Settimana di Scambio

Okay I am not going to lie, I hate writing on this stupid blog. There are so many things in my head that I could possibly write down, but I actually would never finish writing this for 2 years if I wrote down all the things I thought. SO for my exchange week which was March 13th-March 21st I went to Catania, which is the second biggest city in Sicily :) I will start from the beginning !
OKAY, so I went to the airport in Milan and met up with some other exchange students from Lombardy who were going also to Catania for the week and we took our plane ! When we arrived at the airport it was super strange because we could see our future new host families waiting for us with signs and cameras ect, and we were all a little nervous it felt like when we had first arrived! So we all got our luggage and to come greet me at the airport was my host mom, Agatha, host dad, Paolo, host sister that is my age Giulia and her boyfriend Andrea! We got in the car and they told me they would have to return again later that night to pick up their other daughter Noemi because she went to London for a week to live with an english family and go to school in england! Noemi is 13! So as were driving home from the airport I am freaking out! In a good way ofcourse! This is because 1.I can see the OCEAN! and 2. I can see an active volcano and 3.it is the most beautiful city I have ever seen...so I was lucky enough to live ten minutes from the center of the city but a little higher up! From the window of my room I could see Enta (the volcano) it was covered with snow!!! But so beautiful!! I unpacked a little bit and then me and Giulia got picked up by her boyfriend and his friend Simone. We went to the "oratorio" this is a place in Italy where youth go and there is activities, games, all kinds of things at the church. In north italy, they deff go way less often and also at a younger age. I ended up going EVERY DAY! SO first I need to explain, North and South Italy have so many differences to the point where you feel like your in a completely different country! The accent is so different, all my friends in milano scared me they kept telling me I wouldnt understand anything, and that all the people speak only in dialect! i was like NOOO, but it wasnt like that! So we get to the Oratorio and we played some foesball, I listened to my host sister sing some church songs and also watched a bunch of kids playing soccer, ofcourse every like 2 hours they randomly would break out in prayer but thats okay! The pastor of the church actually loved me! He wanted to organize a prayer ceremony for me, I explained to everyone that I am jewish but I dont think they really understood the difference! Anyways, People in Sicily and in general south italy are so welcoming and warm people, they greet you with big kisses and hugs as if you've been friends for so long even if u met them for the first time! By the end of the week every single person in the church knew me and greeted me like that every time they saw me, I seriously only remember like 3 names of the people there out of 100 who knew me..OOPS!So I will start to write ab what I actually remember from each day..hmm
SATURDAY MARCH 13th: Anyways, my first night in Catania my host sister invited a bunch of her friends over for pizza at the house and then we played some weird like trivia quiz game on playstation that was really fun!! My team lost, but I was able to help with all the american questions...although it was embarassing when I got the question ab which president is on the 50$ bill wrong...OKAY i suck at history too get over it. Anywhoo. It was fun! I learned lots of new sicilian dialect words and taught them some milanese! :)
MARCH 14th: Okay, soo sunday! I woke up around 10, then went to Mass at Church with my host family which was a short ceremony thank god! Another thing here is that when you go to church in Italy people wear like jeans and normal clothes they dont dress up at all, in the US I feel like its way more formal, or atleast all the times I went it was! Anywho, After Church we had a huge lunch, another difference I noticed from Milan and Catania is that people are bigger in general, and I deff found out why this week! THEY EAT SO MUCH! Okay in Italy in general they eat TONS but these ppl bring it to a new level jeez! So my host house is 2 floors, the first floor is where my host grandmother and grandfather live and upstairs was my family. So my host grandmother made a yummy lunch for us, we ate this yummy eggplant dish, pasta with red sauce, a good salad, then all this meat, then bread, then lots of sweets, followed by coffe and fruit! Another thing that is really true ab Sicily is that people get really offened if you dont eat or dont like their food...soo my host grandma is such a sweetheart, she literally spoke to me almost all the time in dialect meaning I only understood about half of what she was saying, Dialect is a completely different language ofcourse the words are soft of similar so you can get a jist of what it means but after a while I could soft of have a conversation with her if my host sister was helping me understand! Anyways, I have to say I love my Catanese host family! I feel like I know them so well, and they really are a part of my family of families in Italy!! All of them are actors for the oratorio and do 10 shows a year! The week I came happened to be the week of the newest play, which was a drama about a boy being taken away from his adopted parents because the real parents wanted him. My host mom was the adopted mom, she is an amazing actress! The part that sucked IS the whole play was in DIALECT! I couldnt understand NOTHING! COMUNQUE(anyways), Sunday later in the day we went to meet all the exchange students and host families and volunteers in Catania for the first time in a meeting place in the center and we all brought sweets to eat. So heres who I spent my week with: Me( USA), American boy( buffalonian**), Finlandian girl, Honduranian girl, Guatemalan boy,Venezuelan boy, Denmarkish boy, norweigan girl, german girl, chinese girl, thailandian boy, finlandian boy, bolivian boy, french boy, New Zealand girl, Miami Girl, Hugarian girl okay I think thats ab all! So it was a super fun group of people! We are all pretty loud and crazy so together it was always amazingly fun being with all of them! By the end of the week we really became one big family and we knew eachother so well! Its actually a really cool thing putting a bunch of exchange students together, the fact that we are from all over the world and we all have somethign in common and a similar experince, I can immeadiatley become friends or feel close to an exchange student and we always have so much to talk ab its really nice! So after our little meeting, all of us went out to the center of Catania with our host siblings for some drinks :)
MARCH 15th: Woke up at 7 am to go meet up with all the exchangers for a trip to TAORMINA! We took a nice busride for ab 1 hour there, Taormina is a little city near catania with the most beautiful view of the ocean and also greek temples! I loved this place so much it was breath taking!!! We basically walked around the city all day, saw all the temples and the city and then did some shopping!
MARCH 16th: Another nice waking up at 7am day, we then took a different much shorter bus ride to a part of Catania right on the sea, when we got there we all took a little boat ride in the medditeranian( sorry i will never be able to spell that word right) and we ended up on what seemed to me like a huge rock in the middle of the ocean, it turned out to big a big rock with a museum at the top of it of sea animals and such, we took lots of amazing pictures at the top of the island/rock/ NO IDEA WHAT YOU ARE and then went back in the boat to the coast where we took off our shoes and socks and walked in the ICE COLD water for a lil bit just relaxing in the warm sun. Then we went to the Castle of the town it was very beautiful we went all the way to the top and you could see the town and all of the sea. This was all during the morning, we then took the super crowded public bus back to the center of Catania, I was literally unable to move or breathe for 30 min it was insane! We then walked around the center and walked down VIA ETNEA which is the main street in Catania, its called Via Etnea because you can see Etna the volcano as you look down the long street, we did lots of shopping on this street! We all got some amazing canolis and then headed off to see some puppets! We went to a place where they hand make these amazing puppets, they are extraordinary! The people put so much time and effort into making them, we got to learn about how they make them, the history of them, evolution and also how to use some of them! It was super cool!
MARCH 17th: Okay we started out the day real yummy, we went to the center to see the fish market, I still gag when I think of the smell! It was basically, tons of fish, raw, and men sellling it, yelling, chopping fish heads off and ofcourse with our group of blondies and young girls we were called very interesting names and whislted at a little too much! SO after this we got some gelato and then had some free time to go shopping in the center and I had my first ARANCINI, they are amazing it is rice, cheese and meat fried and wrapped into a ball YUM! It is a must have if you go to Sicilia! SO, then we went to a random elementary school to practice for our FLASHMOB! So flashmob actually started in the US, even though im sure you havent heard of it, neither had I, its basically a bunch of people who randomly break out in dance in a really busy place, and shock the pu4blic with a choreographed dance,we literally practiced for ab 5 hours this 10 min long mix of songs! Were on youtube, ECCO(here it is)...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14MRO0y5WYM
Im on the right side but its hard to see me for most of it!
MARCH 18th: So we finally got to go to the beach, this one is called Lungho Mare, the sand was all black because it was lava from Etna! We all stripped into our bathing suit and catched some sun! All of the kids from the northern freezing countries, americans, finland, ect. went into the cold march beach water while the south americans and asians watched from the side and said it was "too cold"...needless to say me and bill had to represent our strength to the cold, BAD IDEA i literally was having a seizure the water was SO FRIKIN COLD, oh well atleast I could tell everyone i went in the ocean when I got back to milan so they could be jealous, I just left out the part about being freezing and it lastings 3 min! :P March 19th: Alrightyyy, so we went see the Duomo in the center of Catania, and then the Monastery which is in a university in Catania really pretty! It was very old and antique but also modernized i loved the interior design of it!Ooh and the art work was nice also! Then we got to spend the afternoon with our host families. I went home to find the hair dresser of the family there ready to do all the girls hair cuts and I got mine done too! So after this we went and got ready for our flashmob! We went to the center at 11 pm in a Piazza called Piazza Teatro Massimo and broke outinto dance! Ofcourse wearing our yellow super cute AFS tees! We actually then finally realized how much we were used as commercials during this week! During most of the mornings which I didnt write ab before we would go to schools in Sicily and present Italy to convince people to go abroad or host people! I ended up meeting tons of kids they were all so nice! At one of the schools I ended up talking to some boy who went to stay at his friends house in WILLIAMSVILLE LAST SUMMER! I truly realized how small the world really is. Anyways the flashmob was super fun! My host family even came to see me! After we all went out for drinks and celebrated!
March 20th: We finally got to go to Etna the active volcano!! We woke up super early to take a private bus for the day! We made lots of stops on the way to Etna we didnt actually even get to the top of it for a long time! We got to see a church, then a beautiful view of the city of catania and then finally we got closer to the volcano covered in snow! Half way up we stopped and had a massive snowball fight for a long time it was so much fun! Then we went to see the 3 craters and the most beautiful view! On the way back we stopped at a honey factory and got lots of yummy free samples, there was bees everywhere and I wasnt even scared it was so cool I still dont know how! Overall, it was a superfun day! It was our last night so a bunch of us exchangers went out for pizza and drinks!
March 21: I woke up and went to the airport to go home :( I really had the most amazing week, prob one of the best by far of this whole time in Italy! I met so many amazing people and saw so many amazing things! I can conclude, South Italy, are more relaxed, they have a different schedule than north italy. The buses never come on time, the work is less serious, the life is differnt. For example, they have a thing called SIESTA, from 1-4 all the people go home from work and school and eat lunch with the family and then return to work so all the shops close during this time, in the NORth this DOESNT EXIST! haha also, Milan esp, is very work oriented and on time and busy, anywho, also the people like I said are super friendly and open and welcoming! I really loved the atmosphere!
When I got back to Meda it was really weird because I felt like I was going home from a vacation, I wonder how it will feel when I go home HOME. In sicily I was so confused people would ask, how many siblings do u have, where do you live..and I would say...italy home or HOME HOME??? I have too many homes to count in the world, HOME is a complicated word ya know!

So getting home, I could actually feel how much i was missed, at school all my friends and teachers were happy to see me and just in time for my birthday! My birhday in Italy was great! My class at school even threw me a huge surprise party at a restaurant! I love them!!
OKAY BASTA..I am getting carpul tunnel!

Emozionata!

Alloraaa,

So, like I said before I knew time was going to go by super fast....and now its already March and yesterday was Feb 1st!! I don't like this!!! In February, my favorite part of the whole month was CARNEVALE!! Yeah we celebrate Marti Gras in the US one day, but here its a whole week! And we get to miss school!! I saw many parades and all kinds of crazy things, it was like a big costume party for a week! I was lucky enough to go to Ivrea for one day of Carnevale and participate in ' Le feste delle arance' which means the festival of the oranges. This takes places in 4 different parts of Italy but the closest one to me is Ivrea! Bascially it is a huge war of people throwing oranges at eachother! And they are NOT throwing them lightly at all infact they are trying as hard as they can to hit people...Now the people who are sopposed to throw and recieve the oranges are sopposed to be the people on the four different teams that exist in Ivrea, they all have matching little jerseys...yes they have a orange throwing team I know..hmm..anyways If your near any of the wars that take place within the 4 or 5 hours of the day it lasts for....you will most likely get hit they told us if we don't want to get hit we should wear a red hat or something red on our head as a symbol that we are NOT participating...I had a vibrant red hood on but still got orange juice all over my face! I saw people, missing teeth, with black and blue eyes all kinds of things from this fight! It was so intense! I loved it!! We also got to get some yummy Vin Brulè which is a warm particular wine that is very tasty!! Overall Ivrea was really fun I also got to see exchange students that I hadnt seen since Rome from the Torino region and others who were in Ivrea for the Settimana di Scambio( exchange week). Then the weekend of Carnevale I decided to participate in many fun discoteca adventures with themes! One of the discos theme was Baroque style...I didnt dress up though I was too lazy but there actually wasnt that many people dressed up anywaysss haha...lets see here hmm...
I am actually sad to say I can not only feel my english getting worse but I can see it---example A) I spelled STREET like this STRIT...then tried again STREAT...and finally remember the right way after 2 minutes...FML...another example was when I spelled LOSE...LOOSE and was corrected by an italian that I had spelled a word wrong...not embarassing or anything right?? My host family is actually mad( not literally) because I have never spoken english with them for more than 2 words or so...when people ask them how my english is they have no idea bc I never speak it! I think this is a good thing but they want to learn english so maybe i will give them some lessons. However, people say that I have a weird accent and its hard to understand me because I speak ' AMERICAN' I dont know what that means because I thought american was a nationality not a language but apparently in Italy its a language because all the time people are like..' How do you say ----in american'? I answer that I know how to say it in english but American im not so sure of !! They dont get that American is EQUAL to English just the accent is different...well maybe they understand now that i have told them I hope so!! Anyways the fact that I never speak english unless I am speaking to an American is really helping me. I am doing well in school I would say and actually have better grades than many other kids in my class but I think this is because my teachers are easier on me obviously!! :P
I really love my class in school, not only are they super nice but they are so funny....I mean I know in America my schoolmates are clever and think of funny pranks to pull on teachers but the people in my class are super clever! We have a crazy history of art teacher like even the other teachers are afraid of her! And we have been inventing all kinds of new games that we play in class...Today for example...Everytime someone claps 2 times we all freeze and stop moving until they clap their hands again and we all move again like nothing happened...my teacher actually didnt even realize what we were doing....Everytime we would freeze she would ask a question and we would all be dead silent and then she would be like okay answer...i promise i wont put down a grade...common...and i think I ruined it every single time I burst out laughing !! I couldnt hold it in!! We also have really comfy chairs in class that you can spin and move higher and lower and we all decided to put them the highest they can go and then on the count of three we would all lower them and hide under our desks...my teacher was soo confused! Yes this deff sounds very innapportiate and misbehavior for school ...but its all innocent fun right?? I am still laughing when I think about it...things like this always happen in my class anyways, I never stop laughing in school...its actually prob not a good thing my teachers say i am too happy and giggly all the time hahah ahh oh well :P

So this friday I am going to Parma! Famous for cheese and ham! with my class !! Then saturday I part for Sicily I will be sure to write about exchange week when I get home!! CIAO TUTTIII
Mollie

Halfway Point

Allora!

Well I can officially say that I have been living in Italy for 5 months now! I honestly think it has gone by very fast some of the time but also very very slow at other times. Its a weird feeling, thinking that my journey is already half-way over!!! I know that the next half of my stay is going to go by so fast and I really don't want it to because I am enjoying my stay here so much!!! I can deff. say that my first half of my experience was nothing close to easy, infact I truly think I have had one of the hardest situations out of all of the kids in my whole region! Minus the few that got sent home....anyways, changing host families 2 times is not something I ever thought would happen before I got here but it did and I can really mean it when I say I don't even mind that I had to do this. Ofcourse If I could choose to start out with an amazing family that I love and stay with them all year it would have made things a lot more easier! But I believe in Karma strongly and also that everything happends for a reason and for this, I know I was sopposed to switch for some reason. And I really learned a lot about myself and matured a lot from this. A positive thing from living with 3 different families is I also got to see the way 3 different families live in Italy because all 3 families I've stayed with are very different!!! I feel like I've not only had 3 host families but 4 because I can honestly call my assisstant Jasmine's family my own just as much as my host family :) So yah, I actually still see my second host family a lot they live really close to me and I go to their house for dinner, or go shopping with my host mom or simply pop in and visit them when I miss them! One thing thats been really hard for me, and also I have heard many other exchange students have this problem is something that people should really think about, and take in mind that NOT EVERYONE WANTS AN EXCHANGE STUDENT LIVING IN THEIR HOUSE. I have had many afs friends, and heard stories about people who had children or one member of the family who did not want an exchange student and this really complicates a host family situation. So advice for anyone who wants to host in the future, MAKE SURE EVERYONE WANTS TO HAVE AN EXCHANGE STUDENT, because in my case now, only my host mom wanted an exchange student, and my host siblings do not want one, so basically, its kind of an interesting aroma in the house. However, I am super strong and I really am used to it now, but like I said, its not fun and its something that happends a lot so prepare future AFSer's. I also had 3 other friends already switch because of this problem. My personal view of this is that you have to make the best of every situation. I have had a super hard time in my host families but I still smile everyday when I am walking through the streets of my town and try to cherish every good moment that I spend with my family and friends here because I know they arent endless since this is sucha short stay. Allthough my family situation has not always been great, fortunatley, my school situation has been! Maybe the first 3 months were pretty rough because of the langugage barrier with studying and such, however, I have been blessed with an AMAZING Class!!! They are so nice and hilarious! I love my school also!!! Its a fun place and good environment and this is actually a thing most exchangers have told me they hate is their school and how its soo serious and boring, in my case its the opposite and maybe its because I am in Liceo Artistico and the scientific ones are more serious, but also the other classes and people I have met in my school are just and nice and fun! I have a theater group in my school and this is also an uncommon thing most schools dont organize anything after school and for this I am happy :) I have met lots of people through this also! Our play consists of many scenes in Italian and a few shakespeare ones, in which I am in! Everytime we practice the part I am in and I say my lines people just stare at me in "awe" and are like "BRAVA BRAVA PERFETTO" in reality I suck at acting and I say everything sooo corny but to them it sounds professional so good for that! Another thing I am very lucky to have is an amazing Local Chapter in AFS! They organize lots and lots of things for us to do and I always have so much fun when I am with them!!! I know that many people are in chapters where there is 2 people and the volunteers never talk or do anything with them, in my case it is not like that and I think I'm really fortunate that I was picked to come to Monza! Also, I am lucky that I live so close to Milan my new favorite city! I swear I am moving there when I grow up!!! Its amazing, and so Me!!!!! However, very expensive!!! Oh well! I have recently found out that for my exchange week ( the exchange students get to choose a place in italy to live for a week) I am going to Catania, Sicily in March!!! I am very very excited for this and I cant wait, I really want to see how different sicily and south Italy is from the very North where I live! I have heard its another world and I want to see it first hand!! I really hope the end of my stay is just as great or if not better( which i've heard it always is) than the first part!!!! A dopo Mollie

Felicità

Well Hello everyone!!

I seriously can not find the energy to keep writing these beastly blogs! I have been procrastinating forever, So I figure I will just get it over with! Anyways, So life in Italy has finally gotten normal, deff not boring, but things are normal, the culture shock is over and I acutally understand the culture now. I honestly can't describe in words how much I love Italian culture! Everything about it seriously! Its so different from the American one in many ways, Even the smallest things you wouldnt even think of are different. People react to situations differently in general, and present themselves different also. One thing that is a stereotype about italy is that it is the country of love. The thing is its not a stereotype its true, and I am not just saying like the romeo and juliet type of love, I mean the love for things in general. The appreciation people have for their family, friends, clothes, shelter, its so important to them. People are just good people in general here. In school for example, people are well behaved, detention doesnt exist because no one would do anything to get detention because they are all respectful people. There are no fights in the hallways, drugs in the bathrooms and sex in the stairwells, people are just here to study in their school and thats it. Even the littlest things people apprectiate, and I really think people here try to find the beauty in life and capture it. People are always talking about all the beautiful things they do, and not so much the bad. Even the graffiti, in the US its all like F**** YOU and here its all " I LOVE YOU" AMORE....I love this part of the italian culture! Another thing I have noticed is people are super honest here, they tell eachother everything they think instead of saying behind their back...the thing is telling someone theyre shirt is ugly to their face isnt to be mean its to help them look better in the future because people dont have the intentions to make others feel bad. I dont know if every exchange student sees italy this way, but from my school and my point of view this is how I see it. Anywhooo I have been busy, dancing, acting and dancing in the musical in my school and doing various other clubs with my school and obviously having as much as I can during my super short weekends! I DO NOT LIKE SATURDAY SCHOOL! Now I am used to it but I cant wait to be able to actually sleep again, I havent slept in in sooo long!! Another thing interesting that happened this sunday that happends occasionally here is that no one can use their cars. Milan had all the streets empty, it was nice to see, they are trying to clean the air, its really sad I dont even see stars here anymore because of the pollution!!! They are very ecofriendly here, conserving heat and other various things, but some people dont recycle that much, it depends. I wish I had time to write more but I have to go to Math Class CIAO TUTTI :) A DOPO

Buon Capodanno 2010!!!!

Happy New Year everyone!!! I haven't wrote on this since before christmas and I have done a lot of things since then since I have had my amazing long school vacation from the 18th of december until today january 7th! It went by way to quickly! So, in the blog post before I thought I would be going to Venice and Verona with Jasmine but it turns out only 2 or 3 feet of snow can actually stop all transportation from moving! And since I have the BEST luck everrr ofcourse, the only time it has actually snowed all winter here was the night before I was sopposed to go therefore no trains were working and I couldn't go :( Instead I did some shopping with Jasmine, her sister and her mom! I have gone shopping so many times during this vacation I love it!!

So moving on to an exciting subject, I celebrated my first Christmas, In Italy!!! First of all, I have never celebrated Christmas in the US so Im not even too sure how different it actually is than christmas's in the US but many of my friends from AFS said its a lot different here, I couldnt tell the difference! So, for my Christmas, The 24th I actually spent with my host family from before, they brought me to mass with them so I could see what it was like, it was interesting to see but I honestly didn't understand a word of anything so I just sat and listened! The morning of Christmas I woke up unusually early (9:30 am!!!) and walked into the living room where my host mom said to walk over to the couch and under a piece of paper with my name on it were my presents! It was pretty chill, I gave the family my gifts after and then we had to start getting ready for the big christmas lunch. My host mom invited, about 10 people over, all family members, however all over the age of 50 it seemed! For the massive lunch we had which lasted about 5 hours we had appetizers, followed by pasta, and more pasta and then meat and deserts and tons of wine!! I was stuffed!! I guess in Italy Christmas is also a holiday for friends too bc my host brother just randomly left in the middle of the lunch to hang out with his friends and some of my other AFS friends said their siblings did the same. However, I know that theres many families here that stay with their family all day, I think it just depends! So around 7 pm on the 25th I went off to Jasmines to celebrate the end of Christmas and Santo Stefano(the 26th) with her family! Here many people actually celebrate the 26th while in the US the 24th is more celebrated and rarely the 26th. When I got to Jasmines, she had all her cousins and aunts and uncles over! They were all so nice and welcomed me into the family immeadiatley! We ended up playing a huge game of trivial pursuit for about 2 or 3 hours until 1 am with all her aunts and uncles and cousins that were left! It was really hard actually to play for me because all the questions were ab italian history, films, sports, ect. which I've learned a lot about but not to that extent, in the end I did learn a lot. Ofcourse the geography questions which involed sometimes the US that I got wrong kindof is embarassing but for those of you who know me that shouldn't really be a surprise or anything :P.... In the end Me, and 3 of Jasmines other older cousins all slept at Jasmines and attempted to make a puzzle until ab 3:30 am which I guess is a tradition in their family that they always make a puzzle! I suck at puzzles!! Anyways, the 26th was another day of eating all the left over christmas food and playing lots more games! We played a game similar to "Trouble" and also a new card game I learned called "stairs" when translated and also a game similar to Bingo which I actually became pretty good at, well lucky in the end and won some euros!!! Overall it was a really amazing christmas and Im really glad to celebrate it in Italy for the first time!! Over these holidays here I have realized how important family is and how much you should appreciate the family you have. Changing host families 3 times I have realized how important mine is and how much I took them for granted. I have met and become part of so many families in Italy and am really grateful for having met so many amazing people here so far :)

After the Christmas days were over, I spent a night in Milan at my american friend Katies house which was fun, the day after we met up with kids visiting from Torino for lunch and did some shopping! I had thought I was going to go to Genova with my other host family for the rest of the break but again with my AMAZING good luck, the weather was rainy and bad so I didn't end up going but it was okay because I got to spend New Years with my friends!!! Me and my 2 good friends from school went to a house party, It was super fun!! I actually think we celebrated it being midnight about 4 times and Im pretty sure all 4 of those times were before and after midnight! People were going crazy popping champagne everywhere, fireworks going off, I love italy! hahaha we got home around 5am that night and me and my friend woke up around 1 pm the next day at her house where I got to eat the amazing traditional new years food! Ofcourse theres special food for new years! Typically, here they eat Lentils, and turkey. The Lentils are sopposed to represent $, because they are the color of money and it symbolizes a rich new year or something like that. I don't know why they eat turkey though, it was really good anyways!!

After the new years fun, I spent time hanging out with friends, and going to milan again to visit friends from Bergamo and Triveigli(sp) and hang out with them, we actually decided to take the staircase and climb up to the top of the Duomo in Milan it was such an amazing view you could see all of milan, which btw has lots of pollution yet it will still be my favorite city ever!!

So yesterday, the 6th of January, is a holiday here called "La Befana" which means witch in Italian. Basically it is a holiday for little kids, they all put out stockings and the witch comes the night of the 5th and puts lots of candies or little gifts in the stocking if they have been good and if not she brings coal!!! Lucky me, I recieved a nice big stocking full of candy from Jasmine's family!!! YUM, I celebrated my Befana holiday in Seravalle near Genova, with the Awad Family, and Jasmines uncles family also, and I brought along Karn who is a girl from Thailand in my AFS monza region! We woke up at 7 am and drove to Seravalle which is basically a shopping town outlet full of designer stores! It was fashion heaven! We literally shopped all day until it was 6 or 7 with a very quick lunch break, yah they meant business! I love shopping, and here there is so much fashion every where I am learning so much about fashion and italian style, I even find myself dressing very different to fit in with other people here!

Overall, It was a really fun vacation and I didnt want it to end! School today I was so tired, I still need more sleep!! Until next time.

XOXO Mollie