Early Morning Thoughts

I'm sitting on my balcony right now. It's 3:30 in the morning and I cannot sleep. Inspiration always comes to people in the middle of the night, at least that's what I think, so I decided to write a blog post. I don't have a certain topic in mind, I'm just in the mood to write. So here it is.
I've been in Italy for almost four months. Wow has the time passed by. I feel like I've been gone from home forever, but I feel like I've been living here in Galatina for no time whatsoever. It's strange, the way time passes like that. I am almost half way through my exchange, I have learned so much, but I know I have so much more to learn in these next six months. And now here comes my random thoughts. It's strange. This whole thing. I decided to go live in a completely different country without any knowledge of the language, culture, or people. My parents agreed without much hesitation and sent me off on an airplane to figure it out. A random family agreed to let me stay in their home. They had no idea what kind of person I was, if we would get along, or if I would be happy with them. All they knew about me was what I wrote in a pretty generic profile of myself. So we met at the train station, they took me home with them, and we tried to figure each other out while trying to avoid the awkwardness that was inevitable. Now I've been living with this "random" family for nearly four months and they are starting to feel like my real family. We have inside jokes, they know what foods I do and do not like, we communicate in Engliano and they are accepting of my past and mistakes. After spending six more months with them, I can't even imagine how difficult it will be to leave. But that's the beauty of an exchange year. I get to experience a whole life in only one year. So far, I've definitely made a lot of new memories, friends and stories. But once again, it's bizarre to think about. These kids who have known each other for probably their whole lives meet this random American girl, decide they want to hang out with her even though she doesn't speak the same language as them and they get along great! Once again, the beauty of an exchange.
Another thing I love- I have met people from all over the world and learned so much about the world and many different cultures. The most interesting fact about that is the amount of studying I have done. Back home, I studied a lot. I got decently good grades and made the honor rolls. And yet, I knew absolutely nothing about the world. I couldn't have told you where Portugal was located, how the Italians eat their pizza, or which form of you (plural) the Australians use. In four months of living in Italy, I've barely studied because I'm not nearly advanced enough in Italian, yet I've learned so much more than I could ever have learned in school. I honestly believe that every teenager should experience an exchange, whether it be for six weeks, three months, or a year. A person learns so much more about the world when actually experiencing it rather than just reading about it from a textbook.
That's all that I've got for tonight. Have a great New Year's everybody, I know I will :)
Alison

Christmastime in Lecce

I went to Lecce Saturday with my local AFS chapter: Ian, Omar, Kenneth, Felix, Pily and myself. We walked around the city, enjoyed the Christmas spirit and ate at McDonald's. :)

Merry Christmas everybody! Buon Natale a tutti! Auguri :*
-Alison

No English Please

I think I've mentioned a few times how horrendous most people's English is here. It's no lie. At this point in my year, my Italian is better than a lot of my friends' English. Most of the people I talk to try to speak to me in English and I oftentimes don't understand what they are trying to say. So I ask them to repeat, but in Italian. They then say the same thing in Italian and I understand them better. It's kind of backwards, realizing that I'm understanding Italian better than English, but it's a great feeling to realize how much progress I have made in only a little over three months. Speaking is still very difficult for me because of how many different conjugations and verb tenses there are. It's pretty easy to understand somebody, but when it comes time to reply I can't remember all the words nor can I think fast enough. However, I'm very happy with how far I've come and as of right now, I'm really looking forward to these next seven months and everything they have to offer.
-Alison :)

Piano Piano...

I am frequently in the first year classes at my high school because of my lacking knowledge of the Italian language, which makes understanding anything that happens during school very difficult. In the case of the fifth year classes, the students are either able to have a conversation with me in English, or else they don't understand anything. Absolutely nothing. Because I am in the first year classes the most, the students in there really don't speak English. Therefore, for the past 3 months, I have been transformed into a slight introvert while attending these classes. However, in the last week I have made incredible progress. Just the other day, I was sitting next to a girl who can say about three words in English. She spoke to me in Italian, I understood and replied in Italian. WOW. Can I just say how amazing that felt to not have somebody translating for me? My brain just figured out what she said and immediately came up with a response. So for the rest of the hour, I continued speaking with her in Italian with little difficulty doing so. Now, I'm not saying I can actually understand the language when people are speaking with their friends or in class. But I've gotten to the point where if somebody tries to talk to me and they speak slowly enough, I can fully understand them. Answering them in Italian is quite a bit more difficult to do, but I somehow manage fairly well. Another instance where my understanding took me by surprise was last night at a birthday party that I attended. A guy who speaks absolutely no English was trying to tell me how my Italian has improved since I first met him. He said to the people around us, "Come si dice in inglese, stai imparando parlare l'italiano molto bene?!" I answered him, "You are learning to speak Italian very well. Grazie :)" Most of the people stared at me in surprise because of the fact that I replied to him and some of my friends who speak English just started to laugh. Translating what he said was such an automatic response for me that I did not have to stop and think about the words, they just came out.

YAY. I finally feel like I'm making progress. Up until now, I was so frustrated and thought I wouldn't ever be able to understand Italian, let alone speak it. Now, I can understand my teachers when they speak to me and I can understand a little bit of my friends' conversations. The greatest thing is, my friends are also noticing my improvement in Italian. Hearing their reassuring words that I really am getting better is so comforting and quite simply a lovely thing to hear. :)

Until next time, p&l

Ali