Stai Tust :P

I thought I should write a little bit about my fantastic day, because it was fantastic! J Today, I feel like I talked more than I ever have in Italian. I'm getting closer. How great is that? I think it’s pretty great. I know I speak very bad Italian, but hey, it's Italian nevertheless. As soon as I conquer the evil pronouns, I think my Italian will be okay-ish! 

This morning some of my friends at school finally helped me understand what dialect is, because I was really confused, and there was no teacher for the first hour (There are no substitute teachers here, if a teacher doesn’t show up, then you can do whatever you want as long as you don’t leave the room. Still strange. It’s one of the things I’m still getting used to.) I’m going to try and explain: First, there’s Italian. Then, within the major areas there are dialects that are more like accents than dialect languages, they’re named after the major cities and regions (Milano, Toscana, Sicilia, Roma, etc.) Then, after that, every city has their own dialect, which is basically another language. Now that I think about it, I’m still pretty confused, but I understand more than I did yesterday. That’s what I’ve been trying to focus on. Understanding more and more everyday. After that, I taught them  “Knock, knock!” “Who’s there?” “Banana.” “Banana who?” “Knock, knock!” ......”Knock, knock!” “Who’s there?” “Orange.” “Orange who?” “Orange you glad I didn’t say banana!” At first they didn’t understand, then once I explained they laughed. Also, my last class of the day was English, and on Tuesdays we go to the Language Lab so I got to watch “Colazione da Tiffany ” in Italian! (Which you probably figured out from the title...) All in all it was a pretty fun day at school.

            When I got home, there was pasta. Which wasn’t surprising at all, but I still love coming home from school to see pasta waiting. And it was the pasta with chickpeas, so it made me think of Luke! Then, I’m still trying to figure out how I feel about this…we ate cavallo (translation: horse.) Yeah, I know, “You ate horse?! You are such an awful person!” is what you’re thinking. And to make it worse, I actually thought it tasted good. I might have enjoyed eating it if I hadn’t known what it was.

            Then, after lunch I watched Make It or Break It with Antonia! It just started yesterday in Italy, and since (I admit this shamefully…) I’ve seen every episode in English(more than once D:) I can actually keep up and sometimes understand exactly what they’re saying. Then I studied Italian verbs until I went to dance class, where I actually kept up! I didn’t feel incompetent! Can I get a Huffah? (Grace, Sydney, Sarah!)

            And now, here I am writing this, after eating panzerotti for dinner. Delicious. I’m finally starting to feel normal here, I’m reaching a point where going home would take some readjusting, and I couldn’t just jump back into things like I’d never left. I love Italy! J

I Miei Pensieri!

Time for another blog!

I really don’t have any really big stories to tell, or monumental thoughts to talk about so I just going to write whatever comes to my head. Here goes…

• ·      Italians don’t wear seatbelts. Ever. Period. I thought I could get used to this, but no, I will never ever get used to it. Every time we’re driving down the road, and the driver’s going 60 in place you should be going 20 or we’re in a car that holds 5 people and there’s 7 of us, I have the awful thoughts of us losing control, then flying off the road into a tree and going through the windshield. Thank you driver’s safety week in wellness class for these truly lovely images :/
• ·      I really miss being funny. I miss that more than speaking (which I do a lot more of now, btw), I mean I’m not the funniest person in the world, but I can throw good joke when I want to. I miss media and pop culture references, I mean c’mon, who doesn’t love a good Edward Cullen joke? I also miss nerdy jokes. No one here has seen Firefly and Serenity or understands what I mean when I say “The cake is a lie” or can name any of the X-men other than Wolverine. This is the worst: no one is deeply obsessed with Harry Potter. They like it, but most people have only seen the movies and can’t quote it like Sarah and I can (36 blast ya’! Last year I had 37!)
• ·      SO MUCH PASTA! Do I really need to say more?
• ·      Now that I’m actually sitting here writing this I can’t think of anything to write. There were so many things that made me think “Oh! That should go on my blog.” Now they’re gone.
• ·      I was feeling really bummed about my awful Italian skills, so I posted about it on the AFS exchange student to Italy page on facebook, everyone was really nice and helpful, and almost all of them said they could barely speak Italian at 2 months, but by Christmas they were fluent. So…wish me luck in making this happen. (Like for real, say “Buona Fortuna, Annie!”) I’m going to need as much luck as I can get. This is a difficult language.
• ·      Sometimes, I try to imagine my friends being exchange students, and how they would react to the differences and language gap. There are some people I would love to see try this.
• ·      Tupperware, Tupperware, Tupperware! Everywhere there’s Tupperware! My host mom sell’s Tupperware, and everyday when I come home from school the Tupperware has moved. Boxes that were one the left are now on the right, the bag of green Tupperware is new, the bag of plastic bowls is gone.  Honestly, I’ve made a game out of guessing what’s going to happen with the Tupperware.
• ·      Netflix AND Hulu don’t work in Italy. I think I’m going to die.
• ·      But I have found Castle in Italian! :D On the downside, it comes on at 9 o’clock on Saturday, which is usually around the time we go out. Because we always go out on Saturday. Always. If you’re really tired, and feel like you’re about to fall asleep standing up, you go out anyway. If you’re sick, with a fever and sore throat, you go out anyway. You go out on Saturday, whether you want to or not. It’s just a fact.

Okay. I’m going to stop now. I really can’t think of anything else. Even though, I know, the moment I post this I’ll think of ten other things I wanted to say, but anywho…Ciao for now! (Yeah, I do love the fact that that rhymes.)