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!
