Christmas is a Week Away..

..are you ready?

This past weekend, I went to Milan, again. As usual, I stayed with Kristen and her host family.

Instead of giving you a blow-by-blow of my weekend, as it was a long one, I've decided just to give the highlights:

Friday, we (meaning Kristen, the rest of the Rotary students and I) went to a Christmas concert in the Duomo. It wasn't as cold as everyone expected it to be, which was nice. After the concert, Kristen, Taylor, David and I went out for coffee. We talked about nothing in particular, but thoroughly enjoyed eacothers company. David had to go home before the rest of us, so we walked him to the metro, and bid him farewell. There wasn't much else to do, so Taylor, Kristen and I just strolled around Milan, singing Beatles songs and Christmas Carols. Kristen and I got home late, and went to bed.

Before the Christmas concert started, Kristen found out that her host family, whom she had gotten a chance to know and really like, wouldn't be able to host her. She has a second family, but she knows nothing about them. She told me it was fine, but we could tell it was kind of shocking news. Here we all are, having to get used to the idea of yet another family, which Kristen had accomplished, and now she has to do it all over again! She was mopey throughout the concert, and I felt bad for her. Being homesick is no fun, but there's really not much you can do about it, even if you're surrounded by people who are going through the same thing as you, and who all care about you. That's one of the strange things about homesickness; it hits you without warning, and there's just no real way to handle it. You have to wait for it to pass.

Saturday, we slept in, met Taylor and Ellen near Duomo, and later, we met David, Allie, and Rebecca. We walked around all day, and I had a fantastic piadina for lunch. A piadina is like a toasted wrap. The best part of Saturday was dinner: Kristen, Taylor, Rebecca, Allie, Dorisanne, and I all went to a nice Chinese restaurant. I ate an entire bowl of rice with chopsticks (woo!) and had a delicious chocolate mousse cake for dessert. The restaurant was warm, and it was so nice to have real conversations with my friends. We're all going to miss our families during Christmas, of course, but being with them made me miss mine a little less. But just a little.

Sunday, the Rotary club of Meda invited us to their Christmas Luncheon. It was held at an old Monastery-turned-Villa, which was really pretty. We went to Mass in the villa's chapel, then ate lunch. After lunch, the Rotary club made the students sing christmas carols.. I thought we were going to sound awful, but we actually sounded kind of good. We sang "Silent Night" and "Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer," and I think the Rotary Club actually enjoyed listening. After we ate, we went on a tour of the villa. The owner of the villa is the son of the son of the son of the son.. (you get the idea) of some important person. He showed us all of these documents dating back to the 1200s. I thought documents from the 1200s were supposed to be in glass cases, with a temperature and humidity control, but he let us touch them and breathe on them and everything. It was kind of cool.

Yesterday, Monday, was my Rotary club's Christmas Party. I sat with the Rotaract club, which is Rotary for people ages 18-29. They were really nice, and invited me to their Christmas dinner, which is Thursday. The evening was quite uneventful.. except it was the first time I had to really dress up since I've been here and.. my dress clothes don't fit! Oh no! Time to cut back on the pasta and Nutella.. after Christmas.

I'm going to the mountains for 2 weeks on Friday, where there's no computer (how will I survive?!) When I get back, I'm chainging host families, too, so it may be a while before I can post again.

If I don't get a chance: I hope everyone has a Merry, blessèd Christmas!