Emily Out Of Water: My Normal Life (or my not so Normal Life)

Sorry I haven't posted in ages, everything's been so busy and then when I'm free I'm tired and too lazy to write, plus it's so hard to know what to write now that everything seems so normal. Heaps has happened this month and my Italian is (I hope) improving heaps! I can understand pretty much everything said in my host family, and normally answer anything I'm asked but it can be hard at school, or with people who don't know I'm a foreigner haha. Piano, piano.

I can't believe I've been here for over 2 months now! The time has honestly gone so fast and I know the whole year will too, it's scary. There's so many things I'm excited about for after the exchange which is sad in a way, but apparently it's alright to be excited about things in the future while still being excited for now so I hope that's right. It just shows how normal life here is now. I'm not so much excited for every little thing like I was at the start, but every so often it re-hits me that I'm in Italy and I get excited for those things, different things again :)

The highlight of the time since I last posted would have to be the AFS camp we had a couple weeks ago. It
was so much fun and seeing everyone was just amazing!! I got closer with so many people, and made heaps of new friends too. On the last night we had a talent show and I was in a group with Ida, Fran, Ecmel (Turkey), Arlo (USA) and Lara (Belgium). We did a random, cheesy dance to cheesy songs and it was so much fun. I don't feel like I would of even felt comfortable doing something like that, in front of so many people before this experience, so in some ways I think I've changed already which is weird to think. That weekend was one of the best weekends of my life, everyone gets on so well and we were pretty much in fits of laughter for the whole weekend.

Although my closest friends in Italy are other AFS students, I've also been hanging out with Italian kids my age and doing some things that they do... A couple of weeks ago Ida and I went out with some girls from my class to Luna Park which is a fun fair kind of thing. It was so much fun! We had piadina mmmmmm and then went on the bumper cars, a big slide and some mini roller-coaster thing. We also went to a vintage market together with a boy from her class another day. It's nice having Ida here in the same town because we often invite each other to things with Italian people who invite us.

The other night I also went to another friend from school's house and we had dinner and Russian pancakes because she went to Russia last year with Intercultura. With the pancakes we had this amazing Nutella which had butterscotch pieces in omg it was the best thing ever!! On Saturday I went to have pizza and then bowling with a different group of schoolmates from one of my new classes and that was great fun too.

Another highlight has been Arlo's birthday and the Cesena and Ravenna chapters surprised him with dinner at a Japanese restaurant in Ravenna. It was so much fun and because there were no trains or busses afterwards Ida, Fran, Jan and I got to stay at Fran's the night and miss school the next day woopwoop. Instead of school that day we went to a huge shopping mall and finally bought some winter clothes as it's been getting a bit cold lately.

Since I last posted I've also started gymnastics which I really love and I met lots of new people there. It's on twice a week and it's great because I've been eating so much gelato hahaha. Also that reminds me the other day I had a meringue gelato which was like whipped cream ahhhh it was so good!

School has improved SO much! I can't express how boring it was at the beginning, I think I wrote about that in another post but yeah it was just unbearable but I think it was also due to me not understanding a thing. Last week I talked with one of my teachers and we decided I would just study philosophy, anthropology, pedagogy, religion, English, italian and history. I like all of those subjects so I'm so happy! Having less subjects also means that I can actually keep up and try to do as the other students in my class do as my language improves. While my class has subjects like maths, Latin and physics I go into another english class and help the teacher, or an extra class of one of my normal subjects. It's working out really well so far so I hope it continues! The teacher of my extra English classes made her class do presentations on New Zealand and then she makes me correct them with their Maori pronunciation and it's so funny because half the time I have no idea but I give it a random guess and they're all like "...woooooooow". Hahahhaa anyone who actually spoke Maori would be embarrassed by me... I'm sorry.

I also have an updated list of differences, or random, funny things that I've been keeping on my phone:

My English teacher was teaching about do, make and have the other week and she made the whole class practice saying "Can you make me a favour?" The worst part is she's considered the best English teacher in my school...
When a teacher is away we don't have relievers so we don't have a lesson. We still have to be at school but we just sit around and talk until the next lesson. A couple of weeks ago it was a long weekend and the three teachers who were supposed to take my class' last 3 periods had taken the day off to make it an extra long weekend. This meant we had 3 hours in-a-row free but we had to stay at school, it was so strange.
Everyone seems to wear their shoes inside. I've tried to adjust to it but when I come into the house the first thing I do is take my shoes off without even thinking.
Italians (or at least my host family) really like fresh food. My host Mum goes to the supermarket everyday at least once. She buys fresh bread every single day, no matter how much is left over from the day before. Most days she goes before lunch, and then again before dinner buying the ingredients for each meal separately!
Most of the American programs on TV are dubbed with Italian, but the English is kept underneath and it's really strange before it's like having someone whispering throughout the whole show.
Shops close for lunch from around 1-3pm. It sounds like quite a good idea until you realise even most of the cafes are closed so it's difficult to find somewhere to eat lunch if you're out.
There's tabacco shops EVERYWHERE! You can't walk for 5 minutes in a town without spotting a couple. They're like little dairies but their main product is just tabacco and they're called 'Tabacchi'.
In most shops when you have to wait in a line there's a ticket system. When you join the line, or the gathering, you take a ticket and then the person at the desk will call out the numbers and when it's your turn you go up. It's a great idea at places with lots of people but they even have it at the Deli in the supermarket when there's only like 2 people and yet they still bother to call out the number as if there was a hundred...
Art history is really important at school, it seems to be referenced someway in every single subject, every single day.
Here blowing your nose isn't rude at any point, even extremely loudly during a meal is fine... or maybe everyone I've been with is actually just really rude.
At school there's women who walk around in red robes and bring notices to the classes and I think that's all they do. It seems strange to hire all of these women if that's all they do but most of the time they're just talking in the corridor and I can't figure it out hahaha
At lunchtime we have a full meal, like we would have for dinner in NZ, but then we still have another full meal at dinnertime.
The kids that go to primary school where robes to school. They don't have an actual uniform just these long robes they wear on top of their mufti. Apparently it's so they don't get chalk on their clothes during the day. The ones at the school in my town are blue, red and white and all of the children look like little Madelines it's so cute!
The flies here are so crazily tame! They'll just come and sit on you and when you shake to get them to go off they just stay hahaha. All of the houses have fly nets on the windows and most people seem to be so obsessed with making sure they shut them as soon as the door/window is opened and now I can see why.
Most guys have man bags, some of them are so feminine, they just look like any girl's handbag
When married women here keep their maiden name
When the principal comes into the class at school we have to stand for him
EVERYTHING is super Italian! I know that sounds obvious but I just can't believe to be honest. When I went out for Arlo's birthday the other day it was the first time I'd eaten something non-Italian in 2 months. I love Italian food so much, but it's so nice to have a change every once in a while.
MY HOST MUM DIDN'T KNOW WHAT NOODLES WERE :O :O :O Then when my host Nonna came over she tried to explain to her and she said it was like a "Chinese pasta"
Everyone seems to be born in the town they live in. At school we had to sign this thing to agree to something and it had our birth city next to our names. Out of about 25 kids in my class me and one other person were the only ones who weren't born in this city!

Because it's been so long since I last posted I know there's a whole heap of things that I've forgotten to write about, so I'm sorry, but here's some pictures:

After school 2-3 times a week I have Italian lessons with Jan, Ida and Fran. Usually we go get Piadina beforehand which is where this photo was taken :)