Due mese in Italia? I think so.

So.. The events you're about to read are my time in Italy thus far of the last two months of my life. Trust me, it's very amazing, yet maybe.. Who knows, you may find it weird. Very weird. Well, without any further ado... Read on at your own risk.


September 7 , 2012 3:16pm

So I'm finally in Italy after all these long, harsh days. I mean it's great we're here, but there were so many problems that just popped up. The first issue will actually be my flight up to New York. By the gods that was forever. I was supposed to leave fifteen past noon, but the plane got delayed by four hours before we could actually set off to New York. Oh, and then we had another delay in the air for near an hour just trying to touch down. Anyways, I did make it to New York, but I- and several others- missed all of the gate way orientation for that day. Now to our next day. It was so hectic and just that day dragged on in to now two days without true sleep. I'm running on excess energy while I'm typing this up. So to continue with my story here. Us fifty Italy students didn't leave the Hilton Hotel until six pm. That day was boring. So at six we got on our two busses and headed on an hour drive to the Newark Airport across the river in New Jersey. Oh was that fun.. yeah... At least we got there without a hitch. We also got on our flight without a hitch. It was a pretty decent night on that plane too, even if it only lasted a few hours until daylight arrived. We got food and personal little tv set things I never used anyways. What fun. I got to meet some very amazing people on that flight though and really, for all fifty of us. Just being able to walk around the plan to talk to each other was superb- even though we were sat all next to each other. Now here is where the problems start: when we landed in Zürich. That was pure hell right there. I mean my mother is the human hell, but this was just as bad. So we got off the plane to head off to our next flight that takes us to Rome- oh wait, sorrz we had to go through security first off. That was horrid. Zürich... What the hell? Really now? C'mon.... So we get through that after some moments and we head off to our next gate. That's when I looked at that lovely board that tells us all the flights... And whats the one for Rome say? "Boarding." No, no, no, no, no; this can't be right, right? Yeah I noted our leaders of this and well.... scramble for the finish. Thankfully no one got left behind and we managed to get on our flight. Also, we weren't the only ones who had that same issue of rushing to the flight. Yay.... So at this point now we're in Rome. I'm sure you're waiting for this: another issue has arrised. Well, yes another one has. Not only can't we find our AFS volunteer person to take us to our destination, we have two missing luggage. We're missing a Chello and someone's bag. Why can't things go easily? Anyways... I'll update in a few days.

September 9, 2012 8am

So the last few days have been very crazy. I've had no time to really think due to all these orientation activities and getting to my host family. So the orientation wasn't too bad. We got delicious food and I got to meet everyone I talked to from the Italy facebook group. Haha. Fucking Mikael actually got me to try this finnish candy he brought. You wouldn't believe it, but it was chocolate with the filling inside of it being sour milk. In all honesty here, I'd urge my friends to try it; it's actually really good. I also made some new friends from the other country groups. Some of them are from China and Germany and New Zealand and even India and Hondoru. The one from Hondoru- his name is Daniel- is a anime nerd like I am, so it's very nice to actually have someone to talk about that with. I even made friends with this girl named Sena from Turkey. We actually exchanged DeviantArts and plan to write letters to each other over the next ten months. Now, I am with my host family in Palermo. They're actually trying to switch my school here since I probably wouldn't do so well in a scientific school. They're actually trying to get me in to a musical or the classical school where Bintu- My host sister- had attended before university. Even more so I feel asleep very quickly last night, but I've been having trouble sleeping the last few days- okay more like weeks- but I feel rested this morning still. My host family actually lives in a flat, I think near the top floor of the whole building. Oh what joy this is for me, I have to get used to a tiny elevator that I feel I may have a panic attack in there some day. The flat isn't too big either, but it's very nice and cozy. I got my host brother's room since he's over in Canada for the AFS exchange. The room is a nice light blue colour that isn't very overwhelming and a single bed up in the corner. I have a window in here that shows out to the street and that's pretty cool as well. Also in this home, besides Bintu and Evelina's rooms, is the living room, kitchen, and the music room, which is full of musical instruments. I like that. In this home, I'm actually going to have to get used to fish and the likes since I'm in Sicily. I hope my stomach will be able to adjust to it all, and I myself shouldn't rush myself to eat all these things either.

I'm also missing everyone back home now too. I didn't get to think about it the last two days due to the Rome orientation and getting to my host family; but now that I'm here... I miss a lot of people. I want to cry over it, yet I know I shouldn't because I'll see everyone again in ten months. So that is my cover of an update so far.

September 13, 2012 10:21pm

So today is my birthday, um... yay? Yeah I don't really like to celebrate it. Anyways things are sort of settling here ever so slightly. It was really just a relaxing day today. Anyways the last few days have been pretty nice. I got to go on a nice little trip to this walk around church thing and it was very lovely, even though I'm not religious. I'll be going to Lecio Scientifico Galileo Galilei. It's- as you can read- a science school and I actually think I'll do fine there. Intercultura will most likely set me up with classes I need and that will be great with me. They actually have the english class I need here as well so wooooow~ I may get my english credit! Ah, oh yes, my mother was worried about me because I didn't call her as soon as I got to Rome and my host family. Well I couldn't really. The internet here is actually very bad. I get kicked off a lot in a day. Last night Evalina, my host mother, took me to a concert. It was the most beautiful thing I've ever heard besides the wonderful music of my school's choirs. It was a classical kind of concert- was played outside- and it just sounded so amazing with the traditional sound of music in Ghana. My host sister aslo took me on a tour of a small part of Palermo yesterday. We walked for a nice few hours and my heels got sort of rubbed raw. Sadly enough I can't find band-aids. Oh and I now also realised this when I was going through my bad: my toothpaste and toothbrush are missing. I'd presume they didn't make it thorugh baggage checks at the airport. I find that actually the most hilarious thing ever because I also brought acrylic paints with me. This airline didn't allow paints, hence why I laugh at it because they took my toothpaste and brush, but not my paints? Haha. Yeah I've also been watching Spongebob in italian here. How I miss the english voices of this show because, lets be honest, the italian voices do NOT fit at all with the characters. Okay maybe Mr. Krabs is fine in italian, but the rest are just... no. I haven't taken many pictures either. I've been too busy to really take any and when I'm not busy I don't really go outside the home because I don't know my way around, along with not wanting to be locked out of the flat. Ah, I've also have a cold now. Some horrid coughing to go with it. I guess that is to happen when I'm jet lagged, tired, up and doing things so much. I wish I could take it more... easy, but after today, things are going to be way more busy with the start of school monday and also things with the intercultura programme for us Palermo exchangees.

September 18, 2012 9:55pm

It's close to a week since my last update. I had just taken a shower right before I started typing and I'm going to tell you this: Their showers are small. How small? Well if you're not too much on the big side, you can turn in a circle. The end. Want to know how it is for me? I finally had my panic attack in that. Not a major one- luckily- but it still wasn't good. You know, small spaces and I don't mix. It's why I've chosen to use to the stairs to walk up and down 9 stories of stairs when I'm not leaving or coming with my host family. It's a pain to you, but for me it's a god damn blessing because I really, really, really hate small spaces. Comes with being claustraphobic. Anyways, going back to friday. Well Friday was fairly nice. A bit of relaxing at the home, and then I had to leave for this AFS meeting at Ms. Cortiana's home. I'm still amazed her flat fit over twenty people without a problem. They made me a cake for my birthday, in which I had not a single clue they were going to do that for me. It made me feel pretty emberassed. So now I know my "tutor" as well for while I'm here. My "tutor" is someone I can go to if I have any troubles with my host family or school or whatever like that. Saturday night I went with my host-sister, Bintu, to some party. It was pretty neat. Okay I lied; there was actually so much drinking and smoking going on- because it's legal here- and just.. Yeah.. Crazy. Oh, and they played a shit ton of american music and a lot of music you'd hear at raves. That was the one cool thing. I guess I didn't have too much fun at it due to the language barrier. The only other thing I did over the weekend was go to some fresh produce/honey market. Nothing big really, just many veggies, fruits, and honey.

Yesterday was also my first day of school. Honestly, only a few days before school started did I get the notice that I was not going to Lecio Scientifico Galielio Galielei, but to Lecio Classico Giovanni Meli. Honestly, I love Meli so far from these two days of school. My class is extremely nice and I'm starting to pick up more on italian thanks to them. Oh and it's not like Greenway High where we change classes throughout the day. Nope. My class and I stay in the same class all day. The teachers are who change classes. (you'll know this if you had Herr Fowler or some other foreign language teacher that teaches a euro-language) The school day isn't long either. The average day is from 8am to 1pm. Sometimes it's a little less since you don't have as many classes in that one day. I'm also not totally sure about all that classes I'm taking either. So far I know i'm in literature, english (learn to speak it, fellas), math, physics, science(s), greek, and latin. I'm not very sure if I'm actually taking the greek and latin parts though since I never learnt it before in my life. Oh lets add this: I'm in a third year class, so the greek and latin would be way to difficult and over whelming for me. I heard I'm also to be taking Philosophy. Yay, I think? Not sure. I'll tell you more about school later.

Well let's move on now. Today -tuesday (or martedi in italian)- was pretty strange, yet good. I'm starting to get along with my classmates in school a lot better and I also now have a key! I can go out and look around now without any worries of how to get back in the home. Today was also the day I went for italian lessons at Ms. Roberta's home with five other afs students. The others were Cathleen (from china), Nink (from Thailand), Emily (USA), Vibhuti (India), and Andreas (Bolivia). That lesson wasn't even helpful at all. Nink was sitting next to me and nearly fell asleep- on me- because we were bored and had no damn idea what was going on. The lady teaching us also kept asking me all these questions I didn't know how to respond to- oh yeah I forgot to mention this lady won't speak english with us. Only Andreas knew what was going on because he speaks Spanish. Lucky dude. The rest of us were just lost. Although I think I was the most lost out of us all. Then again I was the only one getting the questions aimed at. Probably because I was actually trying to focus and comprehend her incomprehensible italian words that flew out of her mouth at two hundred km per second. No joke. She spokes too fast for us on the first lesson. Really how am I supposed to answer your question about my parents work when I don't even know the words for a hairstylist and a car painter in italian. Really now. Man that was annoying. Oh and I still have my amazing cough. It won't go away. Also, not to be mean or anything, I'm not really missing anyone except for one person. Haha. Funny thing is is that that one person is also who makes my days amazing here because when I think of her, a smile just spreads on my face and pulls me through the day. I like this sort of feeling, but I do miss being able to talk her as much as I used too. Oh and still not to be, but to be true. I don't miss my mom. haha, yes really, I don't. That and I find it so awkward that my host mother walks around the home with out pants on. She wears a shirt, and undergarments, thankfully, but please please please, put some pants on lady. It makes me feel uncomfortable.

September 24, 2012 10:05pm

Hey there. It's been about a week since my last journal entry. Well anyways, lets start with Saturday since the was a day I actually did something besides today. On saturday, my new friends from school actually made me go out to politeama square with them to go to McDonalds and then to the English Garden nearby. That McDonald's may have been small, but it had an upstairs to it. That right there was very neat. It was also much more fancier than the ones in the states. After that, we actually went to a book store, where I bought a book in italian to help me get used to reading italian. It may also help me with speaking and writing too. After that, our large group of about 12 people split. Half went home while the rest of us stayed to go to the English Garden. I stayed and went there, of course. That place was very beautiful. Not picture worthy- mostly- but still beautiful. There was even a little "play place" for younger kids. That little area had bumber cars, two baby rollercoasters and some games. My friends and I sat under this one tree for a little while, just hanging out and being, well, stupid, like any other group of teenagers would do in the states. They were also helping me with my italian. telling me what this was and what that was in italian and how to say this and that as well. It was very interesting. I really find these guys more helpful with learning italian than the lady who is supposed to teach me and five others.

Now today, well, today wasn't a very good day at all. Class was pretty good at least. We had english today and my english teacher went through a lovely schedule with me about what may soon be my schedule for school. She made it to where I'd have some free study hours in the library- which is highly unusual to have those here- and also set me in more italian and english classes. In which cases, they replace my greek and latin classes. Now teh free study hours was because we dont' have anything to place there. So pretty much I'd just get to sit around in the library and work on whatever the hell I wanted too. I also had my italian lessons today, because it's a monday. I have to go to these things every monday and thursday (well wednsday for this week because of some intercultura thing on thursday). Man did it suck horribly. I mean, I had to take the city bus there. Lets be honest here: the busses in Italy are something to avoid if you're claustraphobic- like I am- and walk if you can. Of course, I can't walk all the way there. I have to take the damned busses. It's nearly as bad as the shower here at home. Ugh, what horror these things are. Anyways, I had actually missed a lesson last week since I had no way to get there (I wasn't the only one who missed it either) and I honestly didn't know we had one because I was utterly confused at lesson number one in the first place. It wasn't too bad today. Okay, okay, so it wasn't good. Shush now. Really I was still lost, but I managed to do what that lady wanted of us. I swear, I really do learn more italian from my friends than her. Honestly with her, I feel so highly intimidated that I get flustered and can't form my words, not even in english, with her. The other five and I have also noticed- from the two lessons I've been too- Miss Roberta loves loves LOVES giving me every single question. It's always me everything gets pointed at. It's like "whats this and whats that." "Dov'e vivo?" Like.. really? What? I'm lost all ready again and I'm not even there. She's always turning her attention to me when she speaks. Then she goes on to me about it in her rambling superman speed of italian that none of us can comprehend. I really don't like I'm her focus of attention. I really don't. Speaking of things I don't like, I'm starting to get irritated by my own host mother here. She keeps bothering me over food. "Are you hungry?" "Oh, take this banana. Take it" I don't want it "Take it, you're hungry." No. I am not hungry. Please get it through your head I don't eat as much as you do. I can't eat as much as you do, no matter how wonderful the food is. I just really can't stomach all of it. And yes, today was my gloomy day because of buses and that lesson and the busses again for returning. I actually nearly got lost and ready to cry because I didn't know where a single street was. How the hell did my host mom- and also the AFS staff lady who called me about it- think I'd know where this.... Goldenbourgh.... something.. street was anyways? I don't know any street besides the one I live on, which is Francia. Ah, such a horribly, gloomy day. I think the thing that even kept me up and not break into tears was Vien. Really I just kept thinking about her when I was ready to give up and just- she gives a smile to my face and there's no reason to that smile at all. Like, not even any rediculous reason to make me think about her and smile. Anyways, this is just a low point, but it's passed and now it's time to move on, get better at italian and do my best here. Oh and I'll make the next entry in about a week. This week is going to be busy with all these intercultura things going on in the next few days.

October 9, 2012 9:30pm

Boy, oh, boy has it been a nice two weeks or so since my last post. Anyways I've been very busy with everything that's been going on lately. So lets start with that busy "week" that I talked about in the last entry. So first is, I believe it was, thursday. AFS had us out of school for this little interview thing at another school to help promote AFS/Intercultura. It was pretty neat, even though we had to get up and introduce ourselves in italian (via meaning of name, hometown, country we're from, and our age). It went fairly well. Oh let's not forget we had cameras pointed on us this whole entire day- and I do mean the whole day. So after our little bit in there, we left to go to Mondello to shoot the rest of this tv film thing. AFS made us do the funky chicken and a few other games like ride that pony and.. I forgot what the other one way. After that we all parted ways and went home. That saturday we had gone to this little festival over in San Vito. It was a Cous Cous festival; and let me tell you: Cous Cous tastes horrible. The crap is smaller than rice and just doesn't taste good with anything you put on it. Other than that, not much else went on there, besides us AFSers being goofs and doing the funky chicken and eating brioce. Gods, brioce is just delicious. It's practically gelato put inside a piece of bread. I wish we had that in the states. Okay lets move on to a week later- on sunday. Time to go to Cefalù. It's this nice, little town near Palermo where two of our AFSers- Zeynep and Matthew- live. We had gone to Matthew's host-famaly's home for this little "welcome" party. Honestly our host-famalies were supposed to take us there, but mine didn't come. Instead I actually got picked up by miss Karla- AFS Palermo Volunteer President lady- and took me there with her and her husband..... And my italian lessons teacher. Oh that was such a fun ride there..... Anyways the party was fun. We even went down to the beach.

Other than that, I've just been surviving through school with my new, altered schedule of class changing and also getting to know my new friends in school. Oh wait, there was also this meeting for the upcoming AFS camp in a few days. Yay. Oh, something else THAT reminded me of! Adam, our exchangee from Hungary, is being sent home. We understand why he is, but we're still all very mad he couldn't get a second chance. It just seems so unfair. Yes, Adam had broken one of the rules of AFS. The 'No Drug' rule. I know, I know, I shouldn't be defending him, he did bad, but I do defend him. He understood straight after that he did wrong. Yes, a kid went to the hospital because of his incident here with the pot, but you know, he was straight up with it, like a mannered man, and told AFS everything that happend about it. He even called all of us exchangees that he could about this. He then told us again in more detail in person. He was actually ready to cry since he felt so bad about this. We- even the palermo volunteer staff- believed he should've had another chance at this programme, but the big guys in Rome said "No, Adam is going home!" It sucks, Adam even said he could never look at his parents the same again without feeling crushed.

So... I'll try and update after the camp this weekend. Poor Adam though.. He leaves this Friday... He's going to be greatly missed here; it just won't be the same without him.

October 15, 2012 6:50pm

Well the AFS camp is over. We were there from the 12-15, and well..... before I get into how camp was, I want to say I am very depressed right now because on Saturday my grandpa Wally had passed away. I mean, he wasn't my real grandpa, but he still was my grandpa. I loved him dearly and I miss him greatly. As for the camp, it was really fun. I met so many people and made a ton of new friends within AFS Italia, Sicilia. Of course we had to split up into small groups to do activities with some of the volunteers. Oh, yes, those games were just so fun. Really. Just fun. No, they weren't really. They were such silly games and one of them I never want to play again because I picked the worst place ever to kiss little birdy on the picture. I had no idea that we'd be kissing to the person to the right in the place we said on the bird. So I had picked the coda (tail) and well.... Okay really I'm fine with kissing someone on the ass; just not Matthew's ass. No. No no no. And we did other silly games that weren't as bad at that. Oh and just so you know these silly, stupid games we played were for our understanding about being on an exchange, so each and everyone one had some sort of purpose and meaning behind it. So we learned something from all of these. Oh and we had a lot of breaks during this stuff too, so in one of the breaks I ended up playing three games with some of the other exchangees and the volunteers. We had played Ninja, Ninja Star, and some game where you could only use your feet. It was like you had to use one foot to touch the foot of the person to your right and that person would move the foot that got touched and touch the foot of the next person. You would keep doing this until there was one person standing. I won that one, because I was a full jerk and made this one volunteer and my own contact person (I ended up by her since I got this guy and two other volunteers to fall) and made them do very difficult things most the time. Hehehe. And, well, you all know what Ninja is. Now Ninja Star though.. Ooooooh that game. I never want to play that one again. For that game you actually have to have really strong people since they would all get into a circle together with their arms around each other. Those in the circle also have to spread out their legs a nice bit and also keep the top half of your body leaning over. I was in this part since I'm "Strong" and Anna, a volunteer, made me play it because of that. The other half of the game is people climbing over one person to the persone across from them, grabbing onto their theighs, and thel lettign themsevles flip over onto the ground to form a "star" formation. Jesus, never wanna do that again. Hell, I was also the only student who was in that game. the rest were volunteers. Oh well I guess. Oh, yes, the food there was great. Really great. Aaaaaaaaaand....... We had a talent show and I really did not want to go up there, but I ended up going anyways, because so many people wanted me to go. Jeez, Elena made sure I got up there. See Elena is my contact person within AFS and well, she had told me a week before the camp that She'd make me go up there in sing. And then most of my chapter wanted me to sing, along with other volunteers and exchangees.... So I had no choice. What did I sing? Oh, well... Hmm... So easy, I sang what I did at Ice Cream Social: A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes. I did it in acapello though. (I also think my friend Karla is posting it to facebook and tagging me in it) I was so extremely nervous. It went good though. Oh and it seems I have a new Thai friend. We keep picking on each other and it's just so amusing. And really, that's all I have for now. So... I'll speak more in the next update.

October 25, 2012 2:02pm

Well some time has flown and not much has happend. My class schedule has changed though since the whole school created some new schedule for every class. I got my new schedule today. Yay. We also had class president election today. Oh yes, first let me explain that every single class has their own president here. In our class we had four choices: Annalisa, Federica, Gaia, and Darios. Gaia had won and that's pretty chill with me. Oh haha yes and my italian lesson teacher lady blew up at the other afs students and I who attend her class. It is not our fault we sort of don't understand some of things we haven't gone over yet. She did apologize later on to us though since she figured that out on her own.

October 30, 2012 1:11pm

What a glorious few days it's been since the last update, eh? Si~ oh hehe yes, so not much has truely gone on. I mean well, some things yes. Like a birthday for one of the AFS exchangees. Nink is now sixteen~ oh and this girl is from Thailand. were out until about one in the morning for her birthday! Oh what fun since we had school the next day. I actually didn't go to school saturday though. I was just too tired to even bother. Oh and it's getting cold here all ready. I'm glad I have a jacket, but it doesn't have a hood, which sucks. Especially since yesterday it was raining on and off all day and night. Oh! Best news of all is I got to meet this guy from Austria. His name is Paul. He was a past AFS student who stayed with the family I'm with now. He actually told me some things about them and also about how much he hates Roberta and Mrs. Cortiana. It was quite amusing. He even told me how they'd always travel on their own (which we are not supposed to do) to get to places like San Vito and what not. Paul also mentioned to me about how Roberta is the italian teacher lady who gets all the students outside of europe. What. The. Hell. Not cool. It's even a bit unfair too. I have to live with it though. Oh and he even told me worse news. Apparently we keep attending these classes for the whole year. Wait, what? No. That is not what us students have been told. Honestly I won't attend her damned classes after christmas. No way. So on to better news: my italian is improving! I'm able to actually have some conversations with my friends in school and my family~ I love it. Of course my accent is laughed at though by my friends, but that is to be expected. It's like how I sometimes giggle at their english. I'm glad I'm starting to get the hang of italian though. I can read and understand pretty well, but like all exchangees, you never really get the hang of writing and speaking until about the fourth or fifth month. It's really just so amazing. I've also noted that.. When I come home to the states. Nothing will be the same again. I wonder how much will english will suck when I get home. Hehe.