Ciao tutti! These last few days have been a mixture of exciting, scary, and amazing! On Thursday my class went on a school field trip to Milan! We went because my French teacher wanted us to watch a french play for her class. It was super fun! We took an hour and a half long bus ride from Verbania to Milan. Then we walked to the theater where we met a whole bunch of other students from different schools. We waited for about an hour, eating and talking, and then we finally went inside to watch the play. It was a really cool play, I didn’t expect it to be that great because it was in French and I probably wouldn’t understand it very well, but I was wrong, it was really good! I don’t remember the name of it, but I know it was a musical because the 4 actors and actresses on stage kept singing at random moments. It was a love story, and even though I couldn’t understand what they were saying, I could understand the main idea of what was happening based on their expressions and body language. I know, your probably thinking, why couldn’t she understand what they were saying, she took french classes in Arizona! Well, as it turns out, I have forgotten a lot of french since I’ve been here, probably because I’m trying to learn a new language. I actually think I know more Italian than French now! Anyway, back to the story. So after the play ended, we got pictures with one of the actresses, and then walked around Milan for about an hour. Then we got back on the bus and went back to Verbania. However, my host mom had told me to ask my teacher to drop me off in Sesto because it’s closer to Angera. So I asked my teacher and she agreed. Then for some reason, the bus driver went past Sesto and dropped me off in a different city far away from Angera called Stresa. Apparently my teacher got confused on what city I said… lol. So I’m at the bus stop in Stresa, and thankfully my classmate Francesca was with me, so she helped me contact my mom and tell her the problem. It was all okay in the end because I took the next bus back to Arona and then the boat to Angera. And while I was waiting for the bus to Arona, I got to spend time with my friend in Stresa. It was fun! We went to a nearby coffee shop and I ordered a really yummy hot chocolate drink (it wasn’t hot though). After the coffee shop, Francesca took me on a 10 minute tour around Stresa. We saw the lake, we took a few pictures, and she told me about the three islands on the lake.

Friday was pretty normal – school, sleeping, translating Italian. I wasn’t able to go to Novara on Saturday because of transportation problems, so I went to school like normal. Then today, Sunday, my host family took me on a family trip to Monza, a city near Milan. There were a total of 8 of us who went. However Martino didn’t go because he had to work, and my host mom stayed home because she was sick. The day was really awesome though, we visited the “Villa Reale di Monza,” which is a historical kingdom from the late 1800’s where King Humbert 1 of Italy and Queen Margherita of Savoy lived until the year 1900 when the king was murdered. It was a beautiful building, it reminded me of the Palace of Versailles. We got to tour the inside, which had antic rooms and incredible art and architecture. The building also had rooms displaying fashion like historic clothing and furniture. I took some pictures that I will post on Facebook soon :) After visiting the kingdom, we ate lunch at a little pizzeria. I got a pizza with tomatoes, basil, mozzarella, and spicy pepperonis (but they weren’t spicy at all lol). I ate the whole pizza and was so full afterwords, but I still ordered tiramisu and Italian coffee for dessert because well, who wouldn’t?! It’s Italy for heavens sake! Then after lunch, we all went to a different building where we visited my host mom’s aunt. We spent about three hours there, looking at photos and telling stories of the family. It was interesting and fun to see the pictures of my host family from when they were younger. Then we left at about 6:30 and took the long drive back to Angera.

Now it’s 10:02 and I have school tomorrow, so talk later! Ciao ciao!