CAN SEE THEM BIGGER)

Ciao

Carbonia thus far

2008-09-21T15:24:00.002+02:00

So I have now been with my family for exactly 2 weeks. YAY. It has been a very good two weeks. I like my family a lot, they are very nice and we all get along really well. They are very helpful to me and they are just so sweet. I love them. So here is a run down of my life so far in Carbonia:

First few days:

My first night here me and the family didn't do much. We had a really yummy dinner and then we basically went to bed because I didn't get there until late so the day was pretty much over by the time that i got there. The next morning papà had taken off of work and he took me and Ele to get my residence permit and to get me a phone because my phone does not work here in Italy because of the SIM card. We came home and me and ele hung out for a little while then papà said that we were going to go to the beach so i got on my bikini and so did Ele and we got ready for the beach. The beach is only about 10 minutes from our house which is really nice. Me and Ele had a lot of fun at the beach. The next few days were really fun. We basically went to the beach every day and did a few errands. We went to the grocery store a lot lol. There grocery stores are exactly like ours are except you bag your own groceries and you have to pay for the bags. After the first few days they told me that we were going to go to Sant. Antioco to there other house for 4 days.

Sant. Antioco:

The first day we were there me and Ele went to the beach again which was a lot of fun and then that first night we were there a few of Ele's friends came over and there parents too. One of Ele's guy friends and Mary plus there parents. I have found that when Italian's go to each others houses it is usually after 930 which i find really strange because well in the states. at least in Monroe. The whole town is usually shut down by 930 so that was a bit of a shock to me. Her friends stayed until about 1100 except Mary who stayed longer then that. She stayed with us the whole weekend. Most of the days we were there we would go to the beach and then we would come home and stay home and just hang out there. it was a lot of fun but it did tend to get a little boring when they would all speak to each other in really fast Italian and I couldn't understand what was going on. Then on the Friday night that we were there mamma went to a party so me, Ele, and Mary went to out to get pizza. It was the first time that I had eaten out in Italy so I was excited. We went in to the restaurant at about 600 and it wasn't even open yet which really surprised me because in the states all the restaurants open at like 5 or at least they do in Wisconsin. Well we went back for dinner around 900 (it took a lot of getting used to get used to eating so late and having such big gaps between my meals) and we ordered our pizza. We all ordered our own pizza which seemed strange to me but i went along with it assuming they would like give us a slice of pizza or something. but no. when the pizza came out we each had our own full pizza! it was like a medium pizza from pizza hut all for one person. They both finished their's but I couldn't finish mine it was just to big. Then we hung out with all of there friends for a couple of hours and then we went home. We left Sant. antioco on Sunday. Sunday was the day before school started a week ago.

School:

The first time that I went to the school was in the first few days that I was here in Carbonia. My mamma, me, Sara (more about her later), Ele, and Claudio all went to the school so that E could meet the principal and my "tutor" the lady to help me at school if I have any problems with classes and such. Then on Monday September 15, 2008 (15/9/2008) I went for my first day of my Italian school. Me and Ele woke up a little early that morning so we were ready a long time before we had to be up. We waited at the house for Sara to arrive so that she could introduce me to my class. I went in the school with my whole family (well Ele and Claudio) and Sara introduced me to my new class that I would have in Italy for a year. It was really small and almost all girls I noticed. There are only about 13 kids in my class including me. The class was really nice to me. I really like them. The first day they included me in everything that they did because for the first 2 days of school we really didn't have any classes so we just sat around in the classroom and talked for most of the day. It was alot of fun because I got to know my class and not have to take classes for the first couple days of school. After the first 2 days of school, when we did absolutely nothing, we started having classes and my class is really nice and helpful. they explain things in English when I don't understand the Italian which is really nice of them. for classes i have: English, Italian, French, Spanish, Latin, Art History, History, Philosophy, Algebra and Religion. I can really only participate in my Spanish and Algebra class. I would be able to do in my English class too but the professor does not speak English. My math class is really easy because I'm a head of my class in math. Like today they learned the quadratic formula soooo I think I can handle my math class. I really dislike my Philosophy teacher because she expects me to participate in that class and take notes and everything when I don't really understand what's going on in the class. sooo I don't know. The kids are all really nice so that's good. On Friday we Didn't have a class the first hour so they invited me to go to breakfast with them which was really nice. it was nice to be included. Plus I had a lot of fun at breakfast.

After school:

I really only have normal days after school on Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays because of my Italian lessons (more on that later). on the days when I don't have Italian lessons me and Ele and Claudio usually just come home and play on the computer a little bit and then mamma and papà are home so we hang out with them for a while then we eat dinner and that's really all we do on those days because there's not much to do well not yet anyway. but its nice to just be home with them because we get along so well.

My Chapter in Sardinia:

So far my chapter has been AMAZING. I am in a double chapter of Cagliari-Igleases so for the meetings and such I have to ride the train to Cagliari which is about an hour away. Well for the chapter so far we have had one meeting. At that meeting we got to know rules again which was really boring because that was about the 4th time we had heard them in 1 week. Then they told us that we would be having Italian lessons starting the next week. We also found out that we had a trip to Roma in January if we are all good and we all go to school like we should. so that I'm really excited for because I haven't seen Roma yet and i really really want to see it. I want to see all the famous stuff that Italy is famous for. I want to take a ton of pictures. Just I'm very excited. Well we also found out about our exchange week. Which is in May and we have a week long exchange to another part of Italy when we stay with another family and live in another part of Italy for a week. So I'm really excited for that because I really want to see some sights of Italy before I leave. We also have a 4 day orientation on Sassari (a big city in northern Sardinia) on October 1st - October 4th at a really nice Resort. Then last night we had a welcome part for all of the kids on the south side of Sardinia. so that was really really fun because i got to see kids that I hadn't seen since orientation. They all get to see each other all the time but i don't because i'm the only student in Carbonia. Which i'm glad for because i will have to make alot of Italian friends and not rely on the other exchange students like they can. so the party was a lot of fun I cant wait until October to see all of the students.

Italian Lessons:

Our local chapter set up our Italian lessons for Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays from 330-630 every week for 5 weeks. Olivia, Nico, Cow-Cow and I all have to ride the train to Cagliari every day for that because the lessons are in Cagliari. Cagliari is an hour away so by the time we get home its really late. I know that the lessons are supposed to help us but for this last week which was my first week of lessons i didn't learn anything in the lessons because i already knew what the lady was teaching us. I know that when they will get harder they will be worth the hour long train ride to cagliari but this week they weren't worth it because i didn't learn anything. but i know in the end they will be because they will help me learn the basics of Italian faster. At least I hope they do or i wasted a lot of time in Cagliari.

Well everyone this is my life thus far in Italy if you would like me to write about something specific just comment on my blog and i will try to write about it. i have also put up more pictures on my sight so have a look.

ciao a tutti

PICTURES

2008-09-15T22:13:00.000+02:00

This this post is going to be short and sweet. As blogger does not host pictures very well I have created a websight for my pictures while i'm in Italy. The link is in the LEFT side of the page under "My Italian Photos" or the link is:

www.kendrasitalianphotos.shutterfly.com

Ciao a tutti

my long journey to Italy

2008-09-14T19:27:00.001+02:00

Wow ok its been along time!! well i'm in Carbonia :D and i'm about to tell you the LONG journey it took me to get here from Chicago finally to Carbonia!

Chicago --> NYC

This whole travel journey started on September 3rd in the O'Hare Airport me and Michelle had a 9 am flight from O'hare to New York . Me and my family went down to Chicago the night before because the flight was so early that we would have had to get up at 3 am to arrive in Chicago on time for my flight. Well we got to the airport about 1 hour earlier then we had to be so i got some breakfast and checked in my bag. That was surprisingly easy. it was underweight so i didn't have to pay extra and then we waited for Michelle's family to arrive at the airport. When they got there we stood around and talked for a bit then she checked in and then we waited some more because we got there early just in case. Then came the good bye.. it was well there are no words.. we were all very sad because we all knew that it was the last time we were going to see each other again for a very long time. me and Michelle proceeded through security surprisingly easy. we did not get stopped and neither did our bags so it only took like 5 minutes when we planned for like an hour. Me and Michelle just sat at the gate and waited for them to call our row in the plane. when that moment finally came we were both just soooo excited and a little sad at the same time. The plane ride was very uneventful and very short. we both just read our books the whole time and looked out the windows. When we arrived at the airport we found our way to the baggage claim area by our selves (YAY) and we waited the long wait to see if us and our bags ended up in the same place (a very agonizing wait) well Michelles bags came like first so then me being me over course started to spaz a little because my bags had not come yet lol... then the conveyer stopped and my bag still had not arrived.. but when all of the people moved i saw that someone else had taken my bag off of the conveyer belt thing and set it on the ground (i was jumping up and down in side). Then we had to find the AFS volunteers in Red shirts. so we were trying to secretly go up to every person in a red shirt without being to strange. but the volunteers seemed to know who we were so when they saw us they came up to us. then we were all (6 of us) loaded in to a van an taken to the double tree hotel.

NYC Orientation

I can sum up this orientation in just 3 words "Boring and Pointless" but I will tell you about it any ways. Well I arrived in Nyc at about 1130 and we got to the hotel at about 1200ish. When I got there I checked in the orientation and found out that I did not have a room yet. so i had to set my stuff down in the big conference room and wait until i was assigned a room. We had lunch of bad take out pizza and the actual orientation started at 2 pm. We did a few "get to know you" activities which were by definition very boring and not helpful at all because there was 120 people and there was no way to remember every ones name. Then they handed out the most useful thing of the whole orientation! color coded name tags!! Each country had there own colored dot on there name tag (Italy was Green) and they had your name and where in the USA you were from!! hahaha yes its sad but the most useful thing from orientation was the name tags lol.. We had a bad dinner of chicken and some kind of saladish type thing or what they call a salad. Basically the food was NASTY and we could not wait to get to our countries so we could have good food. Well I finally got a room at about 8 pm so I got to take all of my stuff up to my room and get settled in. the other good thing about the orientation was the BEDS they were SOOOOOOO comfy. Well we were done with orientation for the night so we got to hang out with the other students until 11 which was "Everybody in your own room time" So i hung out with Kayla and Zoe in Zoe's room until 11. We had alot of fun and took alot of really bad pictures. Then I went back to my room and fell right asleep. We had to be up insanely early 700 (ok not that early but it seemed like it) and we had more pointless activities untill 11 pm when we had to check out of our rooms!! then we just sat around and at a really stale lunch until 200pm when the Italy people (which was half of the orientation by the way: 120 total: 65 Italy: 40 Spain : 15 Portugal: 2 Ghana: 3 South Africa) Left for JFK airport

NYC --> Zurich, Switzerland

Well as you can imagine trying to keep track of 65 teenagers in one of the worlds busiest airports is no easy task so our flight was assigned a chaporene. She was a nice lady. So we all had to stand in the check in line with each of us having a years worth of luggage made for a VERY long line. I was one of the lucky ones that called first so I got through the line very quickly and went right through because my bag was underweight :D and went through to the first mini branch of security. Then just waited for everyone to get through the line. Then we went through security which went suprisingly well concedering we had 65 kids. No one got stopped by security so we went through security very quickly then we waited at our gate for about 30 minutes until they called coach seating for our international flight to Zurich, Switzerland. Well the flight was as boring as you can imagine sitting in one place for 8 hours can be. No it really wasn't that bad my seat mate wasn't very talkative so i talked to the people across the isle from me. I didn't sleep at all during the flight because in the USA the flight went from 6 PM - 2 AM so i wasn't tired but we were flying over Europe's night time so when we arrived it was 8 AM on September 5th (so basically i lost a whole nights sleep) But by far the best part of the flight was the yummy Swiss chocolate at the end of the flight!

Zurich, Switzerland --> Roma, Italia

We had a 4 hour layover in the Zurich Airport which was very boring. Basically me and a group of people just walked around for a while then we studied some italian. Oh the first weird thing we saw in switzerland was the bathrooms! they don't have stalls each toilet has its own little room and it has a heavy duty lock (like a bigger lock then the lock on my hotel in NYC) and the flusher is a big button on the wall or a little button on the floor. Basically half of our group passed out on the floor of the airport and slept the whole 4 hours (i was trying to avoid jet lag so i didn't sleep as much as i wanted to) Then we boarded our flight to ROMA which was very short but I don't remember any of it because i passed out and took an hour long nap. I remember take-off and landing and that's it. Well we got to the Airporti di Roma and all 65 got in line to get our passports stamped then we all bombarded customs at the same time so they kinda freaked out and just let us all pass because they didn't want to search 65 kids VERY fat suitcases! We were ushered in to this room with the German kids that were there. Then we were split in to 3 groups and given new name tags that we were to wear till we got to our families. Then we were put on giant buses and lead to a hotel out side of Roma. It was kind of disappointing that we didn't get to see any of Rome, but hopefully I will in January (more on that later).

Rome Orentation

When we finally got to the hotel we were told that we would not be able to get in to our big bags the whole stay only our carry-ones so we had to rearrange a little. Then we were all given rooms with 2 other people. My room mates were very nice. We all got along very well. Well for all of that day (we got there at like 2ish) we just got to mingle with all of the students that were placed in italy (400 in all with the USA being the biggest group) All of the kids were very nice. Ive decided that AFS kids or well exchange kids in general are the nicests/easiest to get along with/most accepting kids that there are. It was soo fun finding other kids that are placed close to me. Then we had our first meal Italian style and let me tell you it made me never want to go back to the usa. at oru NYC orientation we had bad take out and stale sandwichs for lunch /dinner every night and in Rome we had 3 course meals and fancy place settings for all 400 kids! and let me tell you the pasta was AMAZING!! The only thing that I didn't like about the meal was that they served bubbly water with the meal and i've decided that i detest bubbly water! After dinner more kids were arriving but i couldn't stay up any longer so i went to my room and crashed. The next morning we had breakfast (mom you know you said i cant have cake for breakfast well HA in italy cake is breakfast!!) then we had our orientation day where about 30 of us sat in a room all day with volunteers and talked about our "fears and expectations" sooo yeah as you can imagine it wasn't very fun. and the room was really hot. It was in a school ... i think... i wasn't totally sure lol. at about 5 o'clock we got out of the orientation and we were told we had till 8 o'clock to do what ever we wanted. most of the kids slept but i was trying to get a normal sleep schedule so i didn't sleep. then we had dinner which was amazing yet again and then we had our official "welcoming ceremony" It was fun but very hot. there were over 500 people in one tent. The president of AFS in Italy welcomed us and there were notes read from ambassadors from our countries. USA sent one which was nice yet very long. Then we went to bed. The next day was filled with good-byes as everyone left for there perspective host families at different times.

Roma --> Cagliari

I left for the airport at 130. We got all checked in and got on the plane from Roma --> Cagliari with about 30 other kids. That plane ride was filled with nerves as we all knew we were about to meet our host families for the very first time. We all picked up our suitcases from the flight (mine was last again) and we all headed as a group to meet the families. I was standing in frount of the group for a second and then my family found me (thank god because i didn't know what they looked like) and we all stood there hugging for a minute and we tried to talk a little bit then i had to go talk to the presidents of the Igleseas-Cagliari (they work together) chapters for about 5 minutes. Then we left the airport with our families.

Cagliari --> Carbonia

I had about an hour drive from Cagliari to Carbonia, my city, and for the most part we tried to speak in Italian but Claudio and Eleonora (Ele) translated for me alot so that i could talk English for a while cause i was really tired and my brain wasn't working very well. The ride was very interesting. My family was very sweet the whole way. Then we finally got to Carbonia and they showed me around the house.

And that was my journey from September 3rd to September 7th. Ok well this post is long enough I will tell you about my adventures in Carbonia thus far in another post

Ciao a tutti

Visa = Death

2008-08-15T03:47:00.001+02:00

The actual definition of Visa (no not the fun credit card kind) is: An official authorization appended to a passport, permitting entry into and travel within a particular country or region, but to every exchange student the more accurate definition is: Copy after copy of useless information that you need to have for exchange but never quite have all the papers you need at the same time and something you obtain right before exchange and causes LOTS and LOTS of stress.

That basically sums up the word "visa" for exchange student. So far the word to describe my visa experience is....HELL.... its a horrible horrible process. So I will sum up the visa process for everyone here that is unfamiliar with the bureaucratic process.

Get Passport
Make appointment at counsulate
gather many many papers
go to appointment
hope you have all of the correct papers
hope they approve your visa
hope like hell it gets to your house before your departure date

So now i will elaborate on each step because so far ti seems very easy right? WRONG all those steps have about a million "sub steps" that you have to get through and it is just a huge pain in the a**

passport - fill out a 2 or 3 page application with all sorts of information before you go to the post office then when you get to the post office make sure you have 3 different forms of picture ID with you so you can prove you are who you say you are. Make sure you have your birth certificate and social security card with you because just when you don't think you will need it is exactly when they ask you. Then get your picture taken in front of this UGLY white background (anyone else wondered why these pictures look oddly like mug shots?) Then the application and pictures are sent out to the government and as you know everything with the government takes FOREVER so 3- 12 weeks later your passport will come in the mail YAY!

making the appointment - appointments are usually easy to make right? a quick phone call and your all set for the next day right? NOPE especially when you have to deal with government buildings/hours/schedules!! You need to make this appointment about 2 months ahead of when you actually need an appointment because the offices are only open from 8 - 12 and only have a few appointments a day. Then you need to hope they have an appointment open that gives you enough time to get your visa before your departure date. Oh and did i mention that this phone call lasts around 30 - 40 minute and that it costs about $1 a minute per call? yup my visa appointment PHONE CALL cost about $60. does the visa cost anything? NOPE but the call costs a small fortune.

getting all the papers - While ive never really dealt with a government organization trying to apply for something but all the papers you need for my STUDENT visa seems a bit extreme. here is a list of papers that i need.

Visa application (to be filled out in front of the Visa people)
4 papers from AFS ITALY (which take FOREVER)
A letter from your High School in the USA (saying your not a slacker)
Transcript from USA school with 3 copies in a sealed envelope (to PROVE your not a slacker)
Affidavit of support (saying you will go to school in Italy and your parents support you)
Passport (with 3 copies)
birth certificate (with 3 copies)
Copies of parents ID's
1 passport photo
Parental Consent form (to be notarized)
Bank Statement (proving you have the money to live of of in Italy)
Flight Itinerary ( of when you are leaving the country)

That is a list of all the papers that i need for this visa.. its a bit CRAZY if you ask me i mean my god they want a paper trail of my whole life basically!!

Go to appointment - My appointment is on August 21st at 11:45 AM. If i am more then 10 minutes late for my appointment they say that they will NOT see you because you are late. The consulate that presides over Wisconsin is in Chicago so i have to drive 3 hours down to Chicago for my 15 minute appointment!!! yup its CRAZY. beyond this i do not know much because well i haven't had my appointment yet lol... So Ive now had my appointment and it was pretty painless yet very very nerve wracking. So we drove down to Chicago and we got there a full hour early so we walked around Chicago for about 45 minutes then walked back to the consulate, which consisted of 1 room with very uncomfortable metal (patio style) chairs and like 5 booths that you walk up to, and we waited for them to call my name.

hope you have the papers - If you do not have all of the papers that the consulate requires (and they can change this DAILY) then you can have your visa refused because you forgot one simple little paper! So I am SUPER nervous about having all of my papers on time and with me! So i did end up having all of my papers with me YAY! and the girl that i went up to in the booths took EVERYTHING that i had!! most people don't get all of there papers taken but the girl that i had was new so she took one of everything. i was soo happy that i had everything that i needed because i tried to cover every base and have anything that they could possibly ask for! which i seemed to do.. which was a good thing!

hope they approve your visa - you are basically hoping that you have all the papers that you need, are on time, and that your coordinator person is having a good day! GOOD LUCK! Well because i had all of my papers they said that they would approve my visa and once it was they would send out the visa. so that made me very happy because if its not approved then you basically have to hope for another appointment on time and come back to Chicago but i don't because MY VISA WAS APPROVED!!

hope you get your visa on time - The visa process can take anywhere from 3 days to 30 days. My consulate says that Student visas take some where from 3 - 7 days to process and receive. so i hope i get mine on time I'm super nervous about leaving late!! So they said that my visa would arrive with in 1 week.. which i was very happy for because that means that i would have my visa on-time YAY! so i came home and checked the tracking number on the envelope the next day and OMG FedEx already had my envelope so my visa will be here on MONDAY!! thank god that Chicago is quick with visas sooooo i will have my visa on time and i will be leaving on time YAY..

It doesn't seem quite so easy any more does it?? well that's because its not but we all go through it and deal with it and forget about it as soon as we land in our respective countries, ITALY. so right now im just trying to get through it and get to Italy on time.. 20 days in counting

ciao

Breath-taking

2008-08-06T04:47:00.001+02:00

"Love and understand the Italians, for the people are more marvelous than the land." - E.M. Forster

While the Italian landscape to be more beautiful then i have ever seen before in my short life, the Italians the people of the country they are truly the amazing ones. As most of you know i have been in communication with my family for about 2 weeks now and it has been an AMAZING 2 weeks. I have started to get to know my host family more and they seem like amazing and wonderful people who i can not wait to meet. I have been working very hard on my Italian this last month. I am starting to make alot of progress on written Italian its still a little hard to speak because you have to do it faster lol. here is some things about my new host family in Italian!

Io parlo con mia famiglia. Mi piace parlere con mia sorella e mia fratello. Mia sorella e molto simpatico. ha 16 anni. anche'io 16 anni. Mia sorella piace a canta. Mia fratello e anche molto simpatico e molto divertente. mia sorella e fratello parlate italiano e inglese. voi parlate inglese molto bene! Mia mamma e gentile. io parlo con mia mamma con email. mia mamma parla solo italiana. noi parliamo in italiano. Mia mamma piace cucina Mia pappa e anche gentile. mia pappa e molto simpatico. mia papa piace giardinaggio. io amo mia famiglia.

now for the translation

(I talk with my family. I like talking with my sister and my brother. My sister is very nice. she is 16 years old. so am i. my sorella likes to sing. my brother is very nice and very funny. my sister and brother speak English and Italian. they speak English very well. My momma is very sweet. i talk with my mom with email. my momma speaks only English. we speak in Italian. my momma likes to cook. my pappa is also sweet. my pappa is very nice. my pappa likes to garden. i love my family)

That was a little bit about my new family!! They are very amazing and i love them so much they are a very great family and i believe that it will be a very good match for me. We get along very well so far and i can not wait to meet them in just 30 short days. ok well the days are not going to be that short but i still cant wait to meet them :D. So now back to the quote:

"Love and understand the Italians, for the people are more marvelous then the land" - Here are some absolutely beautiful pictures that they have sent me from Italy and just think if the pictures are this absolutely breath-taking the people are even better!!

My family has been sending me pictures of there house in Italy..well to say the least there house is very pretty and well i can not wait to live there for a year. they have a very cute house and they have a small little pond in there yard..just its gorgeous and i can not wait to live there with my new family. I have been in contact with my new family quite a bit and my family has also been sending me other pictures from there other house. While i thought that there real house was beautiful i had not yet seen these pictures of this view and just WOW were my only words. My family has a beach house on the island of Sant' Antioco. This is an island that is about 25 kilometers from my house in Carbonia. They vacation at this house in the summer and they have sent me some beautiful pictures from this house. Well these pictures are anything short of breath-taking. They are just gorgeous and i cant wait to see this place in person i really cant! both of these pictures just look soo beautiful and i cant wait to take pictures of my own of these beaches!! My family has told me that they will be taking me to this house when i get there in September because the weather will still be very nice when i get to Sardinia in September. I have been reading a guide book that i got on Sardinia so that i could learn a little about the island and this is what it says about the weather " The summer months between June and September are hot and dry with temperatures above 68F and at times reaching 86F. In the winter the temperatures are mild rarely dipping below 41F. January usually has sunny days and cold nights" I can not wait for that weather after years of frigid Wisconsin winters!!

So do i agree with the quote: Absolutely. While the pictures are very beautiful the people are just amazing and i can not wait to become "Italian" during my year and i can not wait to live with my family. i know that the hardest part of the whole year will be leaving my wonderful life that i m going to have Italy.. i cant wait to start that life.. 28 days in counting

Ciao

OMFG I HAVE A FAMILY

2008-07-16T02:57:00.001+02:00

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG

That is basically my only thought process at this point!!!!

So as every one that knows me and everyone that reads this blog knows i have been not so patiently waiting for a host family. I was beginning to think that it was never going to come and that i was unloved and unwanted because host family's pick you and i hadn't been picked yet. I bugged my admissions advisor like once a week seeing if she got me a family and every single time she would say "It dosn't look like you have been placed yet but I know that it will be soon!! just keep waiting and it will come" I was soo tired of hearing that that i sometimes even avoided calling her because not knowing was just a little bit better then hearing that for the 10000th time.,but alas i have been chosen by an AMAZING family who i adore sooo much :D:D:D!!!! So the wait was TOTALLY worth it!!!!!!!

So for my host family I will be living in Carbonia, Sardinia, Italy. For those of you who dont konw where Sardinia is it is the northern island that is in the Medeteranian sea. Carbonia is on the FAR west side of Sardina and my house is 10 mintues from the SEA :D. the town looks absolutly gorgous!!! I can not wait to actually be there!!! Here is a quick run-down of my new italian family :D

Mamma - Maria Antonietta
Papa - Antonio
Sorella (sister) - Eleonora - 16
Fratello (brother) - Claudio - 19

SO after I found out that i had a host family the next part comes : OH GOD how on earth do i contact them? because in the beginning i had no idea if they spoke any English or basically anything about them so i was SUPER nervous. AFS gave me an email address so i sat down and started wrighting my papa an email. this is what i had:

Ciao famiglia

Come state? Sto molto bouna!!! Mi chiamo Kendra Wagner, io sono di Monroe, Wisconsin, USA. Io ho sedici anni. Io sono un po vecchio di tua figlia, Eleonora.
Non so parlare italiano molto bene. Sto cercando di imparare l'italiano
sono cosi felici!!! Io sono molto felice per vedere presto!!!
Carbonia è Bella!!!!

Now in english

Hellow Family

How are you? I am VERY good!!! My name is Kendra Wagner, I am from Monroe, Wisconsin, USA. I have 16 years. I am a little older then your child Eleonora.
I don't speak Italian very well. I am trying to learn
I'm very happy. very happy to see you soon!!!
Carbonia is beautiful

So that was my first attempt at written Italian.. i have no idea how i did but apparently my family understood it because they sent back the sweetest email the very next day!! Today i even got to talk to my sister and brother by MSN which was VERY VERY fun. I was soooo nervous to say hi to them because they are my new family and i didn't want them to think i was crazy or ant thing like that.

I LOVE MY FAMILY ... IO AMORE MI FAMIGLIA

I could not be happier right now!!!

Still Waiting

2008-06-07T05:55:00.001+02:00

Ciao a tutti! Il mio nome è Kendra Wagner e sarò residenti in Italia per 10 mesi !!

Hi everyone! My name is Kendra Wagner and i will be living in Italy for 10 months!!

OMG so i made a sentence in Italian YAY!!! im very proud of my self right now you guys have no idea like wow i feel accomplished lol!! I never thought i would get so unbelievably excited for being able to wright one sentence its mildly amusing lol.

Well basically there is really no big news to tell you just a few small AFS and AFSish related things that has hap pend in the last few months of my life since i last updated my blog.

So i come home from school and my mom tells me i have this huge packet from AFS. The first thing that came to my mind was "OMG i have a host family" but i didn't and i was disappointed for about a nano second because i then opened up the packet and it was my travel itinerary for when i will be leaving for Italy. I literally sat down right there and read the whole packet cover to cover and had the hugest smile on my face the whole time. So here is the plan:

2 o'clock PM on the 3rd of September arrive in NYC for orientation
6 o'clock PM on the 4th of September leave NYC for ZURICH SWITZERLAND
8:20 AM on the 5th of September land in Zurich
12:30 PM on the 5th of September leave Zurich for ROME ITALY
2:30 PM on the 5th of September LAND IN ROME ITALY

So that is my travel plans for a full 20 hours yes 20 hours of nonstop traveling we are all going to be walking zombies lol. I am so excited for the plane ride!! there are going to be 70 exchangers all going to Italy on ONE plane that's an overnight flight.... Do you really think that 70 15-18 year old kids that are leaving there parents for a year to live in ITALY are going to sleep at all? because I'm thinking that that is probably a no.

Because of the date of our departure I have also found out that I will be able to go to the first day of school and "shadow" my friend Emma. This will give me one last chance to say goodbye to everyone that I'm not going to see for a year or possibly longer. To say goodbye to all of my teachers that i will not see for a year (some of that doesn't bother me one bit lol) Just say good bye one last time before i leave THE NEXT MORNING!!!

We have also gotten our Visa "packets" these "packets" are really only 2 pages of application then like 10 million documents that you need in triplicate that need to be attached. so it looks very easy when you first start to look at it but once you start reading all the different documents that are required your like "oh god" i have sooo much work to do to get this done before its to late EEK!!! I have also found out that I cannot apply for my visa until i have a host family and a host school. Unfortunately i do not have either of those things yet and i am very impatiently waiting for both of them. It has been a little over 6 months that I have officially been accepted in to the Italian AFS program but alas still no family. I'm trying to be patient i really am. It's just not working so well lol.

So we have started to "plan" (which means kind of talk about lol) my goodbye party. I'm beginning to realize how hard this whole "leaving" thing is going to be. I am going to have to say goodbye to every one i know knowing i am not going to see them for 10 whole months and possibly longer and possibly never again. The party should be fun but i don't really know when or where its going to be yet but yea just were kind of "planning" it at this point.

SCHOOL ENDS IN 2 DAYS!!!!! 2 DAYS LEFT!!!! YAY!!!

Ciao a tutti! Hanno una sorprendente giorno!! Spero che nel mese di ritornare a molto presto con qualche famiglia news!!

Amore - Kendra

Bye everyone! Have an amazing day!! I hope I'm back on very soon with some family news!!

Love - Kendra (had some help from google translate on this one lol)

Waiting, Waiting and yup you guessed it MORE Waiting!!

2008-03-30T23:45:00.002+02:00

So i once heard that exchange is 95% waiting and I 10000% agree with that..

It seems like its all us exchangers do. We wait for the application to arrive at our house so we can fill it out. We wait for all the parts of the app to come together. We wait for our app to be accepted by AFS USA. We wait for it to be sent to our chosen country.. We wait the LONGEST estimated 4-6 (totally off by the way) weeks of our life to be accepted to our country! then the excruciating wait for a host family that could be from the day you get accepted to 2 weeks before you leave for your country!!!! Once you find your host family you wait for your departure date.. The waiting process is longer then the actual exchange but it is TOTALLY worth it because I , yes me, me Kendra, will be in Italy for 10 whole months!!

So I guess I'm here to update you a little bit (yes i know its been basically forever since Ive been on here and I'm sorry that i have taken SOOO unbelievably long) on my life. Well to be honest its been pretty boring. Since i last updated way back in December (wow has it really been that long! jeez i need to get on here more) I ha vent really heard from AFS much. The 4 month mark of me being accepted passed on Monday which means i SHOULD have my host family.

So apparently Italy is very slow when it comes to getting host families!! Great country (so i hear and desperately hope) just a tad bit slow on the biggest most important decision of my LIFE at the moment! My admissions advisor, Connie, emailed Italy about a week ago and has informed me that if she doesn't get an email back TODAY that she is going to call and find out! I'm gonna call her when I'm done with the post (so hopefully i have a GREAT post to put right after this one).

In other news: (AFS related of course) I have found out that my Pre Departure Orientation is on May 10th. A Pre Departure Orientation (PDO) is where all of the "traveling" students will get togheter and get to ask all of our (hundreds of thousands) of questions that I know we all have. Our parents will go to a separate meeting and get all of there questions answered as well. We will also get too meet students that are being hosted in our area (hopefully there will be an Italian one EEK) so basically I'm VERY excited to get to go because i will be in a room full of kids just as obsessed with AFS as i am ("Hello my name is Kendra and I'm addicted to traveling abroad to Italy" the first step is admitting it) and we can talk and talk and talk about it all we want and NO ONE will get annoyed like now... so basically I'm super excited for this.

Right now i am trying my hardest to learn as much Italian as best as i can. I have found that Italian has alot of "o" 's in it (ie.... Io non sono un uomo. Io sono una donna....I am not a man. I am a woman) yes lots of "o" 's haha.. little fun fact of the day about Italian. I am IN LOVE with this language i really am!! it is so beautiful and amazing and just ahhh im in love <3 class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_66">EWW right, this summer. I have to take Lit Comp in Films which is from 8 am to 1 pm every day for 3 weeks and I have to take Gym from 8 am to 12 pm every day for 3 weeks. Yes admittedly it will suck but it will make Sr year just a tad easier so I'm all for it. I have also found out that my counselor who has done EVERYTHING for me for exchange and whom i LOVE is going to another district next year so i have to change counselors after she has helped me for over a year on this.. I'm very bummed :( but it will all work out ok. Change is for the better (*gulp* i hope)

Well hopefully i will be posting in about 10 minutes if not (i will be sad) i will ether post after i get my host family or after my PDO which ever comes first..

CIAO

(this has the wrong date at the top, haha, its really April 24th 2008)

The BEST day ever

2007-12-22T01:26:00.001+01:00

Ok so I haven't updated in a while and there is ALOT of exciting stuff has happened to me since the last time I updated.

Ok so the BEST thing that happened to me today was I GOT OFFICIALLY ACCEPTED TO ITALY. So after you apply to a program they send your application to that country (namely Italy) and it is a 4-6 week wait for acceptance. Well the end of my 6 weeks was on December 14th but I had bugged my Application Advisor (Connie Kurtz) so much before that I vowed to wait one week before I called her and asked for any updates on my application. Well today, December 21st, I called Connie today and when she picked up she said " Wow, Kendra I was just about to call you. You have officially been accepted to the Italy Program *insert my scream here* So i see you excited. I will call you again with any new information" Then is my happy dance and my phone call to another exchanger friend (Kayla CONGRATS on being accepted as well) and my continued HAPPY DANCE!!!!!!! Now 2 more times of waiting are next. First I have to wait until a nice Italian family to choose me to have live with them for a year. This could take up until 2 weeks before I leave. I don't think I can wait that long so I hope that my application stands out enough that family's will want to have me live with them. Then the colossal wait until next September 3-6 until I actually get to leave the country. YAY.

The second good thing that happened today is I found out that the AFS group in my town is paying for 10% of my tuition for the program. Now for those of you who don't know AFS is a very expensive program and the current price for Italy for a year is $10100 so 10% is a big deal because that's $1010 and that IS alot of money that I now don't have to raise. YAY. There is a catch however, I will have to write them an essay and have to write them a letter once a month to tell them how I am doing, and do no less then 3 speeches when I get back to tell the town/school/AFS group how my trip went. So even with that I'm so happy and all of the stuff that I have to do will be fun because I am already super obsessed with exchange and Italy so that all will be fun!!!

The last good thing that happened was today is the last day of school before Christmas break!! Some other random things that has happened since I updated last. I got my passport. When I went to get it my dad said that it would take months, two and a half weeks later I get a very official looking package from the Government. When I opened it it was my Passport (with a very horrible picture :( ) but every one said that passport pictures are horrible lol. On a less exciting not that has absolutely nothing to do with Italy but makes me happy is that I got my class ring this week and that makes me happy

Ok so all and all IM SOOOOO EXCITED THAT I'M ACCEPTED!!!!!!!!!!!!! That is the best thing that has happened all year and it is the best Christmas present that I could have ever gotten!! So yea im going to resume my happy dance now, its amazing that I was even able to stop dancing long enough to type this entry.

Convincing Parents

2007-11-26T02:53:00.001+01:00

When I first started thinking about study abroad, all I thought I wanted to do was to go to Costa Rica for 3 weeks with my Spanish club at school. I hosted on of the Costa Ricans and i fell in love with their cultures, but when I went to my dad to ask if I could go to Costa Rica during the summer of my Jr. year in High School, he said no. He didn't like the fact that I was going to be going to south America for 3 weeks. I asked him, "If I were in German club would you let me go to Germany my Jr year?" He said that he probably would because he felt more comfortable with me going to Europe. So I started researching other ways I could go to another country.

I had met the AFS students that were at my school, Pink and David, for a year (10 months). So I asked them what program they were here through and they said that they were here thought AFS. So I went to the AFS web sight and, fell in love with all of the different options that they had. They had lots of countries and lots of different amount of times to go. I immediately wanted to go somewhere for a YEAR. Yea, i know it went from a short 3 week trip in the summer after my Jr. year to a 10 month program for the entirety of my Jr. year.

Now the problem: How on earth do I convince my dad to let me go. All I could think was, "If he did not want me to go for 3 weeks he is not going to let me go for 10 months." I knew that my mom would let me go because she would realize how good of an opportunity it was and how much i wanted to go. So I asked her first. She said yes after a few minutes of convincing. I asked her how am I going to convince dad. She said that I should think about it. So I did for weeks when I came to the conclusion that I could make a HUGE packet of information and things to use to convince him to let me go.

Second problem: Where did I want to spend the next year of my life. I knew that my dad would only approve if I went to a European country so that narrowed down my options quite a bit. Next I had to think about languages and if I met the language requirement. Like France had a language requirement, and I never really wanted to learn German and I was already in Spanish in school so I knew that I wanted some thing different then all of that. Immediately I wanted to go to Italy, the culture and the language, OMG the food is basically heaven, or as close as you can get lol. But then i started to second guess my self, I kind of wanted to go to a lesser known country, and i started to really look in to the Czech Republic, Sweden, and Iceland. After a couple of weeks I would change my mind but I would always come back to Italy so I decided to stick with my original choice Italy.

I started to make my my packet and after a couple of weeks I had my packet done and it had every thing from, the current government of Italy, to Pro and Con lists, to a letter I wrote to my Dad. When I finally got up the nerve to give my dad the packet, I was SOOOOOO nervous that I gave it to him and just sat there waiting. He took along time to read it, or maybe it just seemed like along time haha. Well when he did get done, he said that the packet was good but that he would have to think about it. So I waited and just started moving forward with the application and fundraising. He never really ever said "yes" but he didn't say "no" and just kind of accepted it. Those were some of the scariest, most nerve racking weeks.

So then I had my country choice: Italy, and my dad convinced, FULL STEAM AHEAD