First week in Italy!

Ciao ciao!!
I apologize for not writing earlier, but I have been very very busy!! I have been keeping a travel journal though so I will not forget all the details between blog posts.

School is getting better and I am starting to understand some entire Italian sentences (quite a feat since they talk so quickly!). I was assigned a Philosophy essay on 'why we live' 'where we come from' and 'who we are', which I have to write in Italian...luckily Antonella is going to help me with the translation.  It is strange to have school Saturdays.  It makes the weekends very very short.  Friday night we went to one of Giovanni's friend's birthday dinners, and it lasted until almost one AM! The food was incredible and just kept coming for three hours.  I have never seen so much seafood at one table before! I met the birthday boy's daughters, as well Friday night, and they invited me to spend a weekend with them in Milano. I am very excited and hopefully I can go! 

Now to recount the rest of the week... I arrived Saturday the 11th in Rome and we drove from the airport straight to Cossignano...It took about 2.5 hours.  Sunday we went to the beach in Grottamare, but it was freezing cold so I did not get to enjoy the sun or the sea.  I ate my first Italian gelato!! It was delicious and frozen Nutella flavored :)  Monday I went to Antonella's school and then walked around downtown San Benedetto.  I found a cute little market selling clothes and fresh bread, fish, fruit, etc.  Later on in the week, I found out that there are a bunch of these little market places all around San Benedetto and Grottamare! Tuesday I started school and met all of my very nice classmates.  Everyone was interested in the 'American girl' so I got a lot of Italian practice. Luckily though most of them speak English well so they are very helpful in teaching me words and such.  In this school, they do not change classrooms or classmates for all five years of school so they all know eachother very well which is a better intimidating but also good.  I also went to Cossignano (the actual town part) later Tuesday afternoon.It is very pretty and very very old and calm.  It was interesting seeing the Medieval era infrastructure that is still left, and equally interesting to see the little 'houses' people live in in the center. Wednesday and Thursday were both frustrating school days, but then we went to Offida and I got to see a theater and church from the 14th century!! Both were goregous and I have never seen something that old.  Yesterday I went to the supermarket with Antonella and holy cow! It really was Super! It is absolutely incredible how many kinds of pasta exist in Italy! And their cheese, wine, and fish sections are the size of small stores themselves! They have hundreds of wines organized by region, and I had some from Cossignano the other day! It was very good...I put a picture of the local grapes up :)


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Open Air Market, Downtown San Benedetto (sorry its sideways...)

It feels like it I have been here longer than just a week!  I feel pretty adjusted to my family's schedule and Valerio and Francesco are starting to open up to me a little bit.  Two nights ago, I taught them how to play chess in horrible Italian, so now they are more comfortable making mistakes in English. We all are warming up to each other.  Antonella is very very informative! She is full of information and always is telling me something new.  She knows about the history and culture of practically every town in Italy. It is incredible how much she knows! Saturday night we spent an hour in a book shop, and she had read almost every book in there! She is very well-read to say the least. Plus she knows and speaks German, French, English, and Italian, so their personal library is full of books from all over Europe.  

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It wouldn't be Italia without a scooter! Everyone has one of these :)



Last thing and then ciao...Marshmellows. Last night, Antonella asked me what a marshmellow was and I didnt know how to explain it!  I guess they talk about them in TV shows and movies a lot, but no one here has had one! Valerio got very excited at the mention of them because he thought I might have brought them with...but I asked my aunt to send some, so they will be very pleased!

In Italy!

Ciao Ciao!

This is going to be a short hello, because I must go learn some Italian, but I am alive and well in Italy, eating obnoxious amounts of food, and making a bunch of friends.  Everyone here is incredibly friendly, and my host mom knows a ton of people.  School is much harder, but only because everything is in fast paced Italian...and there are many more classes...Everything is going fabulously and I feel very blessed to be in this beautiful place, with these incredible people.

More later...

A Week in Pictures

This week flew by, and now I leave in only two days...I am so excited! My host mom emailed me this morning letting me know they are staying in Rome Friday night so they can pick me up bright and early Saturday morning.  I am to the point now where I am nothing but excited to leave...but at the same time I am also freaking out about school. I start a week from today, and I am trying to imagine learning philosophy in Italian and it seems like it will be quite the challenge...I will keep you updated though.

Of course, this week was incredibly busy...had to get in all the sights and people...

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Monday with my mom at the baseball game

T-Minus 10 days...

Well my bags are packed, my visa picked up, and my host family gifts purchased. The past week and a half has flown by, and all I have left to do is apply to colleges and spend time with my friends and family.




I ended up buying my host dad and grandpa Cubs jerseys, brothers Bears shirts and sweatshirts, mom an Illini t-shirt and Chicago coffee mug, and grandma Chicago oven mitts and a t-shirt. I am still thinking about getting some kind of picture book, so they can see Chicago...Yesterday we went downtown and picked up my Visa, which was probably the single most exciting thing yet. Everything I need is done, and all I have to do now is wait...While I am waiting, I have been googling Cossignano and San Benedetto del Tronto religiously and have found an aerial picture of the Cossignano area. I don't know where my house is located, but I will find out shortly:)

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the metropolis of Cossignano.

Sadly, before I can live in this goregous place, I have to finish my college apps:( Thankfully though I don't have a ton more essays to do...only five which is completely do-able in ten days:)



Lastly, I have been trying to take a photo every day, starting last Sunday until I leave to put in my photo frame...here is what I have so far :)

Sunday-Shopping with my best friends.

Monday-Downtown with my mom.

Three more weeks

In three short weeks from today, I will be getting on a plane and flying across the pond to Italy!! I can't wait, but at the same time I am becoming more aware of how hard it will be to be away from my friends and family for six months.  I also am realizing how much stuff I have to do before I leave! Yesterday, Kassie and I made a huge to-do list of everything that must be done, and it was daunting to say the least.  The list:

1. 
   
   Pack! Do you know how hard it is to try to figure out everything you are going to need for the next six months?! I keep thinking of more and more things I am going to need but my suitcase isn't getting any larger...really its the all the little things that are taking up so much room..and shoes. The shoes take up so much room.
2. 
   
   Buy gifts for my host family! In my family, there are two little boys, Francesco who is eleven and Valerio who is nine. Both of them are aboslutely adorable.  The dad's name is Giovanni and the mom's is Antonella.  The grandparents also live in the house.  I am thinking of getting the boys Cubs jerseys, but I am at a total loss for the mom and grandma...any ideas?
3. 
   
   Apply to college! Nothing too exciting here...just a bunch of applications to fill out before I leave :)
4. 
   
    Fill up my address book! I want to send postcards and have a pen pal or two, so I am trying to get all the addresses I can before I leave:)

My house in Italy:) The upstairs they are turning into my apartment and the grandparents live on the bottom floor.

The rest of the list isn't very exciting, so I'll stop here:)

 With so little time left in the states, I have started to feel a flurry of various emotions all at once-excitement and nervousness, uncertainty, hope, anticipation, and stress. I'm not really sure any of them outweigh any other, they just sprout up within me at various times for various lengths of time. I'm sad to leave behind my friends and family. The people I have grown up with and spent my whole life around. I guess it's just scary because I know this is one of those moments and decisions that will change me. My newfound experiences living in another culture, learning a new language, and forming new relationships will forever alter the path moving forward. There are very few moments in life when you know this is going to happen. Normally, change unfolds for us and we adapt to the outcome, but every once in while when we're ready, we make a big choice for ourselves and navigate a new course in life.