Start planning the parties people. I'm home in 2 months!

So I have broken my record for not writing my blog. Congrats to me but sorry to everyone else who actually tries to keep up with my movements on here.

So as previously mentioned in the blog before, nearly 3 months ago, I went to MALTA at the end of February with my class for a week (27th Feb – 6th Mar). I spent a week in heaven! Sun, heat, right by the sea, decent food (British), Cadbury chocolate and ENGLISH! As MALTA was a British colony (now a republic in the EU), it has a big British influence but also because of its position geographically, it has adopted many Mediterranean elements such as building styles, types of food and a relaxed lifestyle – an exchange students delight really when your in Italy from either NZ or Aussie. The others from my class had to go to an English school for the week but because I don’t really need that, I got the mornings to spend how I pleased. That generally meant that I got more sleep and shopping. Also the supermarkets were packed with brands familiar to the average NZer so I think I gained around 3 or 4 Kg just from trying to get a taste of everything. In our time there, we managed to visit Valetta (the capital), Sliema (the part where we were staying), St Julians (where all the rich people go) and Mdina, The Silent City (named this because only around 40 families still live there). I got to know Sliema pretty well in my wanderings and it is a very beautiful place, positioned right on the waterfront with a largish harbour that they share with Valetta. Its a beautiful place packed with aging British tourists who want a holiday in the Mediterranean but without the language difficulties and with familiar foods etc.

The next week I spent at home but I found out on the Monday after Malta that I was going to Milan for exchange week – Monza to be more precise – the following week (14th Mar – 21st Mar). So once again I packed and went to Bari to catch a plane for the next journey. I stayed with a family there who had hosted a girl from Iceland 2 years ago. They had 3 daughters (9, 13 and 15) who were lovely and I got along with my new host parents almost immediately. I enjoyed my stay there immensely and revelled in the freedom I got as they allowed me to use the public transport without problems whenever I wanted. We went to an art school for the week, which was in the Villa Reale, the home where the royal family used to go on vacation, to complete a photography project about the town we stayed in, Monza. The assistants there were lovely and they took us to see Lake Como, Milan and of course, Monza. Milan is about a 15 minute train ride south and Como is north by about 30/40 minutes. From Como it takes a 5 minute drive until you’re in Switzerland, so it kind of gives you a picture of how close things all are up there. I really liked Milan, though it wasn’t like anyone from Gravina had told me it would be. They said the people would be cold and the traffic would be terrible (Ok I give them that. It was) and there was always smog and rubbish covering everything. 3 of the 4 things I failed to see but that again shows the differing attitudes of the south for the north and vice versa.

Again i was at home for another week before I received a phone call to tell me that AFS were finally letting me go to Lecce for a few days (27th Mar - 30th Mar) to go and visit everyone there. It was finally nice to be the one doing the travelling instead of Massimo, who was forever coming to see me. Since then I have been to Lecce again (5th-9th May) for Albin’s (Sweden) 18th birthday and travelled ALONE to the nearby town of Matera to visit my friend Edin (Bosnia). Also Natalie from Wellington, who is on exchange in Sicily this year, came to visit for a few days, from the 4th till the 11th of May. We went to Lecce together and Matera to do all the touristy stuff but the best part of her visit was having someone to talk to, who would understand everything I said whether I talked too fast or about Shortland Street (NZ drama show) or quoted the Handy paper towel ad. As for family trips, on the 25th we went to the north of Puglia to see a few of the attractions there and then from the 30th April to the 2nd May, we went to Villapiana in Calabria, where my host parents have a Bach. So in short for the last few months I have been relatively busy. Its good though. Earlier in the year I was worried I wouldn’t be able to see as much as I wanted to see of Italy but now those worries have been safely put to bed and I am content.

The only downside to my life at the moment is the thought about going home. It both excites and frightens me. It scares me because I have to leave people who I love and have become very good friends with over the past 8 months but then of course I am very excited to go back to life in NZ, see everyone and just enjoy being back in my routine. But this thought in itself causes more problems then good. Because I am getting so close to the time when I depart, I find myself thinking about home a lot more than I used to, getting a kind of home sickness that is not like the one I experienced at that start of this exchange. This is more a longing for the normal. A normal where I can relax and be myself without worrying about the consequences or whether I’m breaking some rule which could get me sent home. Also freedom to live my own life is dangling like a carrot in front of me. Here I am reliant upon so many other people. I just want some responsibility and independence! I know I sound like a typical teenager but this is not just because my parents have grounded me or something along those lines, it’s because I am ready. Mature and old enough to do this without having someone looking over my shoulder all the time telling me to be careful. Despite all this, I would never have done only 6 months. It’s not long enough. Not long enough to learn a language fluently or to integrate in to a culture fully. A year gives you time to appreciate what you are really doing and the consequences of spending a year away from home, which are mostly good for me.

So after all that philosophy, I bid you all farewell. I hope for your sakes I write before I go home. I swear this time I will make a bigger effort – well I will try to anyway. The events for the next month are the end of stay camp from the 8th till 11th of June in Castellanetta Marina, my 18th birthday on the 18th of June and hopefully another trip to Lecce. School finishes on the 9th of June I think, so I will finish up on the 7th. Still can’t believe its all coming to a close…

Write soon, Amelia.

PS The birthday has been mentioned so I expect at least some acknowledgment. Presents, Letters and Cards will suffice. That is all.

ROME wasn’t built in a day…

Neither is it possible to see everything properly in one day, but we managed the main stuff. Yes that's right! I, Amelia Midgley, have seen ROME!!! Would have been possibly one of the best days I have spent here had i not had my cell phone stolen on the bus, but it was still pretty up there. But I'm going backwards. I should start from before Christmas…

So first up. Sorry Mum and everyone else for taking so long to write this. It has been 2 months since I last wrote, and I know you are all hungry for news (of course you are!), but every time I go to sit down and write it, I get distracted by people or things other than writing the blog. Decorating the blog is also proving to be a relatively distracting thing in itself too and I have spent nearly 2 hours doing that exact thing today with out getting very far with it. Difficult and time consuming stuff this blog thing. But now that Windows Live have kindly provided me with a blogging program for my computer, I may be more regular with posting…

And where do I start. The last post was in the middle of December so obviously some relatively big events since then. Christmas, Crispiano, New Years, holidays, finding condensed milk (this is a huge thing!), Carnival break, ROME and a little school in between all that.

So Christmas was good. Not really as big as I thought it would be. We had dinner at my aunts (Papa’s sister) house on the 24th and then went to midnight mass at church then went home to sleep around 1.30. Christmas day we got up around 10 and then opened presents at home before doing the rounds to the aunts and uncles houses around Gravina. We ended up at my Aunts house from the night before where we again ate lunch. After lunch we all dispersed around the house for sleeping and playing cards and Mamma and Papa went to Church again. And that was pretty much it for Christmas…

Boxing day is not a holiday here but Lorena’s (Paraguay) assistant from AFS had organised a trip for the students of our chapter to a town south of us called Crispiano where every year they have a live Nativity scene and people dress up and play the parts in the scene. This year Mary and Joseph (Maria and Giuseppe) were played by 2 of the exchange students, so the host father of “Giuseppe” had organised for some of us to live with local families for a few days and participate as “commoners” in the nativity scene. The day we went down (26th) was a lovely day but of course as soon as we needed to start preparing for this thing it started to cloud over. It didn’t rain until half way through the night (we were there for 4 hours, just wandering around this hill side, eating free fruit and deep fried bread stuff, looking “natural” as a lot of TV cameras were around from the new stations. And of course the people who came to see the nativity scene wanted us to look “authentic”) but because it was outside on a hill side and there were around 30/ 40 people beside us (around 15 exchange students) the ground quickly got trampled and turned to mud. so by the time it came time to go home with our host families for the few days we were well soaked through. good fun. The family I stayed with though were so lovely and they really made an effort to make use of me while I was with them. I had a little brother (Giuseppe, 7) and a little sister (I can’t remember her name, I didn’t really see her a lot, 4). on the Sunday (27th) my parents took me shopping in the big city near Crispiano called Taranto. This city is one of the oldest cities in Europe, even older than Rome which is pretty much as ancient as you get. There’s not much before Rome. Nowadays, its a big industrial city with a huge port as it is in the arch of the boot, a good position for accessing Africa, Sicily and the eastern Mediterranean sea. We went back to the small town around 1 and had a big family lunch with my dads parents, sister, her husband, his other sister and her kids. It was so good and they all talked to and questioned me with out the prejudice which I am so used to. The people in Gravina know me and don’t think i can answer their questions, despite the fact that I can, and having new people around that didn’t know me and asked me questions all the time and allowed me to answer was very refreshing. My family didn't speak any good level of English and you would not believe how much better my Italian got in those few days where I was speaking Italian all the time. Very tiring though and after a few hours I usually had a bit of a headache. Again that night we participated in the Nativity but again it was raining so we finished early and had a bit of a party at the house of one of the students in Crispiano. we went home the next day (28th) but before we went to the bus, Lorena, Shun (boy from Japan one town over from Gravina) and I went with the chapter president and his wife (who happens to be regional president for Puglia and Basilicata) for lunch and some shopping in Taranto. and to my pleasant surprise, when I got home to Gravina, there was a nice pack from NZ sitting on the kitchen table. Good way to arrive home from a long 3 days.

But it doesn’t stop there. On the 31st we went to my Mamma’s sisters for lunch and then dinner. And at midnight we let off some fire works and had some champagne for New Years. Unfortunately I wasn’t allowed to go out with Lorena but it was fun none the less. I talked a bit with Douglas on the phone (who was in Germany at the time) too. The next day was Papa’s Birthday so we had a large family dinner at our house. I’ve never seen so many people squeezed in to our little apartment.

The 5th just happens to be a very important day on the holy calendar. I’d say close to the importance of Christmas. Because on this day it is the day of Saint Amelia. That's right folks, I have a saint day! In Italy when its your saint day, everyone kisses you and says ‘Auguri’ (congratulations) but because on the 5th we had another AFS trip to Bari, where I met up with the three musketeers aka Massimo (Denmark), Albin (Sweden) and Edin (Bosnia)and Lorena also met up with some of the South Americans, I completely forgot about it and when my Mamma rang and said ‘Auguri’, I was completely blanking on what she was talking about. I thought for a minute she thought it was my birthday!

The 6th was Epiphany and here that just means we have to get up at 5 in the morning to go to church (without falling asleep in the middle of service. It was a mission I tell ya) and then go to my Aunts (Papa’s sister) to get stockings filled with chocolate. Kind of like Easter but then at Easter we also get more chocolate, and the stockings are Xmas, so i guess its a mix.

The 7th we were back at school (unfortunately), and it was cold as ever in the classes. And just as boring of course.

9th (Saturday)was the 18th birthday for one of our friends from church and I must say its the first party I have gone to here and really enjoyed.

Nothing really happened until the 16th when Massimo came to visit from 4 hours away. I had no idea about it though and apparently he had planned it with Lorena. When he walked in to the cafe we were in, it was one of those moments where you go “holy shit am I dreaming or do I actually see them walking towards me”. Cheesy, I know, but I said the words “I may be dreaming but…”. Was a good surprise. I made tortillas for my family, Massimo and Edin that night. I had to substitute the tortillas for Piadinas, which don’t really fold so well so they just fell apart, but it tasted good none the less. I don’t think my family liked them much though.

17th (Sunday) we had a chapter lunch, with all the students, assistants and presidents. It was good and we spent the whole day just talking and eating. Very Italian of us, we know.

18th Massimo came again to Gravina from Edins house in Matera, which is around 30 minutes away. He got the train home in the afternoon and then Lorena, Maxime (Holland) and I went to Altamura (the closest city to Gravina) to see the movie Avatar, in Italian and 3D, with my assistants and their friends (oh yeah! I have assistants now. They are 20 and 23, sisters and I love them. They are very friendly, easy to talk to and fun to hang out with)

The 22nd was one of the most significant days I have had here. I was bored at home so I decided to go for a walk to the supermarket around the corner from my house and see what I could find to do some baking with. I grabbed a basket at the front of the store and was wandering down the first aisle, minding my own business, looking for chocolate chips and vanilla essence, when I stumbled across a very suspicious looking can. Its Nestle and has a few familiar pictures on it. So I pick it up and low and behold, I have found condensed milk! Excitement is not strong enough to describe the look spread across my face and I think I may have scared a few of the shoppers. 3 cans magically found their way in to my basket and I strolled happily up to the counter, paid, and walked out of the store and home again to get Nonna ask me what the hell is this stuff; “I’ve never seen it before or heard of it”. No wonder I couldn’t find it anywhere. The official Nestle Italian name is ‘incondensato latte interro zuccherato’. I’ll just stick with condensed milk, thanks.

After that monumentus event, nothing could really compare but i guess the new students arriving was pretty significant. They got to Gravina on the 31st and will stay here till July like us year long-ers. We have a guy from Florida (Adam), girl from Vienna (Victoria) and a girl from Argentina (Katharina). Adam and Katharina (aka America and Argentina) are at the Scientific school next door and Victoria (aka Austria – we call them by their countries to avoid confusion sometimes) is at my school. Finally some company! I can stop sneaking to go and meet Lorena in our schools mutual gym. Not that I do much sneaking. I pretty much just wander in. Looking a little lost helps sometimes.

The 6th was the last day i saw my best NZ friend here in Bari. She lived in a town 2 hours away from me and had had enough of living here and felt it was time to go home so she left on the 10th of February. RIP Ashika’s Italian life…

But the 7th (Sunday) was a pretty fantastic day! My Mamma had organised, with the church, a trip to the mountain closest to my town (near Potenza in Basilicata for those who want to have a squizz) and Lorena, her host sister and I tagged along to have a day out. We were on the bus for a few hours but as we got higher and higher we saw more and more SNOW and I can definitely say I regret not being in a town where we get more snow. It was so beautiful to see the city of Potenza all covered in the white stuff. But when we finally reached the top it was snowing a little and there had been a fresh dumping the night before so everything was white and untouched – that was until Lorena and I got hold of it. Basically when snow shows up for people who don’t know how to handle themselves around it, they act like children and we had great fun throwing ourselves in to the snow, making snow angels, snow ball fighting, sliding down hills on plastic bags, making snow men and generally just rolling in the stuff. The snow was just like in the movies too. All soft and white. not like the crappy have ice stuff we get at home. But movies lie. (If there are younger readers, I advise parents to avert the younger members eyes) It is not possible, or so we think, to make snow men the way they do in the movies by rolling a snow ball round and round until it gathers enough snow to make a base. Believe me. We tried. Very disappointing I must say but we got there with our less exciting way in the end.

I have also joined a gym! Lack of exercise was getting to Lorena, Victoria and I, so we have joined a gym and go three times a week and work out. Hopefully that will stop the chubby fairy and her best friend, the blood pressure messing fairy, in their tracks.

Carnival break started in the 13th (Saturday) so we had 5 days off for that. On the Tuesday, we participated in a parade for carnival around Gravina. Its kind of like the Inglewood Christmas parade and around the same size. But during this break, AFS decided that Maxime (Holland) would be sent home because she was needing to change family for the second time where the family have kicked her out. She went home on the 19th (Friday) and I haven’t really talked with her since, but it all happened very swiftly. I guess that's the reason we try to follow the rules as much as possible. In the middle of this however, I managed to go and have a look-see around ROME. On the 17th, the 5th (last) year of my school were going to Rome to visit parliament for their studies so Victoria and I got invited to go along too. We left Gravina around 3 – 3.30 so i didn't bother to sleep the night before. We were at the bus stop at 2.30am and that's like 2 hours after I go to sleep. Arrived in ROME about 10am (VERY long morning bus ride) and went to see parliament which is in the centre of the city so of course we got to pass by a few of the many famous monuments. once we had finished at the parliament, we went for a bit of sightseeing around Rome and saw the Trevi fountain, Spanish Steps, Colosseum, Presidents residence, Roman forum and Vatican city. I love Rome and we thought it would be awesome to live there and just casually throw around ‘Oh I’ll see you at the Trevi in an half hour for coffee’. Obviously that's what all the cool kids do anyway… We didn’t get to see the Pope/Holy Father/Ruler of the world at The Vatican but we contemplated throwing a rock or something at his bedroom window to get him to come out. But we got a little scared of the man in jester outfits that turned out to be the Swiss guard. How anyone takes them seriously in balloon pants I will never know… Left ROME (Sadly and with heavy hearts on Victoria and my parts. We never got to use our casually cool sentences…) and arrived back home in Gravina around 11pm that night. For 12 hours in a bus and 36 hours of not sleeping, we got to see ROME for 6 hours but it was totally worth it.

Haven’t really been doing much in the last few days. I have been at my Italian teachers house doing some cooking for her and her husband. I made Mac and Cheese on Friday night and then Chicken Curry on Saturday night. Massimo also came to visit on Saturday and stayed at Edin’s in Matera again before coming back to Gravina on Monday and left for home that afternoon.

And this Saturday I am flying off to MALTA, about 90km off the south coast of Sicily, for my class trip. It will be great to hopefully speak a bit of English with the locals (Old british colony and all, they speak reasonably good English apparently) though Massimo has warned me that in his experience they are not the best English speakers. Oh well. We shall see.

I will try to write sooner than I have this time to let you all know how the trip to MALTA went but I cant make any promises. Sorry in advance. I know myself well enough (I hope anyway) to know that it probably wont happen. Maybe saying this will make it happen. Who knows. Its a confusing, busy and wonderful life here in Italy…

Ciao! xoxo - gossip girl (little thing Lorena and I do – ignore it if you will. Its more of an OCD thing for me now. I HAVE to do it)

So walking down the street last night, reading a txt in a Italian so i was concentrating and then WHAM! walked straight in to a pole

I thought that walking in to a pole was hilarious. Giuseppe was with me and he just didn't say "watch out for the pole" because he just assumed that I would see it. I told him he should never assume things like that with me :P I cant believe he didn't laugh at me more, I was cracking up!

So it's now officially winter here and it's cold. Christmas is coming too but because it's cold and dark early at night it doesn't feel like Christmas at all. good thing I suppose because it means theres less time for me to miss Chrissy at home. I'm becoming more and more fluent in Italian and sometimes I don't even notice when I say something in Italian compared to in English. Very positive for me and it feels really good! and then school again getting better and better and everyone knows me by now.

So have had a good month. around the middle of November, Maxime, the girl from Holland, had her 17th birthday so we had a small party for that at her house with a couple of her friends from school and then us exchangees. Also saw New moon in Italian. Italian makes everything seem ALOT more dramatic. And the kids in the theatre would scream every time someone took their shirt off or something happened that was exciting. Got really annoying by the end but my friend, Titta, and I had great fun mocking them. About 2 weeks ago I had lunch with my Italian teacher and that was good, seeing in to the lives of different Italian families. And then the first Sunday after the end of October, Lorena and I went with my aunt and uncle to Naples to see the Christmas market. Naples is about 3 hours drive away from my town so it is the closest major Italian city to where I live. We left home around 7.30 in the morning and arrived in Naples around 10.30. We first went to the part of town where the market was held, had a look at the stalls, bought some souvenirs, had a look at some of the really beautiful churches around the area (these ones had frescoes covering the walls and ceilings. I have pictures of one and I will put them up on facebook and maybe a few in here) then got pizza (yussss! pizza in naples!) and went to the marina to eat it. Neapolitan pizza is definitely better than that stuff we have in Gravina and the stuff in Gravina is pretty good too. It was good to visit the sea again, smell the sea air and be around the water. I really miss it. After we had eaten we went for a drive around the Amalfi coast which is just south of Naples. It's an absolutely beautiful area. The drive was long though, winding in and out of the cliffs but it was worth it and again I have plenty of photos. Sometimes I think I'm secretly an Asian tourist with the amount of photos I take. We got home that night about 10.30 and it was a great day, seeing some more of Italy. The this Saturday my friend Massimo, who is a native of Denmark, and lives in a town about 3 hours south of me with AFS, came to visit for a few days. It was great to see him as we haven't seen each other since camp about 2 months ago. So Saturday night, Massimo Lorena and I went out for a drink, Sunday we went for a trip around my town and some pizza at Lorena and my favourite pizzeria(we frequent it about once a week) and Monday we tripped it to Bari for a day of shopping and meeting up with all the other AFS exchange students from around our area. In the end we had about 10-12 of us there. I got to see Ashika from NZ again and that was really good. Talking on Skype and hearing a kiwi accent in person is very different. We all had a great day and I think now that we have done this more trips with all of us together are sure to come. It's relatively easy to get to one another because of the train network, we just have to get permission from our parents to travel to the other towns, which is sometimes difficult for some. But it was a great day, wandering around, shopping, talking, and eating fast food (some of us haven't had it in 3 months!). We had Monday and Tuesday off for a religious holiday and we made the most of Monday for sure. other than that Lorena and I are forever going out. We never seem to run out of things to talk about and it actually feels weird to not talk to her everyday now, as we usually do. We know each other far to well now too and its nice to have someone there again who really knows me. I also do A LOT of baking for my family. When I get bored I bake for something to do and I have now made chocolate chip muffins, chocolate chip cookies, shortbread, pikelets and something that resembled lolly cake (it wasn't due to my shit baking, they don't have condensed milk in supermarkets here. They don't even know what it is).

So in the next month we have christmas. On the 24th we go to Mass at church and on the 25th we go to my Papa's mothers for lunch. And they don't celebrate boxing day so thats it. Maybe we will have another day in Bari or Matera with the exchange students and on the 23rd there is a Christmas party that Lorena, Maxime and I want to go to. We also finish school that day and have 2 or 3 weeks holiday, which I'm thoroughly looking forward to.

Write again after Christmas!
Ciao!!

“I’ve been having these really strange dreams lately; I think it’s the Nutella” Ashika Dayabhai.

The quote above is care of my friend Ashika from Welly who lives about 2 hours south of me. Now everything is the nutella’s fault. Feeling sick? Must be the nutella. Headache? Nutella!

So it has now been a month-ish since my last post and I can’t say I’ve really been doing anything overly exciting, if that’s possible in Italy. My routine continues, school, eat, homework (I am still not getting any), go out and then sleep but I still don’t mind it. Makes things feel more like home, more comfortable. My Italian is remarkably better now and I can carry a conversation (a basic one, obviously not going to be one about world politics) without translation. I even got the compliment from Douglas on Skype the other day that “you don’t sound like a total retard” so that was nice of him. I started my timetable in the first week of November and I'm doing first and second year classes mostly but I still don’t really understand a lot. The teachers respect this though and some give me separate work to do sometimes or one, who I know from church and who speaks reasonable English, helps me by myself when the rest of the class is doing their work. I actually love going to my young classes because they talk about simpler topics then what my older classmates do which makes it easier to participate in the class discussions. Now when I walk down the hall I have so many people say hi to me, because of all my different classes (I have about 8) that I feel so popular! A lot of the kids are Reuben’s age and their English isn’t so good which I guess is really good for my Italian; since it’s the only way I can communicate with them. It was really funny when I first started the classes though. They were all waiting for someone who was brave enough to start talking to me but once someone did, they all crowded round to see the strange chick who wears skirts to school. So overall school has gotten a lot more interesting. Not sitting in one class for six hours straight helps and when I change classes I often see my friends from other classes in the hall and I can talk to them for a bit (they aren’t actually suppose to be in the hall between classes. Most of the teachers don’t mind though). My French teacher still continues to be my favourite and yesterday she took me to the staffroom/learning-centre type thing and gave me a lesson by myself on French while the rest of the class had a meeting. The fact that I like French is very evident in that I got a 7 ½ out of 10 for a class test which is really good considering I have only just started, and I'm learning French in Italian while my native language is English. Ah, I feel so multilingual!
I have started to make some good Italian friends now too. Not that I don’t like Giuseppe’s friends and classmates, it’s just that it’s nice to make friends without him being there, more satisfying in a way knowing that they have chosen to be my friend instead of me being forced on them. His friends tend to underestimate how much I understand now too, since they saw me in the beginning, and just ask him the questions instead of trying to talk to me, which I completely understand is easier for them but a bit boring for me. So with these friends, Lorena and I have been to Bari (the big city near me and the biggest in our region, I think) to shop and to the Michael Jackson movie. I loved Bari. I miss the big city like that. Gravina has a reasonable population but it has the feeling of a small town. Everyone knows each other and there are festivals every other week which doesn’t really happen as much in bigger cities. My friend, Titta, knew a book store that had quite a selection of English (for me) and Spanish (for Lorena) books as well as music and movies. Kind of like Whitcoulls except 3 times the size. I could have spent hours in there choosing books (and then bought half of them) and music but I managed to control myself and walk out with only 2 fat books (I thought the fatter the better. They will take me longer to read). I also had my first trip to H & M, a chain store which is worldwide but we don’t have in New Zealand. I love it!! And again I could have bought a lot more than I did. H & M are about the same as Glassons is and I think that when I get home, a majority of my clothes are going to be either from Terranova (worldwide store also, again not in NZ) or H & M because everywhere else is just too expensive. It’s about the opposite of New Plymouth actually. Imagine that all the designer shops in NP were cheaper shops and the cheaper shops were designer and you pretty much have the situation that we have in Gravina. Makes for VERY easy shopping trip. And the Michael Jackson movie was good, more of a documentary about what happened in his concert preparation before he died, than a movie. I wouldn’t usually have gone to that sort of thing but it was in English with Italian subtitles so I was keen.
Been going to a few parties in the last few weeks too. Last week end there was an 18th for a friend of Giuseppe’s on the Saturday night (was the first party I’ve been to where there was any decent amount of alcohol. Don’t worry Mum, I only had 2 little plastic cups worth and that didn’t even effect me) and then the Sunday after was Nonnas 80th birthday so we had a big family do for that. It was a lot of fun and Italians know how to throw a good family party. We would eat one course, do some dancing, eat another course, dance some more, eat the third course and then dance again and it would continue like this until we had eaten everything and it was time to go. These parties usually start around 1pm and continue until 7 or 8 pm and every hour or so we have something more to eat. But because you’re not eating all in one go, it doesn’t really feel like that much, more like grazing than eating. And last night we went to another for a girl from church, who is also at school with us, and had an 18th on Wednesday. This party was more like a dinner party with dancing, not the average NZ teenage house party like the one the previous weekend was though.
So all in all, feeling a lot more settled now. It feels like home and I haven’t had much home sickness in the last few weeks. Like every now and then I’ll be like “oh I wish I could go see so and so” or “eat (insert good NZ food here)” but I think maybe the worst has passed, well I hope so anyway. Touch wood. I don’t want to speak too soon.
Ciao for now (tehe it rhymes! Yeah I know, my sense of humour is generally lacking now)
Ps. Hi Paige! Sorry if one of my friends is reading this and they wanted a mention. I just know that Paige is reading my blog.

One month come and gone

I cannot believe that I have been here for 5 weeks already. It in no way feels like I have been here that long and I still find new things here every day. Yet it feels like I have been here a lot longer too. I feel very settled, getting to know people by name rather than just sight, and school is becoming just like school at home, relatively boring. At the moment, because I don’t understand much, I don’t really have much to do for the 6 hours that I have to sit in a freezing cold classroom. I will hopefully have a basic knowledge of French by the time I am back in New Zealand, which Douglas should be pleased about, because it’s one of the only subjects I understand. I also help with my English class and the English class of my Italian tutor (she teaches English to the students at school and Italian to me after school in private lessons). Giuseppe and I have the same English teacher and she wants me to go to his class sometimes but I am yet to do that. I have attempted to do economics and the economics they do here also includes accounting. Lucky the accounting they are doing at the moment is equivalent to the accounting I already completed in level 1 so it makes things easier to understand when the teacher is trying to explain to me in broken English. My art history teacher was also pleasantly surprised with my increased knowledge of Italian so I'm glad that it has become noticeable. But as of the start of November I will be changing timetables again (it’s already happened twice) to do simpler classes for French and Italian while having German, PE and English with my normal class. I will also have a multitude of free periods to do “individual study” but we all know that in NZ that codes for “mess around and do nothing” (unless things have changed in the last 5 weeks but I doubt it from the pictures I have seen on facebook :P) but I may actually use these ones to do homework so that I won’t have to do it at home. If I haven’t already I will again mention the fact that students here study for a living. It’s crazy. They go to school for 6 hours straight (to be honest they don’t seem to do much more work than I do in class, well my class anyway), go home for lunch, then study for another 2 or 3 hours straight. They do all this study because they have these things called oral interrogations and they are scared shitless about them. Basically what they are is the teacher randomly picks students to answer questions about the work they have been doing in class (but in class they have only really touched on it and most of the work has been done in study) and they are given a mark on their answer from 1 to 10, 1 being the lowest. Generally only marks from 3 to 8 are given but if you get a bad mark (below 5) then its affects your entire year and you have to study like a demon until the next interrogation to get a better mark. From my understanding if you get too many bad marks then you may have to repeat the year. Now we all complain about NCEA being crap but in this instance I think we have the better system.

Now for an update about what I’ve been doing. There’s not really much to report apart from the visit to Milan and Como and camp in Castellaneta Marina. Life here is settling in to a nice rhythm. Get up, go to school, be bored for 6 hours, go home (it’s a long walk. The 100 metres round the corner from school is tough. I’d actually say climbing the 6 flights of stairs to our apartment is more difficult), eat, wash the dishes, be bored again for another 2 hours (unless I'm on facebook which is becoming more and more often) because everyone is studying, then do something in the evening, generally have an Italian lesson then go out with Giuseppe or Lorena, the girl from Paraguay also in Gravina, go home, eat and then sleep. I know it seems sad that I can predict my days like that but it is extremely comforting to know what I'm doing each day after a month of not knowing and getting used to things. I don’t feel stressed about it when I don’t know but I just like knowing stuff, having plans.

Well for starters, as most of you will already know, we went to Como for a wedding of one of the cousins on my Pappas side of the family. We didn’t actually see any of Milan apart from the airport (god I hate airports now) and the motorway (they have great motor ways in the north) because where we were staying was only 20km from Como which is about an hour north of Milan. The towns are called Ponte L’Ambro and Erba (they are really close to together and the family is spread between them) for any of you that want to have a squizz. They were absolutely beautiful and the scenery was very much like that of New Zealand, which actually set off a little bit of homesickness. We flew up on Wednesday 7^th of October and flew home on the Sunday after, arriving in Milan at about 10pm and despite the fact that the drive home should have been about an hour, it took about 2 and a half because of some roads works on one of the lanes of the autostrade that held up all the traffic, and there was plenty, despite the time. So we eventually got to where we were staying in Ponte L’Ambro/Erba around 1ish and fell in to bed at about 2 – 2.30. It was an incredibly long day. On Thursday, we visited Lake Como which is a lot bigger than I expected. There are a lot of towns around the outside of the lake and it would take about 4 or 5 hours to go around the whole thing by a relatively fast boat without stopping. After a bit of a look around Como, we went by boat to one of the more famous towns on the lake, called Bellagio. It is one of the most authentic looking Italian towns I have seen so far (probably after Gravina which is about as authentic as you get) and is well worth the long boat ride to get there (2 hours one way but you can drive, it’s just better to go by boat because then you get to see all the towns, from the boat, along the way). So we had lunch there and then looked around and boated back to Como for another look there. And for Moni and Paige the best gelato flavour I have had here is yoghurt and berry. It tastes good with chocolate. I know that sounds really weird but it tastes great. On Friday we had the wedding and of course it rained. The only day it rained while we were there was the Friday, unfortunately for the bride. But she looked beautiful anyway as they always do. The ceremony was pretty standard to someone who didn’t understand anything but Giuseppe said that it was an evangelist ceremony (the couple are evangelists). The reception after pretty much consisted of eating for about 3 or 4 hours and then dancing for the rest of the night. There were like 6 courses from memory but they weren’t big portions so it was easy enough to eat it all when it was spread over such a time. I went home with the aunt (she speaks fluent English and is so lovely) we were staying with and her daughter around 10, but they told me in the morning that about an hour after we left, everyone was looking for me to sing an English song. Thank god I missed that one. I think if they heard me sing, they would be glad too. Saturday we didn’t do a lot apart from, you guessed it, eat. We went to the mother of the brides (my Pappas sister) house for lunch and then drove to the newlywed’s new house just outside Milan. It was a 3 room loft basically. VERY small. If they have a child they will have to move, that’s how small it is but from everyone’s reactions it was a relatively normal sized house for them to have moved in to. Sunday we only really went for a walk around one of the smaller lakes north of Ponte L’Ambro/Erba. It reminded me a lot of Lake Mangamahoe but with paved cycle lanes and walking tracks around it. We flew home at about 6.30 pm that night, arriving in Bari around 8pm and back in Gravina at about 9pm to the very welcome sight of my bed.

Camp for 4 days in a seaside town in a 4 star hotel sounds like my sort of camp! Well it was fantastic. I loved mostly every minutes of it. The minutes I didn’t were the ones when I had to wait for the South Americans for vacate my room so I could sleep. They were in there because my roommates were friends with them. Now I didn’t mind having them in there for the first 2 nights because I wasn’t in there until a bit later anyway but on the third night I just wanted some sleep so I could function. Over the course of 3 nights I had 12 hours sleep. But the rest of the minutes were great. I got to see Taylor from Aussie, Julianne from Denmark and Ashika from Welly again which was awesome coz I really missed them. And no matter how much I love my friends in Gravina, they will never match up to being with other exchange students. There’s just that bond between them and the ability to be best friends after only knowing each other for a few days and the whole shared experience thing just adds to that. Unfortunately my friends from this camp (mostly Scandinavians and Americans who had just as shit Italian as I do. Go natural and just as good as natural, English speakers!) live south of me by about 3 to 4 hours so if I want to see them I have to convince AFS and my host family to let me go. The thing I enjoyed most about being with them though is that I could just not worry about anything. I didn’t constantly have to worry about someone not understanding what I said and what people would think about me (we are ambassadors for our country after all) and we also had a little more independence than I’ve had at home (not that I'm not independent I just like taking care of myself). We got given rooms, told times and we were the ones responsible for ourselves. So at this camp we did more orientation about being exchange students and adjusting to a different culture. But the free times were the times we all enjoyed most. I think most of us would have been happy with 4 days in a hotel together without any orientation, just hanging out. I doubt we would have gotten bored once. There were about 50 of us there from around the Puglia and Basilicata regions. We left about 8.30 am on Monday morning (18^th October) and got to the hotel about 11 and left Thursday (22^nd October) at about 2, arriving home at about 4.

Before camp we hadn’t really done much. The flu has done the rounds through the family and Michele and I were the last one to have it. I’d been going to school but it probably didn’t help it at all because it’s so cold in the class rooms. On the Friday and Saturday I wore 5 or 6 layers and still felt slightly cold (though that may have been the flu) and that was with merinos on. I'm not looking forward to winter at all if this is the sort of cold I'm going to have to sit through for 6 hours a day. And they say the south is warmer in winter. Phft! This makes New Zealand look like the tropics!

So after a very long post that has occupied my afternoon to write, I bid u adieu!

Ciao, from your favourite Kiwi in Italy

Tired

Italians have too much energy.
they go to bed late, wake up early, go to school, come home and study, then go out till late and do it all over again the next day. i dont know how i am going to keep up!!
Where do i start? well it has been a busy first 2 weeks. the first week went unbelievably slow but this week has just flown by and i am beginning to get used to all of the customs, foods and routines here. my spoken italian is still not very good but i am surprised at how much i understand now when somebody actually speaks slowly enough and with enough hand gestures. my parents have come up with a special vocabulary for me too. they use very simple words to describe what we are doing or what we are eating etc. my little brother is the same and though he has the most limited english of my siblings, we communicate more effectively then i expected. his words are simplier so they are easier for me to understand. viky, mamma and i use the dictionary ALL the time but we are getting really good at flicking through to find what we want to say.
We had the first afs meeting since ive been here yesterday and it was fantastic to see the 4 other students from the chapter giuseppe and i belong to. 2 of the girls (one from paraguay and one from holland) are in gravina with me but at the school next door to mine. the 2 schools are connected by a common gym but they dont have pe when i do. it was the first time id spoken to someone who wasnt italian since ive been here and it was great to hear different accents. gave me a little bit of a break.
School. its boring at the moment because i dont understand alot but i do work for french and english (i do italian in these periods - my class translates things in to english and i do them in to italian). the french teacher is so great. i dont think the class is too much better at french than i am so she has started with the basics and you would not believe how easy it is to understand her when shes talking about verbs (etc) because the italian, french and english words are all very similar. in my other classes (german, tourism and economics, religion, law, italian language and history, and art history) i pretty much do nothing but read or teach my self italian using my handy dandy little dictionary (thanks douglas).
Today (sunday) we cut and squashed grapes in to wine. it took most of the morning but it was good. it was at the family farm (pappas family) and it was really nice to have all the family there just relaxed with each other. then we had a massive lunch with lasagne (it was fantastic!!).
this week will be pretty cruisy again. we have only 2 hours of school tomorrow then we have some big assembly thing. then on tuesday and wednesday we dont have to go to school because the town celebrate saint michael, the saint of gravina. then next week, Giuseppe, Viky and i are going to Milan for a wedding of one of their cousins so that should be good but im really not looking forward to another plane flight. i am so sick of them it is unbelieveable!
I think thats about it for now. will update u all after milan!
CIAO!!

ps hi paige.
pss does anyone else want shout outs??

First week, Rome and VERY long flights and bus rides

hi all
sorry if i havent been keeping in touch as regularly as u would all like but i havent got that much free time. paige u can stop worrying about them eating me now :P
well what can i say. italy is great. im jetlagged and some of the food i have to wonder about what i am eating but its good none the less.
my family are great and extremely patient with my italian which is now slightly better then non exsistent. I am living on the third floor of a three sorty apartment building and my nonna lives on the first floor with an aunt and her family on the 2nd. also some of the surrounding apartments are filled with family. i start school tomorrow (wednesday) and im quite nervous about that. the town is cute and quite generic i guess and i will put some photos up here and on facebook when i get some good ones.
the language barrier is hard. if anyone wants to see me be really quiet, now would be the opportune moment. the only people i hold conversations with are my cousin leo and giuseppe. but my mamma tries very hard (we use my dictionary alot) and my pappa laughs at the way i eat things (spagetti especially) and they both say that i dont eat enough (dont worry mum im eating plenty). when i turn down food they all think its because i dont want to get fat but really its just because ive eaten the amount i would usually eat in 2 meals. the other day for lunch we had (be ready to cringe) horse. it tasted just like beef and sheep but it was different for me none the less.
the flights here were long and i am dreading the flight to singapore from frankfurt with lufthanser on the way home. lets just say my low expectations were easily met. singapore airport was good though and it was hot as. the bus ride to gravina didnt seem as bad as i was expecting after the flights but it was still long and the jet lag had started to kick in by then. i loved orientation and i became really good friends with the 3 aussie girls that are spread around the country. it was tons of fun mocking each other and we were often in fits of laughter and none of the nationalities got any of it. i think they may have thought that we were a little bit crazy.
italy is very different to home though but some of the things are good different and just plain scary different. the driving is one of those things and the not wearing seat belts is something i will never get used to. it not too hot here but i guess that may be because it is the end if summer. its still just as hot as we get in the middle of summer. it rains different here too. the drops are heavier and bigger (if that makes any sense) and the roads seem to fill with water very fast. and all those pictures with the skinny roads - very accurate. our roads are like double the size and we have extra curbs and footpaths.
on sunday afternoon we went to the beach. it was great to see the sea (tehe). made things feel a bit less different for the moment anyway. we went to a seaside town to drop giuseppe at camp so we stopped at the beach while we were there.
not much else has been happening. just sleeping, eating, driving around. mamma and i went to the supermarket on monday and i was surprised at how many familiar brand names there were, they were just in italian.
any questions leave some comments ( i know u want to paige - something sarcastic please haha im missing it :P). and it would be good to get comments too. would show me that this is actually getting read by people and its not a waste of time

love u heaps
ciao!