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!

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

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...