Chapter 14: Crepes, Nicknames, and the Terrible Weather

First of all, have you ever had a crepe? If the answer is no, you should probably stop reading this and go get one. If the answer is yes, then have you ever had a Nutella crepe made by two 16 or 17 year old boys? I'm guessing that you haven't, but if you have then you are one lucky duck! Anyway, a couple weeks ago, I got to eat Nutella crepes made by two of my friends, Mario and Salvo, and they were heavenly. Apparently, unbeknownst to me, crepes are incredibly easy to make, so the two guys decided to whip some up to silence the whining mouths of the rest of the group. 

Anyway, Mario and Salvo II (because there's two other Salvos') went to work on the crepe batter. By the time Ale (pronounced Al-eh) and I arrived, the batter wasn't looking too good, resembling a chunky mess, and I thought that they were just messing around with random ingredients they had found in the kitchen. But no! Within like, 7 minutes Salvo was flipping crepes and Mario was generously spreading Nutella all over them and folding them into triangles. Salvo was like an artist, flipping each crepe twice and then flinging it over to Mario to lather with Nutella; again and again til they'd made roughly 25. And not a single one went to waste.

A few years ago, like maybe 5, my darling cousin Maddy Mae started calling my Regibear. I don't really remember why, but it's stuck ever since. But I thought that I had left it behind in Arizona, and I didn't think anyone would pick up on it. I was wrong. A month or so ago, when my group of friends was just sitting around freezing our butts off outside, one of them swept me up in a bear hug. As we were hugging he said "Haha, Regan you're like a teddybear." And I replied, "Mhmm, so I have been told. It's an old nickname." "Aspetta (wait), like a Regibear? Regan and teddybear, Regibear." This made me burst out laughing because, the likelihood of this nickname traveling 6,000 miles with me I had assumed was 0%. It was nice to hear it again though, because until then everyone had been only using my name, which is weird for me considering all of my close friends and family in AZ use my nicknames. 

Don't ask me why I assumed this, but I though that living on an island would mean endless perfect weather.. Again, I have no idea what I was thinking. In the summer, living on an island is like the coolest thing ever and the weather is always warm and amazing and humid, but geeeesh in the winter it's completely the opposite. It is really, really freaking cold, really dark, and really, really damp and foggy. On the upside though, this weather makes a good excuse to stay in bed for extended periods of time, drink lots of tea, and binge on sweets.

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I will be updating you all with a Christmas/New Years/Traditions post as soon as I can. Also I will try to include more pictures soon, although because I am using a non Windows minicomputer, this is proving to be a bit difficult. Please be patient! 

Chapter 13: Road Map of my Exchange Year

Today is January 7th, 2015. At this time last year, I was submitting my application to study abroad. And every single day I was going back and forth with my decision: was I positive that I wanted to do this? Was it the right time? Would my academics suffer? Would I graduate on time? In the end, I decided that I was positive, it was the perfect time, and all my academics could easily be fixed when I returned so that I could graduate on time, and even a bit early. So I submitted the application and waited.

After months of revising and waiting, and waiting, and waiting, I found out that AFS Italy, known locally as Intercultura, had accepted my application. Then I had to wait again while they found a family for me. By May, a month after Intercultura accepted my application, I had a family in Sicily. My host family consisted of 4 people, Luca (dad), Antonella (mom), Alessa (sister), Andrea (brother). Alessia and I are 3 months apart, and Andrea is only a year behind us. Finding out that I had a family finally got me excited for my exchange. Until that point it hadn't quite sunk in that in a few shorts months I was going to be living in another country, on a completely different continent for a year.

Then more waiting... and packing.. and waiting.. and shopping.. and waiting.. and working.. and waiting.. It felt like the summer was gonna last forever. During this period of the endless summer I went on vacations with my family and best friend, got my driving permit, and counted down the days til August 26th. August 26th was the day that I was going to fly to Washington DC to spend a few days with my Great-Aunt Pat and Great-Uncle Ernest in DC and NYC before being dropped at JFK and beginning my journey with AFS.

DC and New York were amazing. It was completely surreal. And for me, it seemed like all of my dreams were coming true over the span of about a 6 days. Aunt Pat and Uncle Ernest were fabulous guides for these cities, because they had lived in both. In New York, Aunt Pat told stories about her jobs working in the center NYC, and Uncle E filled me in on all the amazing history. And, I got to see my dear friend from Orme, Nick, who I hadn't seen in forever. DC was wonderful too, and I think that I fell in love with the East coast. As an Arizona girl, it amazed me how green it was out there! We packed a lot into the few days that I spent with them.

After a week, I was dropped off on September 3rd at one of the many airport hotels and my journey with AFS had officially begun. 10 seconds after I walked into the lobby, I was surrounded by a crowd of other nervous and excited almost-exchange kids. For the next 24 hours I'm not sure that we were so much living off oxygen and proper nutrients as we were living off of our own hyper energy.

September 5th, I think, and we finally made it to Rome, nearly 450 of us from all over the world. And I think that's also the point when most of us admitted to ourselves that we were totally insane and absolutely amazing for signing up for this. In Rome, we spent 2 days in orientation after orientation after orientation. It was incredibly boring, and we were all itching to meet our families on the 7th.

The flight from Rome to Catania was a short one, only about an hour and a half. But we spent another hour and a half waiting for our baggage, which was super delayed. After waiting for months, we got to meet our families. I recognized mine immediately and was the first AFSer through the gates.

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And now here I am, already four months into my exchange. And here are some of the important and random things that I have realized so far:

• Traveling and being an exchange student are two very different things. When you travel you stay in hotels, hostels, or campsites, somewhere lovely but impersonal. When you're an exchange student you're staying with a family, you have a normal life, you learn the language, and tourists begin to mistake you for a local because they can't pick up on the small grammatical errors you make when you speak in your host language. And it feels 100% normal, despite the fact that sometimes you still have no idea what everyone else is saying. You still watch Netflix in bed for hours, and you still love mac n cheese, and cold pizza for breakfast. People don't seem to realize that an exchange year isn't going to be that different from your life back home, but it's still going to change your life in ways that you cannot even begin to imagine. 

• Exchange is a wonderful, magical experience. It gives you another life, fresh knowledge, and most importantly new perspectives and relationships. Exchange students are crazy, amazing, adventure seeking people who leave behind their lives back home for a whole new one in a brand new country. They're great friends to have cause they speak other languages, they have awesome stories, and they know good international vacation spots. 

• Nothing can prepare you for going on exchange. No matter how many exchange blogs you read, or how many YouTube videos you watch, nothing can prepare you for the way exchange is gonna affect you because each experience is different. But I promise you it is more amazing and more challenging than you could have ever possibly imagined. 

• Obviously there are some predictable aspects of exchange: exploring a new culture, learning a new language, making new friends, trying new foods, etc. But there are other aspects that come out of nowhere and hit you like a rogue sack of bricks. Like, how much you're going to change over the short span of time that you spend in your host country. Your perspective is either gonna change or become rock solid. Your exchange year is gonna have some downs, but it's also gonna have even bigger ups. So don't get into a total funk if you're having a few bad days. This experience is going to impact you no matter what, so be open to all the change and new experiences that it offers you. 

• When you're about to leave on your exchange you make your sisters, brothers, best friends, classmates, and everyone else around you to promise that things will be the same when you get back. You make them all promise that they won't forget you and to write all the time. And you convince yourself that life in your home country will basically be paused for the next 10 months, while you are off on exchange. But then you realize that it isn't paused its on play, sometimes it even feels a bit like fast forward. Don't freak out when this happens. 

• Exchange is great, and it is 173% worth the emotional roller coaster that comes along with it. So go and sign up and have the year of your life.