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

la mia vita italiana è bella.

Ciao everyone,

So now I have been in italy for about a week or so and this is the first time I have been able to sit down for a small amount of time on a computer. So, I guess I will try to start from the beginning of the journey. I took a one hour plane ride from Buffalo to NYC with Bill (afs) and we met all the other 43 kids from around the USA in the Double Tree Hotel where we had a long boring orientation that seemed to never end. We finally after about 4 days of traveling, one of those days with no sleep what so ever, we made it to Rome. And arriving in American style we were the last people to arrive. Great first impression of Americans, but it wasnt out fault. We spent one night in Rome and the next morning split into different groups where we took different transportation to our new homes. I was in 1-Nord Centro(north central) with 50 or so other kids. When we got to Milan we had to go to a waiting center and put our bags down and then enter a room which had all of our host families in it and say in front of hundreds of people in italian, Hi, my name is mollie, I am american, I am going to be in monza, with the Savino Family. It seems easy but it was the most nerve racking thing I think I have ever done in my life!!!

Okay, so I met my host family, my local volenteers whom I absolutley love!! They are hilarious and sooo nice. And I just love everyone, everyone is super nice. There are so many differences in Italian life I never knew before and I cant even think of all of them right now but hmm...okay well for starters the food, I am used to eating one plate for dinner, they have 2 plates, and also breakfast they eat like chocolates and sweets which I love! Also, the coffee, more like expresso is super different, very strong but I love it!!

I am trying to keep this semi-short so I will skip to my first day of school. I was like sooo nervous I really didnt know what to expect. None of my teachers know any english haha but when one of them introduced me to the class and they heard I was American they were like OmGGGG american!! WHAT!!! It was really funny. Later on they told me they expected me to be a fat, ugly , red head with lots of fat lmao....but I don't think I fall into that category. I actually think people think I am italian that is..until I start speaking.. well okay heres a funny story I had to take the bus for school , they dont have school buses here so Nadia my host mom showed me the way a few days ago and I thought I knew where I was going so I asked some girl once we were on the bus, is Cesano Maderno the next stop and she said yes the next one, i thought she meant the next time the doors opened but no , So i got off at the wrong stop and had to ask random girls how to get to Cesano because I was still in Seveso, so i ran around with them i got a train ticket and took a train to Cesano and met some boys on it who go to my school, I guess they had heard of me from their teacher or something , and they helped me get to school which was really nice. So yeah Im pretty sure that story seemed way more stressful in my mind but actually running around ab to cry because I thought i would be late for my first day of school was scary! Luckily everyone was really nice the train people even let me go in their office so I wouldnt have to wait in line for a ticket. Haha, hmm well I really have too much to write its not even funny, I actually hate writing but I know people want to know about this stuff so I will try to keep writing on the blog.

Ciao for now,

Mollie xoxo

Departure

So, the time has finally come. Only 5 days left until I depart. I can't believe this is actually happening i've been waiting all year and now its time! I hate saying goodbyes to people. I feel like I will talk to everyone and the way people act all sad makes me feel like I am never coming back to Buffalo but I am, just a year later. I wish people would stop making this so hard to say goodbye. The more sad people are the more sad I get. How do you say goodbye to things you are so used to? I don't know what I will miss the most because I haven't even left yet. What I am trying to say is sad goodbyes are not necessary because this is a happy experience and I wish everyone felt that way about it. I have not even started to pack yet, I feel like I should do it soon though because when I realize all the things I still have to get before I leave I will be running around at the last second to get them. Anyways, I am excited to find out what is in store for me, but with that excitement comes nerves. I am a little nervous but the excitement for this adventure over weighs it : ) If that even makes sense? Well the next entry I write will hopefully be after I arrive in Italy at my host families house!!! I hope this turns out to be every thing I hoped for and more!

XOXO

Mollie