Vacanze e La Famiglia Romano

Hello everyone! I can't believe it's already January; it's been another month since I've written, and I'm another month closer to coming home. For those of you too lazy to translate the title of this post on google translator, it says "Holidays and the Romano family." :)

So the holidays in Italy have officially ended almost as quickly as they came. A few days after my birthday, before Christmas, we celebrated the birthday of my host mom (from the second family). It was a lot of fun; we threw her a surprise party at her brothers house! All the family was there and there were tons of treats. I had made cookies :) Anna opened presents, we ate cake, and just spent the evening together. I had a fun time and spent most of the night with my "cousins." With the Mingione family (the second family) I became good friends with my host cousins, especially Gaia (18) and Viviana (20). They are so nice, and invited me over for lunch a few times, Viviana's party/game night with her friends, and to spend the night. I also went shopping with Gaia once and another time was invited to go to Naples with her, but the weather was too bad to go.

It was really interesting to learn about how Italians celebrate Christmas. Here, the main festivities take place on the 24th. Originally the plan was for all of the family members to come to our house, I think because my host mom is the oldest living family member who owns their own house (the grandpa lives with my host mom's sister). Anyways, Nonno (grandpa) wasn't really feeling well that day so we all went over to their house to eat. The 24th goes like this: during the day little is eaten, and you are not allowed to eat any meat. For lunch they just have a small amount of food (well, in Italian terms anyways) because dinner later will be very large. For dinner, everyone goes over to a family members house and they eat a lot of fish. Then the evening is spent talking, playing cards, etc. At midnight, the family goes to church. I went with my two older cousins and their friends, while the adults went to a different one. As always in Italy, we arrived late. The church was absolutely packed, so we stood in the back. But oh my gosh, what a gorgeous church it was!

The 25th was more relaxed, which was totally different than what I'm used to. We woke up in the morning not too late, but not early. Back home, we usually don't sleep in a ton because a certain little girl in the house is eager to open presents. Here, it wasn't such a rushed even because there were no children in the house, but it was kind of strange to me that we didn't go directly to the gift opening. When we got up, everyone wished each other "Auguri" which is a word that is said on all holidays, birthdays, etc., meaning "wishes." We then spent a little while just hanging out, and if I remember correctly waiting for my host sister who decided to sleep in a little. After she finally got out of bed, and after another half hour or so, we went to open presents. It was kind of nice that there weren't a lot of presents to be opened, and I was really glad that my host family didn't get me a lot because I didn't get them a lot and I would've felt bad! But in general, the total atmosphere of the morning felt so Christmas and family-oriented, instead of just focused around presents. For the family I made my host parents a ball for their tree that was silver, red, and green and had the words "grazie mille per tutto!" (thanks so much for everything!) on it. They loved it :) For my host sister I bought some cute thick socks like the ones she wears a lot and some slippers with a giant dog face on the front as a joke :) My host parents gave me a new purse and my host sister gave me a cute hat. I loved my gifts :)

After the holidays, I realized how close I'd become with my host family, especially Anna and Federica (mom and sister). Federica and I became really good friends and her and her boyfriend are are looking into coming to Seattle at the end of July when I go home :) And the Mingiones said I'm welcome to come visit when I want!

On January 14th (last Thursday) I moved in with my third and final Italian family. They are really nice and so far I like them a lot. I have one sister named Roberta, who is 17, and two brothers; Alessandro and Ricardo (15 and 10). Roberta is cool and we share a room, but the room is big so it's not a problem. Alessandro is nice but Ricardo is my favorite brother. He's hilarious and pretty much a ten year old version of Michael Jackson. That's right, Michael Jackson isn't dead. He's living through my ten year old host brother :) Oh and I also have a dog named Filipo! I've always wanted dog :)

The mom and dad of my new family are very nice, I like them a lot. They own a hotel right down the street from us, and the house is situated on a street next to the center of the city, which is very convienent :) I'm basically within walking distance of everything. Their house is nice. They live in an apartment like most people here, and it's not super big. But the way they furnished it and decorated is very nice. I share a room with Roberta, but the room is big so it's not a problem.

Today I found out probably the best thing about them owning a hotel: free gym! My host mom and sister go to a different gym, but it's way too expensive for me, so they said I could just go to the one at the hotel whenever I wanted :) It's not huge or super fancy, but there's a treadmill so I'm happy! I went today and I plan on going often :)

So that's basically everything right that's been going on right now! I'm glad to finally be settled and I speak Italian pretty well by now :) Again, I'll try to keep updating often but life seems to be going by fast these days and I tend to forget! I hope everyone had great holidays and I miss you all :)

-Zoë

Italian Life and My Birthday :)

Hey Everyone! I'm back! Sorry for the lack of blogging.. It's weird now because for me, life is just normal and there isn't really anything exciting going on. But I guess for all of you it's interesting to hear what I'm up to, so I'll try to be better about this :)

I've been living with the new family for what, nearly a month and a half now? They've been wonderful to me, and I know I will be sad to leave them. Not only because I like them, but also because I'm nervous about the next family and whether or not I'll have the same freedom, they'll be just as nice, etc. But I'm staying positive and I know things will workout.
With Anna and Antonio, I get to go out very often with friends and they take me places sometimes too. I go out most nights during the week, although I like to spend a few nights at home so that I'm not constantly leaving them for dinner.

So what exactly does "going out" mean for an exchange student in Italy? Well by now, the other exchangers and I know the city well, so it's not difficult for us to find what we want to eat, buy, etc. We always meet up near the center where all of the main shopping and eating areas are, and we always go places by foot. That's one big difference between going out with friends back home! I am always walking to places here. Of course this is partly because I'm not allowed to drive here, but mostly because that's just the way people here get around, traffic is horrible in the evenings (especially in the center), and everything is close enough that it really isn't too big of a problem to walk anyways. I've gotten used to it, so it isn't really much of a problem or anything.

By now we've pretty much figured out the best places to buy gelato, pizza, and paninis here. My favorite panini is the "panino napolitano" which translates to Napolitan panini. It's just salami and cheese usually, but the way it's made is better than normal paninis in my oppinion. The best place to get gelato is on Via Colombo, and it's a bar where you can buy all kinds of treats as well. Although, we never do because it's expensive and we don't want to get too fat :) Finally, there are lots of good pizza places; it all just depends on what kind of pizza you want. In Italy, when people go out for pizza (not for a SLICE of pizza.. there's a difference!) each person eats a whole pizza! You order the kind of pizza you want and it comes to you on a circular plate and you cut it and eat it with your knife and fork. It's about the size of a medium pizza in the states, although the dough is a lot thinner, so it's not as much. So far, I've only been able to eat half of one of these..

I enjoy school a lot more now. I was starting to not like it because I wasn't getting along as well with my class anymore and I was bored all day long.. But now I've changed classes and I love my new class! I switched from the class 3B to the class of 4B. The difference is the year.. in Italy there are five years of high school, and they go from 1-5. So I went to the next year up :) My class is mostly girls; there are only 4 boys. The girls in my class are great! They are so sweet to me and I think they really like me a lot. Every day when I come to school they yell "Ciao Zoe!!" and then everyone greets me with the kisses on the cheek. During class they always talk to me, ask me questions, and make sure to involve me in anything they're doing. Unless of course it's something like studying law or business economy.. which they don't make me do :)

This week during school we do nothing.. literally. I forget what it's called, but because it's the week before break, we only have class for the first hour. For the rest of the day we get to sit in class and do whatever we want, but we must stay at school. So far we've spent the days dancing, listening to music, coloring (they made me a bunch of signs that said "I love you!" in english and Italian with everyone's names on them), talking, and I french-braided some of the girls' hair. We also danced to the macarena one day and I showed them pictures from home. This week at school has actually been pretty fun :)

Another reason why I love the girls in my new class so much is because without them, my birthday would have sucked. Every year since elementary school, winter break has started RIGHT before my birthday. I never get to go to school and have everyone say happy birthday to me; I always spend my birthday alone at the house usually until the evening. Last year I was excited because my birthday (the 19th) was scheduled to be the last day of school before break! Unfortunately, it was cancelled because of the snow :( This year, my birthday was on a saturday. But in Italy, the students attend school on saturday, so it wasn't a problem. The problem was that on the 18th I got the flu and therefore had to stay home from school on my birthday.

This, however, didn't stop the girls in my class from celebrating! Around 9:00 someone buzzed at the gate wanting to come in, and then 30 seconds later my host sister (who had been sleeping as well) came in my room saying "Zoe.. your friends are here.." At first I couldn't help thinking why.. I look so gross and I need to sleep! But as soon as I opened the door and found them all standing there with a cake, balloons, and wishing me a happy birthday, I couldn't help but smile :) They came in and sang "Happy Birthday" to me in english, and then had me blow out the number 17 candle on the cake. They'd also brought a pack of cookies, bags of chips, and a bottle of pepsi, so we sat and ate together for about an hour. It was a nice little birthday party, and they had bought me a beautiful bracelet. Oh and did I mention the giant poster? It had "Happy Birthday Zoe!" written across it with "we love you" and pictures of all of us that we'd taken a few days before on it.

After the girls left, the rest of my day wasn't very eventful. I took a shower and sat under the covers on my computer. Everyone came home and we had lunch, and then I went and tried to take a nap. I basically just lounged around the house sick all day. Later in the evening, two people came who are going to stay with us for a few days and then we all went to a little place called "casertavecchia" (old Caserta) to see a small concert. It was just some people with instruments singing in Latin and Italian in an old church. The church was packed with people and it was freezing. We didn't get back until really late and didn't eat dinner until midnight.. When we got back I was dead tired and had a horrible stomach ache so Anna made me a warm drink to help and then I went to bed. It definitely wasn't that exciting of a birthday.. but it doesn't really matter. I had some emails, cards, and 67 wall posts on facebook that said "happy birthday" both in Italin and English and I felt loved :)

Well I know it wasn't very exciting.. But I'm going to end this blog for now. I'll try to update more often again, especially after Christmas! Merry Christmas everyone :)

-Zoë

Starting Over

Many many things have happened in the past weeks.. I guess I've partly been putting off blogging because I really don't know where to start! Most of you know the story, and I really shouldn't give too many details, so I'll sum it up as best as I can and I'll start at the beginning with camp in Sorrento (or Seiano?).

Camp was amazing. Seriously, it was the best time I'd had here so far. I made so many friends from all over the world! To name a few places, there were people from Finland, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Norway, France, Thailand, China, Tunisia, Albania, Turkey, Indonesia, New Zealand, Chile, Guatemala, etc. It was crazy! There was also one other girl from USA, and it was so nice having her there. We pretty much were always together because it was nice to be able to not only speak english, but speak it quickly and with "slang" and the other person was still able to understand! Seriously, it was such a relief after 4 or 5 weeks of talking like a 2 year old. And even though all of the students understood english, we still had to speak slowly or sometimes explain things. It was nice to reassure myself that I still knew how to speak english :)

Don't think I totally isolated myself with Abbey though! We became really good friends with so many people! And of course everyone had a lot of fun making fun of us and telling us the stereotypes they've heard of the states. We of course tried our best to correct them.. but there were a lot! For example, everyone seemed to think that all Americans ever eat is McDonald's, or burgers like ones from McDonald's. They also think that high school in America is just like High School Musical. I assured them that no, we don't sing about everything that happens in our social lives. Although we couldn't really deny that high school "cliques" exist.

We arrived at our hotel on Monday. The journey there was, to say the least, uncomfortable.. First I took a train with the other five girls in my city from Caserta to Naples. The Naples train station is one of the craziest... You really have to watch your bags and be careful. And I've heard that quite often there are strikes and riots, so you may arrive on time at the train station for a ten o'clock train, but may not actually end up getting on it until two hours later. You never really know what is going to happen there! Thankfully our train was on time and no one lost any bags to the crazy thieves or anything.

When we arrived in Naples, we joined a group of students from around Campagnia, and as we waited even more started to arrive. We then hurried to our train. Once we were on, it became apparent that the ride was not going to be a very fun one.. We rushed onto a train that was dripping on the inside because of rain on the outside, and it was packed with people! Not to mention that every time the train stopped or started again we jolted forward or backwards! I don't know how many times I said "scusami!" to the people around me who I kept falling into! Oh, and did I mention we were also carrying our luggage for the trip? So while the train was jerking us back and forth, I also had to watch my little suitcase because it kept falling over! Between all of that, and the humidity of being packed together like sardines, it was not a pleasant ride at first. Thankfully, as more people kept getting off than getting on, we were able to make our way to some seats and got more comfortable. I sat next to a girl from France named Fiona and a volunteer. I got to practice my two years of high school french on Fiona and I'd say we held a decent conversation!

Finally we got off the train at a tiny station that looked like one of those bus stops in the middle of no where.. There was hardly anyone there and looking around, we realized we were basically in the middle of a bunch of mountains! It was actually really beautiful though. It reminded me of the drive through the mountains in Washinton because the mountains were covered in trees. The coolest part, though, was seeing all of the little houses on the mountainside! They were so cute and spaced randomly on the mountain.

Packed again like sardines, we boarded vans in groups of 8 and took off for the hotel. We found ourselves winding through the mountain, and as we go through a turn we'd get a glimpse of the most beautiful view of the sea! It was wonderful. Finally, though, we reached the hotel, got our room keys, and went to see the rooms we'd be staying in.

The rooms were lame. They were almost exactly like the ones in Rome, with a single bare room, a desk, and three creaky twin beds. Our hotel had no pool, and no heating, but it did have the most AMAZING view, which I'll put at the end of this post. We also had our own little balconies that were small, but we managed to fit about 5-8 people on one at a time. Days were spent with a mix of orientation (which included various activities related to our experience so far, and talking about our problems, etc.), free time, meals, and partying at night, of course. We also got to go to the sea one day for a few hours, and it was so much fun! We didn't swim, except for a few people, but we took tons of pictures with the beautiful view of the water and Mt. Vesuvius. We also made sure to take lots of pictures with each other because we won't see each other again until final orientation in June! So sad, we all became such good friends.

The final night at orientation, I decided to finally take my computer down to the lobby and go on the internet. To my surprise, I found a bunch of emails, facebook messages, etc. from my mom who had been frantically trying to reach me. It had turned out that Monica, my host mom, had found my blog while I was at camp, used a translator to read it, and taken some things very offensively. I didn't think I'd written anything too bad, but she got very angry that I'd written anything at all and decided to "comment" on one of my posts. She wrote some very mean things to me, and I didn't know what to do. I decided to get the head volunteer, Camilla. I brought her to the lobby and showed her what Monica wrote, and she told me in the morning she'd call the volunteers in Caserta about it, because AFS hadn't informed her of it. Well, long story short, I ended up going back to Caserta thinking I'd be met by a volunteer, only to be met by the person who had written those things about me and going back to her house. I really didn't know what to do, and I just wanted to leave their house. The situation was very awkward. She had a meeting with AFS that evening, and when she came back she gave a short apology and asked (assuming I'd say yes) if I wanted to keep living with them. I told her I accepted the apology, and apologized for saying things about her family, and then politely told her that I didn't want to continue living with them. Of course this angered her, but it was what needed to be done, otherwise I'd be stuck with a family that I didn't feel comfortable living with for my entire stay here, and I didn't want that to happen.

It took two whole weeks exactly (I returned from camp on thursday the 15th and left for my new home on thursday the 29th) but I am now with a new family. I must say, living with the other family for those weeks was tough.. There was a lot of tension and it was at times very awkward and stressful. But that is all I'm going to say on that matter because this is the internet, and I don't want to cause any more problems.. Of course you can email me for more details.. :)

My new family is wonderful. I love them :) Unfortunately, they are only temporary, but maybe they'll change their minds.. ;) They are very, VERY different from the other one, and in good ways. I no longer feel the pressure to have everything in perfect order, and I feel so relaxed here. For example, they have the tv on during meals, I don't have to make my bed PERFECTLY (but I make it up to look decently nice), I can put my things around my room where I want, etc. My days aren't boring, although I haven't yet gone out a lot with friends from school. But every day I'm offered to go out with one of the parents or my host sister somewhere, and they let me go to a party at my friend from New Zealand's house last weekend. At the old house, I felt like I was constantly watching the clock tick away slowly.. but here I find myself saying "it's already 11pm?!". I love that my days aren't boring and miserable. They're fun and I really am learning the Italian culture! Too bad it's nearly two months late.. But better late than never!

So about the people I'm living with: My host mom and dad are Antonio and Anna. They are so sweet! They're a lot older than the other host family, so I they definitely feel more motherly and fatherly to me. They treat me like a daughter and I feel welcome in their house, but not as a guest like the last house. My host sister is Federica. I have another, but she doesn't live here; she lives in Bologna. Federica is really nice :) She's 25, but she doesn't treat me like she's nearly ten years older than me and it's nice to have someone who can relate to me in the house, instead of four little children. She also speaks english well (and Antonio is learning, so his is pretty good too) so she helps me with a lot of things. We've had some nice conversations and she doesn't seem to mind talking to me :) She's cool and it's nice having another "young adult" in the family.

Well it's getting late and I think this post is long enough.. I will try to get back to blogging more often again! Below are pictures from Sorrent (or Seiano..). Enjoy!

-Zoë

4 Weeks Down

Wow.. Was I off on my days with that last post? I didn't think it had been so long since I'd blogged but here I am counting day 28, exactly four weeks, and my last post says two and a half.. Oops.

I don't have a lot to say but I'll do my best. This post is for Gabi because she totally made my day today and apparently checks for my posts almost as much as my mom :) Love you Gabs!

The past week has been very uneventful. Monday school was very boring and I was disappointed. I don't know why it was so boring.. I think Mondays are just bad days no matter where you are, even in Italy. But I do seem to have the most boring schedule on that day, so I'm sure that contributes. Anyways, I probably finished 8 or 9 sudokus that day.. Yes, that is what I do during class. Sudokus. Sometimes I doodle or practice writing with my left hand too (I hear it improves your memory, and I need to remember all these Italian words!) but for the most part sudokus keep me entertained during the classes in which the teachers actually decide to teach, which I must admit, isn't as often as you'd think. I wonder where I'll be able to buy another sudoku book here when I finish this one...

Wednesday I was only in class for the first hour. I had felt sick that morning but decided to go to school because I spend enough time at home. By the time my second class came, however, I was sure I couldn't handle any more. Luckily it was english class so I was able to tell the teacher that I wanted to go home and she communicated that to the vice principal for me. I was just going to leave, like I see so many kids do so often, but when I told the english speaking kid in my class (you know, the annoying, spoiled one who "only buys designer clothes") he told me they had a sign out process that I had to go through. The english teacher told me the same thing when she got there so she had to check with the vice principal for me. I'm not so sure they even have a principal here.. I've never seen him/her and the vice principal pretty much handles everything haha.

Anyways the vice principal okay-ed my going home, but when I got home no one was there. Monica had been out shopping I think. So I had to go back to school, but they let me just hangout in the bar until school ended instead of sitting in class. I didn't mind this so much, seriously the bar is probably the nicest part of the entire school. Very comfy chairs at very nice tables :) I put my head down on my bag and slept a little and did sudokus. I also wrote letters to family and friends, which I will be sending soon :)

Thursday I didn't go to school. I still didn't feel well and I knew I needed to rest so I stayed home. It was very boring. One thing that REALLY bothered me was the fact that despite my being sick, my host family STILL expected me to eat a lot. Seriously, they think I'm anorexic or something because I don't ever want five servings of everything after eating the HUGE plate of pasta they give me, so they gave me crazy looks when I ate even less than usual that day. I tried to eat as much as I could but really, there's only so much a sick stomach can handle.

Friday I went back to school. I actually had been told a week or two before not to go because there was going to be a strike (they apparently do that often, on random days) but I went anyways. I was desperate to get out of the house. A girl in my class had told me they weren't sure if they were going to have one or not and to go anyways so I figured I might as well. The first hour there were only five of us. Thankfully Jessica, my favorite friend so far, was there so I hung out with her and the other people. Then, out of no where, the bell rang for the next class and the rest of my classmates suddenly showed up... So I guess it was only a one-hour strike? Glad I didn't stay home. I'm so confused about how this school system works, but I'll figure it out.

Saturday (today) I had a pretty good day. Usually I don't like saturdays because I sit at home, like every day, but I get to think about all the fun everyone is having staying out late while I'm stuck at home. I like school on saturdays though because it's shorter and the classes are good. Today at school was another one of those chill saturdays. Since we have math for the first two hours instead of just one, the math teacher (also the vice principal) usually doesn't come until the end of the first hour. She always comes a little late because she has more important duties to take care of, but on saturdays she usually misses almost all of the first hour. The rest of class wasn't too exciting but it wasn't horrible either. Math always psychs me out here.. Seriously I feel like my little buddy Ella is going to open the door and yell "PSYCH!" sometimes. (I babysat her all summer, she's five, and her favorite thing to do to me on a daily basis was convince me of something along the lines of her mother planning on firing me, someone throwing away something important, etc, and than yell "PSYCH" at the perfect moment when she had me convinced. haha) Anyways, math does this to me because class will start out with easy algebra that I could do with my eyes closed and I go through it easily and quickly. Then, out of no where, the teacher will write some crazy equation that I've never seen before on the board and start doing scary difficult things that I can't comprehend.. This is where the "PSYCH" comes in, and I realized that I've been tricked once again.

After school today I was sitting at home as usual. Thankfully the internet was up today and I started chatting on facebook with one of my lovely new friends, Annamaria :) She is a friend of my liason Sarah, so she's older, but she's very cool and we'd been talking about going to "get coffee" which basically could mean anything.. haha. Anyways we were both bored and so she invited me to go out. I had her talk to Monica on the phone and I was allowed out of my cage for a few hours :) We actually did get coffee, which was sooooo yummy! It wasn't real coffee I guess... I'd had it before. It was cold, still had a coffee taste, but was mixed with chocolate or something. So delicious! The texture was kind of like a milkshake, but not as cold. I love it, and thankfully they only give coffee in small cups here because it's so strong so I don't feel as guilty about having something that is probably extremely unhealthy.. :)

Sitting at the coffee place was a lot of fun. We were sitting at the tables just talking for a long time, and in english because Annamaria is fluent! Well let's just say we got a lot of strange looks and people who were obviously eavesdropping and trying to figure out what we were saying. One lady walked by, then came back, went into the coffee shop, and then came back out so she could listen to us. Finally she came over and asked where we were from and everything. Of course she spoke to Annamaria in Italian the whole time but basically I knew what they were saying :) Annamaria explained that I was from America and that she had studied english... blah blah blah. The lady told Annamaria that her english was "so good!" and she was impressed or something.. haha. English-speaking people aren't common in a small town like Caserta, so the whole walk there and home we got a lot of people looking at us funny. It was kind of fun actually.

After coffee we went to a cute little shop right across from the coffee stand. It was very small, as are all of the shops here, but it had a lot of cute jewelry! It also reminded me of Washington because there were a ton of carved animals and things that reminded me of the Native American influence in Washington. From this store and another on the walk home I was able to pick up a few gifts to send back home which was nice :)

Finally I came home around 8pm. My host family was sitting at the dinner table, about to eat. To my surprise they were having... any guesses?! Burgers! Haha.. well fake, Italian ones, of course, but burgers nonetheless. And apparently tomorrow Mariano is making "breakfast Americano!" which I'm not sure if I should be worried or excited about right now... I'll let you all know how that goes.

I'm looking forward to my next blog because I'll be blogging all about the three days I'm going to be spending in Naples! I have an orientation with AFS so I'll be staying in a hotel in Naples from Lunedi (monday) to Giovedi (thursday) with a bunch of other exchangers :) I can't wait, three days out of the house and I'm hoping to be reunited with a lot of the friends I made in Rome! It will be a lot of fun, I hope, and I can't wait to tell you all about it :) Also, I'm supposedly going to Rome on Giovedi with Monica after she picks me up in Naples. I wish I was looking forward to this but right now I'm not sure... She has a casting thing there (according to her, she's an "actress" but I'm not so sure her career has quite taken off.. ha) so I'm not sure how much time we'll actually be spending sight-seeing but maybe it will be fun. I'll just pretend I'm there with someone else and get lost in the sights. She might annoy me most of the time but atleast I'll be seeing the beautiful city finally :)

Well it's time to go to bed. The internet keeps going out and I'm tired. Plus, I'm getting up a bit early tomorrow so I can finally go to church! I'm so excited. I'm going with Mariano (I prefer him over Monica) and none of the children will be there, so I'll get to have some peace in one of my favorite places :) Oh, how I have missed church! I don't even care that it won't be in english because it won't matter. That's one of the wonderful things about being Catholic; the same celebration is happening all over the world, in the same way. I'll know what's happening even if I can't understand it through words. I also think it will be kind of fun to learn some prayers in Italian. Let’s see.. Noi Padre, qui… art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name. Haha well I got the first three words at least.. :)

Ciao, buona sera, buonjiourno (because it's afternoon over there), and arrivederci :)

-Zoë

The End of Week Two...

First off, sorry I haven't blogged in so long! I know my mom has probably been checking obsessively every day (probably even more often than facebook) to see if I've posted something so here I go :) I'll try not to take so long again.

Well, I have officially survived here for two weeks. Actually by now I guess it's two and a half.. (I started this a few days ago). It has been crazy trying to adjust, go to school, make friends, and all while learning Italian. I can't say it's been easy.

School has been great so far. It really has been a good way for me to get out of the house and have fun with people my age instead of being stuck with these little monsters all the time. The kids at school are wonderful. They have totally accepted me and are always trying to talk to me in class. Sometimes, usually in between classes, I'll be sitting by myself because that's when everyone gets up to go get food or stretch and a group of people will just suddenly be standing around my desk talking to me. Italians are so social! I love it. And the cool thing about my class (and the other classes too, I'm sure) is that there aren't really "cliques." Of course, there are certain groups who tend to talk to each other more than everyone else, but everyone is pretty friendly to each other and gets along well.

Today I FINALLY got to do something with my classmates. I'd been spending a lot of time with AFS liasons because I hadn't yet been invited to do anything with my school friends yet, and don't get me wrong, the AFS people are wonderful and I have fun with them, but it was nice to finally feel like I've actually made friends. I mean, I knew I had but now I know that they probably feel the same way about me! Hopefully... Anyways, today I went out for pizza with my friends Jessica, Zaira (Z-eye-ear-uh), Antonella, and Laudonia (Loud-own-ya). It was pretty fun. We just walked to a little bar near the school and got our food and then ate it. There was conversation but a lot of it was in Italian (as usual) and I didn't understand it. Thankfully, Jessica likes studying english so she's usually able to translate enough of the words for me that I can understand the jist of the conversation. Don't get me wrong though, I did have fun and I'd love to go out more with them! It's a lot more fun than eating lunch at a table with four boys screaming and refusing to eat their food.

After lunch, the girls came over to my house. I think the original plan was for me to help them with english homework.. but that didn't really happen. They came in and we were just standing around like hmm.. what should we do? So I showed them a few of my things and then brought out my laptop (which they were excited about) and we spent the rest of the time on youtube, facebook, listening to music, etc. It was fun :) We took turns showing eachother videos and songs from our own countries. Finally the girls had to go home. Before they left though, they said we'd do this again sometime next week. Unfortunately I had to tell them about Monica's stupid rule about not going out with friends except on saturdays and sundays. They were shocked and asked why (I have no idea why!) so I had them ask Monica for me if I could go out with them again next week. She STILL said no! It's ridiculous, how am I supposed to make friends? AFS has told us that we should accept every invitation to go out with friends in the beginning because it will help us with the language and making friends, and later in the experience when we are fluent and no longer new and exciting we will get fewer invitations like these. I have asked my liason what to do about this and she is going to talk to someone for me.

So today english class was... interesting.

We ended up having a debate about designer clothes, which started because the other ANNOYING kid in my class who speaks english is spoiled and a total show off. Seriously, he's constantly trying to be "cool" and only does things that he thinks will make him that way. A few days ago the english teacher asked him what breakfast was like in England, where he is from, and it is a lot like American breakfasts (the big ones you have at restaurants). Well when she reffered to them as "fatty" and "big" he got all self conscious, and was worried that, heaven forbid, everyone would think he ate huge breakfasts despite the fact that he looks like a twig and it wouldn't matter either way. But as soon as she said these he changes his story and says "no, no.. uhh well we don't eat them often and I only eat them when I go to London and blah blah blah.." Seriously, no one was listening anyways.. Just get over it.

Another annoying thing about Giammarco is that he thinks he knows everything. Or atleast, he tries to act like he does. Today we got in an arguement about freaking Gossip Girl! He insists that Gossip Girl exactly portrays the lives of rich American teens (particularily ones in New York). I repeatedly told him how unrealistic it was and that no one lives this way, but of course he insisted that I was wrong. I literally said to him, "Uhm, I'm pretty sure I LIVE in America and I know for a fact that no one lives like that, not even rich people." Seriously, who is he to tell me how people in my NATIVE COUNTRY live?! So annoying.

ANYWAYS, the debate today all started because my teacher decided to talk about spending money, or "pocket money" that we get from our parents. Yesterday we'd talked about weekly and monthly allowances and today we talked about spending money for clothes. Well this kid, Giammarco, claimed that his budget is 2000 Euros. That is ridiculous!!! I guess his dad is some rich buisiness guy or whatever, but still! No one should spend that kind of money on clothes. So this started the debate. The teacher proceeded to ask me how much I get for clothes, which Griammarco went on to say was "nothing!" and dissed American fashion. This I would not stand for! Earlier in the day, when I had jokingly mentioned how the attire of one of my classmates would make him be seen as "gay" in America, Giammarco said that "Americans don't know anything about fashion and fashion is very important in Italy. It's not gay, it's fashionable." Well excuse me Mr. my-daddy-gives-me-everything-I-want. So the debate began. The teacher had both of us stand in front of the class and give our opinions (American vs. British) about buying "designer clothes" instead of ones that aren't so expensive. Of course Giammarco had lame arguments, two whole arguements to be exact, and I had plenty more. Everyone in the class totally sided with me and agreed that you shouldn't spend so much money on clothes :) They also agreed with me that Giammarco was showing off and spoiled. Haha.

One of the points that I made, which my classmates loved, was that people in America would rather spend that money on nice houses and cars than clothes. Well, Italians love American houses, especially here in Caserta where there isn't a single house anywhere and everyone lives in condos. As soon as I mention "American houses" they immediately think of houses in suburbs and American tv shows that they've seen. They'd probably be so shocked to see how few people actually live like that. But anyways, they all nodded in agreement that having a nice house and nice cars is so much better than designer clothes. Especially if you can buy clothes just like those that cost way less. Giammarco's main point was that if it costs more, it is better quality, made from better material, and lasts longer, which I countered by saying that although this is sometimes true, the expensive material also costs more to take care of! I don't want to have to pay for dry cleaning everytime I wear my nice clothes.. BAM. Shut down, Giammarco.

Anyways, these are basically the highlights of my past week. I'm still making friends, learning the language, and getting used to my life here. People in my school, other than ones in my class, are starting to recognize me more as the "American girl" which is nice.. Hopefully I'll have plenty of friends soon and Monica will ammend her rules so that I can spend time with them.

This is the end of this post, hopefully it was long enough to satisfy all of you who have been nagging me until the next one! Arrivederci!

-Zoë

Scoula - Day 1!

Wow... Where to start?! Today was my first day at school I think it went pretty well. I'll start at the beginning..

My day started off really great. I had gotten up a little earlier than necessary so I decided to check facebook and email before I made it known to my family that I was awake. Since it was so early here, it was only about 10:00pm in Washington, so Kayley was online! I got to chat with her for about 15 minutes which was really nice :) Then I went to go take a shower. For the past week my showers have been miserable. The water would refuse to be the right temperature for me; it was either scalding hot or freezing cold. For some reason, though, today it decided to be the perfect temperature that I almost didn't want to get out. But Kayley was waiting and my host family is very conservative about water so I got out. I made great time getting ready. It was nice to not be rushing to get ready and just be able to relax and cool my nerves.


I didn't really get too nervous until we were in the car. As soon as we were on the street I started getting nervous and scared of what school would be like. I wasn't really nervous about my classes.. Just about the other students and what they might think of me. Was I wearing the right clothes? Did my hair look nice? Would they care that I had the dorkiest backpack ever? The part that made me the most nervous, though, was the fact that I couldn't remember where my classroom was! I knew the area it was in and how to get there, but I couldn't really remember which door it was. I was so nervous about walking into the wrong room and getting laughed at.

When I got to my room I was pretty sure it was the right one, but decided to ask for help just in case. Luckily my principal (who's room was right down the hall) recognized me immediately. My first hour teacher happened to be standing right next to her too, so she just had me follow him to the room. Another teacher, who would eventually be my Italian (literature, etc. Equivalent to English class in America) teacher for the last hour of school was there too. It was really funny when she said "let's me go!" instead of "let's go!" Someone else corrected her so I didn't have to.

Finally I got to my class. About half of the students were there already and the teacher pointed to a seat in the front of the class for me to sit in. The seat next to mine would eventually be occupied by my interpreter; another student who had spent 5 years in an American school and speaks english fluently without even an accent (although he does have a lisp..). Poor guy, I'm sure he resents the fact that he has to translate everything for me.

The teachers were all very nice to me, except for maybe one. All of us exchange students had heard that teachers pretty much ignore exchange students and pretend they don't exist, so I went to school expecting this. Well of course this didn't happen. In fact, I had to sit there awkwardly while each teacher, except one, took their turn trying to communicate with me at the start of each class while the rest of the students just sat there listening. It was very uncomfortable.. But I got over it and it was nice to have my translater sitting right there next to me.

My first class was Industrialized Economy.. Don't ask me what that means because I honestly have no clue. At first I thought I was in math class! But my interpreter soon cleared that up, explained a few things, and told me what my classes are. I'll list them in a minute :) Anyways, my Industrialized Economy teacher seemed like a very funny guy. He was kind of old but he joked a lot with the students. I couldn't understand the jokes really but they seemed funny anyways and I could kind of get what they were about based on the hand motions and body language.

I also liked my geography teacher. She was very nice and funny, and really friendly to me! We took a test, but it wasn't a serious test. I guess it was one of those ones to see where you are? Although I'm not so sure how accurate they because everyone was talking the whole time. I was so proud of myself though! I was able to decipher a lot of the questions without using my dictionary! Or atleast most of each question. I had to look up atleast a few words in each one, but I still was surprised at how much easier it is to understand the language when it's written down because you can pick out specific words that are similar to english ones. It was kind of fun, like diciphering a clue or something.

So there are a LOT of differences between Italian school and American school... For example, at Jackson, you're technically not allowed to be in the hallways without a hall pass, or atleast without permission from a teacher. In Italy, you can just get up and walk out of class and to the snack bar across the street for some food, and then walk right back in. It's ridiculous! Or if you aren't hungry, but want to go outside and smoke a cigarrette, that's cool too.. ON CAMPUS. It's a totally different world here.. Oh and the teachers move classes, not the students! Which is easier on me so I don't have to worry about getting lost I guess... Ha.

Anyways, here are my classes!!

Monday:
Industrialized Economy
Geography
Economy
Law (AHHH!)
French
Italian

Tuesday:
Italian
Geography
Math
Industrialized Ec.
English
French

Wednesday:
Law
English
Economy
Italian
Italian

Thursday:
Math
Geography
French
Law
Industrialized Ec.
Italian

Friday:
Law
Italian
PE
Religion
Industrialized Ec.
Industrialized Ec.

Saturday: (Yes we have school on Saturday..)
Math
Math
Industrialized Ec.
Industrialized Ec.
PE

So there's my current schedule.. However I am told it isn't official and there might be changes. It's so different! I can't even believe some of the classes I'm in.. Apparently, according to one of my classmates, I'm in one of the harder schools. Some kids go to law school after this I guess.. Wow! FML. Haha kidding, but this definitely isn't going to be easy. It's okay if I don't get amazing grades anyways. They said the only way I can fail is if I don't go to class, which won't happen because they'll send me home anyways. So I'm good to go :)

After school I hung out around the house until it was time to go to my meeting. All of the AFS kids staying in Caserta met at our hosting coordinator Paola's house. Her apartment/condo is so cute! I love it! Anyways, it was nice to see my friends again and we got to meet our liasons. There were quite a few of them there, and they were all so nice. We discussed everything we were going through and the main topic became my family problems. They were all so supportive and nice, and told me that they were there to help me. They all gave me phone numbers and email addresses so I could talk to them or call them to hangout when I didn't want to be stuck at home. It was really nice!

After the meeting my liason, Sarah, drove me home. She came upstairs with me to ask if I could go with her and some friends for coffee, and Mariano said I could! It was about 9:30 by then and he said to be home by 11. So I left with her and we met up with some of her friends and hung out at a "bar" which I've learned is basically a cafe. It was a lot of fun, especially because they spoke english! I had a great time, and it was nice to get out and do something. Tomorrow, another one of the liasons is going to invite me to go out during the afternoon. These people are so nice and really do make me feel like they care about the trouble I'm having adjusting. I am so thankful for their kindness. After I hang out with her tomorrow I will go to my first Italian language lesson, which I will be having twice a week for two hours! I'm glad because I can't wait to be fluent and be able to understand what everyone is saying, and I'll get to see my friends :)

Well it's really late here so that's all for this post! Buona Notte!

-Zoë

Living With Boys...

It has definitely been hard for me to adjust here. I've never lived with boys before other than my dad, and now I am living with four little ones. I had been forewarned about the number of kids I'd be living with but I never imagined it would be like this; these are not normal children! Never, in my entire life, have I met such terrible kids! I usually love kids, so just saying that a child could be terrible is hard for me.. But after living with these ones I now know that it is definitely possible. I have never met any kids who scream, cry, fight, and throw tantrums as much as these ones do! And it's usually about NOTHING! They will start whining about anything.. maybe that mom went downstairs to go get something or they were told to "wait a minute" when asking for something. And then the whining becomes screaming.. Which involves sitting on the floor, shouting random words (or maybe just noises, heck I don't know, I can't speak Italian!), and doing whatever they can to make as much noise and be as annoying as possible. The worst part is that unlike normal, quick fits of unhappiness about something, they will continue to scream for about 15-20 minutes! There have been times here when one or two of them will "cry" for an entire meal. The reason I put cry in quotation marks is because it isn't real crying. Anyone with eyes can tell that it is a fake, forced "crying" that is taking place. Luigi, for example, will sit on the floor and sob, but sometimes he'll get distracted by something on the ground or wall and look at it for a minute. But then he'll remember that he was throwing a fit and continue "crying." I just roll my eyes and walk away.

Luigi has officially become my least favorite of the four. He is the oldest, yet his maturity level sure doesn't reflect that. The first few days I was here he was fine, probably just because I was new and he wanted to seem cool or whatever. However, now he is always whining about stupid little things and being a total jerk to his brothers for no reason. Today, for example, he was being such a brat! There is a stupid toy that they like to play with which is a toy car. I have no idea what is so exciting or entertaining about it but they seem to like it. Anyways, Luigi was playing with it and Mattia wanted to join him. Well, to say the least, sharing isn't a common thing in this house. Luigi, who obviously wasn't even that interested in playing with the car anymore, but of course didn't want Mattia to play with it, went into his room where he'd been watching tv and laid down with the car in his arms so Mattia couldn't get it. I was sitting there watching the whole thing go down and feeling bad for Mattia, while hopelessly trying to get Luigi to give it to him by giving him dirty looks, rolling my eyes, and saying "Luigi!" in a tone that suggested he was being a brat. Of course, none of these tactics worst and the situation ended in screaming and crying as usual.

Another instance that made me dislike Luigi occured yesterday, while playing outside. We were downstairs and in the parking lot for the building they had made a small goal using a lamp post, a pole, and a bungee cord (I think). Luigi and I were playing a little one-on-one (and of course I was dominating) when the ball went out of bounds after Luigi kicked it. It was obvious that the ball was mine to kick, but Luigi started walking toward me asking for the ball. I said no once or twice and started to walk over to where I was going to start from and Luigi decides to sit on the ground and start screaming and crying as loud as he can. All because he wanted to kick the stupid ball! Seriously, these kids get upset way to easily. Well of course I wasn't going to give in to it, so I acted like the game was still going to see if he would get over it and play. But that was a mistake, and only upset him further. I kicked the ball to the other side towards the goal and walked away, acting angry at him and decided not to play with him anymore (Ha! That'll show him!). I think he was just upset that he was getting his butt kicked by not only a girl, but a girl from the US! Put that in your juice box and suck it, Luigi!

Anyways, I'm definitely having trouble adjusting here. Maybe things will get better when school starts, maybe not. We'll see! Oh, and to Jessi Callahan: I actually don't think you're crazy for wanting five boys. These ones are monsters but I blame a lot of it on the parenting and you are an amazing mommy so I know your boys will turn out to be wonderful just like the two you already have :)

Well enough about these rotten kids. Today we took a trip to Naples. I thought we were going because it was Simone's 3rd birthday today and we were visiting family or something, but it turned out we were just driving through to see the city I guess. It was very pretty in some parts, especially by the water. I can now say that I've seen the Mediterranean Sea! Monica and Mariano would randomly stop the car near a castle or just the water and have me get out to take pictures. It was a nice gesture I suppose, but I really wasn't feeling like being in any pictures, you know? But I did get some nice shots of the water and everything. It's become very clear on this trip, though, that I need a new camera :/ Mine just doesn't bring out the colors in a lot of my scenery pictures. They're very dull and gray. (hint hint mom...)

Today's meals were great :) For lunch we had some really yummy cannelloni! I though that was all we were having so I had a decent amount. As always, that turned out to be a stupid idea and I realized that when Monica brought out the meatballs. They were HUGE. And they were pretty good.. Not amazing though. Definitely not as good as yours, mom :) Then at dinner we ate in the special room that we never go in. A small card table was set up with a 2 liter bottle of coca-cola, some juice, and food! We had mini pizzas, some weird thing that I don't remember the name of.. (but that doesn't matter because it wasn't that great anyways), and Mariano made a calzone di Mariano, which he was very proud of. It was just a small one, and he cut it up into little sections for each of us. It was pretty good though. Oh yeah, and instead of a birthday cake, we had a giant tiramisu :) It was pretty good, but I think I enjoyed watching it be made more than eating it. Maybe it's just because I'm not a huge fan of coffee and the coffee taste in it was very strong.

So tomorrow I start a new adventure; school! I'm excited, which is kind of funny because at home I would be dreading the end of summer. I have to tell you all about my experience with school so far though. So yesterday I decided I wouldn't take a shower and would just put my gross hair up in a ponytail (because Italians think it's weird that I shower every day..). Unfortunately, as we were walking out the door, my host family says "we are going to look at your school." GREAT, I look like crap and we're going to my school.. but then I though, wait! It's Saturday! No one will be there! WRONG, I forgot that they have school on Saturdays here. Of course I was reminded of this when I saw the millions of vespas parked in front of it. So long story short, after meeting the principal and filling out some papers, lucky me got to go stand in front of my future class with disgusting hair while the principal introduced me. Of course she did all of this in Italian and I had no idea what they were saying as I stood there for five minutes. All I could think was "thank goodness I wore makeup today..." while I was trying to ignore that fact that they were all staring at me and making their first judgements. Lucky for me, there is one kid who is completely fluent in english, without even an accent, and he is going to help me for the first month until I learn the language. Too bad I can't remember his name right now...

Oh my gosh, today when it rained it really made me think of home. It has rained a few times since I've been here but usually when I'm busy or sleeping. Tonight was different though because not a lot was going on and I was bored. I went out on the patio (which was covered) and just stood there listening to it for a few minutes. It was really nice to hear it and for just a brief moment, with my eyes closed, I felt like I was standing on my front porch again at home. I can't say I'm necessarily "homesick", as in to the point of crying "I want to go home!" in my room, but I do miss home as anyone would, and the little feeling of home was nice :)

Anyways, I will be sure to update this after my first day of school. No doubt it will be an adventure and I have no idea what to expect right now. I miss everyone a lot and I hope all is well over there :) Feel free and let me knowUntil next time!

-Zoë