February: School, Sickness, Friends and Fun

We went back to school in early January but it doesn't drag like it used to. School is a lot better now because I have more of a clearer idea of what I need to be doing, and I can now communicate a lot better in Italian. My favourite subjects are PE, Human Sciences and Philosophy and they're starting to get super interesting because now that I can follow the classes better I'm actually learning things whereas before it was just "blahblahblahblah".

My life here really is a 'life' now; it definitely doesn't feel like a holiday, everyday life is so very normal. Although I'm still finding out new things about the Italian culture, I know my way around my city and I have friends and things to do. It almost feels like the first half of this exchange was the 'getting set up stage' and now I'm into the 'living it stage', not that I wasn't living it before but I needed a lot more help and at the beginning I felt very much like a young child whereas now I have a lot more freedom.

One strange experience that I had this month was when I got sick. I had a bit of a cold and cough, the average kind - it was there, but it wasn't too bad. My host Mum took me to the doctor and he gave me three different kinds of medication, one of which I had to put into a breathing machine to clear my throat! To me this seemed crazy because normally when I have a cold I drink some hot honey and lemon and deal with it but here I even had to use a machine, that by the way tasted like Rotorua...