This week has been pretty fun! Monday I had school and then a flute lesson afterward. I’m glad I signed up to take flute classes, I think I will be very grateful after this year when I go back to the USA for my senior year and play flute for the highest level band.

Tuesday I went to school and had a few classes, including PE, and this time I felt super prepared! I wore black leggings with a T-shirt, a ponytail, and tennis shoes. The first 10 minutes of class we stretched, and then ran around and around the gym for 10 minutes. I noticed that I have a huge pet peeve for sow runners. Almost all of the girls in my class are really slow (or just lazy) and they just jog around, dragging their feet. They don’t even run! Either they’re really slow or I’m just really fast because I kept passing all of them every 30 seconds! Anyway, the next hour we spent playing games. We played this one game called “four balls”(?) where there are four teams; three of the teams stand in three different corners of the room, and one team scatters in the middle. The three teams in the corners have to run around the room and get back to their starting point as many times as possible. It’s kind of like baseball where there are safe places and a home base. Meanwhile, while the three teams are running around and around, the team in the middle tries to get them out by hitting them with the ball. It felt really dangerous to me, so I didn’t run around that much. I mostly just stayed in the safe places lol. We also played dodgeball where we all just try to hit everyone else with a ball, and if you get hit, you have to sit down. I lasted a while, but then got hit with the ball and had to sit down. There was one guy in my class who was running backward trying not to get hit, and he ended up tumbling over me, knocking me down! It was okay though, I didn’t get hurt. The rest of the time in PE we brought out the huge jumprope and started jumping. There ended up being like 10 people in the middle jumping all at once! It was pretty fun I’d have to say.

Wednesday was a beautiful day! It was sunny, warm, and not a cloud in the sky :) After school I decided to go for my first bike ride here. It felt good to get out of the house and enjoy the beautiful town of Angera. For lunch I had this amazing pizza with ham and cheese, and then Italian coffee afterward. I LOVE Italian coffee! It’s a lot stronger than American coffee and has a very bitter, but really distinct, yummy taste. I like to put a lot of sugar in it to make it sweeter. Also, because it’s so strong, Italians use tiny little cups for their coffee. They look like little teacups for doll houses! I love it!

Thursday in school, my tedesco (German) teacher never showed up, so we had a substitute. This is the fourth time a teacher hasn’t showed up to school, apparently it’s pretty normal here! That hour was spent talking to classmates, and watching them battle out this card game called “scopa.” Apparently everyone knows how to play it except me. My host brother taught me the first week I came here, but I already forgot! So I watched them play the game, and then slowly remembered the rules as they played. It’s a very complicated game, but hopefully I will get better at it soon! After school I ate a pasta lunch and then relaxed at home. I didn’t really feel like going out, so I studied some Italian, translated some notes from school, and watched Italian tv shows. I’m really enjoying the cooking channels here!

Today has not been such a great day. This morning my stomach really hurt, and continued to hurt until the end of school. It rained the whole morning and it was super cold even with my jacket and rain coat! School was really boring today because I had three hours of down time. One hour in tedesco (German) and two hours in francese (French). My class had a two hour french test today, but I didn’t have to take it because it was material they had learned over the summer. I just doodled the whole time. It was still raining after school so I used my umbrella while I walked to the bus stop. Then I wasn’t fast enough to get on the bus because people kept pushing me out of the way. I ended up being one of the last ones to get on, meaning I had to stand for 45 minutes, holding on for dear life while the bus went around roundabouts going 30 miles per hour. When I finally got home, I ate fish for lunch, took a nap, and then watched more Italian tv. Now I’m writing this blog while I wait for dinner.

Tomorrow I’m not going to school because my host family is going to take me hiking up a mountain! I’m really excited and can’t wait to take a whole bunch of pictures and tell you all about in in my next blog post. Ciao!