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