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