Monday, September 13, 2010

Ciao Italia!

I'm finally in Italy! After 6 hours on a plane to NY, an incredibly boring orientation there, 8 hours to Zurich, and 2 more hours to Rome where I had another incredibly boring orientation (well... it was ok since I met so many amazing international people!). Then the group going to Taranto was informed that we would be the lucky ones to get up at 4 in the morning so we could go to the bus station where we would ride the bus to meet our families. That was at 10 at night already. I think my first 3 days in Italy I had about 10 hours of sleep total.

Anyway, we had a 6 hour bus ride to Taranto where I slept a lot and talked a lot more, and when we arrived in the bus station I looked around for my family and they were waiting for me, and I was so happy top meet them! The were really excited too, and they took me in their car (on very fast, very unpoliced roads) to Martina Franca! We live in a 3 bedroom apartment and I share a room with my host sister, and my host mom is so nice, she has been cleaning the extra bathroom so I can have my own. She made us lunch and whenever she accidentally tried to serve me red meat (I have decided I can try chicken and turkey here, but I think I haven't eaten meat in a long time so I will be sick, and anyway red meat is disgusting)she was very sorry and tried to feed me 5 times more than she was originally giving me. Haha, I don't eat very much anyway so I hope she is not worried about me =). After that I unpacked and gave them the gifts I brought, one being a really beautiful abalone shell from my uncle's yard, and they were so excited for it and showed me their large shells collection! I messaged my parents and wrote in my journal and then I lay down for a few minutes and ended up sleeping for 2 hours!

When I woke up my host sister showed me the historic center of the town, and it is AMAZING!!!!!! I can't even describe how beautiful it is! The architecture is amazing! And it is so pretty! I don't have any pictures, but next time I go I will take pictures and post then all on Facebook. It is all really old and wonderful, there is really nothing like it in America and it is just a part of the daily life here. I am so excited to live here! And the rest of the city isn't bad either, it is really like a city with apartment buildings everywhere and store fronts on the first floor. We went to my school today and saw some teachers and my hosting coordinator, I think it is a good school and it is very close to our house. They said I would start a couple of days after school starts on Wednesday. I am going to attend the Linguistic part of it, so cool!

After that we walked around the normal part of the city again and I saw some of my host sister's favorite parks which are really beautiful too =). They speak mostly to me in english and then speak to other people in Italian and don't realize I have understood, I am trying to answer in Italian but I can't think to form sentences, my brain is to tired. But it is quite funny to sit there and be introduced and then have people explain to you that you were just introduced. Oh well. They'll see what I understand and what I don't eventually. It is going well though and I feel like I am understanding more, I need to try harder to make real sentences though, not just one or two words, it make me sound stupid I think XD.

And now my host mom is going to make us some lunch, the house smells really good from it so I'm excited. I've already eaten some Italian pizza (my host sister said it was bad, but it is so much better then pizza hut!) and some gelato (from our freezer, half of it is filled with it =D). I miss everyone in America, but I'm really liking Italy now!

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