January

Ok so January first, and new years eve :)
my host family went to the mountains(Oulz, near Bardonecchia, famous for skiing) and i went to Novara with my aussie friend and we went around in the city, to a bar with friends and then later to a disco. New years day i headed over to Oulz on my own by train, and we ended up being there for about a week. I only skiied one day, the rest of the time i chilled with my columbian host sister. She cant ski, so we hung out together, some days went to the bar, some days just sat around, one day we went to torino and shopped around which is always really fun

Out and about with Maria

Nel Castello

Il Castello

Torino really is a beautiful city :)

Then we got back and we had school January 10th. School is awlays boring. I dont know, nothing really excited. This month I've been in the family changing process. We had an afs meeting where intercultura from my local chapter(novara) came to my house and talked to me and my family, to see how things were going. I dont know there were just a lot of little problems, and their lestyle with children was difficult for me. And they were busy with their own lives and work and the kids, I didnt really feel like i was living a full experience. I knew there were kids before coming, but i didnt think it would be so difficult for me. i dont know, i guess i just discovered im not a kid person. and there were a lot of other things, but yeah, just wasnt working sooo..

I've JUST changed families this last saturday. Saturday morning my host family helped me pack and load my stuff into the car(which by the way was like more than twice the amount of things i came here with.. but also because my uncle from germany ships me lots of presents and stuff. and of course the amazing shopping in europe xD ) my family was really nice about it. They want to keep in touch, i think they understood why i changed and they bjust want me to have a good experience.

With this new family, I dont live in a forest, I have two older host sisters studying university in milan who come home on the weekends(ages 19 and 22) and the nicest host parents :)
Here i have my own room, and my own bathroom, and the bed is friggin big too! like here in italy, even if you are 22 and go to university and live at home, you have a twin size bed. its so weird to me... I'm not sure about other cultures but to america, yeah im pretty sure all of america would find that strange

I dont know, so far things are going really really well. I just realized i hadnt updated in awhile. but like half of the month up until the 10th i was away in the mountains. then after that i was in the family changing process. But now, this week is my birthday! woooo haha

I'll keep ya updated
xoxo Rach

Day to day stuff

I dont know. I'm bored.
ok so i just thought i'd fill you in on some stuff i do. like here in italy, basically my normal routine is

Monday:
Astronomy -5D
Latin - 4C
philosophy -4C
10 minute break(intervallo)
italian -4C
design -4C
design -4C

finish school at 1:50 in the afternoon

hang around the town and walk around until 5:30 when i have italian lessons
go home and chill

Tuesday:
english 4C
math 4C
physics 4C
italian 4C
chemistry 4C
latin 4C

Wednesday:
english 4C
religion 4C
history 4C
physics 3B
italian 4C
latin 4C
Thursday:
italian 4C
latin 4C
physics 4C
math 4C
chemistry 4C
astronomy 5A

Friday:
math 4C
math 4C
astronomy 5A
physics 3B
gym 4C
gym 4C

So yeah the things next to the subjects are my classes. 4C, means it is a year 4 class. and it is organized into the alphabet, so my class is C. same with 3B, they are in their 3rd year of high school. like junior year in america. and 5A, that doesnt exist. everyone is 18 by the time they graduate, or some are 19... they have 5 years of high school. sucks for them.. xD

Anyways
Saturday: Some saturdays I go to milan for the day. It's actually pretty normal for me to go to milan, whether it just be on my own, with italian friends, with excahnge student friends, or to meet friends there. I've met other exchange students from other regions there(its a big meeting area) and i've met up with one of my italian friends who lives in verona(east of the north italy) and so we met in the middle. I met her because she went on exchange to seattle last year. so that was pretty cool to get to see her :)
Some saturdays I go to novara(the main city of my province, my local chatper) and hangout with my aussie friend(only other excahnge student in my local chapter) and we go shopping or ice skating(only in the winter obviously) and i stay over the night in the city.

Sunday: most sunday mornings i just hang around the house. if anything, i slept over in novara and i stay in novara until mid afternoon sunday. So i go out to lunch with her and stuff.

Today was my first time in torino(other than the time we alll had to meet there for exchange student camp, but we didnt get to see anything or walk around) It was really nice! In my opinion it's better than Milan. I'm surprised i dont go there more often.. My location(borgo ticino) is right in between milan and torino. i dont know why i go only to milan... Ive actualyl gone quite a bit. maybe once every two weeks..


Random: these are two songs that are like the most popular songs in italy right now, at least for teens

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrM0z3v3LUY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uu_zwdmz0hE

BUON NATALE! (Merry Christmas) and other updates..

So I realize I'm pretty bad at blogging. like yeah i blog. But there is so much more going on than what i just write here. So i dont really feel like I'm fullfilling the purpose of having a blog.. but whatever.

For the past few weeks, maybe the past month, its been snowing on off. Some days it will snow ALL day long. And other days (like the past week) it will just rain.

2 weeks ago my Columbian host sister arrived. She came with her mom and we showed them around the town of my school(borgomanero)

School got out wednesday. So thursday(the 23rd) was our first day of break. But for me, I decided to go with Maria(my columbian host sister) and her mom on their trip to venice and rome :)
I had been to venice and rome before. But I got to skip school, and go to some of my favorite places in italy. I went with them from Monday morning, where we took the train from Arona to Milan, Milan to Padova. Which is where we stayed. It's really close to Venice. Monday we went around in Padova.

Tuesday was Venice. Then we took a train at like 1 in the morning from padova to rome (it as really cheap and also meant we didnt have to stay in a hotel for that night xD ) I recommend not doing that... It was kind of scary. Scary people on that train..

Wednesday in Rome. Thursday out in Rome too, I got to meet up with one of my friends who lives near rome. She is Italian and went on exchange to seattle last year. That was really fun and cool to see her :)

Mappin out our trip

Vatican

Popes castle?

Colosseo

In Rome with Vale!

Piazza di Spagna(spanish steps) with vale and luca

Piazza di Spagna durante vacanze!!

Took the plane back (by myself. for the first time...) from rome to milan. My host sister and her mom booked different flights. I dont know why but yeah. I was really scared because my phone was low on battery and I had never taken a flight on my own. Ever. I was running around like an idiot then finally found an outlet behind an atm machine thingy. so i plugged it in leaning aganist the pole and everyone was walking by staring at me. it was great...

The next day, friay, christmas eve. Maria an her mom returned home. I went to the city(Novara) with Brittany(only other exchange student in my province) an the head of my local chapter. we talked and he gave us christmas presents and then brittany and i just walked around the town for a bit and shopped a little.

Saturday: Christmas day (Today)
3 things about Italian christmas
1. you say "Buon Natale"
2. santa claus is "Babbo Natale"
3. here(at least in the north) lunch is the main meal. so at that meal, you eat for like 4 hours..

Typical Italian christmas sweets(dolce) This is Panettone. There is also another cake thing called Pandoro

Christmas tree in Milan! Milan is really pretty curing Christmas time:)

Today i woke up late, at like 10(this is late for me here, but in america thats early for me..) The kids had already opened their presents. and i got a few small presents too which was really nice :)
and then we had to go to lunch at 12. we ate with all the relatives, and we ate until like 4. We ate a lot.... I feel so fat now. Lunch was like the whole festivity of the day. Eat eat eat. omg food... <3
So i dont think we are eating dinner. I just wanna die i feel so fat

Ill put pictures up from my trip to rome and venice.
I know there are other important things that have been happening lately, but i forgot, when i remember ill blog against.

Side notes:
-I've noticed you have to pay at restaurants(some) if you want to sit down. or if you just want a cappuccino and you want to sit. youb have to pay to sit. That doesnt happen in the states..
-also, it's apparently rude(in some places) to ask for the cost of something, so you just have to get the food then oay whatever it is after. Which is so stupid because what if you dont have a money, thats why you ask for the price in the first place..
-oh yeah, here in the north its really cold, you can always see your breath. and There are ice skating rinks outside everywhere. I went the other day with my australian friend(who had never seen ice or snow before) she was professional xD
-Got packages from family with loads of chinese food and top ramen :) I'm so happy. SOOO SOO HAPPY! I know italian food is great, but there is absolutly no diversity here. In seattle if i want i can go out to get chinese, thai, japanese, korean, morroccan, indian.. everything. here you might find one or two chinese and indian places. but they arent very common..
-Random people on the streets yell out "ni hao"(hello in chinese) to me. Im not sure if they are making fun of me, or if they are just excited to see a foreigner. because they arent very common in italy.. its not very diverse
-Its normal here for random people to honk or yell "bella!" out at you.

New years is coming up! I'm excited!

There was a holiday 12/8/10. Some Piemonte AFSers, Milano AFSers, and Bologna people met up in Milan :)

Some of us Piemonte AFSers. (From left to right: Chile, brazil, bolivia, america, canada, argentina)

Con Babbo Natale! (With Santa Claus!)

Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, America-Me, Brazil

Exchange

Exchange wouldnt be exchange if you didnt have problems. You have problems, you get through them. Thats what makes you "mature" and "grow up" and become "independent". You learn to figure things out.
Exchange is one big emotional roller coaster. You've got massive highs and lows.

Manifestazione (11/17/10)

So I went to my first manifestazione on wednesday. it was coool!

Manifestazione: Like a massive protest about school things. That's basically what it is(Im not sure of the details because I really coulndt understand much.. xD ) Oh and it's always on a school day, because youre like protesting against school, so you skip school.

Went to the manifestazione in Milan with two of my friends, and we took the train there. In the metro station, we just got off the metro and there was like a swarm of students just chanting and screaming. It gets pretty wild(I heard that at the one in Torino, the trains stopped for a few hours because students were sitting on the tracks!!)

The manifestazione started in a big piazza. Everyone got around together(all students) and there was music playing. and chanting. and some people were like awkwardly dancing around..

There was like this vehicle, im not really sure what it was, like some sort of truck type thing. and that's where the main person was(a student who does all the talking and starts the chants etc) and thats where the music was playing. Since i went to a manifestazione in a big city, there were several of them. And basically you follow them around( with the music playing pretty much the whole time) and the people chant and so on. Here are some pics:

In the Piazza

Posters students put up everywhere. I was surprised a lot of their signs and psoters and banners were in english.. and Latin...

but yeah, it starts in the piazza, then the vehicles start moving around the city, and EVERYONE follows and chants. There are police around the city monitoring(though it is legal). Oh and it's pretty much impossible to get around the city on a day of manifestazione. In felt bad for the people who were trying to get somewhere in their cars.. you cant get anywhere, because theres so many people


I love manifestazioni (plurale). Smoke/fog everywhere. People jumping around. It's loud and full with music, and TONS of other people my age, im not sure ive ever seen that many people my age in one place at the same time before..

It's really fun!

i just remembered..

on monday night november 8th. i had a dream in italian. well, where i was speaking in italian. but not all of it was in italian haha just thought id share. Its weird, becuase this is while i was in mexico.. surrounded by spanish. not italian... xD

this is a HUGE deal! it's so cool! It's like, italian is finally sinking into my brain, so that im dreaming in italian! where its a big enough, or an important enough aspect in my life, that im speaking it in my dreams. I'm like proud of myself for dreaming in italian after only 1.5 months!