I can officially say that my home is in Italy! as of 9 days ago, I live in Trani, Italy, in Puglia:) This experience is well underway, and I have a lot of updating to do for you! please excuse me if my English is confusing, i have been forgetting English grammar and sentence structure... :/ ahah but i suppose that is good, perhaps it signifies that I am learning Italian! oh Italian, what a beautiful language:) It has only been 10 days in the country, and already I can understand the main idea of what people say! nonetheless, i am still phased by confusing situations everyday:)
Thank god for my amazing family.... they are the most loving, fantastic, beautiful family! every day i have gratitude for this, I feel i can call their house my home. My father, Angelo, is probably one of the sweetest men I know! so warm, caring, etc:) he brings home sweet things very often, like chiacchiere, creme filled croissants, chocolate things, fantastic! also he does the shopping for vegetables, and last week I went with him to this dear little market to get spinach, apples, fennel, tomatoes, pears, kiwis, rice, and some other wonderful things... it was a wonderful experience! I will discuss the food in great detail later on in my post.
next up is my mother, Titti, who is such a marvelous person! one of the most loving people... she won't let me go to sleep with wet hair, saying that when I am older I will have some type of head ache like her and her mother, because they went to bed with wet hair! it sounds crazy, right? but it is actually so sweet! and i have taken to the hairdrier, something I am not accustomed to. In fact, it is the most wonderful thing... called the fone, it takes around 30 minutes, but afterwords, my capelli are straight and smooth for about 3days! ( in Itlay, you can't wash your hair each day, most people only wash it once a week, but i insist after 2-3 days, it is one of the things which is foreign to me...) also my mother speaks English! which is so helpful for my learning of Italian, because she can tell me the names of things in English, then in Italian:)
Leda also speaks English, very well! she is marvelous... it feels like we have been sisters for ages, and also excellent friends! she is wonderful, for all things:)) she has been such a help, with school, with learning Italian, with life's drama's, other sisterly things... (hair braiding, gossip, laughter, picking out outfits, studying and procratiating together, going out, to the gym, to the library etc, etc... she is the sister I've always wanted and never had... quite a gift from the universe!) my other sister, Francesca, affectionately refereed to as Chicca, is so unbelievable! i always have a laugh or two with her! she only speaks a tiny bit of English, about the same amount as my Italian, but somehow we find a way to communicate and enjoy each other's company. we also share a passion for i gatti, the cats! living here are 5 cats, not in the house, ever, but always in the garden. they are not allowed inside. i am somewhat of an animal rights activist, it is like 0 degrees Celsius, it is snowing (AHHHH!!!) 20 mph winds are blowing, and the cats are all sitting outside in the window, huddled together, shivering, their plaintive eyes staring desperately into the warm casa, you can imagine my distress!!! but my family says that they are warm, they have fur coats, they have each other's body heat, but nonetheless, i am witnessing freezing cats! it is difficult! the cats are all related, a mother, and her 4 children. minu, paris, garfield, and plerumque. please excuse my spelling of the names, if they are incorrect. minu is my absolute favorite, (sorry to the others, i love you too) because she is so small and beautiful, orange and white. i love the cats.
... some words in English sound similar to Italian words, but the meanings are completely different... could lead to linguistic misunderstandings. for example, i say: "the cats, oh how adorable!" an Italian might hear, the cazzo how adorable... cazzo meaning dick.. so it is good to learn these things,, ahah but it does lead to some laughs. I am lucky for the people I've been around in these situations:)
hmmm what to discuss first... food or school. I think food. oh god. Italian food. there are no words. well there are, but they will not do it justice. so simple, so fantastic. so much better than anything, so homestyle, so fresh, so tasty, so satisfying, so nourishing, so beautiful, so classy, so delighting, so suprising, so diverse. I am in culinary heaven here! the average Joe may think, Italian food, pasta and pizza. yes, i say, but that is only the beginning. It is a crazy and marvelous world of flavours. crispy, soft, smooth, liquid, solid, sweet, savory, hot, cold, in a bowl, on a plate, out of the pan, in a cup... food everywhere. tonight, for example, we had a very simple and warming meal because of the freddissimo temmpo... pastina stelle... small pastas in the shape of stars, with a broth of a whole slew of veggies, some meats, and other pleasantries. like chicken noodle soup, except about 5 million times classier and more delicious. insalata with a medley of fruits,( mela, pera) two cheeses, two meats, tomatoes, balsamic reduction, pepe, sale, other delights... tonight was light eating! i am eating so much here, with no regrets. the result, a gaining of 2 Kilos! it is so irrelevant, my pants still fit, and i feel in a blissful state. the pasta, yes, it is fantastic, with hundreds of sauce varieties... always a pleasure. pizza... fantastic. puree di patate... like potatoe soup with cheese, cream... ahhh it so rich but so fantastic. fantastic. that is a good word to describe the Italian food. fantastico! my mother is an excellent cook! so is Leda, and I get to help in la cucina! it is so much fun for me:)) my new nonna, (grandmother) is so sweet as well. she visists ever so often... and she is a marvelous cook. the classic 'Italian grandmother':) perfect! my father makes fresh squeezed blood-orange juice for me almost every day. it is so fabulous... tart and sweet, so fresh and nourishing. He is so sweet:)
Lunch is so big! I have never eaten so much lunch.. so much! often pasta, bread, cheese, meat, some sort of baked dish, then fruit, then perhaps sweets. It is so wonderfully crazy!
breakfast, ahhh i love italian breakfast... or colazione.... consists of caffe, latte, and biscotti. essentially, a small porcelain mug full of hot, foamy milk, a smaller mug filled with strong italian espresso with a bit of sugar, and a plate of cookies. imagine the happieness! so fabulous!
SCHOOL! scuola.... scuola... ah... :) wow...italian school.... wild. so different. so fun! so difficult... it starts at 8.10, or it is suppossed to, but we always arrive about 3 minutes late and the professore is often another 5 minutes late... or so. time in italy is a whole other story, for another day. now it is so late, and i have so much more to say!
school: my school is a classical/pedigogical school, very antique! it is 3 floors high, right on the sea, beautiful views from all the windows, and full of all sorts of people. my main class, 3Bp, is so wonderful. the welcomed me from day one with open arms, open hearts, no judgement, just smiles and laughs! we all get along, it is fantastic to have a space in which i feel so comfortable so soon! i have already made some excellent friends! usually the students stay in the classroom all day and the teachers move around. for me it is a little different, because i go to another class at least one hour a day in order to get a more specific class list. with 3Bp i have Latin, English, Italian history, mathematica, chemestry, physical ed. in another class I have storia dell'arte, which is art history, a lovely class. i move to other classrooms for 'studio autonomo" so i can do some homework during school, which is nice, but most of these teachers want me to partake in their classes, which is fine by me. I love my school! everyone has been wonderful, hospitiable, fun, and happy:)
I have a tutor of Italian, Francesca, who I have seen once and who I will see in about a week or so. in total, Intercultura gives you 40 hours of Italian tutoring over the course of the semester program.. francesca is so lovely! and very patient, which is good.
Interculutra... (reffered to as AFS in Stati Uniti) is so good! i have to say, the orientation in Rome was far better than the one in NY, but i guess that's to be expected... it's Rome! :) our travels to Italia took about 30 hours... we had a 10 hour layover in Zurich international airport because of some sort of italian air-strike... but this was a fun 10 hours, lots of bonding with other Intercultura students, and luckily for us the Zurich airport offers endless opportunities:) from Roma, we took the train to Barletta, where my family picked me up. it was amazing.
so now I am here. all is good... tutto bene!!!! all is fantastico.
Italia is beautiful.
It snowed last night and tonight. no school today or tomorrow. it is truly a miracle! because I had a load of latin HW that was sooo difficult. but now I can procrastinate! yayaay!!!:) and Trani in the Snow, wow, it is lovely. and for everyone here it is so rare, a true gift from the heavens! Literally!!
happieness!!!
I will add photos another day, for now, i want to sleep:) hope all is well with every one of you!
ciao ciao ciao
XOXO
