Monday, February 20, 2012
3 Weeks!!!
I can't believe it's been 3 weeks already since I've been in Bari, and a month since I left home. The time has flown by soooo fast. I've been so busy lately with school and friends and learning italian. Last night I went to a party for my friend's birthday/for Carnivale. It was so much fun. Everybody dressed up and had masks and we played a bunch of games.
It's so weird how big carnivale is here. I had really never heard of it
before I came here. And now my street is covered with confetti and masks
from all the parades. It is so much fun. The past two weeks were probably the hardest weeks of my life. The "oh wow I'm in italy for 6 months" feeling was replaced by the "oh crap I'm in italy for 6 months" feeling. I was very homesick during my second week and it really sunk in how little italian I actually knew. It was so hard to communicate with everybody and I sort of closed myself off because I was afraid of saying something wrong. The 3rd week was a little better. I started speaking more and not caring that I said stuff wrong and that made things a lot easier! But the cultural differences caught up to me and yesterday even though it was no big deal, when my host parents said that I was rude when I did something, I just broke down. It was a relief to finally get it out of my system but it was also really embarrassing. My friend was there too and so I went to her house crying. It wasn't anything bad. It was just the stress and exhaustion and everything that made me crack. However, the good thing is that now that it's out of my system, I feel a lot better about being here and it made me a little closer to my host parents. My host brother, Alberto, (aka the only one in my house who speaks any english) went to Venice for 3 days with his friends so I am really struggling to communicate with my host parents. But if I just wak around the house with my dictionary everything is fine. My italian is SOOO much better than in was when I got here. I can understand about 75% of what everybody says, but I can only reply to about 25% of what everyone says. Still it's better than nothing haha.Now I have to go to the train station to meet up with my friend to go to our Italian course. Then after we are having a party for some new AFSers from Canada! (I hope they are from the english speaking parts! haha)
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Hey Lexi: You look so beautiful in the pics. The Harry Potter book is really cool too. Well, it’s school vaca week here and as usual I have a house full of boys. I’m always surrounded by boys! I need some girl time…sniff…sniff!
ReplyDeleteDid you see the pics of the lollipop tree I made? I posted them on fb, it had over 600 dum dum pops on it, I might have got a little carried away but it was really fun to make, at least until it fell over, pops went flying & I had to re-build it. I gave it to my hairdresser who just opened her own shop in Weymouth. I brought the boys there to get their haircuts the other day, yes, Matthew got a haircut, Guncle doesn’t think so but its definitely shorter…he hates paying for what he calls non-cuts!
You just remember that if those Italian kids (or even your host parents!) were thrown into an American school/home they wouldn’t have the easiest time either! Things will get better, you are one of the strongest people I know and we are super proud of you. Keep smiling that beautiful smile. Maybe you and your Mom could have a “girl” skype, I know she’d love that
It’s going to be in the 50’s here today, so I will make sure Michael & the boys don’t play video games all day! Although it hasn’t snowed here at all, I still want the heat & humidity! It’s been pretty boring here, nothing really happening. Remember when you get home, all is the same, nothing has changed.
I love when you make posts on FB, I like hearing all the weird little differences between the cultures, so feel free to share. Guncle and I have decided we’re going to retire to Italy & sell peanut butter!
Are there any Ciccolo’s in your class? My aunt has spent years tracing our family history & every time she goes anywhere she looks up the family name & will even call them and ask their family connection.
Dobby says Hi!
Oh Uncle Geoff does too.
Be safe, be good, be happy but most of all have fun.
Love ya!