This week has been a little hetic. With Italian lessons and spur of the moment trips into town I haven't had the time to draft. Anyways, I went to a pretty church in town and it was massive. Maddaloni is very small so I was amazed at this big church that was beautifully well kept. No pics because no one really told me about it. Also this week I went to Church and was given all these wonderful gifts. This included a neckalce like the one from Hercules, a stingray figure and flowers (which are sitting on my desk right now, so pretty :). I also have watched another movie in school, this one had Penoleope Cruz in it so it had to get at least 3 stars. But, all death and drama. Sorry for a short post, just making sure everyone has a little update that I am alive. Feel free to read other blog posts to feel fully blogged. Thank you and bye.
This Monday was quite a funny one. Whilst sitting at English, I overheard a converstion between the teacher and a studnet. This student had a hat that had SWAG writtern across it. The funny thing is that they had no idea what swag meant. I then said to the prof 'It is like cool." "Oh, like cold." "Ummm... like impressive." I do not know how to describe swag without using cool or tight or some other slang. Talking about slang, later that night I was taught some Napolitan, or the Naples dialect. This came about because Antonio was messing about and I told him to stop and everyone jumped on the opportunity to teach me how to say stop in Napolitan (I do not know how to spell it but it is like furnicella?). As the night drew to an end, one more funny thing happened. My host grandmother turned and said to me "Come si chiama eo?", which is a really ghetto way to ask "What is my name?". We never really were intorduced so I was like "Nonna???????" and everyone burst out laughing trying to explain that I was not sure if I should call her by her real name or by grandmother. Antonio then did a spot on impression of the entire encounter which made everyone get over the awks moment. As usual, Tuesday was a bit busy. I had my italiano lesson and my Advanced English class with the scary seniors. Then after school, I did lots of revising, had a visit from my cordinator and then Skyped the fam bam. Seriously though, Skype makes me proud of humans. Like technology. Thanks dude. Also that day I seemed to have come down with a little cold. So between studing and stuff I did what any sick person would do, I watched movies! I layed down with my little laptop and using the superpowers of a VPN I watched movies on Netflix. I was totally satsified recovering to The Croods and The Adventures of Tintin (both were great if you were wondering!). On Wednesday, I came home from school and revised and watched movies. It's a hard life, but someone has got to do it. After some confusion on who I should go with, my host father and I did a chips run. We just went to a random store, bought chips and went home. Boy, were they great :) Thursday I had school and some free time as usual afterwards. So, once I got home I studied and chilled out for a bit. Then my host mum asked me to go grocery shopping with her, but of course like every time, grocery shopping turned into going to the gym with my host cousin. Now, let me get this straight, I went willingly. But, I legit watched my host cousin work out for an hour because I knew if I went home that I would probably fall asleep. Also, I was wearing jeans, so that is why I didn't, you know, work out. By the end of her (our?) gym session, I decided that I would come with her the next day just for the heck of it. Keep me entertained and off the streets (jk). Anyways...
Friday I had our usual school, but something totally fantastically magical happened. Whilst sitting in Spanish, I picked up someone's history/art text book and started flipping to random pages and mostly looking at the pictures. I eventually started reading the captions, and then the paragraps. I understood a little bit of it, enough for me to understand the meaning of the pictures and what they represent. Hopefully I will continue to progress like this, especially because my two month is quickly approaching!!!! Deary me! That night I attended a step aerobics class with my host mum instead of going out with my host cousin. Either way I was happy to get out of the house and move around. That being said, I have never done a step class before, so I was in great pain afterwards. But, somehow I was invited to go to a zumba class on Monday so that should be fun. Saturday was school and other crazy stuff. After school we had our usual big family dinner followed by tv watching and all around laziness. It was good laziness so do not worry. We then had a delightful dinner of McDonalds (it has been pointed out that I always say Maccas which is like the Aussie slang for McDonald's. Sorry about that) and fell asleep. The next day I had church and another smaller family meal. I happened to look really tired so I was taken home afterwards where I promptly forced myself to do work despite wanting to chill and watch TV. But to quote my father and some famous band "You can't always get what you want." Anyways, sorry for a reallllllllllllly long blog. Thanks for reading and please keep commenting as I love to answer your questions and talk to you guys! Ciao :) P.S. If you click this link (https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.760808103930949.1073741829.100000052996315&type=1&l=258ef80937) you can see my Pompeii pictures. You do not have to have Facebook to look at this so go ahead! Hello everybody! First off, please forgive me for the technical silliness of this post. Recently the big computer in my room decided to have a meltdown, so now I am using my steam powered computer (hahahaha....). Also because it is a bit tiny on memory and slower than pound scum, it will not let me download my photos of the last week or so. AND because it is a weird computer it does not have Adobe Flash so I can not upload the photos I took on my phone. SO enjoy a stock photo my friend, enjoy it well.
Anyways, I totally forgot to tell you that I participated in Ash Wednesday. Obviously going to a Catholic School I joined in on the fun and oddly the man did not cross my forehead but he sprinkled the ash in my hair. Immediately after we were sprinkled with ash everyone tried shaking it out of their hair, but no luck. So we walked around with random gray bits in our hair for a while. Thursday and Friday were really just back to the grind, but a highlight was when my host father tried to say Melbourne and it just did not sound close at all. I imagine I do not say Melbourne like an Australian, but my host father said it so funnily it was great. Therefore if you are reading this please try to say Melbourne like an Italian trying to speak English and laugh at your own attempt. I also seemed to have caught the break everything disease again. Some examples were the computer (not directly I did not take a hammer to it or anything it just stopped working), my ear buds and like 50 pens. It has been crazy, I am like the Midas touch of breaking things, Saturday was also a great day because I spent it mostly with my extended host family. After coming home from an exhausting day at school, I opened the door to a room full of family waiting to eat. And boy, let me tell you, we feasted. After stuffing ourselves (I seem to eat a lot don't I) we watched Beautiful Creatures. I have never read the books, but I thought the movie was easy to follow and understand. Plus it is just fab! Highly suggest it :) Later that night we ate again and stayed up reallllllllly late. My extended host family really did not want to leave (who can blame them, I am a walking/collapsing party machine). They did (eventually, after 9-10 hours of partay) and I went fabulously to sleep. Sunday was probably the best day of this week and thus deserves its own paragraph. Guess what guys. I went to (looks around, whispers the next word) Pompeii. I woke up pretty late, and was freaking out trying to get ready when my host father told me that they were going to take me to Pompeii today. After a short drive which gave me a wonderful view of Mount Vesuvius (I have not gone there yet) we arrived at Pompeii. We bought our tickets after I totally learned that you have to take your passport with you or they will not sell you a ticket and that my International Student Card just got me in for free (sweet). We had to go up to this bookshop to get me a translator magic thing where each location has a number and you type it in and it tells you about the location do ba thingy. After that we walked around in the Forum (market place), saw some baths and casts of dead bodies AND a Colosseum type thing. We were all pretty tired after that, even though we had only seen a small fraction of Pompeii. We then went to a small restaurant on the other side of Pompeii which was absolutely fab. I had a sausage and potato pasta, a steak and cake. The cool thing about the steak was that it came on this stone that kept it warm and continued cooking it. So if you think your steak is undercooked, you cut it up and legit grill it at your table. It was the best thing ever. The cake was good as well and it was a filling cake, so it had a pudding type center. Oh goodness it was good, I was practically licking the plate afterwords. On the ride back, looking dramatically out my window I started singing that song Pompeii in my head and trying to determine how much ash it would take to kill Clifford the Big Red Dog. (Jk........................) Thank you for reading this long post, I will put my Pompeii pics up soon, I promise. Thank you for reading and supporting me and if any of you have any questions comment below and I will get back to you! Grazie e ciao! This last Saturday was pretty chill. I went to school and then went to lunch at my host grandparents. Antonio and I had already eaten a lot of food at school for a teacher's birthday (a slice of pizza, soda and cake) so we had to force ourselves to eat more. I managed to last throughout the entire meal without blowing up, so that is a plus. We went home and chilled out for awhile, then we went out to eat pizza. I got a small pizza, which ended up being way bigger than I expected. It felt like a very foodie day, so I ate like 3/4 of it.
Sunday was extrodinarly busy. I got up (somehow) and went to church. After three hours of church, I went home for about 5 seconds and was taken away to my host aunt's flat. This is where, of course I was force fed different foods. After my beautiful force fed meal, we went to Ikea. In Italy, Ikea is not pronounced the same. So it is said like e-k-uh. It only took me fifty times to remember that one. I also thought it was like a quick trip, pick up a few things and go. But NOOOOOOOOO. I am still unsure as to why I accept these offers to shop with these shopaholics. We walked through every room and I am pretty sure we bought something from every section as well. Since we were home for 5 seconds, I did not have time to change from my flats and skirt, so I was pretty uncomfortable/in pain the entire time. Overall it was a good trip, and probably the only real time I have been to Ikea. I also got gelato out of it, so there is a silver lining. Afterwords, we stopped at my host aunt's for a while and during that a while I begged to go home. Once we got home, I promptly changed into my pyjamas and got ready for bed. It wasn't until my host mom knocked on my door, that I realized I had not eaten dinner. Guys, I was tired enought to forget about food. Like, how is that. So after I ate, I went to blissful sleep. Monday was fantastic because I had the day off of school, so I slept in till 8:30. It was the first time I have slept in since my first week. And boy, was it fab. We basically chilled out, did nothing. Same with Tuesday, except I slept in till 9:00 and was really confused because I thought it was 6 in the morning, but it wasn't . Tuesday was also very, very stormy. Lots of rumbling, but not a heavy downstorm, just constant drizzle. Later Tuesday night we went to another one of my host aunt's houses for dinner. It was great and I even got my nails done! Pic above if you are wondering. Wednesday was back to normal as I headed back to school (no grazie) and sat through a long day of lessons (we had school till 2:00, the horror!). Anyways, thank you everyone for reading this blog and supporting me through this adventure. Love and miss all of you! Ciao :) P:S. If you click this link you can see the video of the street preformer, even if you do not have a Facebook, you can still watch it. I highly suggest you watch and sorry you have to stare at his back for all of it. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=752942634717496&l=902800343467109127 |