Yesterday was an amazing day!! I got to visit Brescia with my host dad Pigi! We started off the day early and bright at 8am, drove for an hour, and then stopped at a coffee place for a snack. We both ordered cappuccinos and brioche cioccolato (chocolate croissants). Then we headed back on the road and drove another hour to Brescia. We stopped at a factory were Pigi works at first and dropped off some merchandise. His factory makes silverware and other tools for the kitchen. He also makes those boxes that go under showers that filter dirty water and create cleaner water to reuse. He told me that there are a lot of factories in the north of Italy and not the south because the south “prendere il sole” (take the sun – sunbathe) and “cultivare l’agricultura” (cultivare agriculture). So the north of Italy has “tutti i fabbricati per tutti italia” (all of the factories for all of Italy). lololol!!! After the factory stop, we drove to the famous medieval castle in Brescia called “Castello di Brescia.” It was built in the 13th century and is one of the biggest castles in Italy! It was so beautiful!! Definitely one of the most beautiful castles I’ve ever seen! Pigi took a whole bunch of pictures of me that he posted on Facebook :) After the castle, we walked down the hill into the city of Brescia and visited the cathedral called “Duomo Nuovo.” It is a Roman Catholic church that was built in the early 1600s! It was so beautiful!! The inside was incredible, very old, molto bello :) Then after that we ate lunch at a cute little restaurant along the cobblestone street. Pigi ordered “canguro” (kangaroo) for both of us. I didn’t even know you could eat kangaroo!! I guess it was shipped over from Australia hahhah. It actually didn’t taste bad! Kinda like steak actually, but a little bit more chewy. I liked it, but it gave Pigi a stomach ache that he still has today. I guess he’s not used to eating so much meat like I am! Anyway, after the delicious kangaroo, we got back in the car and drove two hours home. On the drive we passed by a special mountain near Pettenasco that was used to build the famous cathedral in Milan. Apparently it is one of the rare mountains that contains marble inside. The marble was shipped on a barge on the Lago Maggiore, and then through a river that leads to Milan.

Sunday was so much fun, I got to visit the San Giulio Island (the island on Lake Orta). It was so amazing! My new host dad, Pigi, took me and Tiantian to see it. Tiantian is a girl from China who my family hosted two years ago and she’s now going to a university in Milan, she comes to visit Marisa and Pigi once and a while :) We visited the Basilica of San Giulio, the monastery, and walked around the little shops on the island. It was so interesting to learn the history of these places. We also visited part of the land next to the lake – The Orta San Giulio, where we saw The Santa Maria Assunta, a Catholic church, and the town surrounding it. And we took a whole bunch of beautiful pictures that are now on Facebook!

Monday I went to school. I got to carpool with two girls who live in Pettenasco and go to my school Cobianchi, Giada and Marilù. Giada’s dad drove us to Omegna, and then we took the bus from Omegna to Verbania to school. Then after school we took the second bus back to Omegna because the first bus was full. The buses are crazy here! Whenever the bus comes, there are literally 50 people trying to get on, so if you want a seat you have to push everyone aside and not look back. I’ve actually gotten quite good at it, so I usually get a seat :) I guess I’m a true Italian now! Yesterday I also had my first lesson of crew! I signed up to take lessons every week with my next door neighbor. The first lesson was just conditioning though, so we had to run over hills outside for an hour and then do gym exercises for another hour. Tomorrow we will start rowing on the lake. I’m so excited!

About a month ago I decided that I wanted to change host families. Yesterday it finally happened! I just want to say I appreciated the family I stayed with and how much they did for me. Grazie mille :) But now it it time for a change. So I am now placed in Pettenasco, which is a town next to the Lake Orta (a smaller lake next to Lake Maggiore). I am placed with a nice couple without children. It will be a whole different experience here, but I’m ready for the challenge!

Pettenasco is the red pin

My house

Buonasera tutti! Sto pensando che io voglio praticare il mio italiano. Quindi, sto scrivendo questo posto solo nell’italiano! Io so tante gente chi leggono questo blog parlare l’inglese, quindi ho un versione tradotto nell’inglese sotto questo versione. Scrivendo nell’italiano è diventando più facile ogni giorno. E sto trovando che io posso capisco tanto le cose le persone stanno dicendo quando noi parliamo. Ho imparato tanto in questi ultimi quattro mesi. Wow, è stato quattro mesi! Che è quasi impossibile da credere. Sono molto contento che ho deciso a venire qui per quest’anno. Sto imparando tantissimo della paese e la cultura dell’italia. Sento fortunata ad avere l’opportunità a venire qui. Sì, è molto difficile a volte, ma anche e molto bello. A volte mi sento perso, sembra io sono in un labirinto e non posso trovare il uscita. A volte mi manca la mia famiglia e i miei amici e la mia vita ad Arizona. A volte posso addirittura fisicamente sentire il mio cuore ferito e sento debole. Ma a la fine del giorno, trovo la mia strada del ritorno. Mi guadagno la forza di andare avanti. Penso dietro di come fortunato io sono ad essere qui, e i miei preoccupazioni scompaiano per un momento svelto. Ieri sera il mio papà mi ha detto che quest’avventura ha alti e bassi. Penso che è i bassi, i giorni cattivi che ti fanno più forte. I giorni brutti ti fanno capire che cosa è un buon giorno. Se non hai mai avuto qualche giorni male, ti sarebbe mai avere quel senso di realizzazione.

Good evening everyone! I’m thinking that I want to practice my Italian. So, I’m writing this post only in Italian! I know many people who read this blog speak English, so I have a version translated into English under this version. Writing in Italian is getting easier every day. And I’m finding that I can understand many things people are saying when we speak. I learned so much in the past four months. Wow, it’s been four months!! That is almost impossible to believe. I am very glad that I decided to come here for this year. I’m learning a lot about the country and culture of Italy. I feel fortunate to have the opportunity to come here. Yes, it is very difficult at times, but also very nice. Sometimes I feel lost, like I’m in a maze and cannot find the exit. Sometimes I miss my family and my friends and my life in Arizona. Sometimes I can even physically feel my heart hurt and I feel weak. But at the end of the day, I find my way back. I gain the strength to keep going. I think back to how lucky I am to be here, and my worries disappear for a brisk moment. Last night my dad told me that this adventure has ups and downs. I think it is lows, the bad days that make you stronger. The bad days make you realize what a good day is. If you never had any bad days, you would never have that sense of accomplishment.

Well, it looks like Christmas break is over and it’s back to reality. I started school again on Thursday, so now it’s back to getting up early at 6:30. It is really nice to see my classmates again! We had lots to talk about after not seeing each other for 2 weeks.

Today I got to go ice skating with my AFS friends and the volunteers from Novara! It was nice to see them again, we got to share our Christmas and New Years adventures. They picked me up at the boat station, and we all ate lunch at a cute little restaurant in Arona. Then we went ice skating! One of my friends asked me if I even have ice in Arizona since it’s so hot hahhaha I laughed a bit. We have ice, but it’s inside a cooled building. Also, be proud of me, I only fell once!! Pretty good for an Arizonian I would say :) Tomorrow I have school again, and then after I’m meeting my friend Bryan for lunch. Till next time!

It is January 5, meaning I’ve been in Italy for 4 months!!! Wowwwww!! I can’t believe I’m almost half way finished with his adventure. Yesterday was a special day, because it was the first day I got to see my friend Cameron since the beginning of December! I took the boat and then a one hour bus ride to Novara, and then Cameron meet me at the bus station which is about a 10 minute walk from her house. It was so amazing to see her again because she is the only other person around my area who’s first language is english. It was so nice to get a break from Italian for a couple hours :) She showed me around the center on Novara, we went to a coffee shop and talked, and we looked in some stores. Then we walked back to her house and I got to meet her beautiful host family. She has three little host siblings – 2 boys and a girl, ages maybe 4 to 11. They are super cute!! After lunch I got to attend Cameron’s yoga lesson with her! It was actually pretty fun! We rode bikes there though so I was out of breath once we arrived. When the yoga teacher saw me she apologized that this was the lesson I was attending because apparently she planned on only doing new yoga positions that day. I guess she thought it would be difficult for me. She was right. I was terrible!!! There were literally 10 other adults and Cameron taking the class and I was the worst one in there!!! Almost all of the positions had to do with stretching, which I’m horrible at! It was so funny though, there was this one position we had to do which Cameron and I called the “birthing position” because we had to lay on our backs, put our feet in the air, and hold our toes in our hands like babies. Apparently when you do this position, you’re supposed to be perfectly balanced. But for some reason I had difficulties with this and kept falling over on my side like a roly poly! Cameron had to bush me back to get balanced hahah! We laughed so hard Cameron started coughing and had to be excused to calm down!!! The last part of the lesson was 15 minutes of laying in the dark listening to calming music. But it only felt like 5 minutes to me because I fell asleep haha oops. After the lesson finished we biked back to her house, ate dinner with her family, and went to bed. Cameron has a couch with a pull out bed in her room, so I slept on that. The next morning, I took the bus and the boat back to Angera for my flute lesson. I know this was only one day that I described, but it was a really fun day for me so I wanted to share it with you all :) Ciao!

Also, if you want to check out my new YouTube video for December, here’s the link!! <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEcE3v9XTF0&gt;

HAPPPY NEW YEAR!!! BUON ANNO NUOVO!! New Years was so much fun to celebrate in Italy this year! I went to my friend Carlotta’s house with other friends and we all made food for New Years Eve dinner. We made a whole bunch of appetizers, chicken, and then salame ciocolattto for dessert. It took a really long time to make everything but it was worth it in the end because it was so delicious! After dinner we did the countdown for the new year and celebrated with champaign. It was a beautiful moment <3 We all went outside and saw some fireworks far in the distance, and the men of our group lit up fireworks of our own! After that we played games on the wii and watched High School Musical in Italian, although the songs were in english so I could sing along!! We went to bed around 4am and slept in sleeping bags on the floor of the living room. The next morning we woke up bright and early at 9:30 and got ready for the first day of 2016. For breakfast we ate pandoro with white frosting, so healthy I know!! We split up into 2 tiny cars (4 people per car) and drove 1.5 hours to a spa in the mountains. The spa consisted of three pools, all of them with warm water. Two pools were inside pools and one was outside where you could see the beautiful view of the surrounding mountains. The outside pool lit up with different colored lights at night, so it was beautiful both night and day! The inside pools had whole body massagers where you could lay down on an underwater platform and have a bubble massage!! We left at 7:30, ate dinner at McDonalds, and then watched Frozen at home. The whole day was so amazing, and I wouldn’t have changed anything about it. I love every second spending time with these wonderful friends. Thank you all for making this New Year so special for me :) Here is first picture of us in 2016!

Laura, Camilla, Edo, Carlotta, Martino, Andrea, Fonky, Gotta, and Elena

The next day, January 2, was my birthday!!! I’m 18! My friends made that day very special. They took me to a sushi restaurant about an hour away from Angera. I had been talking about how I really love sushi and how we should go eat it sometime together, and they remembered! The sushi was amazing! We payed for an all you can eat menu, and ordered sooooooo much food! We ordered dishes from almost every category of the menu! The restaurant was super cool! It had this conveyer belt that went all over the room with small bowls of pieces of sushi on it, and the tables were right next to the belt so we just grabbed anything we wanted from it and it was all free! By the end of the night we were all super full, but we still had room for cake! Laura and Edo had graciously made two beautiful nutella cakes that were so yummy. Thanks you guys!! My friends also got me a gift of a foto collage that can hang on the wall. They put this New Years picture in the middle frame, and all of the other frames are empty for new pictures we take together in the future. It was so kind of them to give me this. Thank you so much you guys!

Merry Christmas everyone! I can’t believe I got to spend my Christmas in Italy this year, seems like a dream! This week has been crazy! Wednesday we started making food for Christmas dinner. I helped my family make eggrolls, we made like 50! And we used a pasta maker to make the bread type stuff around the eggrolls, so that was fun to see :) Camilla spent the whole day making gingerbread cookies. She also made gingerbread parts to make a gingerbread house. I’m now realizing that Americans are really really lazy because we just buy the parts at the store and then put them together at home and decorate it. Here in Italy it seems like EVERYTHING is homemade! Thursday I went to the grocery store with my host mom because she had told me that the grocery store is crazy busy on Christmas Eve, and I really wanted to see the craziness haha. It actually wasn’t as busy as I thought, but maybe it was busy to them because Angera is such a small town lol! Thursday night some of Camilla’s and Martino’s friends came over and we played cards, then the family went to mass at midnight but I stayed home because I wasn’t feeling well. Also apparently it’s a tradition in Angera for the town band to play Christmas music the whole night on Christmas Eve, so Camilla did that after mass and didn’t go to sleep until 8:30am! The next day everyone slept in because of the long night the day before.

Christmas day I woke up at 11 and then opened presents with my host family (except Camilla because she was sleeping). I received a nice white, long-sleeved shirt from my host parents, a candle from Martino, and cookies from Camilla. I also got chocolate from Carlotta, Laura, and Edo, and an ornament from Elena! My host family liked my presents to them as well I think! I gave my host mom an apron with an American flag on it, I gave Martino a baseball cap with an American flag on it, I gave Camilla American flag earrings, and I gave my host dad maple syrup. For lunch, we went to my host dad’s aunts house and ate various types of meats, mushrooms, olives, and “insalata rosso.” Insalata rosso is a mixture of vegetables with mayonnaise…I wasn’t a big fan haha. After lunch we went back to the house and prepared table decorations for Christmas dinner. For decorations, we put salt with various herbs into small jars and wrapped ribbons around the lids with holly leaves sticking out of them. We did the same with jars full of sugar cubes and oranges…I can put pictures on Facebook because I’m not very good at describing this!! After decorations, we went to Nonna’s house and started preparing snacks for dinner. I helped a little by taking skins off carrots. Everyone started arriving to the house at about 6, and by 8 there were a total of 28 people at the house! We had to move a lot of furniture to fit two long tables in one tiny room. And somehow, magically, everyone fit around the tables perfectly! Okay, we had to squish a little :) Dinner was fun, I told everyone about how there are a lot of snakes in Arizona and how I kill rattle snakes at my cabin. I also told them about the time I ate one of the snakes and it tasted like chicken. They were freaked out haha. Christmas dinner consisted of starter snacks like salame, bread, and vegetables. Then it went to the main course, risotto with sausage. Then more bread and cheese and snacks. Panettone and pandoro for dessert. And finally coffee and tea to finish. I was so stuffed after dinner my stomach hurt! Between courses we opened more presents. I received a winter hat from someone; I wasn’t told who..but whoever it was, thanks! Dinner went from 8 – 11, so we didn’t go home till midnight.

Italians eat SO MUCH at Christmas time! And apparently Christmas lasts 3 days here because tonight we are going to eat another big meal at Nonna’s house again, and then tomorrow we are eating a big polenta lunch. One of my friends told me that at the end of the 3 days it’s hard to stay balanced because you’re so stuffed with food! Can’t wait to see what that’s like ;) Till next time!

Tomorrow is my last day of school before Christmas break!! :) I can’t believe I made it through one semester in an Italian school, pretty crazy! Last week was full of tests and interrogazione (we call these “final exams” in the USA). I had tests in physics, math, and history. I think I did well in physics because I knew all of the formulas and I finished on time. Math wasn’t as good though because I only finished about half of the test. I talked to my classmates after the test and they said that they only finished half as well, so maybe the teacher will grade it differently..fingers crossed! For the english test my classmates had to write the story of Snow White in english, so the teacher had me write it in Italian to make it fair. I think I did pretty well actually! Although I didn’t know the word for “dwarf” in Italian, so I just substituted that word with “persona piccola” (small person) haha.

Saturday night I went to a dinner with the AFS group in Verbania (town of my school). The group consisted of about 10 volunteers/parents, me, and a Malaysian boy who arrived in Italy 10 days ago. Giulia and Valeria came along as well since they were both exchange students last year. The dinner was really nice because I got to eat amazing food (pasta with salmon and vegetables), talk to AFS volunteers, and bond with the Malaysian boy, Bryan. I spoke to him in english since he just arrived and doesn’t know Italian. Also, I found out that he goes to my school here! So he, Giulia, Valeria, Camilla, and I all met up today during the 10 minute break and did a quick tour of the school for Bryan.

Sunday I had two flute concerts with Camilla and other music students! We played Christmas songs like Jingle Bells, First Noel, and We Wish You A Merry Christmas, as well as When The Saints Go Marching In, and Somewhere Over The Rainbow. The first concert we played was for older people from a retirement home, and the second concert was for parents and friends. Sunday night I went to a festival in Angera with my host parents. The festival celebrated the story of San Francesco and the “presepe” (crib) of Jesus. We got to watch a live play of the story, performed by some of the children in Angera. After the play we got to look at the props they used which included a real cow and real goats!! My host mom took a handful of hey from one of the haystacks which I thought was very strange, so I asked her about it. Apparently it is a tradition to take a piece of hey to remember and honor San Francesco, and then to put it inside your own handmade model of the “presepe.” My host family made a little diorama of the scene from the birth of Jesus, so we put the hey in the little crib of baby Jesus. The festival also served hot chocolate and traditional Christmas food in Italy – panettone and pandoro! The festival was really fun, although it was held outside so it was super cold!!

My next post will probably be on or after Christmas. I can’t wait to see what Christmas is like in Italy! Buon Natale!!!

I’ve been here 100 days!! Wowwww. On Friday I visited the city Mantova with Camilla and Carlotta! It was absolutely beautiful!! We started the day by waking up at 5:30, and then taking a one hour train ride to Milan. We had a little time before our next rain, so we stopped in a little cafe and grabbed some chocolate brioches. Our second train ride to Mantova was two hours, but it went by really quickly because I kept myself busy the whole time. On the train I listened to music, studied, and proof-read Carlotta’s brother’s Intercultura application that was written in english. When we finally got to Mantova, we took a bus to the center of the city and went to our first monument on the agenda. Carlotta was really prepared for today because she had made an agenda with everything we were going to see, along with a map and descriptions of every monument we were going to visit! If it wasn’t for her, this trip would not have been so successful, thanks Carlotta! The monuments were beautiful! We got to see old art, rooms with amazing architecture and paintings on the walls, and an old library! It was very interesting to see some of the monuments I learned in my art history class in real life! We ate lunch at a little restaurant on the street. Carlotta and I ordered the ravioli with pumpkin inside, and Camilla ordered some kind of risotto. We also had salads and our own plates with different kinds of salami. It was delicious! After lunch we went to see more monuments, and then took the train back to Angera.

Yesterday was also really fun! After school Carlotta came over and we made “salami cioccolato” which is basically chocolate and crackers mixed together to create some kind of dessert that looks like a roll of salami. It was really easy and fun to make, and it tasted soooo good! I played cards with Martino, he taught me three typical Italian games, and I also taught him two American ones – Crazy 8 and War. After dinner, Carlotta, Camilla, and I watched the movie “Dirty Dancing” in Italian with Italian subtitles. The subtitles really helped me, so I could understand most of what was happening :)

Today I’m going to Novara to meet up with my Intercultura friends. We are going to cook typical food from our countries. Cameron and I are going to make hamburgers haha. Until next time!