When you're lost and alone, or you're sinking like a stone,
carry on.
May your past be the sound, of your feet upon the ground,
carry on.
Exchange students need a song to hang on to sometimes, and that's probably my song.
Just something I thought of in school, and it does apply so well to exchange. Anyways....
CIAO RAGAZZI.
I really haven't been able to do a full out blog post here, because it's been a bit overwhelming with all the crazy switching of host families and adjustments and trying to understand what the actual heck is going on around with me. But I actually have my life together for a few moments and it's that time. I force myself into talking about my life for your enjoyment!
I don't even know where to start or what to begin with because my life is so chaotic but let's do something simple. Daily schedule? Yup.
Okay. So let's pretend it's Monday. This is my life.
7:00; 7 AM WAKIN' UP IN THE MORNING GOTTA BE FRESH GOTTA GO DOWNSTAIRS. That has never applied more to my life until I lived in Italy. I do wake up at 7 every day, get dressed, do all of my bathroom routine, and then go downstairs.
7:30; I eat breakfast with my host sister, which is normally biscuits (my favorite Italian breakfast food) and milk, sometimes if we have enough time we will make coffee. On occasion, there are breads with apricot jam.
7:50; My host sister and I walk down eight flights of stairs and five blocks to our school.
8:00; I walk up 6 flights of stairs, through a courtyard, more stairs, and then to my classroom. Normally I sit on my desk and wait until something exciting happens but sometimes I will go to the courtyard and buy something to eat or drink for the day. FOOD IS SO CHEAP HERE.
8:15; My first class starts for the day. The teachers move instead of the students, in case you didn't know that already, and when they enter the room, all of us stand up until they sit down or tell us we can sit. Every day, our classes also switch. I still haven't gotten mine memorized, because another thing they do a lot here is change everyone's freaking schedules. It doesn't really matter to us as much as it does the teachers, because it means they have to FIND us.
11:05; Break time. Here is when we all go outside and wrestle our way to the vending machines, take so many pictures of each other it's ridiculous, or copy each other's homework. You can go anywhere, really. Yesterday, it was a girls birthday in my class so she brought in 3 cakes and 3 bottles of soda and we threw a party and took a good 20 minutes out of the following period to eat cake. It's always sketchy to know when class starts again, because it depends on when the teacher can motivate themselves to come teach us. There's always a kid outside looking for the oncoming teacher to tell us to run and sit down. It's hilarious because we literally do run.
There's also a local pasticceria that makes sweet and savory pastries and sells them for a euro every day. They're delicious. Like, better than USA cafeteria food. Take that, Michelle Obama.
13:05; school is over, and we are released out into the streets. My school is on one of the busiest streets and we will stand in the middle of it, COMPLETELY backing up traffic. Then, we start playing Frogger with humans as we dodge rogue vespas, cars, buses, and bicyclists.
13:15; My host sister walk back up 8 flights of stairs, complaining about how hungry we are. Get upstairs, and throw something for lunch together. It can vary from warming up something we bought from a restaurant (eggplant parm, lasagna), to eating balls of mozzerella di bufala (better than regular mozzerella) and salami.
the rest of the afternoon: In Sicily, sometimes we take naps, which I am a strong believer in. But if we don't want to sleep, we study (those who actually have school work), we go sit on the steps of a 600 year old church and hang out with friends, or we read/use the computer/write. I do all 4 of these things on different days.
20:00-22:00; We have dinner. Dinners are smaller than in America, mostly vegetables, soups, small things like that. At least in my current host families. In past families we ate more. But really, in typical Italian families, dinner is smaller than lunch.
as soon as I finish dinner: I go to bed.
Now that school is finally starting to be comprehendable and I can understand about half or more of what people say, I feel like I'm not an American living in Italy but a socially/language retarded Italian teenager. LEVEL UP!
Ci vendiamo!
Kara This is so funny! My class does the same thing! It confused me so much on the first day, I got ran over! This is almost my schedule its kinda creepy! Except I go up 5 flights of stairs!!!
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