ALLORA!!!

Well Everyone, I know it has been quite some time since I have updated but I have been feeling really lazy and not in the mood to type out my life on the internet because Id rather just live my life and not have to write it down but I know theres people out there who enjoy reading this so yes I will continue to write on this for yall :)

Lets see, since I last wrote I have had many fun experiences that I seriously cant remember all of them to type right now but I will try and think of the highlights!!!

Okay, First off I went to Venice!!!! It was sooo beautiful even when I was there I didnt feel like I was there because its just so cool! Its a lot more tranquel than the films though with the boat races through the water, nope a lot more calm! I went with AFS meaning 4 volunteers, and 4 of us from the Monza region, minus our Turko because he had already been to venice 4 times and said he had enough of it ! It was about a 4 hour train ride very long and I had to wake up at like 5:30 am to go to the train station in Milan. SO I was super tired! and I had a bad cold but through it all it was a really fun day! I literally think I walked through all of Venice, legit all of it because they showed me on the map and we really did see tons!!! We were also bored so Me, Tohma, Karn and Tomas ( kids from monza) decided to pull a little prank and we convinced the volunteers that Karn and Tohma the most innocent asian kids you will ever meet had broken a rule and gone to a greenday concert in Milan alone! and they totally believed it and were super mad! It was hilarious! and they believed this all day and so at the end of the day I was just like hmm well they already believe this so lets just finish it off with a bang so we added on that they had been driving motorcycles to school and hitchhiking and we just said we broke like every AFS rule possible and the funny part was they believed literally everything actually so much that when we said it was a joke they didnt believe us that it was actually a joke! It was super funny, its only actually really funny because of the people you have to know them to think its funny but they are so innocent and to believe these lies we told is crazy but they did!! oh well sorry aafs :) its just a joke !

Lets see, well we had to say goodbye to Tomas :( Thursday was our last day all together the Monza kids, we all went to our weekly italian lesson together and we had homework to give presentations about cool plases in our home country, I made a superbig poster with my favorite places from the US which included, NYC, Siesta Keys, Palm Springs, Niagara Falls, Chicago and Key largo! I won the poster contest needless to say but I think that was only bc 3 out of 5 of us actually did the homework :) Anyways after we played a bunch of games like pictionary and a quiz game, it was really funny we had to answer questions about another person in the group and I didnt understand one of them where is said number of shoes in italy so I thought like how many pairs they brought with them but it actually meant the shoe size so I wrote 5 and everyone was like pissing their pants but actually 5 is a shoe size in the US but here its all like 39 42 and so no one understood and they were all laughing super hard at this! PS I still dont get the metrics system that much THANKYOU AMERICA FOR BEING DIFFERENT!!!! Euros to dollars, kilos to lbs, celcius to far, kilometers to miles, inches to cm WTF AMERICA! your making me do so much work! all the other exchange students didnt change all this! haha oh well its okay im differnt ! Anyways, after our lesson we went to OFCOURSE the same pizza place we always go to in Monza called Pizzeria Undici (11) we always end up going here I have no idea why but its like our place for AFS I honestly think they should just buy the restaurant it would be cheaper! So we had our final dinner for Tomas which was so sad because he was the only person who actually lived near me that I could hang out with from AFS :( Im gonna miss him! He really didnt want to leave also which suck for him! Oh well, so yah it was also sad because at one point we all yelled DISCORSO DISCORSO DISCORSO which means SPEECH SPEECH and he gave a short but sweet one I actually dont even think I payed attention I was too busy thinking about when I have to do the same when I will be leaving and that just made me sad because I honestly dont want to picture leaving right now! This experience is not ALWAYS the funnest time but when its fun its super fun and when its hard in the end its just worth it everything works out, I really believe that everything happends for a reason and that is why I need this experience to live out the rest of my life and being able to say I learned a new language, emmerced myself in a new culture, made friends, family and was sucessful in a country where I started out knowing no one and speaking bascially 0 of the language, its really rewarding to not only see but feel progress when you make it!

Lets see well this saturday I am switching to my FINAL it better be my final atleast family! wooo I will have 2 host brothers one is 15 and the other 10 they live in a nice house on the other side of the same town I live in now which is good because I can still see my other family which I really like now!!! The kids may be crazy sometimes but I love them! For example, one time they decided to play a game where I have to guess something while being blindfolded so first they put like a fruit in my hand and whatever and then they were like open ur mouth and they put a huge amount of salt in my mouth, it was horrible I think I still have the taste in my mouth to this day!! My little host brother is so cute though we have grown to be great little buds except now he has a new routine of being super annoying everytime I try to do something productive or in general when I watch tv he steals the remote or stands in front of me to make me mad and then when i do homework he loves to find toys and put them down my shirt or pants and then I proceed to take the toy and throw it at him and scream PROVA UNA VOLTA PIU E VEDI QUALCOSA BRUTTO!( try one more time and you see something bad) this is a bad translation and also prob im not even saying this phrase right in italian but it makes sense to me!! anyways, yah he loves putting toy cars down my pants whenever he finds the opportunity when I am laying on his bed Idk why he finds this so funny I certainly dont! but in the end thinking back on it its actually really funny what he does most of the time but not during this time just after let me make that clear!!

Hmm whatelse, well I found a place to dance! I really like it! Its deff different than what im used to and also less amount of dance that I am doing here but obviously I cant expect to dance 4 hours a night like in the USA! So its good for now :) I am also in the musical at my school and dancing and acting in that which is really funny I like it!! The one thing I am getting annoyed about is the fact that my town is far away from my school and a lot of my friends! Noone lives near me that im super good friends with so I am always taking the train somewhere else and having to return early because the trains rarely go to my town at night or in general which SUCKS!

I think I am learning italian fast!!! I really understand so much and I find myself rarely speaking english anymore unless I am with people from intercultura(AFS) which makes me happyyy I also have had some dreams in italian and I find myself waking up and thinking in Italian ...usually thinking that I should wake up and get out of bed but yah woo!

I really dunno what else to write ahh there is too much I could keep writing all day and I would never stop because there is so much to write! anywhooo I will try to update this more for all of you people who are complaining I need to update more! :)


CIAO!

XOXO Mollie

Halloween!

So!! Halloween in Italy turns out to be not such a big deal! Its mainly a holiday for little kids and for the rest of us not very important ! Being so used to such a greatly celebrated Halloween in the US this was weird to find out!!! Anyways, before I get to talking about Halloween I will talk about the highlights of my week prior to Saturday : )





Sooo Tuesday night, Me, Tomas, Tohma and a bunch of Monza volunteers went out for pizza with a girl from Iceland who was in the Monza region 3 years ago and was visiting Italy!! It was really cool to meet someone who had already had this experience in this same region...meaning she knows what its like to live in Monza!! Also, nice to see that she still speaks fluent italian : ) Which I am hoping to be the same by the end! We went to this restaurant that we had already been to before I guess AFS Monza people are usuals there so again we sang kareokee, well actually Fabio sang and made me sing with him, I dont even remember the name of the song but I do remember he knew all of the words to it better than me!!! How sad! Also, there is a new commercial in Italy playing its an AFS commericial and we waited in the restaurant checking the TV every few minutes to see this wonderful advertisement which turns out to be 15 seconds long and not that exciting but it was cool to see an AFS commercial since I have never seen one before in the US!!!





Wednesday!!! I went to a Lily Allen concert with Vale, Katie and Tonje!!! It was sooo much fun, the concert was in a big club in Milan called Alcatraz which is funny because thats actually a prison in the US haha but no here its a fun place to be! So, we had to go early to pick up our tickets and we ended up getting spots really close to the stage which was awesome!! I was so close to her! At one point during the concert I waved to her and she waved back! It was soo cool!!!!!!!! During the concert she would say silly things inbetween songs or just speak about something and obviously I understood but I am pretty sure not many others did! Because living in Italy I have noticed one of their strong points is certainly not english..this is actually good for me because I have no choice but to speak italian many times, but for them not so good. Anyways at one point during the concert me and tonje lost Katie and Val and we were on our way to finding them and I walked in front of some couple and the girl got super mad and she screamed at me " VAI DIETRO" ( go behind) and then she proceeded to shove me back to where I was before and I was so pissed so I said to Tonje pretty loudly " what a little ****** ******* *****" and a few other phrases like that, you get the picture, and anyways at the end of the concert I heard her and her boyfriend speaking english to eacher!!! Turns out she wasnt italian and the rule about bad english didnt apply to her so I wasnt surprised when she was giving me dirty looks since she understood everything I had said about her!!! The one time the language barrier helps, turns out it really doesnt!!!

Comunque, ( anyways) Thursday, I went to my weekly italian lesson with Tohma and Karn! We are now going to a different lesson time than Tomas and Yogi because they are more advanced in Italian than we are : ( After our long and boring 2 hour lesson we stayed for dinner at Silvias house( where we have our lessons) in Monza and she taught us how to make Pasta alla Carbonara which is Pasta with bacon, eggs and cheese on it! It actually sounded pretty gross to me at first but it was super good! I want to try to make it one day!! After we ate we went with her to Monza AFS meeting type thing for kids in Monza who are italian who want to go abroad with AFS or are interested in learning more about it! Silvia and a bunch of other volunteers were there talking about their experiences and about the program! At one point, lucky me had to go up and speak in front of about 50 families in Italian about the differences between American and Italian teenagers...hmm so I dont think I spoke very well but every else seemed to think I did well for being put on the spot! I really cant even explain the difference that well in english so it was pretty difficult. After the whole thing though, a bunch of parents were coming up to me and congradulating me on learning italian which was nice to hear!!! I still dont think I speak very well but ive been getting lots of compliments on my improvents lately so that must mean something!!

Now, finally skipping to Halloween!! My 3 host siblings love halloween, they all decorated our hallway of our appartment and planned for 2 weeks the whole night! I think for halloween they went downstairs and had a little candy party but I dont think they went trick or treating the same way we do in the US. I went with Jasmine, and her two friends to a Disco( club) near the center of Milan called Le Banque! It was super fun!!! Not many people were dressed up though, however there was sooooo many people there it was crazy! and luckily we made friends with one of the bouncers and so we got to cut the whole line and we became some sort of VIPS I guess even though I never found out why or how this VIP is different than anyone else because there was no special room!!! Oh well!!! I then slept at Jasmines that night and the night after because I had no school monday!! However, Jas had school monday morning so while she went to school I went downstairs to work in the bakery with her parents! It was so fun, I got to help make lots of dolce( sweets) and Pizza and other types of breaded goods! Its really cool to see how they make everything and the smell of everything is amazing!!! After working all morning her parents took me to their house in the mountians of Bergamo another place in Lombardia! It was raining really hard though so I couldnt really see or enjoy much of the view of the mountians however it was a really nice day!!!

So thats about all for now, I have come to a few conclusions about italian people 1. They dont like peanut butter!!! 2. Almost all of the boys in my school seem to think its 2001 and they all spike their hair like Lance Bass... 3. Nike here is not pronounced NII- KEE its pronouced NIKE as in rhyming with BIKE....

Ciao Tutti!!

XOXO MOLLIE