80% through..and growing up

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)

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

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)

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!!!