Fra tre settimane partiro' :(

In three weeks, I will be home in Minnesota. I don't know how to react to this. I am so sad to have to leave Italy, I LOVE it here. My life is here now, my friends are here, my family is here, my school is here...everything is here. And the fact that I have to leave it all not knowing when I will return is such a depressing thought.

Nice things about going home:

• Starbucks
• Driving
• All my clothes
• I guess my family and friends ;)

That's about it. Otherwise I want to stay here! I celebrated my 18th birthday on wednesday with my afs friends at the camp. I realized then how much they are like my family, and I can't imagine living without them. Also I saw my family today, and my best friend today, and I am going to miss them so so so much...The thought of having to leave is the worst thing in the world.

However, domani I will go in Finland with my host sister! We will be there for one week, from tomorrow (Monday) until the next week Monday. I can't wait! It is going to be soooo much fun, also I get to drink starbucks because there is in Finland :)

Anyway, I have to wake up in 5 hours to catch my flight...we are waking up at 4 a.m.....o mio dio.
Buonanotte a tutti, maybe I will write another time before leaving Italy, but probably not so if not.....I WILL SEE YOU ALL IN 3ISH WEEKS and I can tell you anything you want to know at that time :)

Ciao...Alison.

P.S. I apologize again for my English.. ;)

Non Voglio Tornare..

I do not want to go back home! I have less than two months here in Italy, and I could not be more upset about this fact. Obviously going home with have some perks, such as:

• Chiropractor
• Starbucks
• Taco Salad
• Clothing/Shoes
• Driving

Well, I guess it will be nice to see everybody too:) But as of right now, I am so happy with my life here in Italy that I can not even remember having a life back in the US. Everything from home seems like such a dream so it was very strange when I saw Megan and Jackie!!! I could not believe that people from home actually existed, but sure enough, they were waiting for me when I arrived in Rome a little less than a month ago. My trip with them (Jackie was only with us in Rome) was honestly amazing!!! I love love LOVED everything we did.

• Rome
• Colosseum
• Pantheon
• Trevi Fountain
• Spanish Steps
• (We also wandered around a lot, and I'm sure we did some other things I just can't remember right now)
• I LOVE ROMA
• Naples
• Truthfully, Naples was a nice city but I didn't love it..however we did see a very nice hilltop view of the city which was spectacular!!
• Mt. Vesuvius/Pompeii
• INCREDIBLE! Loved them both:)
• Capri
• Easily the most beautiful part of our trip
• Megan and I hiked around the island, taking 'trails' and ending up on the side of a cliff a few times..it was awesome :)

In a few days, I will leave to go to Milan with Mom and Dad! Wow. That is going to be craaaazy to see them again! We are going to Milan, Venice and Florence. Afterwards they will come back to my hometown for a few days.

So lately, I have just been going to school and hanging out with friends a lot. I have gone to the sea a few times because the weather is beautiful and sunny here, so the sea is also beautiful :)

I apologize for my English and my random non-flowing blog post. English is fairly difficult for me to speak correctly, let alone write a coherent blog post. On the bright side, my Italian is pretty good! YAY.

I'll update with some photos some time, if I get around to it...Kidding. I'll probably update after Mom and Dad come to visit.

CIAO!
Alison

Travels

Sorry for the total lack of communication! I have been absolutely terrible at keeping this blog updated and I apologize. On another note..

I'M GOING TO ROMA TOMORROW TO SEE MEGAN! I am literally so excited I cannot wait! We will  be in Roma for a few days together, then we head to Napoli, Pompeii and Capri! At the end of our trip, she will come back to my town for a night! I. Am. Stoked.

Also, a little less than a month ago, I went to the north of Italy and lived with a family there for one week. It was an exchange week with Intercultura and I lived in a town called Boario, about an hour outside of Bergamo. While there, I met other exchange students from around the world (I met a girl from Minneapolis!) and I went to Milano, Verona and Bergamo. They all are so beautiful! It was one of the greatest weeks of my life, and I'm hoping this next week will be as great!

Sorry again for not updating in forever..also sorry for my English. It's getting difficult to speak and write properly. On the other hand, I can finally say that I speak Italian (not fluently, but I speak it) so that's COOL!

I'll post pictures sometime when I get back from my trip with Megan!

CIAO... Ali.

Cinque mesi fa, sono arrivata in Italia...

Five months ago, I arrived in Italy...five months from now, I'll be leaving Italy. When thinking about all that has happened in these past five months, it seems like such a long time. But then I remember playing spoons in New York with a bunch of kids I had just met or meeting my host family for the first time in Lecce and it feels as if the last five months have flown by. I have officially reached the halfway point in my exchange and I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. I am definitely happy to be in Italy, experiencing all these new and different things. I have done things here that I never thought I would be able to say I had done. I've met people from so many different cultures. I myself have grown as a person, looking at life with a slightly slanted perspective than from before. I have been immersed in this completely new culture for five months and it has become my norm. I find eating dinner at 8:30 p.m. to be extremely early. You think -20 with five feet of snow is cold? Try 50 with wind and rain. I now answer the telephone with the name of the person calling, rather than "hello?". My entire world changed so much in the matter of just a few hours that I was forced to accept everything different without any negative outlooks. Thinking back on my first few weeks here, I realize how much of an awkward 'child' I was. Because of the language barrier, it was extremely difficult to state my opinion or express my thoughts. I was similar to a child, having to point at something or describe it with a few words and actions and hope that the adults in my life understood what I needed. After five months, I am finally grasping the language and am able to say almost anything that I need to say. Although I make many mistakes and don't always use the right words, people understand me which makes me happier than one might believe.
I'm going to be fairly honest right now, just for any future exchange students who might be reading this. Before I left for Italy, I was expecting to have the year of my life. I thought it was always going to be a blast, with little to no problems and everybody accepting of me. While this has definitely been the year of my life so far, it has been anything but easy. I've experienced so many difficult things which have tested my strength and emotions beyond belief. I've come close so many times to giving up because of events that have happened here. It has been the most difficult thing that I have ever gone through and maybe ever will go through. However, with the support of a few close friends and family here in Italy, and with the support of my friends and family back home, I was able to keep pushing through and I never gave up. Now, I can finally say I'm happy. I've got a fantastic host sister who I love dearly and trust with my life, and I also have the best friend in the world who is always there for me and I can talk to about anything. The thought of leaving, and especially leaving these two extremely important people in my life, kills me inside. As much as I miss home, I've made a life for myself here in Italy and I've gone through so much to get to this point. I am constantly torn between missing home and hoping the time flies by, but also feeling guilty for wanting to leave because in reality, I don't want to leave. I want to stay in Italy forever, but five months will just have to do.
Un baccio.
Alison

Roma

Sorry I'm incredibly lazy. Here are some pictures I took while in Roma three weeks ago! Enjoy :)

Capodanno

Sorry I haven't written in ages! I've been quite busy lately what with celebrating New Year's, exploring Roma and meeting my host sister who just arrived home from Finland! So I'll write about Capodanno (New Year's) now, then post pictures and a brief summary from Roma in a different post.
The day of New Year's was pretty calm. I went out with my sister for a drive, hung out with friends later, then returned home to get ready for the night. My family and I were going to attend a party at a friend's house. It's typical for Italians to spend the first part of the night with their family at a dinner party and after the clock strikes midnight to go out with their friends. So at about 10 p.m., we arrived at the house where the party was taking place. It was out in the country and absolutely beautiful. Upon arrival, I saw a few friends of mine among the fifty or so people who were there. Music was playing, everybody was socializing and the food started to arrive in the catering vans. Chaos of trying to collect money and get all the food inside without becoming too wet from the pouring rain consumed about the next twenty minutes. Then we all said buon appetito and proceeded to shove our faces full of food. We ate and ate and ate and drank and ate some more. Then we all moved upstairs to start dancing. All the older people were singing karaoke and the moms were trying to teach us dance moves. It was absolutely crazy and quite possibly the best New Year's I have ever had. When the time came to start the countdown to midnight, we all got a glass of champagne and fidgeted with anticipation . Once the clock struck, everybody wished each other auguri along with a kiss on each cheek. And I do mean that everybody greeted everybody. It took about ten minutes until everyone was satisfied and sure that they had kissed everyone else. My friend and I escaped soon afterwards and walked to her house which was nearby. We prepared some things for people coming over later, and at about 1:30 our friends arrived. We all just hung out, talking and listening to music. It was overall a pretty calm night, with the exception of a few people who had drunk a bit too much. They were hyper and crazy until they passed out face first on the couch. The rest of us stayed up late, playing card games and cooking pasta at around 5:30 a.m. At about seven in the morning, we went to bed and slept for not quite two hours, then headed home.
It was a great night and by far the best New Year's that I have ever celebrated. The Italians sure know how to throw fantastic parties, and they take "go big or go home" literally. Next year I'm going to try to incorporate some Italian traditions into my American New Year's celebration just because it was such a lovely time :)
~Alison

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