SMILE

Ciao!!!! So this week has been awfully crazy. I don’t even know where to start. Finally I can say I am not horribly homesick. I think I was so homesick because I was bored and had nothing else to do but to think about home. But I’ve found ways to keep myself busy. The gym has been good. I like the bikes. Yesterday, March 2nd, I went to the gym. It was all great and I was feeling a little thinner when I looked down…I have a gut. Stupid bread! I now like doing crunches and other random ways to help my bread-belly decrease. I decided also to put myself on a diet. I know you are probably thinking, “A diet?!?! While in Italy, the place known for their amazing food?!!?!” well, it’s not totally like that. My diet consists of no seconds, unless super starving, and less bread. So it’s not really a diet, but maybe those seconds and extra bread are making up my pouch right now. So about 2 weeks ago I found out about a trip thing that AFS has planned, called “exchange week”. “Exchange week” consists of me (an AFS student) picking a place in Italy to stay for a week. While there, I will get to go to local museums and do AFS planned adventures. Since I am located in northern Italy, riding along the Alps, I of course decided to go south. I really wanted to go to Sicily, but Sicily is a very popular place and they can only allow so many students in each area. I was pretty much thinkin I wasn’t going to Sicily, when Elisa, my local chapter volunteer, called me and told me that Monique (an Australian girl also in Udine) and I are both going to Sicily and to the same city. Ahhhhhh yay! I am now super pumped. The reason for this trip is not only to see and experience a different part of Italy, but to experience it with other AFS students that you are friends with because otherwise we don’t really get so see each other unless we are really close. I will be staying in Calt……I don’t know. It’s in the center of Sicily, but the name is long and I was too excited to remember it. It’s a big city, so if you look on a map, you should find it easily. I leave on March 20th and return March 27th. Then the next day I get to go to Austria! We were supposed to go Saturday, the 27th, but “exchange week” interfered. So I will just go a day late. We are going to see some friends and family of my host family. Oh and in May I get to go to Trieste—a city south and to the right of Venice—for a race thing. I am still a little confused on what exactly it is, but AFS invites everyone close and we get to run in it together. It should be fun. I can’t wait for this next month. I can’t believe it’s already March. I think I am less homesick now because I realize I can’t mope around being homesick any longer, because before I know it, it will be time to go and I would have had a poopy attitude the whole time and had no fun. So from now on, well as much as I can control, no more being homesick.

On a different note…school is good. I think I will be switching to an older class some time this month. I will miss my new friends, but hey…this means more chances to make new friends. It’s getting warmer. I now don’t wear a scarf everyday and I am back to my black jacket—the one I bought, but was too cold to use at the beginning so I was using one the family let me use. Usually on the way to school we don’t see the sun rise, it just slowly gets light and the sky is covered by a thick layer of gray clouds. The past few days, we actually see the sun. It’s so beautiful! When the sun is out, the mountains light up and you can see the fresh snow and it feels like they are close enough to touch. I have begun taking pictures randomly, like as I walked to the gym or on the way home from school. The landscape, besides the mountains, has become normal to me now, but I realize that it isn’t for you…so I am trying to capture everyday views so you can feel like you’re here.

It is getting late here…well for me. We go to bed like super early here…it’s actually kind of nice  well anyways. I am going to go to bed. I love you and miss (but not in a homesick way) you.

XOXO
Sarah.

ciao bello.

My days have now become regular and i am getting bored. so to keep myself from just sitting at home and getting homesick. i joined a gym. it was super expensive. for one month i paid 67€. crazy...but worth it. the TINY gym has a room with 3 tredmills, 5 bikes, and 2 olypticals. then there is a tiny room for stretching and doing push-ups and stuff. Another room for classes like pilates of dance and a small pool. upstairs there is the room for weight lifting and stuff. i like it...its comfy. this week is pretty normal. oggi & mercoledi...today and wednesday...i can't be in my class. they get a special presentation thing. so today i am sitting in an empty classroom with my spanish teacher and two other students. i have only met this spanish teacher twice and both those times she was out of her seat yelling at a girl in the class, "silencio!!!!!!" its scary. i kinda just sit there and wonder what happened to make her suddenly flip on this student. all my teachers are so different. my italian teacher is crazy. she is like that typical mean teacher from any cartoons. she is super tall and skinny. she has short blonde hair that never seems to move. She has glasses that sit low on her nose and are only used to read. its weird though...because when she is talking or yelling at the class she looks at the ceiling or back wall...but never at us. its scary. plus she wears skinny pants or skirts with super pointy high heels so she looks even scarier, add a little bit of a hunch and you get a teacher that everyone dispises. i have to go to my italian tutoring now. i am getting better, but not that much.

love you all!!!
sarah.

sick.

ciao everyone!
i went to upload more pictures because i am being harrassed now by everyone for them. well i forgot to put them on the stick, so you will just have to wait some more.
i got sick and didn't go to school today. tomorrow i have to though. ugh.
i am feeling a little better.
i miss you guys.
oh and to riccardo stewart...if you even read this.
i listened to matt chandler today...i couldn't stop listening after just one, i listened to 6....he is amazing!!!
makes me really have a fire for God. :)
it had been very helpful.
i love everyone!!!
bacio.

title: Carnival

Blog:

Today is Febuary 19th 2010 and i am writing from my schools computer. at my school we don't have good internet, everything is blocked except google so....my parents will be updating my blog for me...thank you mom&dad.

My week started slowly...i had 3 days off of school, monday, tuesday, and wednesday, for a carnival thing. i guess it is like a holiday here. but only some schools got it off...lucky me.

Monday:i sat around and literally didn't even change clothes. it was nice just to relax.

Tuesday:i knew i was going to be able to get internet so i loaded photos and videos onto my memory sticks. i had recorded 2 videos, one for the parents and everyone, it was a pretty good blog i guess and that i was eleven minutes long and another video for maddy which was nine minutes long. After waking up, taking a nice long shower, curling my hair, and having lunch, Giada and i went for a walk. we walked about 2 km...or 1.2 miles, to Mont Buia. Mont Buia was high on top of a hill so that the whole city of only 6000 people could be seen...the hill wasn't that high...anyways, we walked around and took many pictures, it was so beautiful. That day it was sunny and clear, great for pictures. We came home just around sunsent and relaxed. Laura, my host mom, came home and told me to get ready to leave...we were getting internet. We ended up going to this laundry place and i used a computer there. I was planning on updating my blog with the video, but it was taking for ever and pretty soon we had to go. I got on facebook and recorded a video right there that was about six minutes long and hit share...it didn't work...there was an error. now Laura was waiting for me so i had to record another one really fast. It was only about a minute, and the main topic was that i would be back on facebook and skype on saturday. i talked to my dad for a second and that was really nice. i also got Quinn's number and Liz's number, both girls from America who are within a short train distance from me. We also had become good friends while in New York and Rome. i got off and headed home. We had dinner and went to sleep.

Wednesday: i woke up early because we had to go to the police station today...something to do with my visa. i couldn't understand anything so i just had to guess. After we were done there, Laura drove me and Giada to the center of Udine and dropped us off. We got to walk all around and shop and see Udine. It is beautiful. Everything was great...except...the shoes. For some reason Giada had told me that we would dress up, so i wore jeans and my cowboy boots which have a bit of a heal and she wore my black boots with an even higher heal with jeans. it was all fine at first, but after awhile both our feet were aching. We stopped and got some drinks...i don't even know the name. Giada ordered them for us...i guess they are really popular and that the only thing you get when you go to that bar. We sat outside and sipped our drinks. The drinks were a mix of wine, im guessing white wine, orange juice, and...im not sure. it was okay, but i didn't like the strong alcohal taste. i had about 4 sips and then stopped. Giada had finished hers, so i switched, making it look like i enjoyed mine very much, and gave her mine. After that we got pizza and water, which i prefered much more. we continued to shop around...mainly looking since everything was so expensive. we were there from ten in the morning until three when we met one of Giada's friends. We again went to a bar and got drinks, i didn't order this time though. After that we walked to this building and went inside. we walked up the stairs and entered into a tatoo parlor. Her friend was planning on getting one. from there we split up and Giada and i headed towards the train station. We got there just in time and borded our train at 17.05...or 5:05. we got off the train at 5:30 and waited for Laura. The bad thing was, Laura wasn't picking up. we were about a 20 minute drive from home...way to far to walk. Finally we got a hold of Gelindo, my host dad, and he came and picked us up. he got there around 6:45. we went home and had dinner.

Thursday: we had school, except i had a little stomach ache and Giada had a pounding headache. She wasn't going to school and said i didn't have to either...yay. we slept in and relaxed. I took a shower around 11:15 and half blowdryed my hair. i only do half since here they don't like wet hair and expect you to have dry hair, but i don't like my hair when its blowdryed, so i do it half so the rest can dry naturally and curl a little. After that we had chores. i ironed....i hate ironing. i don't really feel the need to iron five year old's sweat pants...but oh well, when i go back home, i will be an amazing ironer. we had lunch and watched animal planet...animal cops phoenix :) Dinner finally arrived, but i wasn't feeling great. it was mushroom soup, which was good, but i just wasn't hungry. and like you could have guessed, they kept telling my to eat eat eat. and they kept offering my more and more food. we finished around eight and i decided to give my stomach a good sleep and went to bed.

Friday: We are here at school, however, we missed the bus this morning so we had to catch the next one, making us late. Along with being late, we had to walk for about 30 minutes once we got off the bus, just to get to the school. all because, we slept in until 6:30. that is waking up early for me normally in arizona. We arrived at school at 8:40 instead of 8:00 and headed to our first class...computers.

Every night i have been writing down a description of what i do and how i feel, it helps me express my feelings, since the language barrier doesn't allow that. i am getting better at italian...still not great though.

Saturaday i will be back to the laundry place for internet. i will have a few more pictures by then...maybe, but i still will only give a sneak peak and not all the pictures.

This has been crazy amazing and it still feels unreal.

i love and miss you all!

baci baci,

(kiss kiss)

Sarah.

again.

okay so it changed.
mom&dad: saturday at 9am for you guys i will be back on. i don't know it that is the permanant day...but we can start with that.

everyone else. i don't have time to update the blog right now...but i will udate it saturday with pictures and videos.

there is a short video on my facebook and a few pictures. check it you.
love you!!!

sorry.

its been awhile since i have updated my blog...sorry. i went to buy internet and it was going to be 25€ a month plus 99€ to start...wayyyyy to expensive. i found a laudry place that its only 15€ a month so i am going to do that.

parents: i don't know about skype. i am thinking for maybe tuesday nights...well morning for you. it just depends when they can drive me here. i will ask them and next time i am here, i will let you know :)

everyone: i have many pictures but i will only upload a few...just a sneak peak.
i do have a video too with more information on my facebook.

i love you!!

here at last.

so...i made it. sorry for the delay. at my house, i have no internet so i haven't been able to update this. i have been in italy since friday. when i got to italy, i was in rome. it was so pretty, a little cold, but nothing to what i am dealing with now. we did many orientations to learn italian and to understand what we were about to go through. while in rome they took us to the vatican city. it was gorgeous!!! i have never seen so many old statues, paintings, words, and walls. it was absolutely amazing. we had to wait in line to go into the vatican and i had a little scare. right before i walked through the doors, my battery died on my camera. luckily i planned ahead and brought the extra battery that was fully charged. when we were walking around in the vatican city it began to rain. it was so nice. it was bright and sunny with huge rain drops. we left there about 2 hours later and went back to our hotel. we had to get ready to leave, because on sunday we would leave to see our families. sunday afternoon arrived very quickly. i left rome to go to my host family. while in the airport, there were 3 other girls who were going to their families, we were friends and hung out together. we had split up when one of the girls came back and told us her gate had changed. so quickly i had to run to a different gate. once there, i began to get nervous...i was scheduled to leave at 4:45..it was now 5. then 5:15 and then 5:30. my plane was late. also i was at a weird gate. instead of going through the walk way thingy, we got onto a bus and then just walking up the steps onto the plane. it was cool...but way different. we finally took off around 6:15. about 45 minutes later i landed. i just followed the crowd inside and waited for my bag. once i got it i had no idea where to go. the afs people never told us exactly where we were to meet our families. i just headed for the exit. luckily for me, they were right on the other side. i was excited and scared and hyper and tired all at the same time. we piled into the car and headed home. it was a verrrrrrry long drive. very quiet drive. Giada, my sister is the only one that speaks enough english to talk to. My parents, Gelindo and Laura, they just talk to me in italian, get my confused face, and try to change to english. it is very confusing. they let me relax at home for 2 days before i had to go to school on wednesday. i live in Buia. it is very small and right next to Udine. it is all soooo pretty. the alps are my backyard. it is very cold. around 2 degrees celcius daily...all day. the alps are so pretty and covered with snow. there is snow on the ground in some spots...but not all. i have now experienced school. wednesday was my first day and very intimidating. everyone wanted to know about obama and how old i was and where i am from and what music i listen to(which, by the way, is the same stuff i listen to...weird) and if i have family and if i smoke or drink. everyone here smokes...i mean like the 13 year old boys and girls. its crazy. i can't even count the number of times i have been offered one. in school, the classes have about 20 people in them. and instead of the students switching from class to class, the teachers switch and the students stay in the same room. its nice. i have 9 boys and 10 girls. there is only one black person, a boy. he is funny. he asked me if there are black people in arizona, it made me laugh. they always use what they know about america to see if its the same. unfortunately most of what they know is just from tv, from shows like the secret life of the american teenager and gossip girl and the fast and the furious. its totally not true. ahah. today at school my class had a special class day, so i instead, spent one hour in another english class with my english teacher and the rest of the time in the computer lab. the english class that i went to was filled with younger kids. they were very excited to see me and talk to me. one boy who was very talkative invited me to a disco, club, on saturday for another girl in the class's birthday. ha. i said i would ask. its all been so different, but so fun. i miss everyone and am getting a little homesick, but i try not to think about that. i still feel like this is a dream. i love everyone!
ciao.
lizzie.