“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.