First week jitters!

Ciao a tutti!!

A little warning in advance, I'm sorry for any grammatical errors, I'm typing this whole post on my phone.

IM FINNALY IN ITALY!!! It's still can't believe that just two weeks ago I was still sitting in a classroom back in the states and now I'm living half way across the world with a family I just met! I'm living in freaking ITALY!

It's been quite the hectic week, starting off with my flight to my gateway orientation getting cancelled. Funny how the weather on the east coast was all pretty and the one day that I hoped it would be normal, it decided to snow five inches! God bless JetBlue for rebooking my flight. Too bad the plane broke down on the runway the next day and we ended up sitting on the runway for two hours. All that aside, when I got the my gateway orientation, they drilled us all on the rules and expectations of going abroad. Basically, don't get pregnant, stay in school, follow all the laws, and don't get overly drunk.

The following day, we all began to board our flights. The people going to Russia left first, then Austria. Italy and France were leaving last, basically we sat in the hotel and just talked for about 3 before we left for the airport. At this point there was a clear division between the people going to France and the people going to Italy. I believe that the people going to Italy were more easy-going compared to the people going to France.

Finally we got to JFK, we went to get out boarding passes and deal with our gigantic bags of luggage. 

My attempt at taking a selfie with the guy who was cutting out tickets. 

Next we had to go through security, having such a big group, we went through pre-check, or something like that. We went to our gate and got food. They started to call the seat rows and on our way to the gate, me and a few other people I met, ran down the tunnel looking thing yelling VA A ROMA!! 

The flight path!

Ali! She's spending her semester in Sicily!

When we finally landed in Zurich things got a little bit more complicated. On our boarding passes just said A/B so we followed the signs to gates A and B. We came across theses booths that said "passports" or something like that. We all had to take our passports out and get them stamped, the stamps meant that we entered Europe with a valid reason. I think. Anyways, once we passed that we had to figure out what gate number out flight to Rome was leaving from.  This sign said something about it shows the gates an hour before departure, so we numbered our selves and said that we'd meet up again in twenty minutes so we could head over to the gate as a group. Later we'd find out that the number system would help us out A LOT. We all went off to freshen up and get food. Fast forward a bit to when we board the plane. The pilot made some announcement in German, then in English, it was honestly the weirdest thing ever. He said "one of the crew members on the last flight dropped a spoon in the cockpit, it is a rule that if a spoon is dropped, we must find the spoon before we can take off. We already called maintenance and it is expected to take 40-45 minutes." Um what? There are 13 unattended America teens on a plane together with no volunteer in a foreign country. 40 minutes go by and the pilot come back over and says "no luck with the spoon, we are going to give it another 20 minutes, if it isn't found, we will have to move you all to a different plane." In that time there was a cute flight attendant passing out coloring books to the little kids on the plane, me being me, I asked him for one. Once he finished giving the little kids the books, he passed out some to the other Americans and gave me a puzzle.

The spoon was never found, the last thing we heard about the plane was that it was going to be taken apart so they could find the spoon.

They told us to get off of the plane and wait at the gate until further notice. Some Americans left to get something to drink, while they were away, we called the AFS emergency hotline to tell them that we are practically stranded in Italy with only one phone that has international calling. One of the ladies at the desk announced that there was a plane ready for us, but it was at a different gate, on the other side of the airport. Just our luck. We were still missing about four people and we had all of there bags with us. We almost resorted in taking all of there bags with us to the next gate and letting them find out the gate that we were moved to. The lady who told us that the plane was moved to a different gate failed to mention that the plane wouldn't start the boarding process for about another half an hour. We thought that since she said you all need to hurry, we had about 10 minutes to get to the other side of the airport. I bet it must've been a site to see 13 teens making a mad dash across an airport with about two full bags of carry on per person.

When we finally made it to Rome, we thought that we'd had to go through customs, but we followed the "uscita" signs and came face-to-face with some volunteers. We all began to tell them that a "cucchiaio" fell in the cockpit of the plane and that's why we landed almost three hours late. They laughed so hard at the fact that something that peculiar was the reason why we were late. We gathered on a bus and headed over to a hotel about an hour outside of Rome. I swore the bus driver thought he was driving a two-door sports car, not a bus with about 20 passengers.

Once we got to the hotel, we got to meet the other exchange kids in Italy for the semester. It was super cool that there were kids there from all over the world. Before dinner, we had sometime to get to know the other kids that we'd be spending the next 48 hours with. At first, all the countries stayed together, then after a bit, we all started to mix. Like twenty minutes before dinner, I found myself in a deep conversation with a boy from Argentina!

After dinner we were sent to the room so they could welcome us to Italy, by now I was extremely tired. They kept the greeting short and simple. The moment they told us we could go to our rooms to go to sleep was probably my favorite part of the day.

The next morning we had another set of orientations and got told practically the same things from New York again. After that, they gave us lunch and loaded all 86 of us on to two buses heading to Rome! Besides the fact that is was extremely cold, it was a day that I will remember for the rest of my life!

On the bus!

It's pretty obvious what this is.

We felt the need to take a selfie.

(From left to right) Glenn, me, Ali, and Hadley!

Oh Zali!

The Trevi fountain <3

Almost all the Americans!

The hotel that we were staying at was a covenant, I kid you not. Besides the fact that there was a church on the premises, it was still molto bello during the days! 

The next morning, we set off to see our host families. I was in group A which had to leave the hotel at 8 a.m. sharp. You could all probably imagine how happy I was hearing that I'd have to be awake and ready by 7:30 in the morning. Mind you, it hadn't had a full nights sleep in almost four days at this point. I'd been averaging about 3 to 4 hours of sleep each night. So, when the morning arrives, we get up, get our stuff together and get ready, say goodbye to all the people that were leaving at later times, and picked up our big suitcases. Me and two other Americans leaving at eight ended up being a little late, we had to sprint down two flights of stairs with all of our carry-ons and to where our big bags were. When we were claiming our bags, this evil volunteer told us that we had to wear our yellow shirts. The same yellow shirts that we had been wearing the day before. Um how about no. She blocked the door when we refused to wear it, so I quickly put it on and sprinted to the bus which was seconds away from leaving. When the two girls joined me, they said the while they were changing, she said something like "if your mother tells you to do something, you do it", well clearly we would! Just not when some ice queen is blocking the doorway when we are clearly late. 

When we got the the train station, we had yet another round of people to say bue to since we were all going in different directions. The train going to Turin was the last one to leave. So we sat in a little waiting room waiting for our train that wasn't supposed to leave for almost another hour. In that time, the four Americans took time to reminisce all that has happened over the past four days. We all found it strange that even though we had met each other just a few days before, it felt like we had been friends for ages! When we boarded the train, we had to find out carts and load our things into them. Once the train started to move, we all decided that we'd sleep for the first bit since we'd be on the train for quite some time. My ride to Genova was about five our, while everyone else would be getting off in Turin which was another two hours from Genoa. I have a lot of respect for Jamie and Jessica, so I won't post the picture of them sleeping. Anyways, we got to a certain point where the four of us were all awake, so I got up and saw that the other people we were with were all asleep. So, then Jessica got up to see how everyone else was sleeping in the other cart so we could mimic them and go back to sleep. She just so happened to peek the moment that Daniele, our "supervisor" woke up. He came over to where we were sitting to see what was up. He ended up staying with us to help us figure out phrases that we should say to out host families once we met them. 

This was our train group, minus the other girls that were asleep in the other cart.

I managed to do some pretty ambitious things on the train, aka going to the bathroom. Sounds pretty easy, except for the fact that I hate public bathrooms, and the room was rocking majorly when I went.

At about 2:50 ish, Daniele told me that my stop was coming up and that I should get my things together. I was seriously about to have a major panic attack right then and there. While Daniele and Pedro were taking my stuff down, I was freaking out and trying to remember the phrases I was supposed to say to them. The other people I was with were trying to reassure me that everything would be alright. I contemplated asking Daniele to call my host family and ask them if they could possibly meet me in Turin so I could have another two hours to prepare. As I felt the train start to slow down, I said my goodbye to the people that have most definitely become some of my closest friend in such a short period of time, and wished them good luck with their meetings. Once the train stopped, I swear I was about to puke from being so nervous. All the other people had support with them for when they got to see their host family, while I was a Lone Ranger. Once I got off the train, I started to look around for my host mom, but instead I saw the head coordinator walking in my direction. I looked back at Daniele who was dragging my big suitcase for me and said "sorry, I want to run" and I took off sprinting towards Fancesca. Behind her, I saw my host sister and Sonia, the girl from Costa Rica who was currently doing an exchange in the house that I am staying at too. I said hellos to everyone and peeked back at the train to where I saw all the other kids peeking out the door so they could watch me meet my new family. We said bye to Daniele and he headed back on to the train before it left. From there, I met the rest of the welcoming group. I managed to forget all the Italian that I had learned and only got out was "Non parla italiano molto bene" (I don't speak Italian very well) and "Grazie per la tua è ospitalità" (thank you for your hospitality). Thankfully a cute boy was there that had spent a year in America was there and helped translate some of the things that I was mumbling. 

I'll write another post on my host family itself, but I must say that I honestly was no ready for all that was about to be thrown my way. For about the first day and a half, I literally spent it all crying. That whole explanation deserves a post of its own.

Funny little extra note, when we were walking around Rome, some of us were hoping that we would be mistaken for an international pop star. Just like in the Lizzie McGuire movie. Didn't happen, although for Jess, one of the other exchange student went up to her in front of the coliseum and yelled "OH MY GOODNESS IT'S HANNAH MONTANA!" I'll leave that up to your imagination on how people reacted to that. (Hint, no one reacted)

I'm extremely sorry if this is all over the place, so much happened and I didn't know how to put it all together into one post.

Until next time,

Shushu!

Only know you love her when you let her go

Ciao a tutti!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

As my countdown to Italy is nearing single digits, I'm starting to see the little things that I will be away from. Christmas break just recently ended, over the two weeks that I was off from school a lot has happened. On the 20th of December, I had my visa appointment. My mother, sister, and myself went to the Italian embassy with high hopes that I would obtain my visa, after a whole ordeal on how I was missing one signature, we went home with our heads hanging low (not really) and a box of Georgetown cupcakes. The next day, the three of us boarded a plane and headed of to Utah. Our time in Utah was pretty repetitive, we got there at night and slept of our "jet lag". The following days were spent on trying to help my sister get situated in her new dorm and settling in at USU. Other than that we either stayed in or went to different cities. When we got back to Virginia, everything picked up in speed. The day after we got back, my mom had to go back to the embassy and resubmit my paperwork for my visa, school started again and is honestly dragging. The past week we've only had two full days of school because of the cold weather.

This weekend was my pre-departure orientation!! The orientation was in Rockville and it was over night. This orientation was not only a pre-departure orientation, it was also the mid-way orientation for all the exchange students in the DC chapter. Once I first got there, I was not quite expecting to be overwhelmed by the fact that I didn't know a single person there. Once everyone first walked in, you had to sign in on this sheet to get a name tag, I was looking at the list and saw a lot of foreign names, but mine wasn't on there. The lady running the desk noticed that I still hadn't signed anywhere and asked "Are you an American?" in a heartbeat I answered "No. Wait sorry I mean yes, yes I am an American" and she kind of just chuckled it off and told me I wasn't the first to do that. After I got my name tag, I had to go drop my overnight stuff in the little cabin. For the first 20 or so minutes I sat at a table by myself and texted my friends about how uncomfortable it was since everyone already knew each other.The event finally started and we were told to find people who had a name tag with a similar color on it. My group ended up only being about 5 people. Jim, the head coordinator, was our leader and put us five Americans on the spot and made us introduce ourselves to everyone in the room. There was Meg, a girl who just returned from her year in Spain, a kid with a really hard name to spell who is planning on going to China, Audrey who wants to go to Germany, Britni who wants to go to Italy, and then there was me! Once the awkward introductions ended, we headed off into the kitchen for a more private setting to talk about going abroad. Meg showed us a montage of her experience in Spain. I also found out that Meg was also a rugby player and was looking for a new team to play for. I HAD to tell her about the team that I played for and how amazing the team was, one thing came to another and I told the coach about her and now the West End Ruckettes gained a new member!

Once all the meeting were over, we had some free time to mingle. I met a lot of cool people, there was the bitter Hungarian Peter, a guy who wrestles that was placed in Arlington, Julie from Belgium, Patricia and Marina from Switzerland, Sakari from Finland, and a lot more people that I just can't remember their names. At about 7 there was a talent show, and the Germans did this cute little song and dance, someone played an Adele song on the piano which turned into a big sing-a-long, the Italians also did two songs and a dance, one Italian boy sang a song by the Fray, Britni and I sang along with that too, and this Arab girl did gorgeous henna on someone in less than 3 minutes. In between all of all the acts, one of coordinators had us playing games for prizes like money, bobble heads, and school supplies. Once the talent show ended we were aloud to do whatever we wanted until the morning. A lot of people stayed in the pavilion and just hung out around the fireplace, some of us went over to the sleeping area to talk, and some guys were in the parking lot and played touch rugby. After hanging out in the dorms, a group of us got hungry and went back to the pavilion to get food, we sat out on a porch swing in front of the pavilion and just listened to music. Once all of us got cold, we headed back to the boys cabin and kept listening and singing to our music. I started to doze of in one of the boys rooms and went back to my room and fell asleep. When the next morning rolled around, people were talking about how they got no hours of sleep, one hour, and even three hours of sleep, I on the other hand got five hours of sleep.

Now that the orientation is over, I have to start getting ready for Italy. I have yet to pack, get a gift for my host family, or even get half way through my Rosetta Stone course. Even though I'm leaving in 11 days, I don't plan on rushing them.

On a final not for this post, I will miss my rugby team sooooo much it's ridiculous! Meg

 if you're reading this, I hope you love the team just as much as I did!