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!
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