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

Buon Natale!

Christmas Time is my favorite time of the year!! Besides the fact that Im Jewish and I don't even celebrate the holiday, the atmosphere is always so loving and fun and warm!! People get super excited for Christmas Here! My other host family started decorating their house at the end of November for Christmas, maybe even before that It seems like!!

I am actually pretty excited to finally celebrate christmas for the first time!! I have already helped decorate 2 christmas trees!! Its so much fun! And also my other favorite activity to do is eat the amazing Christmas time sweets. In Milan one of their signature deserts which almost every eats during this time is Pandoro, or Panatone, it is special for Milan and its basically this huge volcano shaped cake bigger than the size of my head! And the Pandoro is with out stuff inside like just plain and the other one has raisens or chocolate chips. They come in a huge bag and what you do is open the bag pour a huge thing of powdery goodness on top and then shake the bag as hard as you can so its all over the cake mmmm is sooo good!! Its so biggg gah I want to go eat it right now im getting so hungry writing this! Moving on... So, December 13th is a holiday is certain parts of Italy called Santa' Lucia, in Milano they don't celebrate this but specifically in Brescia they do! So, all or atleast most of the kids from AFS in Lombardia all met in Brescia for this holiday and celebrated it!! Basically for the places in Italy where they celebrate this they get all their christmas presents the 13th, and also lots of candy! And then when its christmas they still celebrate it normally but without getting the gifts on Christmas day! So, when we got to Brescia all of us kids got different costumes in the Christmas theme and dressed up to be in a parade around Brescia! I was an elf! there was also, santa clauses, lumberjacks, angels, mooses, and one girl was santa lucia! After taking many pictures we went around in a huge long line and paraded around the center of Brescia. Since I was an elf I got to be in the front of the line and helped giving out candy to everyone we passed and saying "caramellle? Buon Natale! Auguri!" It was fun! Every few minutes we would then all stop in one spot and start christmas caroling, basically singing, jingle bells, we wish you a merry christmas, ect. Unfortunatley, we had no practice, and half of us didnt know the words to any song!! I felt bad for all the public gathering around us hoping for this like professional choir and we sucked it was hilarious at one point of the volunteers made me go in the front of all 50 of us and help him sing "all I want for christmas is you" which about 5 people knew the words to so that was a fail! At the end of our little parade we actually came across like a marching band so we joined them and as they played we would sing which I think boosted our amount of goodness with them in the background! Also, it was SOOO cold outside! But overall it was a super fun day and at the end we all went and got yummy hot chocolate! By the way, Hot Chocolate in Italy is NOT equal to american, it is like super thick and kindof like hot fudge syrup but its amazing! Esp when you get it with gelato in the inside!! YUMMM Food here is amazinggggggg!

Lets see, hmm well AFS Monza had a christmas Party on Friday night and we all had to bring food so I brought my signature cookie cake and also I made this amazing mexican dip thing which everyone loved!! Unfortunatley the cookie cakes I keep making suck!! I made 2 cookie cakes because I had to bring one into my school christmas party the next day and both of them had way too much butter in them!! Oh well they were still rly good! Sooo hmm yah my school xmas party was about 4 hours long! During the morning of saturday which was our last day! There was soo much food! And also something that would never happen in the US, 2 bottles of champagne which we were drinking in school at our party and also beer, this is so funny for me because this would NEVER happen in the us but hey when in Rome... anyways, I am so excited for this winter break and to celebrate xmas for the first time! Tomorrow I am going to venice and verona with Jasmine and its freezing, snowy and all the water in venice is super high so its gonna be crazy! Ill be sure to write about that!

XOXO Mollie

La Scuola Italiana

Ciao Tutti!

Today is December 9th meaning I have officially not been in the United States for exactly 3 months today. It is seriously crazy to think that it has already been 3 months because it went by super fast and so many things have happened in such little time!! Recently some fun things I have done include, changing families(which is NOT FUN), then since my new host brother is a bycyclist I went to his race in milan which he came in 1st place in all of Lombardia for! He is super good, but hes always working out or doing something for his races everyday its very time consuming, anyways I went to the race in the pouring rain, and I have never been so muddy and wet in my entire life! It was also interesting to watch all the jacked racers getting changed...weirdly enough in the same room as the girl racers in their underwear while rubbing some weird oil all over their bodies and I think I was the only one who though it was a little strange but hey im in italy I guess thats how they do it here no problem there it was a nice show! Anyways, I have been in Milan a lot lately and now they have a huge Christmas Tree in the center of Duomo its soo beautiful!! I love Milan! Sometimes I wish I lived right in the city but im pretty close to it anyways so its not big deal because its not a hard place to get to when I want. I was lucky enough to have this Monday and Tuesday off from school, meaning 1. I got to finally get one nice day of sleep in that I had been waiting for! and 2. Me, Jasmine, her family, and Eva got to go to the Fiera in Milan, there was a HUGE I mean MASSIVE craft shop type thing there it lasts about one week and it has shops from all over the world literally every country, The US section had tons of western cowboy type things that were weird I wasnt impressed but there was sooo much it was so overwhelming! We got there around 2 or 3 in the afternoon and left at 10:30 at night meaning we walked around the whole day in this one place and I didnt even see all of it thats how big it was!!! The picture above me jasmine and Eva took with some random Tiki person we found at the Fiera. NOW moving on to what this entry is actually sopposed to be abouttt!

ITALIAN SCHOOL!! Well lots of you keep asking me about school so I guess I will thoroughly explain or attempt atleast to explain school here. They have 5 years of elementary school, then 3 of middle school and 5 of high school. One thing I find really funny is that in elementary and Preschool here all the kids have to wear the same smock/doctor gown to school everyday which is soo ugly and all the kids look like little ghost children but oh well. For elementary and middle school they usually don't go on saturdays but LUCKY me in Highschool(Liceo) gets to go Saturday morning bright and early yayy! Sooo here the school system is super different from the US in many many ways. Even if I could think of all of them right now it would take forever to write all 10000 of them down so ill skip to the basic ones. Okay, so here when you enter Highschool you choose what kind of school you want to go into based on what you want to do in the future or atleast for the next 5 years, and this school you choose all the subjects are based around it, for example if you choose Liceo Scientifico ( science) you will have lots of science and math classes, or like me Liceo Artistico, I have lots of design classes and not much math or science. I have heard of tons of different highschools they have here such as, Scientifico, Classico( greek, philosophy, latin stuff), Artistico, Sportivo(tons of gym class), Technologico, Economia, Linguistico, Cooking, Farming, Film, and a bunch of random others. Becuase here you cant choose any electives or anything you choose which school you want and they come with I guess you could call them electives but pretty much all classes seem equal to me here in the wanting value of it all. Now, when I say you choose which "school" you want you are choosing the school in the form of study, there isnt actually a school for only science and a different building is an art school they are all in the same building, for example, my school has Scientific-Teconologic, Artistic, Sportivo,and ITIS( another easier form of school kind of science), and thats it. My school doesn't offer Latin to any of the students while most Liceos have it. Also even though im in Liceo Artistico its actually artistico-tecnologico, so a lot of times we have tech classes more than actual art classes. Here instead of saying im in 9th or 10th grade in Highschool well every school here they say im in 1st 2nd 3rd year so technically im in 3rd grade here!! Also here, your classmates stay the same and you never move classrooms you always stay in the same place and the teachers come to you! yay lazyness! Now I am going to write down my schedule and what I do in all my interesting classses!!! I start school at 8:15 and end at 1:45 everyday except wednesday I end at 4.

MONDAY( LUNEDI):

1st hr: Italian Litterature ( studying poems and authors of italy, interpreting latin poems FUN)

2nd hr: Philosophy ( learning ab philosophers! but from a book...lecture style...and not the actual philosophy of it the life of the philosophers)

INTERVALO (1o min break)- during this time everyone goes outside and smokes..even teachers or goes to the bar(cafe) and gets a panino or coffee or hang out in the halls

3rd hour: Math( math is hard in italy! but right now were doing geometry which I did last year so im doing super good)

4th hour: Physics ( I have no idea whats going on in this class its so confusing!!! but somehow im passing! yay being a foreign exchange student)

INTERVALO (10 more mintues)

5th and 6th hour: VISIVA..drawing class( we just did profile designs of faces but now were making collages)

TUESDAY ( MARTEDI):

1st and 2nd hr: Chemistry ( confusing! we take notes, read from our book, pretty similar to science in the US, prob more boring)

INTERVALO

3rd hour: English( were studying shakespear time and also grammar...im failing the shakespear section right now yay!)

4th Hr: History of Art( first I hated this class but now its actually really interesting now that I understand italian and know what my teachers saying)

INTERVALO

5th hour: NOTHING ( my class has religion and I go to the library and go on facebook!)

6th hr: Math (again!)

WEDNESDAY ( MERCOLEDI) (long ass day)

1st and 2nd hr: Italian Litterature

INTERVALO

3rd and 4th hr: Chemistry(for this day I go to prima and I do experiments in the lab with them white lab coat and all)

INTERVALO

5th hr: Math

6th hr: Archetecture ( geometric drawings, drawing floor plans for houses, drawing straight lines with rulers is not something im good at so this class i struggle in also measuring everything using the metric system gets confusing)

INTERVALO

7th and 8th hr: GYM ( only 2 hrs a week, its always entertaining seeing how competitive my class gets over a relay race or a volley ball scrimmage)

THURSDAY(GIOVEDI):

1st and 2nd hour: VISIVA ( more drawingss that I suck at)

INTERVALO

3rd and 4th hour: ARCH ( usually thursday we go to the computer lab with the oldest computers ever and make geometric graphs on the computer or powerpoints fun stuff!)

INTERVALO

5th hr: English

6th hr: Physics

FRIDAY( VEDERDI):

1st hr: Math

2nd hr: ARCH

INTERVALO

3rd and 4th hr: History of ART ( my teachers crazyyyy so my class tends to play this game called Manchuria where we all pick a fruit and randomly during the class ppl will yell out names of fruits and if its ur fruit you have to stand up and then sit down and when they say manchuria we all stand up together weve been playing this almost every friday and it rly never gets old but my teacher is always pissseeeddddd ab it)

INTERVALO

5th hr: History ( we've been studying the reniassance which I learned alot ab last year so when I was interogatted on it I didnt have trouble reciting everything from last yr and getting a passing grade yay)

6th hr: Math

Saturday( SABATO):

1st and 2nd hr: ARCH

INTERVALO

3rd and 4th hr: MATH ( for this math I go to scientifico because theyre doing harder math than artistico that I need to learn for the US)

INTERVALO

5th hr: Italian Litterature

6th hr: English

So in conclusion since one day I was super bored and counted all of this I have exactly:

7hrs of math a week ; 4 hrs of Visiva ; 4 hrs of Chemistry ; 4 hrs of Litterature ; 2 hrs of Physics ; 3 hrs of English ; 3 hrs of History of Art ; 6 hrs of Arch. ; 1 hr of Philosophy ; 1 hr of History ; 2 hrs of Gym...yup thats ab it!!! I really find the schools here way more strict in general, some classes when my teacher walks in we all have to stand up as they enter and we cant sit back down until they do, its very formal. I honestly I written so much I cant feel my fingers so I am going to stop here but I could really keep writing if I wanted to for hours ab school!! Thats all for nowww...CIAOOOOOOOOOOOOO xoxoxo

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

Aprica....ect!

Okay! So I havent had much time to write on this but finally I have time to sit down and write! I guess I will start by talking about my trip to Aprica! So all of us intercultura students who live in the reigion of Lombardia went to a 4 day camp in the mountians! It was so beautiful but also very very cold!! For me ofcourse not really that cold compared to Buffalo, but for the kids from Hong Kong and Paraguay they were freezing! I dont even know what the temperature was but it wasnt that bad! Anyways, it was really fun being with all my friends who I hadnt seen since Rome and also meeting all the people I didnt have time to meet before!! I miss them already!! Anyways, during the camp we did lots of orientation stuff. Many interesting games , I really dont know any other way to put them than , they were very "hands on" literally. We also split into groups most of the time and talked about our host families, friends, school and life in italy! It was really cool to find out not one of us has had the same experience even though we all live in the same place! Ofcourse it wasnt fun finding out I was the only person who has switched families, but there were some people who deff wanted to and I feel bad for them for not having already done so. Anyways, my favorite part of the orientation was when we talked about stereotypes of countries. We did one excersize where we put up posters of all of our countries names and we had to walk around with a marker and write a stereotype of that country and what we generally think of it and after the people would explain if it was a stereotype or actually true. It was really funny and I honestly learned a lot from it about the world!!! Ofcourse for the USA people wrote things like, FAT, STUPID, RASCIST...so that wasnt very fun to explain oh well just stereotypes right??? At the end of the camp we had a talent show where people did a variety of things, Me 4 other americans, Tomas( belgeium) and Rui( China) did a American dance type thing we did Soldier boy, cotton eye joe all those fun stupid dances. It was super funny. Other people taught us songs in their langugage or played a game or acted out something funny! Overall I had lots of fun in Aprica, I didnt want to leave!!!

So now I guess I'll talk about my week for everyone whos curious what I did last week.... I am trying to remember okay...

MONDAY( lunedi): I went with Gatto( Alessio -nickname gatto) to the mall of his town Limbiate and he made me try the ever so amazing McDonalds in Italy. People here love McDonalds but I had to explain its gross in America and people would not say the same about it. After the mall we went to his friends house and met up with about 25 other kids who wanted to meet me! They were all really nice and were all asking me questions at the same time in Italian, broken english ...and some kind of attempt at english in the end I just said speak italian ( e meglio) its better.

TUESDAY(martedi): I had my first day of Musical for my school! I actually didnt do anything in it because it was for the people who wanted to try out for a singing role and I clearly dont sing very well....unfortunatley they wont take no for an answer and next week they are making me sing! YAYAYY haha

WEDNESDAY(mercoledi): I waited at school until 4 for a stupid meeting with the president of the school and all my teachers who at the last minute decided to change rooms and I couldnt find them and the hall monitor people told me the meeting was at 5:30 ( so did my host mom) and so I went to that meeting which was actually a parent teacher conference type thing which I didnt understand a word of and basically was at school from 8 am until 8 pm....for no reason at all FML!

THURSDAY(giovedi): School trip to Padova!!! Rainy day full of lots of walking but overall it was really beautiful and nice to see a new part of Italy!! Lots of art and fashion and I went to a new reigon of Italy ( veneto) I have now been in 3 regions!! ( lombardia, piemonte, veneto)

FRIDAY(venerdi): Schoppiero!! No school again because my teachers and the transportation went on strike!! :) Jasmine came and picked me up at night and we went to her house and had a really yummy dinner with deserts after, and then we had our weekly Gossip Girl viewing session and watched the 2 newest episodes which were amazing!! ( my only time to see american tv)

SATURDAY(sabato): Boring old saturday school, After hopped on the train and met up with Emma, Julian, and Katie in Milano and we walked around and got Gelato!! It was very very crowded!! Also me and Julian somewhat watched the race Tomas was in which had about 2000 people in it and he won!!! FIGO! ( cool)!

SUNDAY(domenica): My host family had a wine and cheese party and had some friends over, they used this really cool oven type thing (they said they do this alot in switzerland) and we melted cheese in it and put veggies on top and put them over potatoes ,it was really good! After, Fabio picked me up and we met up with all the Milano AFSers and MONZA for Ice Skating in Monza! It was fun, although my feet hurt I loved seeing everyone! and it was hilarious watching the turks attempt to ice skate because they never had and were so scared !!


So hmmm other things, well I have noticed that in school here teachers and students are very open about grades for example, when a teacher hands back a test or grade they scream it out to the whole class and make sure they know who got what grade. My host mom said they used to put up all the kids grades on the wall outside the school for everyone to see but they chagned it a few year ago because people got mad. I passed my first test! YAAY I got a 6.5...which is passing!! I was so happy to finally pass something!!

So hmm yah thats about all for now, Wednesday I am going to a Lily Allen concert in Milan with Kaite and Valentina!! I am soo excited!!!!!!!!!

Prima Scoppero ...ect!!

Ciao tutti!!

Okay, So Friday I had my first Scoppero (spelling??), this means that all the students decide not to enter the school for whatever reason, therefore we don't have school because no students go!! I love this!! I believe the reason this time was because the minister wants to only have summer vacation for one month instead of 2 and obv. the kids werent happy with this so we went on strike. But this wasnt just my school all of Milan had this strike. Most kids either, stay home, strike outside the school, or actually go to Milan and Protest. I went to my friend Fedes house instead! I love how people here can speak their mind and protest this way for their rights!! I had to attempt to explain to people that in america this kind of striking because were mad doesnt exist because I can totally picture a huge SWAT car pulling up and people in black suits tackling everyone and shipping them to jail if someone tried this at my school, I mean or something similar you get the idea...haha Well anyways so instead of school I went to Federicas, we went shopping, I went to the perruciere( hairdresser), and then we hung out at her house and watched mean girls in Italian with english subtitles which was hilarious especially hearing the different italian voices for the characters of the movie which are so different than their actual voices.

So, the next day ( saturday) I had a nice boring day of saturday school!! Fun stuff, and then after school I went with my host mom and siblings to visit my host aunt and her 3 week old twins, they were sooo cute and little! They looked like dolls I swear they werent real! Che Carinaaaa! Communque( anyways), After Jasmine picked me up from my house and we went to a festa di cummpleanno for her friend Marika ! It was at a place similar to La Cantina meaning you dance on the tables and its basically a club. It was a fun time, we had a little too much Sangria(sp?) haha oh well. Anyways, I slept at Jasmines and then, Sunday we woke up very loud music coming from outside only to find the towns festa was today and so Me, Jasmine, Fattima and Paulo walked around Verano Brianza(Jasmines town) and they had tons of food samples and really cool art and people making pasta, and shoes, and Oh i learn that they dont kill sheep to make fur!! Jasmine thought it was hilarious that i didnt know that for some reason!! And they had people making silk which was really cool. They have this thing called Bacco da seta (spelling??) and its sillk in little balls with a dead bug inside and I took like 10 of them bc they were free I think and brought them home for my host family!! It was a really cool festival, lots of people were in the streets and they had little shows going on too. So after we went to that festival, we went with Fattima and her boyfriend Mattia to the town festival of Seregno which was the same day. I love serengo it has awesome shopping!! In serengo it was basically the same stuff, except there they had like some sort of petting zoo in the middle of the town it was really funny! Yah soo after all the festivals Me Jasmine, Fattima and Mattia went to a happy hour which is pretty common to go to sundays im finding out, its basically where you get a nice sugary drink of your choice and unlimited buffet food for 5 £ which is like I think a great deal!! So that was a fun domenica!! (sunday)

Monday, I decided to bring some American culture into my host family and attempt to make them some pancakes.... now those of you who know me should know , I dont really cook....Okay so my parents sent me the easiest thign to make like the batter was already mixed all I had to do was add water...so I bought a bunch of strawberrries and chocolate chips and got those all ready and for some reason I thought since they had no grease for the pan I should just throw some veggie oil on it right?? Okay DONT DO THAT!! When I started making the pancakes they were like distorted and they were not pancakes so i had to throw those out and try again, meanwhile my host sister is laughing really hard at me becuase I am swearing and laughing in english luckily she has no idea what I am saying but I think she had some sort of clue. anyways, after ab 3 more messed up batches, I finally got the hang of it...well they still looked horrible and deff werent cooked fully but I served them anyways and no one got sick or anything so they couldnt have been too bad right?? Well Overall, I think they turned out pretty good, we had syrup on them, and my host sisters deff didnt like the syrup but my host mom did!! I had to keep explaining while we were eating that these arent really the correct shape and taste of good pancakes ( unfortunatley they were not circles exactly only a few resembled pancakes) but they liked them I think!! or they are really good liars! but we ate all of them so i think i did a good job!!! Anyways, at the festival when I took the silk balls they told me if I put them in hot water they turned into silk so me my 3 host siblings and there 2 little friends experimented with this and it actually worked it was really fun!! and then we cut them open and saw the bug inside which was a super gross bug but it was dead so it was okayyy!!

Today, well right now I am in school, my class has religion right now but I am not taking that class so i get to come to the bibleoteca!! School is soooo hard! I still have no books so i basically cant do anything but they told me next week i should have everything! and I better or else!!! I am so excited because on thursday I am having my 4 day orientation in Aprica the mountians of Lombardia with everyone else from this reigon with AFS!! I clearly dont have the whole italian accent down yet because my friends at school thought I was going to Africa....later on I was corrected AP REEE CAH is the correct prononciation, oh well I tried!!

So I think I have written enough for now, I will write again after Aprica or so!!!

Ciao!

Mollie

Stupid Americans

This blog entrys title will be called Stupid Americans because this week I realized that I am one sadly. Before coming to Italy I knew about the generalizations that Americans are stupid and don't know anything but I never thought I fit into that category of Americans. However, I was wrong, I am one!!! Example 1) When I was walking in Serengo with Tomas(belgium student) and his host parents Tomas asked me something about American history and ended up wanting to know when America was founded, I had no Idea!! I said umm like 1700s??? Andd the worst part is Tomas's host mother was like "I believe 1776 the Declaration of Independence was signed".... great I just got corrected by an Italian!!! That was super embarassing, but no it gets worse okay, Example 2) I am at home and my host dad calls me into the room and points to the TV and says do you know who this is? and I was like uhhh no?? Who is it?? and my host parents were like um....are you serious, turns out it was The Secretary of State when Bush was in office..... Unfortunatley I had no idea who she was I still don't know her name actually....So yah its really sad how I don't know much about America. Its so interesting how people here are very in tune with everything happening in the world and esp America. I have been asked many times my politicals views, and what I think about O'bama, and most of the time teenagers are asking me these questions not adults and in America no teenagers really talk about this stuff outside of school so maybe thats why I don't know much about politics. I also have found out that I really do have a lot of pride for my country, despite the fact I am a stupid american I am a proud one. You will never truly appeciate your culture until you immerse yourself in another one and since I am doing that I really love america, I have never once had to say in America, I am an American, but here I say it all the time and I am proud to say it. Hopefully by the end of this year I will be saying I am proud to be an Italian!!! :)

So anyways, school school school, right now its is soo boring I don't understand much though I am understanding more than before it seems impossible to keep up with certain classes!! However, the one thing different about school here is that the kids truly can say their opinions, during class we dont have to raise our hands we just say "prof" that is what you call all the teachers ( not last names) and say what you want. For instance, today we had an assembly, now when they told me we were having an assembly I was like oh where is it, whats it about and I was surprised to find out that assembly means its in the classroom, so for 2 hours we had an "assembly" where we basically did nothing and hung out while deciding out 2 class presidents who would be in charge of organizing the class trip!! We are debating between going to Athens, Paris, London, Rome and many other places/ maybe more than one of those!! I am so excited!!!

At home, my host family is super nice!! I love little kids, and they are very happy people which is good to be around. Unfortunatley, I think I will only be living with them for 2 months atleast thats what they are telling me, but who knows right now. Sunday, we took a trip to Piemonte with another family, and my host grandparents to visit a friend of my host parents from school and I saw the most beautiful mountians and landscapes!! It was amazing !! and then we had amazing food and delicious wine at a restaurant and ate for about 3 hours!! and after we relaxed on a picnic blanket in the shade on a beautiful hill. It was a perfect day!!

Ciaoo!!

Mollie

Cambiare

Well since the last time I wrote on this there have been many many changes in my life in Italy. I ended up switching host families because I was having lots of problems with my first one. They were just very different from me in many ways and we werent compatible at all. So for the weekend I stayed with my assisstente (Jasmine) which was so much fun! First off, she lives on top of the bakery her father and mother work in which has amazing bread and dolce!!! and second she went to alaska for a year so we have tons in common!!!! Anyways, thursday after I left my host family Jasmine, her sister and friend took me to Milano where I got to witness the first ever in fashion week history in milano, a fashion show open to the public. The line was CNC (abbrev) I dont remember the full name but I know i cant spell or pronouce it!! It was the coolest thing ever!!! I wish I could see more but unfortunately, you need to be invited to the rest and I dont know anyone who could invite me sadly. SO, after a fun filled weekend of meeting new people, I moved into a new family! They live in Meda which is close to my school sort of, I now take a train to school! I have gotten lost too many times so far to count, everytime I try to go somewhere on my own i get lost and then eventually get to the right place at the very last second! Example, this morning almost missed the only train and got onto it ten seconds before the door shut! My luck! Well yah so I have 3 host siblings, 5 year old boy named Francessco, 7 year old girl Katerina and 10 year old girl Margherita. They are very cute and nice! I am actually sharing a room with Francessco, yes me and a 5 year old boy are sharing a room! At first, I was really upset about it , I mean anyone my age would be! However, we dont get in fights, he is a sound sleeper and, he doesnt complain about anything, so for now its perfect!! School is getting harder here and I am really realizing how easy I had it in the US! Gah school is so hard here! Its not even the language its school in general! I am learning that I am not a polite person and keep breaking rules by accident, for example, saying Ciao to a teacher is not acceptable here which I do all the time when I should say Salve. Also chewing gum here is not okay, and I have been yelled at many times about it!! Oh and lets see since no one told me toccare ( tocar in spanish=to take) isnt the same meaning as spanish, I have been telling my MALE teachers that I want to touch them in many different ways and the best part is no one said a word! Also, I had thought Dio meant I say, but no I say= Ho Detto and Dio means god, so people must think I really like god because I say Dio all the time!!!!!!!!!! Well not anymore ofcourse. But actually living with little kids is helping my italian thankfully :)))

Ciaooo!

Xoxo

Mollie

OOH Italiaa

Ciao Tutti!!

So now I have been in Italia for a little over a week and so much has happened its hard to think about everything. School is so different, but really fun! I love talking with all my classmates and they are all sooo nice. I have met so many new people this week but in gjueneral I have to say I love italian people. I dont even remember what I did when so I guess I will wrsite about what I did this weekend. On friday, I went to Milano with Martina and some of her friends, I got a really cute pair of shoes and saw the duomo and also many high fashion italian stores!! Ahh it was fashion heaven. Im still trying to figure out how I am going to sneak into fashion week because I found out you need to be invited in order to go to it :( Then ahh saturday, I had my first day of saturday school which was not fun !! But anyways that night I was invited by some friends from school to go out for Chiara and Gatto's birthdays! We went to this crazy restaurant called La Cantina, and its insane after you eat your meal the waitors clear off the tables and the restaurant turns into a night club and everyone gets up and dances on their tables, it was so much fun!! Everytime they would play american songs everyone was amazed that I knew the actual words. Here in italy they say most of the words wrong to the song or if they dont know the words they say jaja bluuu or something you know not the actual words. Ah but I love my school friendss! I also love my afs local chapter , they are amazing! We had a dinner to welcome us to the Monza local chapter. They gave us Miss Italia sashes which said welcome to monza on them and then we sang kareokee, they love singing " I want to be a part of this , New York. New York" a lot of people seem to sing that when they hear that I live in New York haha but I keep having to explain I am from la cascada di Niagara not la citta di Nueva York. Most people are disappointed when I tell them that. Haha oh well! Anyways, Afs also had another orientation where we had a lunch and everyone from each country had to make a signature food from their host country. I made a cookie cake, which was a fail because it got burnt and did not resemble a cookie cake what so ever. But what can I say , im no chef! But I have also learned that I suck at drawing!! I am a horrible artist. I have 2 art classes which I thought wouldnt be too hard but I am the worst in the class. Its so annoying how bad I am. Everyone is very advanced at drawing and I am so behind its really hard to keep up with everyone. I really am having trouble understanding certain teachers only a few know english i think maybe 2 total including my english teacher. So yeah they all talk very fast and also something new here they dont write notes on the board they say them and we are sopposed to write down what they say. However, i cannot understand or spell for that matter anything so its been hard but luckily my friends help me with everything and my teachers try to help too which is really nice. Well this has been pretty long so I think I will stop writing

Arriverderci (sp?)

MOllie