Wednesday, December 9, 2009

mt etna, castello nelson and catania city.




here are a few pics of late. one is of the crator of mt etna, im almost reached the top but being a highly active volcsno we didn't quite reach the top. one's of the veiw from about halfway up mt etna, you can see sicily the med and the bottom of sicilys mainland. Next are som pictures from 'castello nelson' which is an amazing ancient, english style castle out of catania in honour of that nelson man. it was really nice and reminded me of chch in some ways. Then i've added a few pics from 'piazza duomo' which is the cities main square, there's a picture of the cathedral, a bride and groom and one of me and my friend from germany.





Monday, November 30, 2009

gorgeous piazza

So all is currently well. My new school is great. Language is coming etc etc. Anyway I thought I'd tell you all about this amazing piazza I went to the other day for a jewelry and crafts exhibition. anyway it was such a stunning sicilian scene. surrounded my a huge baroque building and the interior took my breathe away. I think its the closest I'll get to versailles for a long time. It was so elaborate and incredible with beautiful old painting and amazing hand painted walls. i wish i'd brought my camera and remembered the name of the place! but I'll definitely return and take pictures. I know it was built for some elite royal Catanese family hundreds of years ago and you can tell! anyway it's been the setting for many movies paintings and pictures in Italy. Anyway I'll update soon hopefully with photos of Mt Etna!

Thursday, November 12, 2009

New School

Just a quick update. I began Art school today and it was fantastic i'm so glad I moved. The atmosphere, subjects studied, students, teachers etc etc were so great.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

finallly freee

so great news im moving to science school (the one i should have been at from day 1) its looks like it'll be hard but satisfying rather than hard and impossible. anyway i'm very happy thinks seem to be improving.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

italian food vs nz food.

ok so italy is known for having great food right? well at the beginning i couldn't have agreed more. every meal was like going to a restaurant and every snack was another delicacy. I knew that the first week the food would be the best because my host mum was making her 'best dishes' and i had to try everything which was typical to sicily. But now i'm soo sick of the food. the same thing every bloody day and no change in flavour, its always got something to do with carbs cheese salt cream tomato and never meat! Italian food is good but I'm bored to death with it and it's made me realise how NZ has a really multicultural and diverse cuisine. Here most people havn't tried sushi or indian or a greek souvlaki, and even though these foods aren't ours they're definitely fast food in NZ. I miss having something different every night! I've even made a list of the food I'm going to eat the day i get back which also proves how stupidly homesick I'm getting. Italians prode themselves on their cuisine but really its only good in small doses. and just because you can boil a pot of water and put pasta in it for the right mount of time doesn't make you a good cook!!!
My host family is quite weird too she's obsessed with adding bread to everything I mean how carb loaded does bread crumbed pasta sound? that was the other nights dinner. And today i came home exhausted and starving after a long hot day at school and lunch was literally mashed fucking bread with garlic oil and tomato in it.
I try and tell people who're feeding me i can't eat too many carbs and must eat breakfast but they can't get it through their thick italian heads! The most common reply is 'the mediterranean diet is the best in the world' yes aspects of it are fish and veges and unproccessed things are but the italian diet isn't. anyway hopefully next update will be a bit more positive i just need to vent!

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Camp and School

so last weekend we had a big afs camp somewhere in sicily. it was bloody fun i had a great time but its made me feel really homesick and quite bad a italian because the other 2 nzers were a lot better than me it seemed. anyway the weekend was all about talking about our proooblems and playing hilarious yet childish games. this week at school has been pretty hard im so exhausted. its really tiring doind absolutley nothing! and i really dont understand a thing anybody says its horrible! hopefully everything will get better. im so homesick though i actually spent the other night making a list of the food i'm going to eat when im back in NZ how sad is that?! the people in my class are really nice but at the same time they've been in the same class of 25 since they were 13 so they're all really close i feel like im butting in. anyway nothing else has happened i really need to join a gym i feel so fat and lazy!

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Photos of palermo, new beach, church and roman ruins









thought it was about time I'd upload a few more pix from the last post.

So I began school today and I couldn't understand a fucking word! Though my italian is improving i can have convos with people in shops etc just very slowly haha. anyway school was completley different.. first off there were 2000 teenage students secondly it was my first time at a boy girl school since I was 8 thirdly no uniform! There wasn't a laptop in sight no active boards and only 1 15 minute break. Also during the break everyone went out for a fag on the school grounds, no smoking behind the bike sheds for this lot! Anyway the school system in Italia is COMPLETLEY DIFFERENT! School begins at 8am you have 3 classes which run for an hour each then a quick break then another 2 or 3 hours depending on your timetable. at 1.15pm or 2.15pm its back home for lunch and a nana nap. Also you stay with one class in one classroom from when you're 14 until you're 19 doing compulsory subjects. Luckily I get to choose my subjects after a week so i'll get to move around. Anyway there is no time for disscussion in class the teacher just dictates bullshit and the class sit there writing like robots. I got a hell of a lot of doodling done! honestly i dont like school here st margarets is soo fun compared to school here. anyway i'll jsut wait it out i'm sure it will be ok. the majority of my class were really welcoming and nice which was good.
Afs camp this weekend on a beach somewhere in sicily i'm quite excited to see some New Zealanders! ciaoo

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

past couple of weeks..

So quite a bit has happened since i last updated the blog. I went to palermo for about 4 hours which was cool. Palermo was definitely not as nice as Catania though! it was very crowded with less baroque buildings and old monuments and far more shitty apartment blocks! However from what i could see out the window the beaches were looking a little more golden and it definitely felt a lot bigger than Catania (Palermo has the population of Auckland and Catania has the population of Christchurch).
My host mum went to Roma for 6 days which meant I stayed with another AFS family for the week. They had already has 4 host students and their only son had been to Texas on AFS so i was nothing special. They lived in a really gorgeous apartment right in the centre of the city which meant it had the most amazing view of the sea, Mt Etna and pretty much every apartment block in Catania. It was staying with them that made me realise why i have not been gaining weight like i thought i would because they ate sooo much compared to my actual host family who actually eat really healthy compared too the average Italian fam dam. It also made me appreciate my real host family a lot more, i think I'm quite well suited to them! Now i'm back home and very happy!
Last weekend I went to a party at my friend from Canada's host families place. They party was for her host brothers 18th and was quite good because most of the people there went to the school i should be going too (which I still havn't started!!!!) The party was very different to the usual New Zealand 18th, in other words nobody got pissed! I think when I begin to understand and speak Italian more I'll enjoy these sober soirees much more! I stayed the night there, because they live in a village about 30 mins away from my house. The next morning I went with Mellisa (girl from Canada) and her host family to sunday mass at a tiny catholic chapel. The service was unbelievably boring but the church was so cute and pretty and it was right next to the ruins of an ancient roman bath house which was so amazing. since being here i've really realised how many people are still genuinely catholic, infact the majority of teens seriously believe in god which is bizzare it seems so old school but in some ways it's quite nice. Luckily st Margarets has made me tolerate religion so it doesn't really bother me. Anyway after my catholic experience we went back to their house (which was a massive villa in sorrounded by a lovely garden, so amazingly italiano) for the best Italian meal I've had since I got here which was, lamb(how i miss eating lamb!!!) tomatos brocolli and bread. It sounds simply but it was done it the italian way and was so delicious! I'm also surprised to find my new love for espresso coffee and red wine as opposed to starbucks frappadappachinoatte and $7 chardonnay.
Not much else has happened, as i said before I STILL havn't started school which is beginning to be a real problem in the friends and language department. My Italian is still hopeless but I'm finding I can understand a lot more of what people say though I still can't string a proper sentence together. I've began my host mums drama course which also incorperates salsa dancing and reiki so that should keep me busy and help me meet some more people and improve my pronouciation of italian. Better go have a power nap before drama so CIAOOO BELLAS! p.s I'll upload some photos asap I just need to find my camera cord...


Sunday, September 20, 2009

taormina


























Today we went to taormina which was a 40 minute drive from catania. It was absolutley incredible with amazing views of the sea, greek ruins, gorgeous buildings and art. You could even see the south of Italy's mainland which isn't far away at all! Here are some pictures of the town the veiws and ruins of a greek theatre...

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

a few more gorgeous buildings











Just a few more snaps from the last couple of days!