Christmas NYE sardegna and rommma

Right well a lot has happeed since i last wrote. Basically had a 2 and a half week holiday for xmas. having xmas in another country with another family in another season was v strange but i actually wasn't very homesick infact i had a great night on xmas eve with my host family, we went to a nice dinner party and i tried hepas of new food all amazing. anyway after xmas i went to sardegna with my 'assisstant' which is like my buddy from afs. she's 20 and studies in catania but comes from sardinia. so i went there with her, we were based in guspini, a small town where she's from west of cagliari. we did a lot of travelling around sardinia i went all up the west coast and in the north and the south and a bit of the east. my favourite places were definatley sassari and aglhero two more spanish citys in the north. i absolutley loved cagliari! i think if i were to come back to italy to live, out of the places i've seen so far, i would live there! the weathr, prices, buildingd, people, sea etc etc were all perfect! it was a real Mediterranean city with spanish influences whilst obvioulsy mantaining the fact it was italy with beautiful buildings. On new years eve i went with rossella (my assistant) her sister, boyfriend and friends to a nightclub party. it was very fun and exhaisting, we got home at sunrise! people were actually drinking as well but nothing cmopared to a boozy kiwi on new years! anyway i had a surprise day in rome on our journey home because our ferry got cancelled, you may have seen how terrible the weather is in europe on the news, so we had to quickly book flights. anyway the cheapest was to fly from caglari - roma in the morning then fly roma- catania at night so this meant we had about 8 hours to do some sightseeing. i saw ancient rome, the collseum, a building where mussilini did something hah the trevi fountain and another few pallazzas. i thinkg what mde it suh a great day was that i only knew i was going to rome about a day before i did so i didn't have weeks to get my hopes up! anyway i really liked it but the city was just bloody enormous and chaotic! i'll definitely return soon though i have to see the vatican before i leave! The last famous thing, or should i say woman, was SOPHIA LOREN at the airport in rome. I managed to stand right next to her! she was just ridicoulously perfect perfectly dressed and held i can't belive how old she is! anyway i basically had a panis attack and texted everyone i could! if you want to see more photos there are 500 newies on my facebook!

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.

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!

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.

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.

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!

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!