Buon Compleanno!

Yesterday was my birthday! Tuesday night, I went out for pizza with all of my host families, and my Rotary counselor. All of my families seem really nice, and welcoming. I'm very lucky to have such nice people willing to host me. At dinner, I talked with my host siblings, while the adults talked about their responsibilites, and Rotary rules. The pizza was delicious, and I was stuffed by the end of the evening.

The next day, (my birthday) I went to school as usual. Everyone kept saying "Auguri!" (I'm not sure if that's the correct spelling) and kissing both my cheeks. One of the girls in the class had written "Buon Compleanno!" in huge letters on the chalkboard. School carried on as usual, until the last period. We had English that day, and Sra. Luccini came in with two students who had just come back to Italy from the US. One had stayed in Los Angeles, the other in Savannah. We went out in the hallway and talked about experiences, the US, and my exchange so far. When I got back into the classroom, the students had prepared a surprise party for me! I honestly wasn't expecting anything, and I was thrilled! Some of the girls in the class had prepared Italian confections, and other people brought in drinks and cookies. It was perfect! Again, I'm really lucky to be surrounded by such nice, caring people!

When I got home, my family had lunch and a birthday pastry. The best way to describe it is giant cream puffs covered in chocolate mousse. It was fantastic! My host family got me a really cute purse. It's green, this season's "it" color.

All in all, even though I missed my family and friends, I had a perfect birthday!

First Day of School

My first day of school was Monday, September 10. Because it was the first day, and students we're going for organizational purposes, school didn't start 'till 10:30. I was a little nervous, but not too worried; I already knew where my classroom was. I was on my way to the front steps of the school, when my host brother, Matteo, came up to me. He said he'd try to find someone in my class, to show me around. We didn't go far when two girls came up and said "Sei la ragazza americana?" (Are you the American girl?) They introduced themselves, and began pointing out other people in my class. About 5 minutes later, a teacher came out of the school, and began calling classes into the school, one by one. When my class was called, we all walked to our classroom together. Everyone was very nice to me, but I didn't understand much of what was said. Not much happened, we got our schedule, talked about what we did over the summer, and then went home.

Tuesday was a regular school day. School starts at 8 in the morning, sometimes a little after. We have 50 minute classes, with about 10 minutes in between each class. In Italy, the students don't change classes, the teacher does. So one teacher leaves, and all the students wait for the next one to arrive. There's a 15 to 20 minute break in between the 3rd and 4th class. School lets out at 12:50. Teachers lecture for the entire class, and the students take notes. I like school, for the most part. However, there's one major drawback. I have to attend school on Saturday, too. I don't know how much that's going to bother me, since I have the whole afternoon to myself.

Milano

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Saturday, my family took me to Milano. I saw all the sights, and had my first Italian pizza there! First, we went to the famous Galleria. My host father, who is rather fashionable, took me into the world's first Prada store, and he told me all about the history of the Galleria. My host mother bought a book on Milano in the Galleria, so that I could read all about the places we were going to see that day. My father said he would take a picture of my little sister and I, and he decided to try to capture the roof of the Galleria in the picture.. He ended up lying on the floor in front of the Prada store. It was like in the movies: everything around us stopped and stared. My sister and I couldn't control our laughter, but sadly, the picture didn't come out well.

After leaving the Galleria, we went into the Duomo, Milan's cathedral. My host mother was wearing a tank top, and they wouldn't let her in until she had covered her shoulders. The inside of the Duomo is stunning, but they don't allow pictures. After the Duomo, we went shopping, then had lunch. For lunch, I had my first Italian pizza! Pizza in Italy is very different from American Pizza. The crust is much thinner, and there is less sauce and cheese. Each pizza is meant to be for one person, but it's still quite big, about the size of a large dinner plate. After eating, we walked through the fashion streets, and went home. On the way home, a car cut us off while we were making a turn at an intersection. At the next light, my host father yelled some not so nice comments to the other driver, who then made a very rude hand gesture. The light turned green, and we proceeded, only to be stopped at the next intersection. Again, the other driver made a rude gesture, and my father was furious. He got out of the car, and so did the other driver. They stood in the middle of the street yelling obscenities in Italian, while my host mother and sister rolled their eyes. I found the whole thing rather comical. Think about it: two nicely dressed, middle aged/older gentleman standing in the middle of the street yelling at eachother! When the light turned green, my host father got back in the car, and drove away like nothing happened.

Arriving Home

On Wednesday, September 5, I arrived at my new home in Italy. It's big, and kind of modern looking, most of it is black and white. My room is fantastic, with an entire wall of windows that open onto a little porch. I have my own bathroom, too.

What's better than the house is the family! When I arrived here, Camilla, my older sister, was vacationing in Sardinia, while my host father was away on buisness. My younger sister, Beatrice, had made plans to go to McDonald's to have dinner with her friends. I went with her, and sat at a table full of 4th graders. I enjoyed eating with them, they were fun and didn't mind my nonexistant Italian. One of the girls even spoke a little English with me, although she was very hesitant. They were all very much impressed that I have already seen High School Musical 2. It's kind of ironic that my first meal in Italy was at McDonald's, but it was a great way to get comfortable talking to people.

We came home, and I was allowed to go to bed. My host mom, Giovanna, kept me up till 10, because, as I understand, its easier to overcome jet lag if you just stay up late, and go to bed at the normal time in the new time zone. I slept like a rock, as you would imagine, and woke up earlyish the next morning. I met my host father, and breakfasted with my younger sister. Breakfast here is a cup of coffee and some kind of pastry. I eat the Torta Variegata, which is marbled break, almost like pound cake. It's delicious.

My host family is fantastic. They're all patient, nice, and a lot of fun! My host father is a talented musician, although he can't read music. He owns a fabric company, and speaks fluent English. My host mother stays at home, to take care of the family. She's a great cook, and is trying to learn English. My older sister lived in NYC for a year, so she's fluent in English, too. She's very helpful and loud, and reminds me a little of my brother Cam. My little sister doesn't speak English, which is great for me! She's fantastic at explaining Italian words, and is the most helpful in teaching me Italian. We play cards and carry on a little conversation, and she has no problem correcting my poor grammar. I'm really glad I'm here, with this family. They're the best!

Traveling

Koffie met melk, courtesy of the Sturms

I went to the airport with my family on Tuesday, September 4. We waited in line for a little while, to check in. Thankfully, my luggage was just underweight. After I checked in, I started to say goodbye to my family, when my father spotted another blue Rotary blazer. It was a girl my age, already headed towards security. My parents saw her parents, and went over to ask where she was going. It turns out we were on the same flight; she was headed to Italy too! My parents told me to try to catch up, so I got into the line for security, turned back to say bye, one last time, and my dad shouted "Go!"

Megan, the girl going to Italy too, was waiting on the other side. We walked through the corridors and found our gate, with no trouble at all. She had traveled before, and filled me in on what to expect. We sat down in the waiting area, with less than 2 hours 'till our flight left, or so we thought. It ended up being delayed, just 45 minutes or so. We got on the plane, sadly, we weren't seated anywhere near eachother. I had a window seat, sort of. I was next to where a window should have been, but there was none. My seatmates were a middle-aged couple, traveling to Prague to celebrate the wife's 50th birthday. They were friendly, but not overly so. I was flying on a KLM 777, the kind of plane that has on demand television. I watched a movie, and an episode of Scrubs. The food on the plane wasn't too bad; actually, it was better than I expected. We landed in Amsterdam without any problem. Megan was waiting for me when I got off. She was taking a different flight than I was, as she was headed towared Venezia. I walked her to passport security, and we said our goodbyes.

Then began the search for my gate. It was D74. Since we had landed in the D terminal, I walked back to our arrival gate. Unfortunately, the gate numbers of that particular end of the terminal only went up to 50. I found a map of the airport, and located my terminal. Which was upstairs. The map showed stairs being somewhere by the 3rd gate of the D terminal. I found gate 3, but I didn't find any stairs. I walked back and forth, looking for a sign to tell me where my gate was. Eventually, I asked a very polite airportperson, who spoke very little english, how to get to my gate. She told me it was near passport security. I went back to passport security, found a sign telling me how to get to my terminal, ended up going through passport security, and finally found an escalator! At least, now I knew I was on the right floor. It was a good thing I had an 8 hour layover, because it took me 2 hours to get to my gate. After finding my gate, I bought a coffee, pulled out Teen Vouge, and passed the time for the next 2 hours.

In the Schipol airport, there is a television at each gate, displaying departure and arrival times, as well as gate changes. I looked at the television at gate D74 to see what time it was, and I noticed my gate had been changed. Luckily, it was still on the same floor. I found the gate, which was in the most remote part of the whole airport, and chatted a bit with two older ladies: sisters, from Minnesota. They were taking an earlier flight to Milan Malpensa, the same airport I was flying into. After they boarded their flight, I checked the time again, only to find another gate change. This time, it was D78, which was downstairs. I went back downstairs, sat in a waiting room, and started to zone out.. When an airport security person came in the room, and started yelling at me in Dutch. Having been awake for who knows how long, I was a little disoriented, and rather than try to tell him I didn't speak Dutch, I stared at him. Finally, he asked if I spoke English. After replying that I did, he told me I wasnt allowed to wait there, and that I had to go back upstairs to wait. Instead of going to another gate, I chose a table where I could see people coming and going. I waited there until the rest of the Rotary exchangees passed by, and the 2 guys, Owen and David, sat with me, while the rest of the girls went shopping. We went back to gate D78, but we didn't go down to the waiting room. Again, the gate had been changed. We all went to the new gate, to find it had been changed back to gate D78. Because there was only an hour 'till our flight boarded, we went down to the waiting room, and this time, no angry security guard came to yell at us in Dutch.

We boarded the flight on time, but did not leave when we were supposed to. Someone had failed to get on the plane, so we waited for them. When they didn't show, their luggage had to be taken off the plane. Finally, we took off, on our way to Italy! I fell asleep on the plane, for all of 2 minutes. The flight was rather turbulent, but I found the bumpyness exciting. We landed in Italy, just a little late. I was soo excited to meet my family, I wanted to run to retrive my luggage, and get through customs as quickly as possible. Instead, I waited for the other girls to go to the bathroom and do their makeup.. and we all went to the luggage carousel together.

After all the luggage had been taken off the carousel, one girl, Ellen, was missing one of her bags. Also, there was one extra bag, with a Rotary Exchange tag on it, that didn't belong to any of us. All the other students went to meet their families, while I helped Ellen find her luggage. We took the other bag, which we discovered was supposed to be on a flight to Trieste, to lost and found, and we searched for Ellen's missing bag. When we couldn't find it, Ellen watied to file a claim, and someone told her that her bag was a security threat, or something silly like that. I guess the security could tell we were exhausted and harmless, because they gave us Ellen's bag, and we left.

In Italy, "customs" is a security guard sitting at a desk by automatic doors. We walked through the doors, no one even looked at us, and we found our families. My host mother and host sister were waiting for me, along with the District Youth Exchange Officer. We managed to get my luggage to the car, and FINALLY I was on my way to my new home!

Arrivederci!

This morning, I went to school to say goodbye to everyone, one last time..

And mom just told me that we're leaving right now! ciao!

Packing Woes

Well, its the night before I leave, and I remain unpacked.

I still haven't figured out how I'll be able to fit 13 pairs of shoes in my suitcase, along with all of my books and clothes. It's most likely I'll have to leave several items behind, but I'll deal with that when the time comes. The time should probably be now, considering I'm leaving tomorrow. I'd like to go to school tomorrow to show Ida to her classrooms, and say goodbye to my friends!

I'm excited, nervous, sad, exhilarated, and scared all at the same time. I'm sad to leave all of my friends behind! But I know they'll all be here when I get back. I'm not scared to fly by myself, or that something will go wrong: those things are easily dealt with, and always end up to be OK. I'm scared of what I'm going to miss, I'm scared I'll be a disappointment, or I'll make a bad impression. Also, I'm scared of the huge change! I know I'll be able to deal with it, but I'm still nervous.. More than anything, I'm excited!! Living in Italy for a whole school year will be FANTASTIC!

But to get there, I have to pack.. Wish me luck!!