Pisa and Florence

Another day trip that I was lucky enough to go on with Ida's host family was to Florence and Pisa. First of all her host Dad told us we would be going to Florence with a possible "sorpresa". Later on we learnt that that "sorpresa" was a stop by in Pisa on the way home! I know this is extremely stereotypical but I'd always dreamt of going to Pisa and taking the typical photo holding up the tower - now I can say that I have!

Florence is such a beautiful city and last time I visited it was love at first sight; this second trip didn't disappoint either! We spent our time roaming the streets and visiting a couple of art galleries including the famous Uffizi Gallery . At school in New Zealand I never studied art history but here in Italy it's one of the subjects I've been studying at school. Art here also seems to be woven into every single subject because it's so important to the Italian culture, because of this I recognised so many of the paintings in the museums from my year at school here in Italy. It made the museum trips have so much more significance to me than they would have done beforehand, because instead of seeing paintings I knew nothing about I'd recognise ones that had come up in class. Inside the Uffizi there were paintings such as Botticelli's La Primavera and The Birth of Venus, which were both amazing to see in real life! We also stumbled across an old photo machine where Laura, Ida and I took some instant black and white snaps which I just know are going to be so special in the future.

The next stop was Pisa! We parked in a supermarket carpark and walked the short distance over to the square where the Leaning Tower is located. When I caught the first glimpse of the tower I felt like I was dreaming. It was similar to the feeling I got the first time I saw the Colosseum in real life back at the beginning of my exchange; overwhelming excitement and in a way, confusion. It was just so strange to think I was there and I kept thinking 'but wait how am I here?!' I'd grown up seeing photos of these places, and seeing them on TV but although I'd dreamt of seeing them in real life one day I think a little part of me still thought it wasn't going to happen but then there I was, standing in front of the Leaning Tower of Pisa posing for the stereotypical tourist photo of the back of my Danish friend who I'd just spent the last year living in Italy with. I definitely had to blink twice.

Other than the tower, cathedral and baptistry in Piazza dei Miracoli (Square of Miracles) there were a number of touristy restaurants and shops on the surrounding streets. Outside of that tourist swarm seemed to be a normal residential area with not much else to see but I'd love to go back one day and explore the littler known parts of the city. I'm sure there's some beautiful places that get lost in the excitement everyone has for the tower!

Venezia

Ida's (Denmark) host family invited Fran (Chile) and I along for a day trip to Venice and of course that was an offer we couldn't decline! Although it wasn't my first time visiting the beautiful city we experienced many different things that I hadn't done before. For example we rode in a gondola and visited the inside of St. Marks Basilica.

Riding in a gondola was truly something that I'll never forget. The previous times that I visited Venice I didn't get the opportunity to ride a gondola because the price was so high, this time however due to the generosity of Ida's host Dad the dream became reality and we went for a ride around Venice; from the smallest of small streets, to the huge open spaces. Our gondolier was so lovely and told us so many interesting things about the city!

End of Stay AFS Camp

AFS camps are one of my favourite parts of exchange student life. We get to meet up and spend days with just exchange students and volunteers (many of whom are returnees themselves) doing activities; talking about our experiences on exchange and our lives in our home countries; making new friends; and deepening our understanding of the Italian culture. As I'm sitting here writing this post so many fond memories spring to mind from our first one back in October '13, to our last now in June '14 - some of my favourite memories will always remain at these camps.

One AFS tradition is to do a talent show at the end of each camp. At this camp my group consisting of Poom (Thailand), Ida (Denmark), Chang (China), Ecmel (Turkey) and Steph (Australia) did a random dance to a mix of Italian songs that were important to us all in some way after this year. That evening there was one of the World Cup soccer games on and we all stayed up to watch it in the bar of our hotel with heaps of local Italians who came by for the game. It's amazing how passionate people are for soccer here! I love the enthusiasm, it's so funny!

Coming to an End

Now that it's coming to the end of my exchange here in Italy it's time for end of year dinners and parties to farewell all of the amazing people I've had the pleasure of knowing this year. This week I had dinners for both my community Italian language class, and my class from school - 3As, as well as a gelato trip with my gymnastics class. We also recently had an AFS Intercultura farewell party where we got together with everyone from Cesena, Forli and Ravenna.

The Italian classes which I've been attending twice a week since soon after arriving here in Italy have helped immensely with my language - especially grammatically - as well as given me so many fond memories. These classes were free and a great chance to meet other immigrants who come from a range of different backgrounds. If you're on exchange in Italy, or have moved there and don't know the language google 'corsi d'italiano per stranieri' in your town and maybe you'll have the same opportunity! For the end of year dinner we went to a piadina house which our teacher, Monica had been telling us about the whole year because they did mini piadina balls filled with nutella which my mouth can't help watering thinking about now. Uhh they were good. There were students from Egypt, Belarus and Serbia to name a few, all countries I'd never met anyone from so as you can imagine it had been an amazing year learning Italian with such a mix of people from different backgrounds. After the dinner Madi and I had to bike home in the dark and we'd eaten so much it was honestly such  a struggle hahaaha

The end of year dinner for my school class was in Cesenatico which is a seaside town near Cesena. They brought us out platters of different bits and bobs like pizza and chips and we all just picked and chose what we wanted. This is something I hadn't done in Italy before, it always seemed more classy and sophisticated the other times I'd eaten out so it was nice to have a relaxed dinner with such a big group. After the dinner the class split up and I went with some of the girls for a walk around Cesenatico and to the beach before my host Mum and Nonna came to pick me up. It was a good way to say goodbye to my class, although I don't have 'fond' memories of school here in Italy my class was always so lovely to me and we've shared some great times together.

The AFS farewell party was definitely the most emotional of them all. The people I'll be saddest to leave at the end of this experience are definitely my exchange friends family that I've met this year. I wouldn't have done half of the amazing things that I've been lucky enough to do without them, and I wouldn't have achieved everything that I have. As part of the party we had to read out letters that we'd written to our host families and thank them for hosting us this year. It was amazing to think that at our welcome party I had trouble saying "mi chiamo Emily, vengo dalla Nuova Zelanda" and now I'm writing and reading a whole letter and explaining my feelings in Italian. Although my language skills are far from perfect I'm happy with the progress I've made this year. Before Italian I'd only ever known English and I had no idea what it would be like knowing another one, and I feel like knowing another language opens up so many doors - not just opportunity wise in the world, but within my own mind; how I perceive and understand even the smallest of things.

Last Day of School

Saturday the 7th of June was my last day of not only just Italian school, but school in general as I finished in New Zealand before coming to Italy. Although I'd been looking forward to this day from the beginning of my experience of Italian high school, it was sad to be saying goodbye as it also signifies that I'm nearing the end of my exchange year.

A couple of days before the actual last day we had a school party which was held at the school in the evening. I couldn't stay for long because I was meeting my host sister and some friends to go for a walk afterwards but for the short time I stayed I really enjoyed myself. It was held in the courtyard between my school (classic and human sciences) and the school next-door (geometry/architectural). They had music playing, food and drinks and in general everyone was just in such a good mood because school was finally coming to an end for the year and summer was beginning! On the last day my class had a shared lunch and we borrowed one of the school's CD players (yup no speakers, internet access or even computers in this classroom!) to play some music, creating a mini class party. It was really nice because throughout the year I never got much chance to just 'hangout' with my class as a whole as they were always so fixed on studying; it's just a pity it had to be the last day!

As my Italian school experience has now come to an end (I honestly feel like I'll never complain about anything ever again haha) I thought I'd share with you some differences, or things that have surprised me throughout my year at an Italian high school. I did this after my first couple of days here and if you want to read that you can do here. I think after attending school here for the whole year I now understand, or have a different opinion on,  some of the differences that hit me right at the beginning. So here goes...

1. The hierarchy within the school here is extremely obvious - Principal, then Teachers, then Students. For example when speaking to teachers students must use the formal way of saying 'you/tu' which is 'lei'. This shows respect to the teachers but the amount of disrespect I've seen from some of the teachers towards students is ridiculous (some teachers didn't even seem to bother learning students' names which you could say is just a cultural thing, but even my classmates told me that they would appreciate being called by their names), I still don't understand how they can expect it.

2. School on Saturdays! My school did a survey to see if students would prefer to do an extra hour of school each day Monday-Friday and then have Saturdays off. This would mean six hours, instead of five which is what we do in New Zealand. When I talked to my classmates about this I was so surprised that most of them would prefer to keep Saturday as a school day because "what about lunch?!" I love how typically Italian that is!

3. There's near to no technology in schools here (or at least in my school). Each class had a blackboard and that was it, all of the students used textbooks and visits to the presentation room (with one very old computer and a projector) were very rare. I'm not saying this is a good or a bad thing, I honestly don't know. There's benefits of learning with technology, and benefits of learning the old fashioned way. I suppose it really depends on the person and what subject you're studying but this still really surprised me at the beginning, especially coming from a school where almost everything bar maths is done on the computer.

4. They were serving alcohol at the school party where the youngest students were about twelve! I know this doesn't really seem like a big thing and it's more of a cultural difference, but thinking back to my school in NZ where even at the school ball there's no way they would have been allowed to serve alcohol it seems extreme.

5. Here the individual teachers make, and mark the tests and verbal exam questions throughout the year. Although it must save the school a lot of time and therefore money, it allows room for so much bias and informality. It also means that your grades depend a lot on which teacher you have for the year, as it depends how tough they are on marking, and what level their questions are at. I've also heard a lot of stories about terrible teachers who no one has the courage to complain about because they can't risk being given bad grades as a result (consciously or subconsciously) which in my opinion puts students in a terrible situation.

6. Here you choose your school and not your subjects. In my opinion this is actually quite a good thing because for example if you want to be an architect you go to that particular school and do all of the subjects necessary, whereas in New Zealand you might choose the wrong subjects when not given the right guidance, and ruin your chances of getting into your desired course after finishing school. Although at 13 years old it is very young to be expected to know what you want to do when you finish school.

7. This is more of a cultural difference rather than a difference only within the school system but there seems to be an extreme lack of freedom in terms of the students' actual learning. For example, at not one point throughout the year were we given a task to do over more than one lesson; something that would teach time management and planning skills in addition to the subject at hand; something that you would have the freedom to do in your own time, adding your own spin and showing your own individual perspective to the task. There always seemed to be a right, and a wrong answer which doesn't allow any 'outside of the box' thinking. Anyone can tell you for example how to spell the word 'innovation' but not everyone can be innovative, think laterally and solve real word problems where there isn't just one right, and one wrong answer.

8. I think the main difference - and something that a lot of these previous things add up to - is the fact that the Italian school system hasn't changed for such a long time. It's what you would imagine a school to have been like back in your parents' or even grandparents' day. It's extremely basic and aimed at one learning style alone. If you're one of those people who learns by listening and reading then you'd probably do really well at an Italian school, but if you learn from getting physical and learning through experiences then you're pretty much stuffed to be honest... ( as an example - we studied chemistry for the whole year and never even did one experiment or anything whatsoever. It was all learning from textbooks which for some people just wouldn't ever work no matter how long they studied, and for some people would work better than anything physical)

These things here, along with the ones that I listed after my first two weeks in Italy, are what I found from my experience of one Italian school, and one Italian class. I'm not saying this is what it's like in every school in Italy because I really have no idea. I also just wanted to say that although I may sound negative when talking about the school that's mostly because I personally find it hard to learn just from listening and reading in an environment such as this, however everyone is different and maybe the fact that their school system has remained unchanged for such a long period of time is only a testament to it itself.