Chapter 12: I AM SAVED

Thank goodness! I have a working computer once again.. 
Thank you to my darling Grandma Annabelle for providing it for me! 

Anyway, hopefully my blog will be up and running with at least one post every two weeks, although I will probably post more than that. 

Thanks for stickin out this period of technological disfunction! 
xx ciao!

Chapter 11: Technology Troubles

First off, I apologize that it's nearly been a month since my last post. My beloved laptop bit the dust, kicked the bucket, died.. Right now I am using my family's iMac, which has an Italian keyboard so bear with me if there are any weird typos, the layout of the keys is completely different from what I am used to.

Anywayyyyy! I have done a ton of cool things since the last time I wrote.. here's a super quick summary because I'll be writing individual blog posts about them in a bit,

• visited Taormina (Google it right now!), a beautiful old city on the Northeastern tip of Sicily. You can actually see the toes of Italy from some of the lookout points.
• ate Nutella filled crepes made by two 16 or 17 year old boys.. I'm not sure about you all, but this was the first time I'd ever seen two boys cook something without there being any sort of incentive. 
• visited my Mamma's family in Mistretta, a little town in the North of Sicily where heavenly bread is made.. It's definitely worth taking the treacherous, vomit inducing drive to get there.  
• celebrated All Saint's Day on November 1st, its a lot like Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead) minus the sugar skulls and food. 
• carved a pumpkin for Halloween
• listened to my math teacher try to convince me that he looks just like Obama
• and got renicknamed Regibear and Regs; although Regs is pronounced here like Rex or Reeeegs. 

Alright, thats all I got for now but like I said I have a couple other posts in the works with more details and photos from my adventures. 

Ciao ciao. xx

Chapter 10: Exploring Caltagirone at Night

Me, Ture Lo Bianco, & the Wonky Eye Man

So Sunday night was one of the best nights that I have had in Sicily so far. Alessia and some of her friends surprised me with a tour of the old part of the city, where we don't often go because the local teens consider it boring. Ale, both Giulias', both Tures' (Salvatore), both Simos' (Simone, pronounced See-moh-nay), both Andreas', Matteo, Sara, Pepe, Marvin, Davide, and I climbed all 142 steps of the Staircase of Santa Maria del Monte (up and down), visited the piazza (square) and the villa (a beautiful garden, pond, and plaza with a gazebo in the middle), and hunted around the city for street art. 

First off, climbing those stairs was a work out! Each step is about 2 feet in length, so you practically have to lunge all the up. My thighs were still on fire all day Monday, haha, I should probably start going back to the gym again as soon as possible. Each stair has a different design on the "rise" (the front part of each step), so that makes for 142 different ceramic tile designs. Unfortunately I was too busy huffing and puffing my way up all the stairs to stop for any pictures, so I encourage EVERYONE to come visit this lovely city and see this magnificent staircase for themselves. 

One adorable little apartment in the old neighborhood

Along and at the top of this staircase is a beautiful, and very old neighborhood where all the street art can be found. This neighborhood was picture perfect and completely took my breath away. I'm pretty sure all my friends were teasing me a little bit because I was looking all around with my jaw nearly hitting the ground and commenting on every little apartment, staircase, alleyway, et cetera. 

This is probably my favorite piece of street art that we found.. It was spectacular and giant, it literally took up the entire side of an apartment from the ground all the way to the roof. I'm not sure why this piece caught my attention, but something about it really got me. I wish I was able to capture the whole mural, but unfortunately I wasn't able to.

This one is on the other side of the building that has the cool bearded face.. I can't help but to image how cool it would be living in one of these decorated houses. As far as I can tell all of these pieces were done in spray paint, which totally blows my mind considering all of the detail and shading. If you ever find yourself in Caltagirone, which I hope you do, I absolutely recommend hunting for all of these art pieces. They are truly amazing!! As I am sure you can tell. 

Ciao ciaoo. Until next week, dear readers. 

**If you are interested in seeing the rest of the pictures from my adventuring night, they are all on my Facebook page in the album "Exchange Year!!"**

Chapter 9: Arizona

Ever since I got to Sicily, I have probably been asked "Di dove sei?" over a two hundred times, and with every reply ("Io vengo da Arizona," or "Arizona")  I become a little bit prouder of being able to claim this beautiful state as my home. 

I have a new appreciation and love for my life in beautiful northern Arizona. Man, oh man, I know that when I return to Arizona in 9 months I will be so happy to see the brilliant blue sky, the bright stars at night, listen to the monsoon rains on my metal roof, and embrace the smell of the pine trees. I am excited that returning to Arizona will be an adventure in itself, because I know I will look at my hometown with brand new, worldly, eyes.

 Like wow, look at how beautiful my hometown is, you cannot deny how gorgeous this place is.

So here is a short little hometown appreciation post. Next time, a host town appreciation post. 

Ciao ciao. xx

Chapter 8: "Palermo", Mormons, Stereotypes, & Paying for the Bathroom

Okay, so about a week and a half ago I had to go to an AFS camp in "Palermo," although apparently it wasn't actually in Palermo, it was in a tiny city an hour away from Palermo but ya know. Anyway, the camp was reaaaaaaaaally long and awfully boring but it was fun to see all the other AFS kids. We basically just spent all 4 days talking about our feelings and answering questions like "Are you happy? Is everything ok? Do you like it here? etc." For those of us that didn't have any complaints or problems this camp wasn't all that useful and was very time consuming. On the positive side, we all learned some new dance moves and were treated to some interesting/fantastic talents in the annual AFS Talent Show. (Shout out to you Yuma. You rocked our world kiddo.)

Me, Danielle (USA), Annette (Mexico) Baddest babes on the bus.

Danielle, Magnea (Iceland), me. Best exchange friends a girl could ask for.

The highlight of this camp for me was hanging out in the bus station before and after the camp. We ate at one of the few McDonald's in Sicily and Danielle and I (the other girl from the US) were teased by the other students that the golden arches must make us feel at home. After finishing our MickyD's Danielle and I were heading to the restrooms when one of the volunteers ran up to us and asked excitedly if we were the girls from the US, we said yes and she pointed at two blonde, non AFS, guys standing next to her. I immediately recognized them as missionaries of the Mormon church, but Danielle was glancing at my confusedly. They introduced themselves, asked us if we were Mormon, and talked with us about their experience here and how ours is going so far. One of the guys was from Utah and the other was from Michigan, and they both had only 6 months left of their 2 year mission. This whole situation was just hilarious to me, because never once did I think that I would run into Mormons in Sicily. They reminded me of Prescott, where the LDS church has a huge presence, and the experience made me chuckle every time I thought about it for the next few days. 

Now, I'm not sure about you all but I have never had to pay to go to the bathroom before.. But in the Palermo Centro Station, it costs 80 cents to use the bagno.

Alright! Now onto the deep stuff. At the camp we had to make posters representing our countries, and then we were all asked to write what we know/thought about every country on StickyNotes and stick em onto all the posters. Japan's poster was full of StickyNotes that said things like origami, sushi, anime, and even atomic bomb. Brazil's was full of carnival and "big booty". And the Scandinavian countries all had plenty of tall, blonde, and beautiful notes. When each country was called the students from that country would stand up and read what the StickyNotes on their poster said. Immediately after the activity was explained, Danielle and I knew that our poster was gonna be embarrassing. Sure enough our poster had multiple "stupid" "ignorant" "fat" "fast food" "hamburgers" and "McDonalds," notes, and unlike all of the other posters our poster didn't have a single "nice people" or "friendly people" note. Of course we sort of expected this, because honestly, the US has an awful reputation for being arrogant and way too into itself. But still, it wasn't all that fun to stand in front of 65 other students and multiple volunteers and read the stereotypes that people have about our country. 

I think that for me, and possibly Danielle, it was kinda hurtful to read those things because here we are, exchange students, trying our hardest to learn a brand new language, live in a brand new country, and completely immerse ourselves in a brand new culture; we are the exact opposite of the stereotypes that were written on our poster.

Anyhow, I think these stereotypes stem from the lack of education in the US about other countries and world history. Seriously, in my experience in the public and private school systems, I have learned extensively about US and Arizona state history, but very little about any other countries. For example, my freshman year in high school (2012/2013) I took a World History class that spent one whole semester focusing on ancient, ancient Chinese history, while the second semester was a jumble of Mesopotamian, Roman, and Greek history. Not once have I ever learned about any of the Scandinavian countries, Germany (besides its involvement in both World Wars), Russia, or ANY countries in South/Central America. So, basically I can give you a brief summary of what an aqueduct is and how the wheel was invented but I probably can't tell you who the preceded Putin as the president of Russia, or who is the current prime minister of Norway. This is pretty dang sad considering many of the kids I have met through AFS can name more than 10 US presidents, what they are known for, and can describe the difference between the Declaration of Independence and The Constitution. This is even more impressive considering many kids in the US only know the current president, Abe Lincoln, Washington and maybe Kennedy. Don't get me wrong though, this isn't the fault of the students, it's the fault of an entire education system. And that's what has seriously got to change in the US; kids need more history, more languages, more access to culture. 

Eventually I hope that exchange students, and educated people, can help to get rid of these stereotypes because the USA is a pretty great overall place to live and visit. Coming to Sicily has made me appreciate Arizona and the US, more than I ever thought was possible. And I hope that one day the US is known for things other than fast food.

PS. I didn't mean for this post to seem negative, because there were notes on the USA poster that said "Apple" "Steve Jobs" "California" and "Grand Canyon" (holllla!) and other positive things. I just felt a need to write post pointed out some of the common stereotypes that people have about the US, and how we should work to change them. Also, I want to add that not a single person has been anything but kind to me during my time here. Everyone has been molto dolce to me. 

Lots of love! 
R

Chapter 7: FOG

 Ok y'all, fog stinks. The first few days of it were really cool, and I took a bunch of rad pictures but once the third day of fog rolled in, I had had enough! I miss the brilliantly blue skies that I was blessed with my first few weeks here.

What can I say? I've been totally spoiled, growing up under the gorgeous, blue, northern Arizona skies so this fog thing is very new to me. It also has been dramatically affecting my mood and energy level. Well, fog + tons of carbs + my brain working overtime trying to understand everything = sleepy, sleepy Regan, so I feel bad for my family and friends who have to put up with me yawning ALL the time. Also, I apologize to all my teachers for when I yawn in your class and my eyelids droop, I swear that I am really trying to stay awake and alert, but it's incredibly difficult to maintain focus when you have no clue what's going on. 

Anyway, I really don't have anything else to say about this week and like usual, I'm sleepy. So, buonanotte! 

Chapter 6: School

This week marks my third week here in Sicily and a month since I have been in Arizona. It's so crazy that it's already been that long since I started this adventure, it seems like it was just yesterday that I got the email from AFS/Intercultura telling me that my application had been accepted..

This week I am going to write about my daily schedule and school! So get ready for a pretty long post. 

Six days a week I wake up at 7am and start getting ready for school. This basically just means I grab the first pair of jeans I stumble across in my closet and a random clean T-shirt, and put on the two rings that I brought with me, one that was given to me by my mom and the other from my grandmother. Then I go to the kitchen/casual dining room and make myself some breakfast. About the same time I sit down at the table my sister Alessia wanders into the room, bleary eyed, and sits in the seat my right. We each take a few fette biscottate, similar to toast, spread honey all over them and dunk them in our bowls of milk. This process definitely took some getting used to, and I have a new appreciation for soggy foods because of it. Mornings are generally pretty quite in my home, because no one in my family is a morning person.

School here is very different from in the US, for starters our school days are only about 5 hours long; we go 6 days a week; it takes 5 years to graduate instead of 4; and we don't change rooms for each class, instead the teachers come to us. So the class that you get put into your first year at liceo (high school) will be your class for the rest of your high school career. School starts at 8:30 ish and we have 5 class periods each day. Although that doesn't always mean that you will have 5 different classes, double periods of the same class are very common.  

The view from my classroom window on a foggy day

I am currently attending the 3rd year at a  Linguistic High School and so lucky for me, most of my classmates speak proficient English. The classes and course load here are pretty much equal to that of a community college in the US. Students here take roughly 10 classes, and its a pretty busy schedule. My class is taking Italian Literature, Spanish Literature, English Literature, French Literature, PE, Science (Biology & Chemistry), Physics, Math (Algebra 3/4 & Pre Calc), Art History, Italian History, Religion, and Philosophy. Most of the kids in my class can understand/speak a minimum of 4 languages, so I feel really behind academically. Also, shout out to Sara, Erica, Roberta, and Simona, who are the lovely ladies that help me survive the day.

Sara, me, Simona 

After school is over, my sister; cousins, Agneze and Federica; and I are picked up and we all go home for lunch with our families. Lunch is a big deal here, as it is considered the main meal of the day. Lunch usually includes some kind of pasta, bread, meat, fruit, and sometimes, gelato for after the main dish. Another important part of lunch is coffee! Although don't confuse Italian coffee with coffee in America. Here the coffee cups are approximately the same size as a shot glass. (Auntie i, if you are reading this I suggest bringing your own coffee cup if you ever visit Italy).

After lunch the house gets pretty quite, and for the next hour or so my family members relax, sleep, or play video games. After this period of rest, my Papa goes back to work and Alessia and I start on our compiti a casa (homework). Except on Sundays where we can just hangout in our pajamas all day long and relax the entire day. 

In the evenings when Ale (pronounced Al-ay) and I don't have tons of homework we go out with our friends for a couple of hours before dinner at 8:30 or 9ish. This is my favorite time of the day because the group of friends we go out with are some of the sweetest and most hilarious folks I've ever met and I love spending time with them. As I have said in previous blog posts, I already feel like these are some solid friendships that will last for years to come.

Now, Saturdays and Sundays are a tad bit different. On Saturdays, we still wake up at 7am and go to school but later that night we are free to stay out pretttttty late with our friends. This is the highlight of almost every teenagers week, because it is the only night that they don't have to worry about school and homework the next day. Sundays are pretty typical; sleep in, relax, eat lots of food, freak out last minute about the homework that we forgot to do the night before, and go to bed early because we have school in the morning. 

That's pretty much my basic everyday schedule. If I skipped anything that you are curious about, feel free to ask me and I'll add whatever topic you're interested in onto my next post. Ciao ciao!

Chapter 5: Home

I MADE IT TO SICILIA! Holyyy moly cow! I am here at last. Matter of fact, right now I am sitting in my room, in my new home. I love it here. My famiglia (family) lives on a piece of land with two other homes, belonging to my nonni (grandparents), and my mamma's brothers family. 

In my home here in Sicily, it is very uncommon for us kids to spend time alone in our rooms unless we are sleeping. Normally we sit together on the couch in the living room or at one of the three tables around the house, because everything here is very family orientated.

The city that I am living in is GORGEOUS! Wow. Seriously, as I said to a friend it is beyond my capacity to describe the beauty of this city. I will just have to post all the pictures that I have.

See what I mean? Its breathtaking and I'm completely in love. PS I didn't take either of those pictures, they are courtesy of the Google Images search:  "Caltagirone, Sicily". 

The people here are so unbelievably kind and patient with me. They speak to me in English, Italian, or both at the same time, and I speak to them in awful broken Italian or exaggerated English. We also invented a game where someone points to an object and says its name in English or Italian, depending on their primary language, and then another person will say its name in the other language. It's a pretty effective way of learning a new language for both parties, the Italian speakers and me. We are endlessly giggling at each other's grammar/pronunciation mistakes and we always have a good time. I already feel like these friendships are going to last for a very, very long time. You can find lots of pictures of all of us on my Facebook page, I think there are too many to post on here but I'll post a couple.

 From left to right: Federica, me, Federica (my cousin), Alessia (my sister), and Giulia. 

My cousin Federica and I.

Now the food... Wow. The food. The only thing that compares to the holy goodness of the food here is my Mom's cooking back in AZ or my favorite Thai soup, but besides that nothing comes close. Although, our meals here are very different than those in the US: for breakfast we have cookies or fette biscottate (a crouton type thing the size of a small slice of bread) with honey or jam that we soak in milk; for lunch we have pasta, and slices of meat, cheeses, and pane (bread), and fruit; and for dinner usually we just have veggies, cheese, and bread.

September 17th was my first day of school here in Sicily. It was kinda tough, confusing, exciting, and super boring. Let me just tell you that it is the most disorienting experience to attend classes that are taught in a language that you cannot understand. You know that the teachers are trying to communicate with you, and they do everything that teachers normally do, and everything tells you that you should understand what they are saying just like everyone else in your class but you take away nothing. It's exhausting; because you want to be respectful and pay attention but how can you focus if you have no idea what is going on? Luckily my classmates are very friendly, kind, and extremely helpful. So far they have translated important information for me, introduced me to other kids at school, showed me around, and helped me to find my sister after the day was over; I'm not sure what I would do without them. In Sicily, we go to school 6 days a week for 5 hours each day, that way we can go home and eat lunch with our family. Here students take somewhere around 10 subjects, and so obviously, we don't take each subject every day. I actually really like the way schools work here. Not taking each subject everyday and having a shorter day is significantly less boring than how school was back in AZ, and it gives you more time to work on homework and hangout with friends. 

The weekend before my sister and I started school (Andrea, my brother doesn't start until the 23rd) we went to San Lorenzo. San Lorenzo is; simply put, Heaven on earth. 

These photos are not edited at all, this is actually how blue the water is. The transparency of the water totally blew my mind due to the fact that until this point I had only ever swam in the Pacific Ocean. In San Lorenzo you can see the sand at the seafloor, even when its so deep that you can no longer stand; crazy, I know! Anyways, I can't wait to go back once the school year ends and its summertime again. 

Sorry about how random this post was but there's so much to say about this wonderful place and my experience here so far. More to come sometime soon! Ciaoo ciao!

Chapter 4

Ciaaaao East Coast! I have arrived. A week ago yesterday, I had a 12 hour travel day due to over estimating the time it would take to get through the airport, multiple delays, and a very screwed up layover in Chicago. Plus, since there is a 3 hour time difference between Arizona and DC, my internal clock is going haywire. For example, my first night on the East Coast I stayed up til 2am DC time which is only about 11pm AZ time.. But I had to wake up at 8am DC time (5am AZ time) which was terrible. 

Anyways, the countdown has basically stopped for me. I had been counting down the days til August 26th, and now here it is two 9 days past that. I have spend the past week spending time with my great aunt and uncle in Washington DC and NYC. I was also able to meet up with one of my close friends who I went to school with in AZ, Nick W., which was awesome as we hadn't seen each other in a year and a half. 

Right now, I am supposed to be sleeping because I fly out tomorrow night and the rest of the day is jam packed with orientation activities, but my roommate and I have been talking for the past couple of hours all hyped up on pre-departure/exchange adrenaline so sleep has escaped me. Anyway, the plan for today is pretty crazy. All day orientation, a shuttle to JFK at 2pm, and then a flight to Zurich leaving at 9pm. So we fly through the night and arrive in Zurich on the 5th, and then fly to and arrive in Rome the same day. Once we arrive in Rome we have the rest of the day to relax and recuperate after an 8 (ish) hour flight. On the 6th, we have another orientation before taking a train/bus/plane to meet up with our host families on the 7th. Its super hectic and I'm exhausted just thinking about it all. 

To be honest, the amount of orientations we go through here is insane.. And its such a tease because here we are already checked into the program but still days away from meeting our host families. I wish I was meeting them tomorrow! 

That's about all I have to update you all with for now.. I'll write a better post about all the things I did in DC and NYC when I have more time and aren't so exhausted. Buona nottte! 

... ps this post was written at 1:40am. Ahhh all this excitement is screwing with my sleep schedule!

Chapter 3

So I thought it would be kinda funny to post about my last vacation before heading off to Sicily. I didn't realize how ironic my vacation location was until I was messaging my Sicilian sister on Facebook. She asked how I was and I told her I was doing great, and was currently sitting in a restaurant in Venice.... Venice Beach, California that is. I repeated to my sister what my cousin, Tristan, had just told me about the history of Venice, CA; that the tourist destination in CA was originally modeled after the Venice of Italy, including the famous canals. 

A few pictures from my vacation: 

 From left to right: My dad, Marty; my cousin, Tristan; me; and my best friend, Vanessa

 A shot of one of the canals in Venice CA

This trip has, in a weird way, made my impending trip abroad seem more real. Up to this point it doesn't feel like I will be moving to a whole different continent, country, climate, and culture in less than 30 days. Which is kind of weird because I am a part of multiple AFS Facebook groups, a WeChat group of a lot of students (from all over the world) headed to Italy this fall, and have just recently flown to LA to get my student VISA. Everywhere I go people ask me when I leave and where I am going and I excitedly tell them about AFS, Sicily, and my host family; and yet it still hasn't sunk in that I will be gone for nearly a year. To be honest, I think it's only gonna hit me on the drive to the airport later on this month. Ciao for now!

Chapter 2

I JUST GOT PLACED WITH A FAMILY!!! And I am freaking out a little bit (in a good way)! I will be living in Caltagirone, Sicily. (Sicily is what I call the "soccer ball" off the "boot" of Italy) It's a stunningly, beautiful place; I mean just look at this:

I have two younger siblings, but I'm only the oldest by a matter of months. My sister, Alessia, just turned 15 (so we're only 3 months apart), and my little brother, Andrea, will be 14 this summer. My host mom, Antonella, is a teacher and my father, Luca, works somewhere in the city. From what my sister told me this morning they live in the countryside, about 5k (about 3 miles) away from the city.

Chapter 1

My name is Regan Nau (Ree-gan Now) Montoya and I am a 15 year old sophomore from Prescott, Arizona. Now, formal introductions aren't really my thing because I normally prefer to open with a joke or a silly comment, anything but a description about myself. Because honestly, I could tell you how tall I am, and my favorite colors (which are purple and grey, in case you were wondering), and my favorite subject in school but that doesn't really tell you who I am, does it? No, at least I don't think it does. So here's how I want to introduce myself to you:

I'm an open minded, logical, interesting, silly, teenager. I love to drink sugary, caffeinated, overpriced drinks and read books, and totally veg out with my favorite tv shows. I enjoy being active, but I'm definitely not the most athletic person you'll ever meet. I've recently discovered that I have a huge fascination with photography, especially pictures of people and cultures. And, I am obsessed with the ocean, John Green novels, flannel shirts, and raspberry smoothies. 

I want to go abroad for the experience, and the different cultures and the ability to be completely immersed in another countries traditions. I'm not sure where I am headed yet, but honestly I'd be happy no matter where I am placed. I've always known that I wanted to travel the world, and I feel incredibly blessed that my opportunity to do has come sooner than I had anticipated. I know quite of few people whose lives were hugely affected by their foreign exchange years, and I am beyond excited that I am on track to gain wonderful memories of my own in another country.

I expect to gain new friends, a new language, and an even more immense passion for travel, history, and culture. I expect to gain a new appreciation for other countries and a broader view of the world when I read about current events. I am also expecting to gain long lasting relationships with my host family and all of the people that I meet. 

Ahh now its time to mention the serious aspect of this experience: money. 

I need help financing this experience because, in simple terms, there is no way that I could pay for this myself. Even with the job that I have lined up for this summer and the generous sums of money that my family has put in towards my tuition, I will not come close to the total cost without some help. I have actively been applying for financial aid and all the scholarships that are open to me, but I am still waiting to hear back. 

The Sponser an AFSer program (what this blog is a part of)  "is an online fundraising tool provided by AFS to allow potential sponsors to make easy, secure, and non tax-deductible contributions to my AFS program fee."

I am so incredibly thankful to anyone that donates money towards my tuition or has a piece of advice/experience that they'd be willing to share with me. I am also very, very, very, thankful to my parents who have been completely open about sending me off to another country, and my crazy little sister for already making plans for her takeover of my room. 

To sponsor my AFS program, please click the Donate Now button to make a non tax-deductible contribution directly to my AFS program account.