13 lessons.

This is just a quick post to ring in the new year.

BRRRRRRINGRINGRINGRINGRINGRING

Just a tacky joke to taint this New Year's and we still have quite a few hours. I'm sorry my humor is just going farther and farther down the tubes lately.

So I was thinking, since I am a rather good list-maker, I will make a list. But the thing is, I have made so many lists on this blog that I can't do anything cliche'. So here's one that I hope isn't ridiculously unoriginal, and enjoy it like the fact it's still socially acceptable to overeat EVERYTHING.

This is a list of lessons I've learned in 2013.

1. You're never alone, even though you may feel that way. This year was a year. With my grandmother dying, my life altering (in a good way) in a single parent household, and moving across the Atlantic Ocean for 10 months, I've gained a lot of independence. The independence to make my own decisions, the independence to follow my heart and dreams, the independence to be self sufficient and tend to my own needs... but this independence also comes with the independence of handling your problems alone. The independence of being lost. The independence of misunderstanding, language barriers, isolation, and fears. The first 2 weeks of exchange were the loneliest and hardest days of my life. No way to access my friends or family. No one that understood or even knew exactly how I was feeling. Literally I only had one way to run. I was on an island, and I honestly was alone. But, the other kids in my chapter could easily tell I was unhappy (I'm talking to you, Marie) and helped me so much in choosing to leave and fix my abroad life. Within 2 days, I was the happiest little clam on the planet. No matter where you are, what you are struggling with, and how much you honestly think you're alone, you aren't. You're just not looking hard enough.
2. When you hit your lowest point, the only way you can go is up. It's almost common sense but it's a given fact that when we think we are at our lowest, we focus on the fact that that's where we are, and not that the only possible way it can change is by getting better. Food for thought.
3. Nothing has to be broke in order for you to fix it.  If something can be better, take it upon yourself to fix it. If it works, nothing will be handed to you on a platter to make it better. The saying 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' is total bull. There's always room for improvement. My life wasn't broke, it just wasn't moving anywhere as fast as I'd have liked it. So, I fixed it. 
4. The world is as good as you make it. If you whine 24/7, you will be miserable. And vice versa. I don't have much to say because I already have preached on here numerous times about it.
5.  Forgiving isn't equal to forgetting. I am the type of person to hold grudges, and as much as I know it isn't a good thing to do, I do it anyways. Hell, I think I may have some grudges from elementary school. I don't know why I keep a hold of these things for so long. So, one of my new years resolutions (ugh blargle blargle resolutions ew) is to be more forgiving. Not necessarily meaning I will forget the things, but to make peace with them.
6. Realizing that you are wrong is more important than being right. You may be the smartest, most important person on this planet, but if you screw something up and the only way you try and fix it is by shifting blames and making it worse than it should be by trying to make yourself right, it isn't worth it. It's cowardly. It's stupid. And most of all, it's wrong.
7. Love is patient....Love is kind...it does not boast.... Love is one of the few things in life that I agree with for the fact that you have to wait for it to happen yourself. Love one another, and not by having a dependence on them. Basically, if you aren't living to make the other person happy, you aren't supposed to be with them. Blah blah blah sappy love story. 
8. The world is huge, but distance is little. Even though I was slapped in the face of how detailed and indescribably unique every little part of the world is, distance will forever and always mean next to nothing. Not being able to see your family, live in a style 100% comfortable, sleep in your own bed, etc. does suck. But you're able to return to that. The world is a big place, and your home will always be home. But don't let the fact that the world is big scare you from exploring it. Distance is smaller than it seems. Technically, it's only a metaphorically small world, Disney. 
9.  Someone always is in a worse situation than you. Short and sweet, this one. Just look where you are, and be thankful!
10.  Keep calm and carry on. Sometimes, if you let your life play out like it naturally would, it's for the better. You become more relaxed, you become more free-spirited, and life just becomes better.
11.  Underneath all the languages, all the culture differences, and all the diversities, we are all human. Even though we are in fact, a part of the animal kingdom and are part of all that food chain stuff, we aren't like any other animals. We are the most complex species to ever walk the face of this earth. Around the world we are so different in the way we live, our diets, our morals, literally everything that separates us from being a monkey. But underneath all of that stuff is a wonderful thing. We are all human. We all fail, make mistakes, have to learn, have to make friends, we fall in love, we have our hearts broken, we get homesick, we lose the ones we love, we break, we repair, we grow, we live. Mahatma Gandhi was the same species as Adolf Hitler. Eli Manning is the same species as Marilyn Monroe. Justin Bieber is the same species as George Washington. You are the same species as all of those people you read about in the books for all of those years in school, anyone you've ever seen in a movie, and every single person you've ever seen in your whole entire life. When you strip it completely to the minimum, we are all the same. We are born, we live, we die. Our skeletons are all equal. We are human. 
12. Don't waste time.  Because......YOLO. 
13. And last but not least....

"It doesn't matter if it's heads or tails, you're still a penny richer."

-Trouble, my elder buddy in Nashville for the last day of our missions trip.

It doesn't matter if an experience kills you or builds you up. It doesn't matter if you win or lose. It doesn't matter if you fail or succeed. All that matters is the experience you gain from it. This literally applies to so much of my life in the past year that I can't even put into words how much it sums up my year into 1 sentence. Thank you, Trouble. When you told me that, on that long stroll in the hot June sun, pointing to that penny, forcing me to pick it up, I kind of took it up as a joke. But, as I sit on my bed 13,000 kilometers away from everything that raised me, and I look back on it, I can't thank you enough. And that's why, I brought it with me. 

That, my friends, is a dirty, old penny from 1999 that is probably next to worthless to any of you, but means almost the world to me.

I nearly ran out of time for this one, but it's still pretty early in America so I guess that doesn't matter to you lot! Sorry Australia, New Zealand, and the eastern seaboard of Asia. I missed ya. I hope you all have a great new year, I can't believe one of the most eventful years of my life is already coming to a close. So, for 2013, ciao ragazzi. Ci vediamo dopo. 

An Exchange Carol: looking into the minds and memories of past, present, and future exchange students.

Ciao ragazzi!

This post is from an idea my host mom gave me while having a conversation on our scooter driving through town. She asked me about my blog, and what it was all about. Then she asked if I could write about other people, and the answer to that was "of course". So, the idea that came from her idea was this.

An Exchange Carol.

A hundred and some years ago some dude with some paper and a pen by the name of Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol, probably one of the most famous books ever to be written. In fact, I was just in a book store today and found a copy of it in Italian. I digress, this blog entry is inspired by him as well. Here lies three segments of this post that I will take you through tonight (or this morning depending on what time zone you are in): the ghost of exchange's past, the ghost of exchange's present, and the ghost of exchange's future. Now, from studying Dickens last year in my freshman English class I know what honestly happened in A Christmas Carol and I can assure you that there will be no rattling of chains of past co-workers, small crippled children who will make your heart cry, or greedy old men in this version. Andiamo.




1. Ghost of Exchange's Past

My first interviewee of this entry is my host brother, Mattia. In early December he returned from a trimester study with AFS in Belgium.

• What was the best moment of your exchange? Why?

Minchia....cazzo....I don't even know. Probably the period of time when I could honestly feel like I was part of the family. Also, in my local chapter in Belgium, I had 24 kids from other countries around the world. The feeling of being with them and knowing that I was making life-long friendships that would be with me forever, and none of those people would ever be that far away.

• What was the hardest part of your exchange?

On my third day in Belgium, my sisters were at school and my parents were at work. I was completely home alone, so I figured I would take a bus to go around the city. So I did. At the end of the day, I took the bus home. But the thing is, I took the wrong bus. With mediocre French I tried to explain to the bus driver what happened but he told me that I had to get off. I ended up in the middle of nowhere. I ended up getting home completely fine, and I can laugh about it now. It was more of the scariest part.

The hardest part was the first few days of school at lunch, when my classmates weren't my friends yet. No one ever really told me where to go or what to do for lunch, so the first few days I ate alone because...I just didn't know what else to do.

• Do you or did you have regrets about anything in your exchange?

No. I only had three months, so I knew going into it I had to do as much as I could .There wasn't a question about it. I lived, ate, and breathed "carpe diem".

• Why did you go abroad in the first place?

I went abroad for two reasons: to learn French and to broaden my horizons by learning more about the world and the cultures inside of it.

• Describe the feeling of coming home after exchange. 

When you first open the door of your house after being away for so long, you don't remember a lot. You just want to go around the house and do everything at once. Suddenly bathrooms and bedrooms and everything has interest. Seeing your family again is really strange, but yet so great to see them again.

• Do you think you have changed because of going abroad?

Yes. Before leaving, distance seemed like such a big factor of life. I was leaving home for 3 months, and going to live in a country on the other side of Europe. It meant a lot (distance). But now, it doesn't seem as much of a big deal. The world somehow seems wider, and Catania seems smaller, but distance still seems like less of a factor. I also reevaluated Sicily (also Italy in general). Before going away, I didn't like Italy and all of it's characteristics. But now home has a different meaning since I got to look at it in a different way.

• Are you staying involved with your ogranization/AFS? How?

OH YOU KNOW. (referring to me, Kara).

• What is the most valuable thing you learned during your exchange year?

There is no time in life to waste. Me, especially because I only had 3 months or so in Belgium on exchange. With so little time, I made a pact to myself to visit as much as possible, learn as much as I could, and just live for those 90-some days like I wouldn't have to go home.

• Are you still in contact with your host family and friends?

Yep. (skype and messaging)

• How hard was it to pick up the language, and how much did you know before you came?

Not incredibly difficult because I had studied French for 3 years in school, and also with a private teacher for 2 years (though those lessons only frequented about once a month). After getting to Belgium and meeting my family, trying to participate in school, etc., I realized how terrible my French was. Knowing a language is different than speaking it.

• Do you have any advice for future or present exchange students?

Don't waste time and try to profit off every moment. Don't ever hold yourself back from doing things that are good for you. Get yourself out there and speak a different language. Speak as much as possible. You'll learn, you'll make friends, you'll live a new life and if you don't speak that language there isn't a way you can do those things. Don't be afraid of the outcomes because no one will remember them in the long run. Making mistakes will become a part of you, so just embrace it or else you won't be able to function.

2.  Ghost of Exchange's Present

My monkey for this branch of our journey through the mind of an exchange student is from the United States, studying abroad in Italy. No, it's not me (for once). It's one of my closest friends here on Sicily, Anthony Devier from Illinois. He is studying with AFS in a town called Agrigento on the other side of Sicily. To paint a little picture he kind of looks like this

• Why did you choose to go abroad?

            I chose to go abroad because I wanted to learn about a part of the world I knew I had no clue about.

• What is the hardest thing you have encountered yet?

              The hardest thing about being an exchange student depends on the person abroad and their personality, but the hardest thing for me is getting to know people. You enter into their lives with the language barrier and can only get to know the people that speak your language. On top of that, you're intimidating. You're the foreigner; you're the untouchable. Yet you feel like every single person surrounding you is the foreign one. People around you are looking at you as "cool" and new, again you're intimidating, but in reality you're just sitting there begging for people to come talk to you.

• How's the language and how much did you know before coming?

             The language isn't incredibly difficult. I came to Italy with a small background knowledge of Spanish, which helped me with the Italian grammar. Once you get the patterns of the language down, it is easier. Before even getting here, I had to do the Rosetta Stone corse for AFS, which prepped me with basic present-tense sentences, greetings, colors, and numbers, but that was really it.

• Describe the feeling of stepping off of the plane and into your host country.

           As soon as we landed in Rome, I was basically fine while everyone else was grumpy from not sleeping or going insane with happiness and whatnot, getting to know each other and talking about everything. What really got to me was landing in Sicily. After getting my family and being in the car home for about an hour, the fact that I was really here hit me. I went through a massive wave of homesickness my first two days of being with my family, but after those 48 hours, it blew over.

• What is living with another family like?

          To sum up living with another family in one word, it would be awkward. I think the thing I said the most for the first 2 weeks of exchange was "this is the most awkward experience I've had in my life". The thing is, it doesn't necessarily get better. It just gets easier to handle and deal with because you become used to it. The awkwardness just becomes a normalcy.

• What is the best thing about being an exchange student?

          The best thing about being an exchange student probably would be that you get to see people honestly. When you're back in your home country everyone just assumes you know what you're doing and that you don't need help. Here, with me being the one that can't fully speak their language and am not completely accustomed to their way of life, I have gotten to see how truly caring and helpful people can be.

• Do you have any regrets about exchange?

          My biggest regret of this exchange (so far) is being afraid to take risks. I have held myself back a lot because I was too afraid to make a fool out of myself by sitting down and trying to start a conversation. I was too afraid of the awkwardness that I knew would come. But, I found that when I actually took the chance, knowing that I was most likely going to make a fool out of myself, it ended up being one of the best moments of the day. People see it as trying to get to know them or trying to be involved, and when you are the one to start that, they become more involved with you.

• Have you battled homesickness? 

          I never really have had major homesickness (besides the first 2 days). Homesickness after that was just for 5 minutes at a time. Even when I was back in Illinois saying goodbye to my family and friends I wasn't emotionally attaching myself to them. It was more of a "see ya later guys", not a "I'm not going to talk to you all or see you all for like a year" ordeal. After getting here, I got more of the shock like "wow, that really was the last time I would see them for ten months". But I've never had homesickness that has really rocked the way I spent my time during my exchange.

• What were you the most excited for before you came?

          Oh God, I don't even know.... I mean, I came with the mindset of "this is the land of pizza and pasta so it's gotta be good!" But, it was also a way for me to reinvent myself. Coming here, no one had an idea of who I am or who I have been (in the States), so if you've ever looked back on yourself and saw something that you wanted to change about yourself, you could change it! Looking back now, I have changed, and when I return back in July, I will be a changed person. How I've changed....well...I don't even know.

• What surprised you about your country? Do you still look at your host country the same way you did as before you came?

          Before I came here I knew that most of the stereotypes of Italians that we had were probably not true, so I didn't honestly know what to expect. But the thing that surprised me the most about Italy was the patriotism....for America. It was kind of mindboggling to go to school and see everyone in their American garb or have someone ask about the Clintons or the Bush presidency or ask my opinion on Obama while also giving theirs.

• What is the most valuable thing you've learned (so far)?

         The most valuable thing I've learned is that people around the world are so alike. Ya know, when I go into my American school and everyone has their own little groups and their own little groups of friends and here, I came in and got to know all different people from all different groups and I realized that everyone was so much of the same thing. Same problems, same worries, same whatevers. I remember looking back and thinking that I was so different from some of the groups of kids I went to school with in America and I can already look back from 12,000 kilometers away and see how alike we really were/are, and who they really were. It's a small world.

3.  Ghost of Exchange's Future

For the final ghost of our exchange carol, the ghost of exchange's future, I am using a boy from Italy, Simone,  who is hoping to study abroad for an annual program in a currently undecided location, and a girl from my area of Pennsylvania, Joi, who is hoping to study abroad in Italy next year. Joi is trying for the same scholarship as I am on, the Speedwell Scholarship. Currently I am cheering her on and I hope that she will be able to have the same, life-changing experience I am in the midst of in the 2014-2015 school year. Both of these two sound so undecided because it is still really early for students to be cleared by AFS, have paperwork in, have a host family, etc. So we're working with what we have for the sake of getting this done in time for it being a Christmas special entry!

• What are you scared for?

Being completely powerless in situations I can easily navigate in the United States (my home country) in English. -Joi

• What excites you about exchange?

When I think of going abroad for a year, I get so excited because I know that this could very well change my life forever. I get butterflies in my stomach. I begin to imagine a completely new life; new school, new family, new friends, new culture...an adventure where absolutely everything is new! -Simone

• Are you learning/do you speak the language of your host country?

Since I still have 10 countries in my selection (when Italians go abroad they have to pick 10 countries they want to go to, in the US I only chose three. His are Japan, Hong Kong, Netherlands, South Africa, Denmark, China (boarding school), Argentina, Brazil, United States, and Sweden), it's nearly impossible to learn a language. I know the basic fundamentals of Japanese and Portuguese but that's about it. (Note: he speaks English already which covers for the US and South Africa) -Simone

• Do you think you know a lot about your host country?

"Well actually, I think I don't know anything of these places (countries I've selected), because you can learn the language, the customs, the traditions, but you can't learn a culture. You can only live a culture." -Simone

• What do you think is the most important thing to do while preparing for a trip abroad?

To get as much information as possible. Talk to the people that are already abroad in your choice country. Research on the internet. Read blogs. Get to know the other kids applying to go abroad at the same time as you. Also it can help you learn more about not only the country you are aiming to study in, but about the other countries and their cultures others are experiencing as well. -Joi

• Describe the feeling you have when you think about going abroad.

"The feeling of going abroad is an emotional roller coaster in itself. There's the stress of the possibility of your credits not transferring. The worry that your making the wrong choice. The excitement and wonderment about spending an entire year being independent and adventurous. Lastly, there's the realization I have every once in a while that tells me that I have to go through with this. There are no other times or opportunities to go and I can't let fear hold me back." -Joi




There you have it, folks. I wish you all a Buon Natale e un capodanno meraviglioso, e probabilmente, ci vediamo a 2014!

Buon Natale a tutti, e a tutti una buona notte.

the reality check that I have wanted to give all my life, but never have been able to do so until now.

Sup guys.

Notice I didn't do my typical "ciao ragazzi" in Italian, because this post isn't about my new life and all of the things that I usually write about. This post is for all of the people, especially all of the teenagers that I am among, from my hometown of Quarryville, Pennsylvania. All I want you to do is listen for the few minutes it will take you to read what I am telling you here.

Solanco, ah the sarcastic beauty that comes to mind when I think of it. Wait, no. It's not sarcastic. It took me 3 months and 12,000 kilometers to realize that Solanco isn't the hellhole of a district or living social structure we claim it to be, but a way of life that is so simple and so quaint that the reason we don't like it is because they'res no movement. Let's start to paint some metaphorical pictures.

I still am actively on Facebook and Twitter and I see all of the complaints about teachers, people, schoolwork, activities, decisions made, rules, regulations, morals, codes, cultures, social groups, and physical features of Solanco that are fed and posted every day. So here comes this reality check.

I currently am living in a socially, politically, and economically developed country in Southern Europe. It's not like I'm living in a third-world nation in Africa. But you all do not understand how good you guys have it living in the United States. Now I'm not really talking about social structure now, but on the basis of your education.

The Italian school system is currently a disorganized mess for an assortment of reasons. The major of them being that we are in the midst of a variety of protests against the Italian government because they are cutting funds to the schools. Within these protests are "Sciopero"s, when we all just do not go to school, and literal "occupazione" or occupations when the students take over the school for a week or so. They do this because they want a change in the way they are being educated. They are fighting for their education, a right that they damn well have because it is slowly diminishing. So while we are having a little mini revolution here, let's zoom back to see what's going on in the other hemisphere of the world.

Complaining about homework, people, and teachers in a building with air conditioning, lended text books, prepaid extracurricular activities/supplies, an equipped building with a gym, auditorium, field(s), stadium, transport just for school, computers for almost every classroom, uniforms for gym, literally I'm getting sick from writing all these things. The things that we should be thankful for but we take for granted, focusing on the little things that could be slightly better.

Hopefully you've been able to infer that Italian school has none of the things I ranted about in the list above.

School isn't something that should be hellacious, even though I agree with the fact that most of the stuff that goes on we will never use, it's almost as if to teach you the guidelines of life. Maybe it's unfair how you can go from asking to go to the bathroom to making life decisions in just a month, but that is the meaning of a whole new post.

So, to those that are like what I described above, do me and the rest of the world a favor, and please, just......stop.

PS (slightly related but not completely), watch this.

io sono confusa: an autobiography

Ciao carusi! (sicilian this time)

It's the time I really hope you remembered from the last post...the aftermath blog entry from a long time ago because I was even lazier (or busier I will let you figure that out for yourself) than expected. Get ready and hold on to your pants, because y'all gonna get real confused, real fast.

MONDAY (FUNDAY):

Monday was the day when it all started. From the previous week (to be honest I just typed "settimana" but then had to erase it. freakin' bilingual brain right now) I knew something was to be expected of that day. So, when I got to school I asked basically everyone in my class what was going to happen that day. Most of the people said something called autogestione, basically a day where kids lead group conversations about what is going on in the school system and whatnot. But, that awesome kid Damiano that I have mentioned previously told me something else. That day, we were going to occupy the school during the last hour.

OCCUPY THE SCHOOL WHAT YOU SAY??!!?!1?!

The occupation or "l'occupazione" has been rolling its way through Sicily for about a month now. It's when the students take over the school and we don't have lessons, we don't have teachers, we don't study. Some kids choose to sleep at the school, practically live at the school for the span of the occupation. I couldn't, because they were against both the rules of my parents and AFS. So, that day around 12, we had "assemblea", which is when we all go out into the courtyard and normally the school representatives stand at the top of a ramp with a bullhorn and tell us what is going on. But this time, they went up in the forbidden part of the school; the bloody roof. After 20 minutes of a basic pep talk from the representatives, they finally announced that BOGGIO LERA E' OCCUPATO *insert crowd wail here*. And let the 85th day in

a row Kara is confused begin!


TUESDAY: Il primo giorno dell'occupazione.

Tuesday I woke up really excited because I didn't know what to expect AT ALL from this day of occupation. I skipped my merry way down the 30 minute walk I take every day to school and when I got there I met up with all of my friends across the street from the school. The doors, which are normally open at 8, which I'm always on time for. But since the school was occupied, the kids changed it. The doors were being held shut by to kids, so you couldn't enter. There was a crowd of kids around them, waiting to get in. The only way you could get in, though, was if you had your absence sheet your parents signed to justify your absence, which was proof that you were a student of my school. Me, of course, completely unprepared for everything in life, didn't have my absence sheet. But I did have my wallet, which had my international student ID card, and I'm fairly well known in this school so it was pretty easy for me to say "sono americana' in an overexaggerated accent and easily get in.

When I walked into the school, I had to sign my name and my class (they had to keep track of everyone in the building I guess), and that was why it was taking so long for them to allow people in. Up the stairs (and more stairs) was where everyone was. My school is an ex-monastery, so it has about 5 different wings around one big courtyard. One wing was where the kids who slept at the school slept, I'm guessing, because we weren't allowed into it. Another section we weren't allowed into was the main hall where the headmaster and all the teachers were, which were barricaded by vending machines and desks. I really have to give props to my classmates on this one, it was more organized than regular school.

During this occupation, you could do various things: we had "study groups" which could either be legitimate study groups where you would discuss/do/study school work, or you had the ones that I was a part of that was more of a joke. I joined some of my friends in a "music forum", where they had 3 guitars, a bongo, a keyboard that could make all sorts of awesome noises, and a bullhorn.

Damiano and the Dubstep Keyboard: coming soon to occupied schools near you

The room shown above was actually packed to the brim, and one of the leaders of the occupation got annoyed with us and actually moved us to the gym. So we got even bigger. In the gym, I know we went through a few Green Day songs and Guns n' Roses songs (very, very popular here), and also a Sicilian spoof of "What Makes You Beautiful" called "u paninu co wurstel" (It: "un panino con wurstel" Eng: "a sandwich with hot dog"). My Sicilian is still pretty limited mbare, so I am unable to tell you what they were saying. 

And alas, we finished the day watching a movie "The Kids Are All Right" but in Italian, and had a small assemblea. Assembleas this whole week were just organized so the two groups of politics in the school could yell at each other. This assembly was to decide whether we wanted to do something called co-gestione, when we would occupy with the teachers. And that, is the end to day 1 of the occupation.

WEDNESDAY: Il secondo giorno dell'occupazione.

Wednesday when I got into school, I couldn't find any of my friends, except Federica and Damiano. Federica talked me into leading an English study group, and after a long search for chalk, it was a thing. But in this group, only 5 people showed up for the actual English group, so we formed a little circle and for an hour we spoke in English, for an hour and a half we spoke in Italian because my Italian is still pretty terrible and if I speak it for long periods of time I find it gets easier and better. After that, we went back to the main outdoor part and had, yet again, another assemblea. Assembleas that week were every day, getting angrier and angrier. I'm pretty sure that Wednesday was the day when a girl sounded so angry I thought she was going to break her esophagus screaming. Lovely. Wednesday, everyone left even more confused and a little angrier than before. And that, was the end of the second and what would be the last day of l'occupazione.

THURSDAY: co-gestione.

After a long wait and a very long period of arguing, we were finally going to do the co-gestione. Co-gestione is like the occupation but with teachers involved, just leading the study groups. The first day, my friends could not make up their minds of where they wanted to go, so I got slightly annoyed and basically entered the closest room to me, which was about....feminism. I am female but I really do not like the concept of feminism, so I just sat there and kind of zoned for 2 hours. After I escaped to Cristina, Sonia, and Marta in another group that ended up talking about how terrible Facebook is for our generation, which was led by 4 guys and was highly entertaining when they brought in the concept of selfies. At the end of the day was (you guessed it) ASSEMBLEA! This assemblea lasted for 30 minutes past normal school time, and would have been longer if one of the guys didn't try to end it 5 different times. I was completely taken aback by how angry people were getting over something that was so....stupid, I guess for lack of better terms. 

FRIDAY AND SATURDAY: the aftermath.

To put a nice, sweet close to this long blog post, the last two days were just of more co-gestione in study groups with the professors. I was asked to talk about volunteering in Italian in one of them, and how volunteering is in the States (I work voluntarily at a thrift shop thank goodness, I had material to work with there). But at the end of the week, school resumed as normal. And that is the end of the week of l'occupazione.

CATCH UP ON KARA'S LIFE.

Since I'm a lazy and otherwise busy blogger, a lot has gone on again. Like:

1. The biggest event being that I got another brother. My second host brother arrived back home from a trimester program in Belgium on the 5th of December. We already get along really well, and I'm so happy to have another exchange student to hang out with, literally every day! 
2. La Festa della Luce has started, which is a Christmas festival my school has every year. Every class decorates a room for a 4 night event that has no artificial light, only illuminated by candles. I actually get to participate in 2, because the Intercultura chapter of Catania is also doing a room!
3.  I finished the Italian lessons I had to do for Intercultura. 
4. We finally put up a Christmas tree!!1!!1!11!

Well, that's all for now. Sorry for the lateness but this took a long time to write. Ci vediamo, ragazzi!

my belated, turkey-less, thanksgiving post

Happy it's-now-acceptable-to-talk-about-Christmas Day!  A.K.A. the day after the day after Thanksgiving. Another part of being an exchange student is that you're wonked up for months after even though you're used to the time zones, languages, family, etc. To me, I feel like I've been stuck in September for 3 months when in reality I should have been excited for Christmas and switching all of my music on my phone to Bing Crosby and Straight No Chaser 2 weeks ago. DOESN'T MEAN I AIN'T LISTENING TO IT NOW THO. (I had a little dradel, I made it out of clay! and when it's dry and ready, the dradel I shall play! DRA-)

But since yesterday was Thanksgiving and I need a token American status telling about all of the things that I'm thankful for.

1. My support group in the States. I don't really know what returning will be like. I really hope you haven't totally forgotten me which is actually pretty scary for me, but for those of you that have bothered to stay in contact with me, thank you. I miss American humor the most out of all the things, besides my capital foods that I have been going through withdraw of (I DON'T KNOW IF I CAN DO THIS WITHOUT TURKEY HILL THING MUCH LONGER)
2. My AFS friends. Roosa, Anthony, Jude, Lauren, Thorunn, Ari, Luis, Mook, Mariano, Lucy, Hiroshi, Andrea, Marie, Linde, Michelle, Leticia, Isabela, Iris, Veronique, Moeko, Ko, Carlos, I will always love you all to the ends of the earth and back. I will forever skype you, send you post cards, hug you unconditionally, and be awkward with you. I love you all more than life itself.
3. AFS Intercultural: This organization changed my life from a very, very mediocre Disney story of a small town girl with big dreams to an actual classic Disney movie, which is what dreams are made of (has that joke been overused yet or what? hardy hur hur hur). In the words of a girl from my town in the States who's currently studying with AFS in Germany, thank you for giving me the opportunity to "make my dreams my bitch" here. 
4. Jenny and Mike Messner:  the couple that so generously gave me the scholarship for my rear end to sail (fly over) the seven seas (the atlantic ocean), and made really everything on this list a reality. I will never be able to thank them enough for this experience, and I honestly will never, ever, trade this experience for the world. I've gained so much here (but not weight lolz) and I know I will use it for the rest of my life. You've changed me, you've changed my view of life, you've changed my education, you've changed my experiences, you've changed my life. Grazie mille, gracias, merci, danke, thank you.
5. My whole student body at school. Special thanks to:
• Gaia: my previous host sister. She really got me introduced into the "real" Italian teenager lifestyle that in all honesty I don't know if or when I would have discovered without her. I also got out of my "just classmates" bubble of friends and now am pretty well known over the school.
• Trinacria Studentesca: one of the major political groups that allowed me to sit in a ton of their meetings and just listen to them yell at each other.
• Marco, Claudia, Mateo, Simone, Federica, Alessandro, Elenora, and all you guys: Thank you for being my lifelines, my English speakers, my acceptance when there was no one else, and my friends. I know I'm really dependent on you guys but I really would be no where without you all. You're my favorite people on this planet. 
6. My classmates, who I haven't really said much about in detail yet. 
• Chiara: Chiara or "Pugli" as some of us call her was my first friend in my Italian classroom. In order to switch families the first time here, I used her phone to contact my liaison the third day of school after almost having an emotional breakdown in math class. To this day, she is still translating physical education for me because the teacher thinks I still speak absolutely no Italian, and just being the awesome person she is.
• Damiano: Ugh this kid is so awesome it's disgusting. He's class representative and one of those hipsters that isn't really a hipster, but really, he definitely is. He has the best English out of everyone in the class but of course he doesn't think that, and he's helped me out ever since day one. Now, with everything crazy that is going on in the Italian school system (that will be an upcoming blog post within the next week or later if I'm super lazy) he has been the most explainatory and has helped me maneuver around all of the crap that has been flying around my school. 
  
• Lucia, Cristina, Sonia, and Marta: The four most unique girls in my class that I have had the honor of being taken under their wing(s). Lucia and I are already close enough that we will play hang man and iSpy during class and almost beat each other up when the other wins. Cristina, Sonia, and Marta all normally sit relatively close to each other so they can whisper condescending things. Last Saturday I went out with Sonia and Cristina and had a ton of fun, when we spoke 95% in Italian and loitered around the Italian version of Barnes and Nobles for an hour and a half. We enjoy coffee runs in the middle of class, sneaking potato chips while the teacher isn't looking, fangirling really hard over the Hunger Games, and sopraccigli. Inside joke. None of them wanted to get their picture taken, and the ones I took of them without them looking were immediately confiscated upon finding.
• Hilary, Laura, Irene, and Giulia: spontaneously sassy and adorable. These girls are of the highest fashion and are always willing to give me hugs and make me feel really dang good about myself. I feel like their child because they're always telling me how cute I am when I make mistakes while speaking Italian. CHE CARINA!
• Naomi and Paola: Naomi and Paola are the two sweetest, tiniest girls you will ever meet in my school. Both are die-hard One Direction fans, and will make conversation with about anything. Naomi taught me most of my animals and objects during French classes when I was a distraction. Paola and I speak in English, because her English isn't as great as she'd like it to be (or as my English teacher would want it). 

Naomi and I! Apologies for the fact it's sideways and off centered.

Stay tuned for this upcoming week. I'm pretty sure it will be....interesting. No spoilers yet, though. Just wish me luck! (;

Ci vediamo!

truth is...

Before coming to Italy, everyone I ever knew told me "what I should expect" in Italy. In all honesty, I ignored all of you. Unless you've actually been to Italy, then I listened. I heard things, but not limited to:
:

• what if your host family is part of the Mob/Mafia?
• you better like wearing high heels!
• oh the coffee over there is so strong!
• did you know (insert part of Italy) and (insert other part of Italy) hate each other?
• the pasta over there is fantastic!!1!11!
• oh everyone there is beautiful, especially the boys. You're so lucky!

I'm not a believer, nor have I ever been a believer in stereotypes and generalizations of populations or countries. Only are they okay when next to nothing or in fact nothing is known about a population (in my opinion). I face a lot of generalizations/stereotypes every day that I live here that people have on Americans; that we're fat, we're contradicting, we're conceited, we're hillbillies/cowboys/celebrities, we go out every weekend, we throw parties, cheerleaders are mean, jocks are stupid, drama club is like Glee... Really. I've been on the receiving end of all of this crap. Nothing is really to blame here, as most of what the kids are watching here are American shows that are badly dubbed over in Italian, and they really do think of high school in the States as High School Musical or our night life as Jersey Shore. So this is me trying to help everyone get a better understanding of Italian generalizations/stereotypes that I know exist.

• Pasta. Let me clear something up here. There is a difference between American "Italian" food and Italian food. Go to your nearest Olive Garden and the first things on your menu are spaghetti and meatballs, fettuccine alfredo, ravioli, lasagne, and chicken parmesean. Some of these don't even exist here. I haven't had alfredo or even seen the dang word here. Spaghetti and meatballs is just about as American as macaroni and cheese; Italians would laugh until they cried if they saw it. Or maybe just cry. Chicken/eggplant parmesean is not a pasta, it is a dish almost like lasagna without pasta. Plus they only do the eggplant here.

          Going off on this carbohydrate-loaded rant, the Italian you know is about as much Italian as Cheese Wiz is cheese. Let's go with the stereotypical chain restaurant in the States. You know that wonderful, life-changing moment when the waiter at the restaurant brings you out a hunk of bread sliced into 10 pieces, pours olive oil on a plate and cracks some pepper onto it? OH, HOW ITALIAN. We do different variations of that here, but never would you ever see someone pour so much oil on a plate then sprinkle a little mediocre pixie dust on it. What we do is called "fare la scarpetta" or "do the little shoe". It doesn't make any sense, but this is the initiation of being Italian. To do the little shoe, after you finish your dinner, you use the hunk of bread (which is always sitting beside your plate, ALWAYS) and tear it into pieces to mop up whatever is left. You don't add squat. On very rare occasions, they will add a very small amount of oil if they want to eat a lot of bread, but never a plateful. 

• Coffee. Okay, coffee doesn't exist here like it does in the States. Every morning, we use a little tiny metal pot thing on the stove that looks something like this:

This is where the magic happens. You stick this sucker on the stove with water in the skirt-ish looking thing at the very bottom and espresso in the waist-ish part of the thing (if you compare the device to a woman). After about 5 minutes, you got espresso. Not EXpresso. Espresso. 

Whatever you do with this after is up to you. My family mixes it with milk in a very magical machine that makes it very foamy and delicious, then we drink it with biscotti for breakfast. 

Side note: if you seriously want your "venti" cup of mocha frappucino pumpkin spice eggnog carmel-uccino, you're immediately notified as a foreigner and will kindly exit to the left. But really, it's here, but you don't order it.

• feuds between areas of Italy Okay, they exist but it's over freaking soccer. 
• attractiveness This one made me LOL forever when I first got here. Italians are known internationally for their amazing looks and sense of fashion. My expectations, I admit, were high. When I got here and took a look at the people of my school....basically, guys aren't all supermodels. There are some strange haircuts here that you American girls would vomit when you saw it. There are some attractive guys but our version of attractive is completely different from their version of attractive. Girls are very beautiful, but there is a lot of time spent and money spent to look the way they do. Clothing is a priority here, I'm pretty sure it ranks over food for some of them. It's more of an annoyance to me because I'm not spending 50 Euro on a shirt that's ugly and I wouldn't want to wear anyways, and that's why I've only bought 1 article of clothing here in over 2 months. That's right. 
• Mafia/Mob This one is still partially unknown to me. It depends on who you ask about it. If you ask any adult, they will say it's a thing of the past. If you ask a teenager, chances are they will go into an hour-long spiel of how the Mafia runs everything in Sicily and has higher rankings than the police. I don't want to say anything I'm not certain about, so I will just say this: I have not seen, been a part of, met, encountered, or heard of anything related to the Mafia since I've been here. The Godfather and Scarface are nonexistent. 

A LESSON ON SICILIAN HAND GESTURES

Hands are a total language of their own. Sometimes, it is difficult to differentiate between sign language and just being Sicilian. 

-if you see someone with the "pinch" hands, the typical Italian gesture we all know: they are explaining you something.

-if someone has their hands together flat in a full out prayer position, shaking them back and forth (possibly accompanied by "mamma mia"): they are not happy with you, and they're not really afraid of it.

- using two fingers and swirling them in a circle in the same way that you would turn the handle of a jack-in-the-box: they want to do something after.

-sliding the backside of their hand underneath their chin towards the person they are speaking to: they don't care. (this is not rude, just like an "it doesn't matter to me" type thing.)

-both hands at waist level, palms up, sliding them back and forth: they are into the conversation and want you to know their side of it. 

Side note: I do all of these.

STUFF YOU DON'T KNOW ABOUT ITALY

1. No one wears shorts here. It was a good 90 degrees for a while in October and still, everyone wore jeans. I only wear shorts when I'm not going to school, and doing something that could be considered touristy so I have more of a justification.
2. Music here has a very heavy Spanish influence. 
3. Never, ever, EVER let a knife touch/cut your pasta. You will start a revolt.
4.  Continued, don't eat fruit with skin or without slicing it.
5. About 1-4 o'clock every day, a lot of the shops close down. This is because lunch is the biggest meal of the day, taking a while to eat, and some sleep for an hour or two in a recovery coma. (This is more of a Sicilian thing).
6. Most shows on television are just dubbed over English shows, not Italian. Take Disney Channel for example, though. I know there's a show from Mexico that all of the girls love called "Violetta". I'm pretty sure there's one from a middle eastern country as well, and one from Korea. 
7. Seatbelts are more of a thing that you only use when you're yelled at to put it on... there have been more times than I can count that I tried to buckle and the buckle didn't exist. 
8. Pedestrians do not have the right of way when it comes to traveling. The food chain goes about scooters-bicycles-cars-stray dogs-pedestrians. It's ridiculous and it makes me so frustrated but it's just how it is. Scooters drive on the sidewalk and do not give a crap if you are there as well, you'll just have to move. 
9. Poverty is a real thing here, so often you will see the poor selling things like lighters, tissue packs, umbrellas, sunglasses, or hats on the street. In some cases (in the city especially), there will be 2 or 3 men with Coke bottles filled with soap and water with a big long squeegie waiting at stop lights, and they will start cleaning your windshield when you are at a red light. 
10. Public bathrooms do not provide toilet paper. (unless you get lucky, normally in places like airports and some restaurants have it. But in my school, toilet paper, even hand towels are not to be found). So ladies, if you're coming to Italy, stock up on the tissue packs.
11. Dogs are allowed inside of stores. Also, owners do not "pick up" after their dogs while walking them, leaving a really disgusting sidewalk. 
12. Sodas in the US that you think would exist here, such as Mountain Dew, root beer, or Dr. Pepper, do not. This is because in Europe, artificial coloring to food products is banned. Coca Cola, Pepsi, and Fanta are here, but instead of Fanta being neon orange like in the States, it's more of a dim yellowish color. It still tastes the same, it's just...better for you. My mom, brother and I were talking about this today at lunch.

It's hard to come up with these things because they are all normal for me now. I had to force myself into thinking into a previous mindset to come up with them. 

annnnnnd that's a wrap for this meaningless blog entry! Ci vediamo, ragazzi!

Una Gita a Siracusa

Holy lame title, Batman!

Ieri, noi siamo andati alla Siracusa, una citta nel Sicilia con Intercultura. Ho svegliato alle sette, ho fatto una doccia, e alle nove, ero alle stazione dell'autobus a prendere l'autobus con l'altri ragazzi di Catania e Giarre. Siracusa ha le grotte, una isola, e molti cosi bellissimi. Noi abbiamo fatto un giro tra le grotte e dopo, noi siamo andati all'isola. L'isola di Siracusa (non ricordo il nome, mi dispiace) e due chilometri nella grandezza, ed e bellissima. Ieri, il cielo era molto blu e non era troppo caldo. Ero molto felice con i miei amici di Intercultura. Sono la piu felice quando io sono con loro.

^^^I wrote that a while ago. Since, I've procrastinated writing this stupid thing for about a week. Here's the translation.

Yesterday, we went to Siracusa, a city of Sicily with Intercultura (AFS). I woke up at 7, took a shower, and at nine, I was at the bus station to take the bus with the other guys from Catania and Giarre. Siracusa has caves, an island, and many beautiful things. We took a tour of the caves and after, we went to the island. The island of Siracusa (I don't remember the name, I'm sorry) is two kilometers in size and is beautiful. Yesterday, the sky was very blue and it wasn't very cold. I was very happy with my friends from AFS. I am the most happy when I am with them.

It's now the end of the week. This "gita", italian for small vacation/trip, was on Sunday. Sorry for the delay of my professional procrastination.

Anyways, we went to Siracusa which is about an hour and a half away by bus. I always get psyched for these trips with the other kids from other chapters, because I have a lot of other friends not in Catania that I don't get to see very often. So at 9, I bought the wrong ticket and we went on our way (I bought a one way instead of two way, because I'm Kara freaking Richards). On the bus, I sat with my Scandinavian babe Roosa (from Finland). I can't remember much of what happened on the bus, except AFS always takes up the entire back of the bus (we believe we should just have it reserved for the loud exchange students that hold singalongs and scream at eachother in their native tongues) and it was hot as hell.

When we got to Siracusa, we met up with the Siracusa chapter, most of which was on this "gita". Siracusa has so many awesome kids that if I wasn't in Catania, I'd want to be there. Leticia from Brazil who is a fellow fangirl, Michelle (singer of that kangaroo song) from Australia, Ari the whale slaughtering football player from the Danish Faroe Islands, Luis from the Dominican Republic who I became besties with, and one of my literal best friends from Guatemala, Lucy. She's probably under 5 feet tall but she's the most energetic little monkey I've ever met.

lil crap Lucy.

So off we went to these cave things. I know I'm using all of the correct scientifical terms to these rock things with the trees and such, so here's some pictures to show you my edumacational skillz.

we were literally forced by our tour guide to do this pose. I am hiding in the background.

#modelstatus

Inside the cave, it was dark and damp and we all didn't know what the heck we were doing. Our tour guide, a 50-something woman who spoke awkward broken english started to sing to prove that the cave had an "echo". My video? On my camera.

Outside of the cave, we were lead to a Greek ampitheatre. A little knowledge about ampitheatres that everyone in Italy knows but I didn't know until I came here:

When the Greeks were building their ampitheatres, they built them into a mountain, so there was no wall. Only seats etched into a mountain. The seats in Siracusa are made of limestone, while the seats in the one in Taormina are made out of lavastone (it just depends on where they are located). Both of these ampitheatres are located in front of water, because the water helps the sound spread from the stage/orchestra up the side of the mountain, because Julius Caesar didn't use no microphones.

check out dat storm doe.

Luckily, it didn't start raining. Our tour guide gave us 10 minutes to "take pictures" (screw around) on the top of the theater. My select hoodrats for the day, Roosa, Lucy, Nano (Argentina), and Hiroshi (from Japan) all went together and explored. Someone (I'm pretty sure Nano) has a video where we remade the famous scene from Titanic on the opposing side of the ampitheatre, as shown in the picture above. I'm flying, Hiroshi! I'm flying!

After our tour ceased, we took a long freaking walk (it was a giant haul) to the island of Siracusa. This island was basically the epitome of stereotypical Italy. Narrow streets, clothes hanging from balconies, loads of old vespas, plazas full of catholic church, Gothic style everything, it was probably the prettiest thing I've seen here. 

 The hoodratz: front (row) and center!

 I win at life for this picture. Successful "High School Musical" shot with Ari (Danish Faroe Islands), a girl from Germany (can't spell her name), Lucy and I.

My new favorite picture. 

One thing I love about my Scandinavian babe is she is probably the best photographer/editor I know. She did stuff like this:

this

this

and this thing

it's disgusting how awesome she is.

She also has a Finnish blog, but google translate doesn't do it justice. So if you wanna read some jibberish/Finnish/badly translated English, go to Roosa's blog here.

But anyways, she did this thing.

Freakin' Roosa, man.

We ate lunch where you see the umbrellas beside me above, at a "buffet" (more like a bar of lukewarm hors d'oeuvres). Roosa, Nano, Lucy and I all sat at the same table of course. Nano experienced the horrific world that is iced tea and after did a two handed cup song (don't even begin to ask me how), and Roosa and I started a war of ugly pictures we could take of each other. We got scarily good at it. Note to self: don't ask Spaniards if Dora the Explorer exists in their country. It does, and you're an idiot.

We had extra time before we left, so we were allowed to roam freely in Siracusa for 30 minutes. This is where bubbles came into play, and we also talked about buying a large house right on the pier just for AFSers, then realized how terrible that idea was and how we'd easily burn the freaking thing down within 3 hours of owning it. When we were walking back, we also stopped on the pier where we took a lot of pictures and played the "lets pretend to push everyone in but grab them last minute" only 754257895 times. We're all honestly terrible people.

So we got on the bus returning home, I fell asleep with Lucy in the very back of the bus, next to Hiroshi. Lucy had to take a different bus from the Catania airport, so we said goodbye to each other before she even got off of the bus. It was the epitome of sadness, because I honestly don't know if I will see her again, but yet again, you never know.

And just like every other time, this is why I love being an exchange student.

The Unironic YOLO

This is my second post containing the word "YOLO" in it's title, and for that, I'm really freaking sorry. But then again, I'm not, because YOLO really isn't a terrible way of living. In fact, I've hit YOLO mode for the past 2 months and I am planning on staying there for the next 8. So, before anyone that I'm friends with in the States says anything smart about me being okay with YOLO, here's what's going through my mind.

I live with a lot of regrets. I'm gonna guess we all do. Some of these regrets just eat me away inside until I have a cringe attack and can't function in reality because I'm too caught up on the past. Why didn't I tell them how I felt? Why didn't I wait? I bet ______ would be better than here. Why did I wear that? I looked like an idiot! Why did I say that...? Did I seriously think that was funny? Oh my god, what the hell is wrong with me. ohgodohgodohgodohgodohgod

That's what the inside of my brain is like, until I told it to shut up about a week ago. After getting home from camp, I started to think about how the next time I would most likely see all of them together would be after I spoke Italian like an Italian. After I could be in school for 6 days a week and not be staring at a wall 75% of the time. After nearly 6 months of being away, I'd see them again. Then, soon enough, I'd return to my quiet and unexciting Pennsylvanian life.

The scary thing is that I have no idea whatsoever what to do with my life after I return. The thing with me being Kara Richards is I always want more, to achieve bigger and better things. Right now, I'm on the top of the world. How am I going to ever accomplish more than this? I was 15 when I left the country for 10 months, and I will return at 16 with no driver's license, 2 more years of high school to finish, and the ability to speak a foreign language that no one in my area can comprehend. Yeah yeah yeah I'm already planning on becoming an AFS volunteer, no doubt about it. AFS is family, AFS is love, AFS made my life what it is today. So it is never not going to be a part of my life. But what am I going to do to achieve more than this?

SO, YOLO. I have come to the decision (more like realization) that I don't know where the hell my life is going after I set foot back on the turf of Honey Boo Boo and Nascar. Here, I'm going to live for every flipping second I have to be independent, and be who I want to be, because people still don't know me yet. I get to create my own image of myself; be born again into this new society of people who think I'm the foreigner when their whole existence is what's foreign to me. And I have only eight more months to take it all in and live in a style I couldn't live anywhere else. I'm kind of already mad at myself for not living in complete YOLO mode for the past 50-ish days. I'm trying to live with no regrets, as I should have done anyway in the States but it's so much more important now. I do like YOLO unironically, because I am living one life and I'm not going to spend it with cringe attacks of my past and being in a box of conservation.

Haha. What is my life.

Ci vediamo.

This one time at AFS camp...

Ciao ragazzi!

Non ho scritto tra undici giorni. Mi dispiace! Sto occupato! Ma, questo e' cosa ho fatto durante quelli undici giorni del silenzio.

I lied. This is all about the freaking AFS camp, because my mind has been wiped of the prior few days before camp.

A week ago on Saturday, I missed school to catch a bus to Palermo, which is in north Sicily. In Palermo that weekend was all of Intercultura-Sicily's post-arrival orientation. 75 kids were going to attend at the one hotel for about 3 days, 3 nights. I was pumped. The Catania chapter (7 of us) arrived the latest (I was the last, thank you very much), and we rode the bus with the four from Siracusa and 3 from Giarre, I believe. There may have been more but I can't remember the names of the chapters.

(left to right, countries) Finland, Belgium, Guatemala, Thailand, Argentina. Love them to death. 

Our chapter! (back: Serbia, USA, Paraguay, Thailand, Hong Kong; front: Greenland, Finland)

The bus ride consisted of a lot of reuniting with our friends from camp (and some from host countries), and basically catching up and getting to know everyone a little more. Fun fact: the Macarena has actual words to it, and I think every Spanish-speaker knows them. EEEEEH MACARENA! AYE!

Before arriving at the hotel, we met up with most of the other Sicilian chapters in the autobus station, where I saw my American hoodrats for the first time in almost two months. There are six Americans in Sicily, including me. It wasn't that exciting at first until we sat down and kept talking and talking and it just got louder and more obnoxious and the American-ness we had kept inside for the past 2 months freaking erupted. 

The camp was located at a hotel/resort outside of Palermo, called Saracen Village. The view of the sea was gorgeous, and it was a good place to house 75 teenagers and 15 adults trying to keep them all from doing stupid things. The first day was basically just going over the rules and the schedules, mixed with a crap load of energizers that we participated pretty happily in. Most of them came from other countries, I remember Germany, Mexico, Turkey, and China. And like all the games we play in AFS, they got physical.

The next day, it started with breakfast that I ate with Anthony (a boy from Illinois) and a group of kids from Latin America. They came and went as we were eating, but I remember at one point there were the boy and girl from Mexico, a boy from Argentina, and a boy from Bolivia that we were talking to. This made me realize very quickly I've forgotten practically all of my Spanish. Oh dios mio.

Since the next day was scattered with interviews and a lot of free time, it was spent hanging out with all of the 74 other AFSers trapped in the hotel. Everything kind of blurs together after a while, so the details are probably out of order, but I believe I ate snack with a table of Americans (north and south), listening to the weirdest rap music we all had on our phones, and then we went outside to some gardens above the beach to hang out. 

Shoutout to Maeve for taking all of the pictures I stole above. 

A little later, a slew of us all went to the beach as shown above. More like sprinted to the beach, stripping off our clothing as we ran, but we made it there, and hung out there for about a half hour until we had to go eat dinner. Because I'm Kara and I'm an idiot, I have accidentally deleted the photo album I took of pictures there on my phone, but I have stolen one from Facebook (live every other picture in this blog post).

This picture is a palindrome.USA-Guatemala-Argentina-Guatemala-USA. 

 It was glorious.

After dinner, we were grouped together (I think they put us in 2 big groups) to play a game. We were blindfolded and put in a CONGA LINE OF DEATH. Well, not really but it's what it seemed like. We couldn't speak, and we were lead around outside in the dark with obstacles. I'm not quite sure where we went, but I know I had to go under a lot of weird things, I had water thrown on me, I think I may have cried into the shoulder of the girl from New Zealand that was in front of me, and my shoe came untied. SKILL. And that exercise was to teach us trust. So kids, trust no one.

The next day, we started out with presentations of our home countries, and we had to put post-it notes on each other's countries and what we thought of them when we saw them. America's were very typical, New York City, Obama, cowboys, Hollywood, etc. It was really interesting to hear what all the cultures had to say, and what they thought of the things that we knew to be weird but they considered normal. Really, everyone should have been there to hear it.

The day was filled with more interviews, and even more free time for me, so it was spent yet again, with the Americans. I played Candy Crush for the first time and taught some people the Cup Song (and got some very frustrated videos of it). So exciting, I know, but even the smallest things in life are the things you remember forever. 

That night, after dinner, we had the "talent show". My expectations for this were pretty low, I'm gonna admit, because no one really wanted to do it and we had no freaking clue as to what to do. In reality, it was basically an inappropriate dance party with all of the coolest people on the planet. In case you're wondering what I did, I teamed up with Anthony. He played "the cup" and I sang "What Dreams Are Made Of" from the Lizzie McGuire Movie. 

Other acts included 3 girls from Brazil doing the Samba, a Thai ritual dance, a Latin American dance that was so amazing that I secretly wanted to become Latin American after watching it, an Australian girl singing a song about kangaroos while wearing a kangaroo mask, Ozlem from Turkey turning on "Shots" by LMFAO and us just dancing, Japanese character painting, and Chinese singing. 

Annnnd this is the only picture I have on my computer from the show. My camera cord? Who the hell knows its location. 

Afterwards, I waited in the hallway for my roommate from Thailand to come upstairs, and the other 7 girls from Thailand to change in my room. We took pictures with a polaroid camera, and one of them really likes my fat stomach, she kept on touching it. 'Twas quite adorable. My roommates and I stayed up until about 3 in the morning, exchanging currency and writing in our own languages, talking about our Intercultural experiences. How many people can say this is how they spent their weekend? Only exchange students.

The final day was the day we had to leave, really bittersweet. The most bittersweet thing I think that has ever happened to me. I said goodbye to people I knew that there was a 99% chance I was never going to see again, and said goodbye to some of my best friends and favorite people on the planet that I wouldn't see until June. That's the only thing I hate about camp. It brings you all together just to tear you all apart. In reality, it's just like life. 

I'm not joking when I say this, but these are my best friends in the whole entire world. 

The bus ride home, most fell asleep and I tried to, but I always think too much on long trips by car (or in this case, bus). Exchange life is the coolest thing to ever happen to me. I had my friend from Paraguay asleep on my right shoulder, a girl from Belgium on my left asleep on the girl next to her. I had my friend from Argentina with his seat back right in front of me asleep, and we were driving through hills and valleys of desert and vineyards, small towns, old ruins, and olive trees. and then there was myself, awake. Life comes to me at unexpected moments, and reality is still pretty hard to get over most of the time. I tell myself that I made it every day I wake up, and I couldn't be more thankful for the life I am living. So...YOLO, because you really only do live once.